Litchfield enquirer., 1872-09-19
HISTORICAL HoI1sRs


 Some of these old houses are interesting from historical lassociations. The Wolcott House. on South street, was built in lT52 by Oliver Wolcott, then High Sheriff of L1tchfeld county. He was subsequently a brigadier general in. the Continental army, member of the Continental Con- gress, signer of the Declaration of Inde- 1 pendence and Governor of Connecticut, The Father of his Country was once his guest In this old house, and Brother Jonathan (Goyernor TrumbulD often. wis., tied him here to, consult on matters of state, In the times that tried mems souls. l" Hither were brought the remains of the equestrian statue of George the Third. which was pulled down from it's pedestal nsthe Bowling Green, New York, by the Sons of Liberty, and moulded into bullets for the use of the. Continental army. Many of these balls were sent to Putnam's army, and the enemy, as Q contemporary chronicler says, had s'melted majesty fired at them" Among the papers of Governor Wolcott is preserved 8 statement of the number of the ball cartridges made by each member of the family. The labor was performed mostly by the ladies. The house IS ROW owned and occupied by Mrs. Thomas Harney. zs4 4-.- fs. -. . Nearly opposite is the summer residence of Judge Lewis B. Woodruff, of New York, once the home of Tapping Reeve, the founder of the Litchfeld Law School. and Chief Justice of Connecticut. Judge Reeve married Sally Burr, the daughter of President Burr of Princeton College, and the sister of Aaron Burr. The latter looked upon this house as his home for several years, although he never spent much more than ono entire year under it's roof He was living here when news came that blood had been spilled at Lexington. That determined his career, and he left at once to make preparations, to join the army. Madame Theodosia Provost. whom Burr afterwards married. spent several months of the year 1781 in the village. General Lafayette was once guest in the Reeve mansion. J1 sr.r sr..-fl.t .> s-..,r
 The residence of Mrs. 0. O. Belden, also on South street, was formerly the house of Reino1d Marvin, the kings at- toney under George the Third. In the Beers House, on East street, lived John C. Calhoun during his student life at the Law School. At the upper end of North street, on the corner of Prospect street, ! still stands the house in which was born the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher It is now 8 boys school. Mrs. Stowe was born on Long Island, after the removal of the family from Iitchfeld. Further down the street is the Gould House, formerly the house of Judge James Gould, the CO., laborer with and successor of Judge Reeve in the Law School In the olden time this house was tavern, and it has the name of entertaining Washington. It is now owned and occupied as a summer residence by Professor Hoppin, of Yale College. Washington once held e public reception in the house of his aid-de,camp Colonel Benjamin Tallmadge, on the same street. It is now owned by Mrs. William Curtis Moves, grand daughter of Colonel Tallmadge. ..s.r.. .-. .. =. --....'.s,--
 nnrins tho Ravnlrtinn I.itnhfinld ras a depot for military stores and for prison CTS. M Among those confined here in the jail was William Franklin, the royalist Governor of New, Jersey. He was son of Dr. Benjamin Franklin. David Mat thews, Mayor of the city. of New York, was sent here also in 1776, and put under surveillance. !. It is said that the first pleasure carriage ever seen in the town was brought here by him. 2.
 We must not forget to mention that Litchfield was the birthplace of Colonel Ethan Allen. the Green Mountain hero of Ticonderoga fame. He was born here in 1738. His parents removed from here to Cornwall when he was about two years old, and resided there and in Salisbury until 1765, when they went to Vermont.
 Anumber of New York families, besides those already mentioned, own summer residences here among them Professor William G. Peck, of Columbia College Edgar s. Van Wrinkle, J. Deming Per kins, president of the Shepaug Valley Railway a Miss, l.. Deming, Theodore Baldwin, and Messrs. John and James White. Others we'll known in city circles are boarding here. .....t.
 THE FAMOUS LAW SCHOOL. ,
 ta Old Litehfield's chief crown of glory. that which made her famous throughout the length and breadth of the land, was her Law School, begun by Tapping Reeve in 1784. It was the first institution of the kind in the United States. In 1798 James Gould became associated with him, and under their united charge it became so celebrated that students hoeked hither from nearly every state in the Union. A large proportion of the distinguished law yers of the early part of the century were educated here a .-A tt3 e J.
 No building was ever erected for the Law School. The students boarded with different families in the village, and re- cited and listened to lectures in the offices of Judges Reeve and Gould. The office of the latter, which once stood in the door-yard of the Gould mansion on North street, now does duty as dwelling house about a mile west of the village. at A g Among the natural attractions of Litch- field Is Bantam Lake, beautiful sheet of water in plain sight from the hotels. The road around it, lying on the shore good part of the ways presents most charming drive of about ten miles. Good fishermen find plenty of pickera1 ahd bass in its waters. Mount Tom Pond, a few miles west of the village, and Wauramaug Lake, about twelve miles distant, also furnish good fishing ground; The latter is one of the most beautiful sheets of water in the country It and it's surroundings are worthy of special letter, which. your cor fore the close of the season.
 By the merest chance, an accident, which would have resulted in considera- ble loss of life, was prevented few nights since on the Newark and New York Rail- road. A drunken man, who refused to pay his fare, was put of the train at West Bergen, and allowd to continue his jour ney on foot In revenge for his treat ment, we are told, he deliberately turned 3 switch. Luckily for the passengers on the next train. one of the employees of the road, more alert than his fellows, became aware of the fendish act in time to read just the switch. When it is considered that railroad men rarely take the trouble to go taUice to a switch between the pass l ing of two trains, the vigilance of this particular employe can be better appre- Lciated.4 If there were more such men the annual number of railroad disasters would be greatly diminished. The circumstances connected with this case also show pretty conclusively that condnctors should nev- CT allow drunken men to leave the cars until they have given them over to. the custody of policemen. N. r. Times. 2