Norwich bulletin. [volume] (Norwich, Conn.) 1895-2011, 1910-05-10
REMEMBRANCE OF NORWICH
BACK IN THE YEAR 1887.
Hon. r. J. kingsbury of Waterbury
Writes of His Visit Here Then.

| The following letter written to the
Hartford Courant by Hon. F. j. Kings
| recent paper by Mr.. Shipman of Hart
| ford will be read with interest here:
| Arthur Shipman's paper on Nor
! witch reminds me of my first visit to
| more than halfway TO the revolution,
and so may be considered as fairly
historical II was on the fourth day
of July, 1897. My great-uncle, Col.
Iy Norwich West Farms, died July
1. I was there at the time of his
death and after his funeral on the
third 1 remained for several days. On
the Fourth his son. Col. Cushing
Kingsbury, took me and some others
to Norwich. The city of Norwich, al
though 1 think it then had charter,
was more Familiarity known to people
whereabouts as Chelsea Landing. or
simply ''the Landing" We went down
still retained much of its dignity and
was looked upon as rather the court
end of the town We visited the
grave of Uncas and saw the monu-
ment It was not then completed.
but was begun, and General Jackson
had laid the cornerstone four years
before and Judge Nathaniel Shipman,
who was the great-grandfather of Ar
thur, made the principal address [
remember something, too, of a local
water works, probably not of any
great extent, but still a convenience to
many and a promise of better things,
and, unless my memory misleads me,
there was a small fountain near this
same Uncas monument which was fed
by this source of supply l also re-
member the Yantic falls, which seem
to have been near this same place. but
on this point my recollection is not
clear.
On the way from the town down to
the Landing we passed the seats of
John and Charles Rockwell mad
never seen anything before so elegant
as these places then appeared. The
grounds were so extensive and finely
laid out; tire was statuary in the
grounds. some of it rather imaginary
in design, for if 1 remember Alright,
Adam and Eve were two of the con-
spicuous figures but to my youthful
eyes they were models of beauty and
elegance, and have never gotten over
that early impression. In driving
over the same road a few years since
I tried in vain to fix the site, but ev-
erything was changed and the grounds
were divided into small lots, and no
one whom I met could point out to me
the location of the Rockwell places.
Down somewher near the wharveS
we went to the shop of q respectable
man and got a lunch of oysters and
we drove out to where they were
building the tunnel on the Norwich &
Worcester railroad near the union of
the Quinebaug and Shetucket rivers.
1t was a holiday and no work was
going on, but we saw so much of the
tunnel as was done and saw the
workmen and their wives on the side
hill in front of their cabins enjoying
a days rest, and I saw, what l had
never before seen, a woman walking
up a hill with a pail of water poised
ON her head to. which she did not touch
her hands. Many times afterward 1
saw the negroes in Virginia carry even
tubs of water on their heads in this
same way, but then it seemed to me
little short of miraculous. I had seen
a good deal and learned a good deal
on that Fourth of July. Old Norwich
Town, now almost forgotten. the Yam
tic falls, Uncas monument. the water
works, the wonderful Rockwell places. 4
and, last of ALL the woman carrying
the pail of water on her head How it |
all comes back to me after almost three
quarters of a century, And here is
the great great-grandSon of the man
who helped found the Uncas monu-
ment talking today of Norwich and her /
and I am still alive.