The daily morning journal and courier., 1894-12-14
AS IT WAS 70 YEARS AGO.
The City of Norwich as Described by a
 Veteran of Ninety-Five Years.

Neterhn Ot Niuety-riVo IebrHs
 Norwich, Nov. 30.-Mr. Thomas J. Ridgeway, who was bo~u November 29, 1900. at Morristown, N. J., entered yes- terday upon his ninety-ffth year. The Norwich Bulletin says: There is no question but what he is "our oldest in- habitant." He came to Norwich in 1919, and from that time to the present has been one of our most respected and honored townsmen. His recollec- tion of the past seventy-five years of the gradual growth and prosperity of Norwich is still vivid in his memory. Think of what Norwich must have been at that ancient date of seventy five years ago, when he landed here af ter & five days passage in g. New York sloop, five dollars and found," the cost of the voyage.
 NORWICH THEN HAD ONLY ABOUT TWO
 THOUSAND INHABITANTss A..S sparsely scattered over what now com prises our town and city limits. What is now our city-one of the handsomest and most attractive in New England, with over twenty-five thousand inhabi- tants, was then a small country viii lage, with two or three stores, two or three meeting houses of rustic, build, two ancient-looking inns or tavsrns, "a blacksmith shop. g tailor's shop. etc., so says MT. .Ridgeway. Franklin square was then known as "Swallow All,"' with a few primitive-loQking wooden buildings surrounding it. Franklin street brook then flowed through the center of 1t, and without any bridge to cover the stream --step- ping stones only saved pedestrians from wetting their feet One night af- ter heavy rain, and the waters Of the brook having swollen beyond their usu- al depth, a barber, having imbibed too freely of Jamaica or Santa Cruz, in att tempting to cross on these stepping stones, slipped into the water and was drowned. From Rockwell's woods to Franklin square in those days the Franklin street brook was bordered on both sides by a thick alder swamp, where sportsmen took. a morning or af-. ternoon outing -.. SHOOTING PARTRIDaEs, wooDCoCK AND
 QUAIL, and fishermen enjoyed themselves catching trout and a variety of fish from the stream. As late as 1B45 and '5O. Captain Appleton Meech and other sportsmen used to shoot woodcock and cartridges in the neighborhood of the junction of Franklin and Chestnut streets, where now stands the build- ings of the W. H. Page steam heating works.
 At the date when MT. Ridgeway came to Norwich, in 1919, there were two rude plank bridges over the Yan- tic river, connecting the east and west side of the town, or what Is now the city. MT. Ridgeway says the old story of Methodist church having once foated down the river is true-he' re- members 1t well. It was in 1923, when during winter freshet the ice had banked up in the cove about the bridges, and finally burst its bounds and carried away the church and the two bridges, about two o'clock in the morning. Many ludicrous stories have been told of this disaster. It has been often told and published in newspa- pers as fact in later days, that when the church was swept away, the. con- gregation were holding services, and when the church fioated down past New London, the New Londoners were awakened from their sfumbers by hearing the congregation singing Methodist psalm tunes
 In 1919. our aged citizen informs us that