Bowen Clarence Winthrop
Woodstock: An historical sketch
After the departure of Mr. Stiles the First Church was without a pastor for three years. Much time was spent in “going after ministers.” The young Yale graduates who preached on trial did not please the church, whose sympathies were still with Massachusetts. Finally the Rev. Abiel Leonard, a graduate of Harvard College,78 was installed on June 23, 1763. Of the twelve churches asked to assist in the ordination only one79 was a Connecticut organization. In fact it was not until the year 1815 that the church, after an adherence to the Cambridge order of faith for a hundred and twenty-five years, finally accepted the “Saybrook Platform,” and joined the Connecticut association. The church was prosperous under Mr. Leonard. Largely owing to his influence the quarrel between the First and Third Churches was healed.80 In 1775, on the breaking out of the Revolutionary War, Mr. Leonard was made Chaplain of the Third Regiment of Connecticut troops. The church, at the request of the commander, Colonel, afterwards General, Israel Putnam, granted the necessary leave of absence. The following year Washington and Putnam joined in writing a letter81 to the church at Woodstock asking for a continued leave of absence for Mr. Leonard, praising him in the highest terms, and saying:
“He is employed in the glorious work of attending to the morals of a brave people who are fighting for their liberties – the liberties of the people of Woodstock – the liberties of all America.”
Agreeable a gentleman as Mr. Leonard was, he was suddenly superseded while on a visit to Woodstock, and on receiving the mortifying news when en route to join the army he at once committed suicide.
If ever there was an “able, orthodox, godly minister,” of the true Massachusetts type, such as old Woodstock always loved to have, he was the Rev. Eliphalet Lyman, who was ordained in 1779. Although a graduate of Yale College,82 he fulfilled the conditions of the Cambridge Platform, and continued pastor of the First Church for forty-five years, and was warmly interested in the religious and educational development of the town. He was the last of the historic ministers of Woodstock. He was respected and he was feared. The boys stopped playing ball when “Old Priest Lyman,” in cocked hat and knee breeches, remembered by some of you here to-day, walked up the common.
VIII
It should now be related how Woodstock, settled under Massachusetts, became a part of the State of Connecticut. Massachusetts claimed Woodstock, because the grant was supposed to lie within her chartered bounds as surveyed in 1642, and that claim was what Major Daniel Gookin referred to when he rebuked the agent of Uncas in 1674, during his visit with John Eliot, at Woodstock. But Massachusetts did not believe that the line of 1642 was wrong when she confirmed the grant to the Roxbury settlers. She even censured Woodstock for daring to ask Connecticut to confirm a portion of the grant that fell south of this line. Though Connecticut justly held she was entitled to Woodstock, according to the terms of her charter, she was, nevertheless, willing to forego her claim to this town, provided Massachusetts would allow her to have the jurisdiction over other territory claimed by both colonies. But the repeated attempts to settle the controversy failed, and it was not till 1713 that an agreement was finally concluded. For the privilege of having jurisdiction over Woodstock and the other towns claimed by both sides, Massachusetts agreed to compensate Connecticut, by giving her unimproved lands in Western Massachusetts and New Hampshire. These lands were therefore called “equivalent lands,” and were sold by Connecticut for $2,274, and the money given to Yale College. Woodstock was entirely satisfied with this agreement, as all her associations were with Massachusetts. But in 1747 the town thought that her taxes, which had been increased owing to the French and Spanish wars,83 would be lighter, and her privileges greater, if she followed Suffield, Enfield, and Somers “in trying to get off to Connecticut.” So Woodstock applied to Connecticut, claiming that the agreement of 1713 had been made without her consent. After much deliberation, Connecticut voted in 1749 to receive the town, and declared the agreement of 1713 not binding. Woodstock was delighted at being received into Connecticut, and at a memorable town meeting84 made Thomas Chandler and Henry Bowen the first members of the General Assembly. Though Woodstock has since 1749 been a part of this State, Massachusetts would never formally yield jurisdiction over the town, and even as late as 1768 warned the inhabitants not to pay taxes to Connecticut. In fact had it not been for the Revolution, Massachusetts might still be claiming Woodstock.85 It might be added that Woodstock, in being annexed to Connecticut, lost about three thousand acres north of the colony line. This strip of land was known as the “Middlesex Gore” for forty-five years, and was annexed to Dudley and Sturbridge in 1794.
After becoming a part of Connecticut, Woodstock was anxious that the northern half of Windham County should be made into a separate county, of which Woodstock should be the shire-town, but as Pomfret also desired the county seat, and as the State seemed unwilling to act, the project fell through.86
IX
Woodstock’s military glory is something of which she may well be proud. Representatives of the Morris, Bowen, Hubbard, and Johnson families, who came to Woodstock in 1686, fought under Captain Isaac Johnson, of Roxbury, in King Philip’s War, and were in the famous Narragansett battle in 1675, when Captain Johnson was killed.87 For the first forty years after the settlement of the town the Indian troubles made every man acquainted with the use of fire-arms, and when in later years there appeared no danger at home, our ancestors were ready to fight abroad either savage or foreign foes. In 1724, Colonel John Chandler received orders from Boston to impress twenty Woodstock men for the frontier service,88 which meant that they should fight Indians in Central Massachusetts. When the news of the war between France and Great Britain was received in Boston in 1744,89 fifty90 men from Colonel Thomas Chandler’s91 regiment guarded the frontier, and history declares that this regiment, commanded by a Woodstock man, rendered efficient service in the capture of Louisburg in 1745.92 In 1748, before the treaty of Aix la Chapelle had been signed,93 the death was chronicled of several Woodstock men who had gone up into New Hampshire to fight94 the Indians with a company of colony troops. In the French and Indian War95 for the conquest of Canada, the families of Bacon, Bugbee, Child, Corbin, Chandler, Frizzel, Griggs, Holmes, Lyon, Marcy, McClellan, Manning, Peake, and Perrin had representatives who distinguished themselves in the service. Woodstock and Pomfret boys composed the company of Captain Israel Putnam in this war. The McClellan and Lyon of the Seven Years’ War were the McClellan and Lyon of the Revolution, and were of the same family as the McClellan and Lyon so celebrated and so much beloved in our own Civil War.
