: Historic Litchfield address delivered at the bi-centennial celebration of the town of Litchfield August 1 1920 by Seymour M W Morris Woodruff - Litchfield (Conn.) History

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Historic Litchfield

Address Delivered at the Bi-Centennial Celebration of the Town of Litchfield, August 1, 1920

PRIVATELY PRINTED 1920

An attempt to epitomize the events of two hundred years in an hour's time is no easy task in any circumstances. It becomes doubly difficult when those years are filled with the stirring events that have marked the history of this community. I do not hesitate to say that no town of an equal number of inhabitants in this or any other country has played so conspicuous a part in the affairs of a state or nation as has the town whose two hundredth birthday we celebrate. Its very conception originated in a historic tragedy. Years before the settlement of the town, our State officials became convinced of the hostility of the English Government and its determination to revoke our charter. To frustrate this design, in part, and to prevent the "Western Lands," as they were called, which embraced the territory of this town--in the words of the enactment--"From falling into the grasp of Sir Edmund Andros and permitting him to enrich himself and his minions," the Legislature, on January 26, 1686, ordered the sale of those lands to the Towns of Hartford and Windsor. A few years later, there dropped from our Royal Oak, in whose bosom safely lay concealed our hidden charter, an acorn, which by reason of this action of the legislature, sprouted and blossomed forth as the Patent of this Town.

A company was organized in 1718, upon the petition of Lieutenant John Marsh and Deacon John Buel, and they, with others, were incorporated by the General Assembly at its May Session, 1719, to settle a town called Litchfield on the "Western Lands" at Bantam. These original settlers were residents of and men of affairs in the Towns of Wethersfield, Hartford, Windsor, Lebanon and Farmington.

Among the list of settlers appear names that we hear uttered almost daily in our streets and today are fortunate to have some of their descendants still with us--Marsh, Buel, Woodruff, Webster, Griswold, Gibbs, Stoddard, Sanford and many others.

The plan of the village has never been materially changed. The settlers who had the first choice selected the southern portion of the town along the Bantam River and Little Pond, presumably because of the natural meadows which gave them hay for their cattle without waiting the slow process of clearing the land,--the first pitch was the upper corner of South Street and Gallows Lane .

Following the usual custom of our Puritan forefathers, the original proprietors here built a church and then a school house. From those two sources,--that church and that school--it is not claiming too much to say there emanated two of the greatest reforms the world has ever known. The temperance movement, which has culminated in the enactment of the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution, and which has now been declared by the Supreme Court at Washington a binding feature throughout the length and breadth of our land, seems to have been initiated here.

It has been stated that the very first Temperance Society in the world originated in an organization in Litchfield by an association of our citizens in May, 1789, and a quite thorough examination of the subject would seem to verify the truth of this statement. There certainly was a noble collection of gentlemen here at that time who did all they could to push forward the temperance reform.

The splendid results did not fully appear until the settlement of Dr. Lyman Beecher who--though his attack in the first instance was from a different angle, and directed toward the clergymen themselves--did perhaps for that very reason the most effective work. Dr. Beecher's attention was first called to the temperance question through his attendance on the Convocation of Ministers at the adjoining towns of Plymouth and Sharon. He was shocked both at the amount of liquor consumed and its effect on the ministers themselves. It was his fervent zeal, his sermons and advocacy of the cause that resulted in the abolition of liquor in ministerial circles, and called the attention of good citizens the world over to the evils of intemperance. The Massachusetts Temperance Society, one of the best conducted and strongest in the country, is said to have been the direct result of this Litchfield movement, having been incorporated just a year after Dr. Beecher's philippic. Among the many lessons of the late war, none have impressed the people more than that in a certain sense we are our brother's keeper,--that rum and thrift do not travel together--that "Dutch" courage cannot compare with moral courage. Think of this, my fellow-citizens! Within the records of yonder Court House there is a receipt showing that my own grandfather--when High Sheriff of this county--purchased with the money of the State seven gallons of rum for the refreshment of five of the highest judicial officers of the State during five days' session of the Court of Errors! More than a quart per judge per day! Is it to be wondered at that some of their opinions at times seemed muddled?

The second great reform which emanated from this town and church, the schools established here, and the pure air of freedom which we breathe, was the doom of slavery, which was sounded when Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote "Uncle Tom's Cabin." John Brown was born just over the line in Torrington in 1800,--no great distance from the Beecher Homestead. A man with a modern rifle, standing on the Grant farm, could have hit either the Beecher Homestead or the John Brown birthplace. In the words of Oliver Wendell Holmes:

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