Norwich bulletin., 1909-07-05


 wears the town offices were held in the families of the first proprletors. John Birchard was town clerk for, 1s wears with 6 Saybrook experience be- hind him. Richard Bushnell served in that capacity for 30 years. Six gener- ations of Huntingtons held the office for 152 years with only one break of one wear. In the ecclesiastical line two Adrates, father and son, held the diac- onate for S9 years, and seven Hunting tons held the like office for POI out of 236 years.
 They bequeathed property. Home steads remained in the same family for 100 years and more. Some home steads today are occupied by the de- scendants of the original proprietors, bearing the same name. The second and third generations were well to do. They were alive to trade. Their pat riotism encouraged home manufac- lures. Just about the close or the revolutionary war there were 20 or more trades and business enterprises around the green.
 Their patriotism brought to the front many illustrious leaders in war and in counsel. A sketch of the doings around the old Town Green from the days of the Stamp Aact to the Declaration Of Peace would disclose what Norwich men and women thought on the matter or freedom and liberty.
 In marriage and offspring their on- goings were notable. They were not polygamists, but they had generally two wives, sometimes three, rarely four. Widows married then as now without exciting much remark. The intertwisting of family fines made ev- erybody related to everybody, and mo- body could gossip without danger of slandering his relatives. They lived to 1II nd fhair 0nil- dren's children and peace upon Israel. At death, Thomas Leffingwell was 92, Calkins 90, Adgate s7, Bingham SS, Simon Huntington 77, Fitch 90, Bush nell and Tracy 75, Burchard 72, Mason 72. Most of the first generation were buried in the old Post and Gager ground, where now stands the Mason monument Four of them whose graves are marked were buried in the Old Town burying ground, where these ex- ercfses are being held. Deacons Si- mon Huntington and Thomas Adgate, Sergt. Thomas Waterman and John Post were surely buried here, and probably Bowers and Reynolds and Caulkins and Lieuts. Leangwell and Backus
 The increasingly valuable researches of the late George s. Porter have, un- covered for posterity many of the an- cient events and he is fittingly rernem- bered in durable bronze at the gateway of the ground where he spent so many days in the service of love for the old Founders.
 Educationaily, the founders were pretty slow. They had some schools. but they were not up to the average even of that early day. In 1700 the town was indicted by the courts flor want of a school to instruct children" Their descendants have more than made up for their deficiencies in this respect.
 As churchmen, they were decidedly broad Fitch's parish covered the Nine -miles-square. and parts of Wind ham and Canterbury. It was nearly fifty years before a Second society was organized, at Franklin in 171S. People came from the east and the west and from the north and the south and went up Meeting House hill to worship.
 In polity they were independent with a will. They would have no such squfnting at oversight as looked forth from the Saybrook platform. They were so Independent that they were open to a new idea now and then.
 They shared in the general religious declension of the years 1660-1740. Till the Great Awakening" of the latter date, religion was formal and exter- nal There was more head than heart in 1t. The Half Way Covenant was worse than the Saybrook Platform. The founders would have nothing of the second and had too much of the first. The religion of genuine conver- sion was preached by Dr. Lord before Edwards and Whitefeld came on to the stage, and while the New Lights were the logical result of Dr. Lords preaching, they were not easily recog- nized by him, and their unusual inde- pendence troubled his righteous soul not little. The awakening took deep root in New London county, where the Separatist movement was pronounced, and the knell of dis-establishment be- gan to be sounded. AS Dr. Lord goes out, the new religious ideas come in, and the established Congregational church of Connecticut undergoes dis solution and gives place to the rights of free worship. And with the freer and wider thinking begins a better thought of the outside world. Some of the most fruitful beginnings of the great modern missionary movement had their origin right here on this soil, and so it has come to pass that New London county has the distinction of having given more for the evangeliza- ton of the world than any other coun- ty in the United States.
 Their Outgoing.
 Mason's descendants are found most ly outside the Nine le-square-all the way from Stonington to Lebanon. His grandson, Daniels, widow, became by way of Hddam influences, mother of David Brainerd.
 Fitch, dying in Lebanon, sent out lateral branches like a cedar of Leb- anon. from Montville to Pomfret.
 The Backuses had Isaac, the Sepa- ratist, and founder of the Baptists'; Charles, the wisest man whom Pres ident Dwight knew; Azel, first presi- dent of Hamilton college; James, the surveyor of Marietta: Elijah, the can non maker of Yantic. and William w., the hospital man Of Norwich. Their line went out into all the earth and their words to the ends of the world.
 Deacon Christopher, the first boy born in Norwich, became grandfather to Wheelock, whose Indian school in Lebanon developed into Dartmouth college. A niece of Christopher's be- came ancestress of U. S. Grant.
 Baby Elizabeth Hyde, the first girl born in Norwich, became ancestress of two and one third octave pages of distinguished men and women, accord ing to the testimony of one of the fam fly given at the 20Oth anniversary of the town.
 The Leffingwells settled down near by, and gave their name to a we'll known district of the township.
 With the coming of peace after the Revolutionary war and the opening of "The Landing to business, and the advent of roads and postoffices and new families. the grip of the original proprietors on things and thoughts be- gan to relax, and some of the rest of us got our chance.
 Their Leqacy