The service rendered by Woodstock during the Revolution was most valuable. The town voted to purchase as few British goods as possible, and sent sixty-five fat sheep to Boston as a contribution to alleviate what the town records call “the distressed and suffering circumstances” of that city. Captain Elisha Child, Charles Church Chandler, Jedediah Morse, Captain Samuel McClellan, and Nathaniel Child, were appointed a committee96 “for maintaining a correspondence with the towns of this and the neighboring colonies.” The spirit of revolution, which had been growing, rose to fever-heat when the powder stored in Cambridge by the patriots was removed, in September of 1774, to Boston. The news flew as fast through the New England towns as horses’ hoofs could take it. A son of Esquire Wolcott brought the news to Curtis’ tavern in Dudley, and a son of Captain Clark carried it to his father’s house in Woodstock, where it was carried to Colonel Israel Putnam in Pomfret.97 The young men of Woodstock did not wait for the call to arms. They hurried to Cambridge, and, with the inhabitants of that and other towns, were with difficulty restrained from marching into Boston to demand, with their loaded muskets, the return of the powder. At the very beginning of the Revolution Woodstock was eager to do its duty. When the cry went through New England that blood had been shed at that “birthplace of American liberty,” the historic Lexington, one hundred and eighty-nine men from Woodstock answered that call.98 Ephraim Manning, Stephen Lyon, Asa Morris, and William Frizzel were officers in Colonel Israel Putnam’s regiment when that regiment was stationed at Cambridge, while Captain Samuel McClellan had charge of the troop of horse, of which John Flynn was trumpeter. Captain Nathaniel Marcy, Captains Elisha and Benjamin Child, Lieut. Josiah Child, Captain Daniel Lyon, Jabez and John Fox, Samuel Perry, and many other Woodstock men, rendered services in this war equally efficient. When Samuel Perry, in his old age, used to go up to the store on Woodstock Hill in the evening, the boys would ask him to tell them about the battle of Bunker Hill, and would always ask if he had killed any of the British in that battle. “I don’t know whether I killed any,” was his reply, “but I took good aim, fired, and saw them drop!” Another Woodstock name, always honored at home as another of the same family name is to-day no less honored abroad, was Dr. David Holmes He had served as surgeon in the French war, and —
– “lived to see
The bloodier strife that made our nation free,
To serve with willing toil, with skilful hand,
The war-worn saviors of the bleeding land.”99
When Washington assumed charge of the troops in Cambridge, the Rev. Abiel Leonard, the beloved pastor of the First Church at Woodstock, preached most acceptably. Washington heard him and became his warm friend. Woodstock’s importance during the Revolution was considerable. One line of stages between Woodstock and New London and another line between Woodstock and New Haven and Hartford were established, which carried the war news weekly to be distributed through the colony and thence taken to New York. During the entire war Woodstock did more than her share. While there were many from this town who served the patriot cause with glory to themselves and honor to Woodstock, the name of Capt., afterwards Gen., Samuel McClellan stands out the most illustrious. When the currency of the Continentals had depreciated and no funds were forthcoming with which to pay the soldiers, Gen., or more exactly Col., McClellan advanced £1,000 from his own private purse to pay the men of his regiment. But a memorial of the Revolution in which Woodstock may well take the greatest pride is found in the historic elm-trees in South Woodstock, planted by the wife of General McClellan on receiving the news of the battle of Lexington. All honor to the men of Woodstock who fought for and gained their liberties in the Revolution, and all honor to their wives, who were equally patriotic at home!
In the War of 1812 Woodstock was also ready to do its duty. When Major William Flynn, of Woodstock Hill, received the news, one evening just after dark, that several British men-of-war were hovering about New London, and that it was in danger of attack, he rode horseback about the country during the night, to see officers and men and warn them to assemble on the Common at noon the next day; but when he returned to his home at sunrise he found the Common covered with soldiers ready to go to New London immediately. The patriotic spirit always characteristic of Woodstock was conspicuous in the War of 1812.
Woodstock was no less patriotic during the Rebellion. When President Lincoln called for volunteers to maintain the unity of the country, this town did her full share in that struggle. Many of you remember attending the funeral of General Nathaniel Lyon, who was killed at the beginning of the war and was buried with military honors in our neighboring town of Eastford. Though not a native of Woodstock, Gen. Lyon was descended from an honored family which has been conspicuous in the history of this town from the day of its settlement. But a name even more illustrious is that of Gen. George B. McClellan, whose grandfather was a native of Woodstock, and whose great-grandfather was Gen. Samuel McClellan, and who himself, as a boy, visited the town. You saw him beneath these very trees two years ago. You heard him speak at that time words of love for Woodstock and words of welcome to distinguished strangers. His voice is no longer heard, but the name of General McClellan will be remembered as long as the name of Woodstock itself shall last. Blessed then be the memory of Gen. George B. McClellan! Woodstock will ever cherish his services and the services of all its sons who fought for their country in the terrible struggle between the North and the South! The graves in the different burying-grounds of the town, that you annually decorate with flowers, tell more eloquently than words what Woodstock did during the Civil War.