HISTORY
OF THE TOWNS OF
NEW MILFORD
AND
BRIDGEWATER
,
CONNECTICUT
,
1703 – 1882,
BY
SAMUEL ORCUTT.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
of
Hon. David Sherman Boardman
was the youngest child of Deacon Sherman and Sarah (Bostwick) Boardman, and was
born
miles
along the
Goodrich
advised him to spend the winter with him, and enter the junior class in May. He
accepted this advice, and devoted the winter chiefly to the study of Greek. He
entered the junior class at the beginning of the summer term, near the end of
which he was elected member of the Phi Beta Kappa Society, a circumstance which
indicated that he at once made his mark upon his classmates and instructors.
He graduated in 1793, and in 1796 President Dwight proposed to nominate
him as a tutor, pressing him to consent. But he had already been admitted to the
Bar, and declined the flattering and significant offer. After traveling west as
far as the
He
practiced freely in Litchfield and Fairfield counties, and was personally
acquainted with all the eminent men who resided in both, of whose personal and
professional life he could recite an inexhaustible store of anecdotes. After
practicing as an attorney for thirty-six years, he was appointed for five
successive years Chief Judge, of the County Court for Litchfield county, when he
was displaced for political reasons. He was made Judge of Probate for the
district of New Milford in 1805, and held the place by successive annual
appointments for sixteen years. He was Justice of the Peace for thirty-two
years. He was elected Representative to the General Assembly eight times. In
1808, he was elected a member of the Connecticut Society of Arts and Sciences,
and was Vice-President of the Connecticut Historical Society from its first
establishment.
He married
Of three of these children he wrote in extreme old age” Thus in the
short space of six weeks were these three scions of fair
promise
and cherished hopes cut off by that fell destroyer of infancy and childhood, the
Dysentery. A blight recorded with deep emotion, mingled it is hoped with humble
submission.’
In March, 1838, he was admitted with his wife to the fellowship of the
Congregational Church. He had nearly reached his seventieth birthday, but all
his life long his conduct had been singularly upright and blameless, and his
attention upon the public duties of religion had been constant and exemplary.
During all his active life he was one of the most devoted supporters and
officers of the Congregational Society and from the first had been one of its
pillars in times of difficulty. His interests in Christian truth had been
unaffected, I doubt not from his childhood, and his love for all good men was
ardent. Intellectually he was highly gifted by nature, and during all his
professional life he maintained the habits of a diligent scholar. After he
relinquished active service he was a constant reader, taking special
delight
in history and geography. There were few men living in the state of
country
in an encampment some twenty miles to the west of his home, and for two hours
fixed and feasted his eyes upon the great general, of whom he never could speak
except with uncovered head. When in his ninetieth year he gave to the public a
minute account of this memorable passage of his life and of
Mr. Clay and Mr. Webster were the objects of his profoundest admiration,
and he did not easily accept the new ideas which in spite of him brought new
parties into existence in place of the old Whig principles in respect to
slavery. He was emphatically a politician from conviction, sturdy, tenacious,
formal, and unselfish in adherence to his principles and his party, and
despising meanness, trickery, and office seeking in all forms. He rarely wrote
for publication. He contributed however a few papers of great value for the
newspapers, and for the New Englander of November, 1858, a review of Mr. J. C.
Hamilton’s History of the United States, as traced in the writings of
Alexander Hamilton, also for the American Quarterly Church Review for January,
1859, a review of Parton’s Life and Times of Aaron Burr, and in 1860 a
pamphlet entitled Early Lights of the Litchfield Bar.
It is impossible within the limits prescribed for this sketch to give any
inadequate picture or impression of the personal excellence and beneficent
influence of this truly noble, modest, and lovely man. It was the privilege of
the writer to know him most intimately for the seven years of his own pastorate
iii New Milford and subsequently to see him not infrequently till his death, and
to observe his demeanor in a great variety of interesting scenes and events of
joy and of sorrow, of public and private interest, when jubilant with
irrepressible humor, or convulsed with personal or sympathetic grief. He knew
him when in the full possession of his sagacious intellect and groping in the
shadow land in
which
were blended the pictures of the past, the realities of the present and the
anticipations of the future life, and in all them he was the same true-hearted,
loving, and devout soul, doing justly, loving mercy, and walking humbly with
God.
For sixty-five years and more, he was known of all the inhabitants of the
village, almost literally seen daily by almost all of its inhabitants, and was
even recognized as a living example of benignity, uprightness, and truth, a
witness for all goodness by his own example, against manifold influences and
examples of a less elevated character. His influence was not limited to the
village, but all over the surrounding hills and through the secluded alleys far
and near the light of his pure life shone like a peaceful star serene and
bright. All who knew him connected with his person many of the sayings in the
Scripture about the truly good man, as finding in him their happiest
illustration. In this way his presence was always a benediction; his life was a
blessing, and his memory a perpetual inspiration to more than two generations.
Hon.
Elijah Boardman,
the third son of Sherman Boardman, and grandson of the Rev. Daniel Boardman,
first minister in the town, was born in 1760, and was educated in his father’s
home and under the tuition of Rev. Nathan Taylor. When sixteen years of age, in
March, 1776, by the consent of his father, he enlisted for one year in the
Revolutionary War. The regiment in which he served was commanded by Col. Charles
Webb, and was one of the sixteen regiments first raised by authority of the
Continental Congress; the officers being commissioned by that Congress. The
officers of the company to which he belonged were, Capt. Isaac Bostwick, Lieut.
Kimball, Lieut. Elisha Bostwick, and Ens. Amos Bostwick, all except the first
lieutenant being from
render
his situation hopeless. In this extremity, observing a wagon to stop near the
house in which he was, he, while the
driver
was momentarily absent, exerting the utmost effort of his wasted strength,
succeeded in throwing himself into the wagon from which the heartless driver was
about to eject him, when an officer passing ordered him to desist and suffer the
sick man to ride as far as he, the Wagoner, was going, which was to the
neighborhood of King’s bridge, where Mr. Boardman was left lying on the
ground, incapable of further exertion. Here he was found by a neighbor of his
father who had come to the city for the purpose of helping a sick relative home.
He removed him to a place of safety where, leaving him, he returned home and
gave immediate notice to his father, who hastened to his relief. He was brought
home in a deplorable state of health; from which, though he slowly recovered, he
thought his constitution received such a shock as had an abiding effect.
In the autumn of 1777 he went on another tour for a few months with the
militia to the
After being at home two years, attending to study and light work as he
was able, he went as clerk into the store of Elijah and Archibald Austin, then
prominent merchants in
From 1782 to 1793 he and his brother Daniel conducted the store as
partners then he continued it alone until 1812, from which time he was
associated with Elijah Bennett until 1819, when the store was sold to Stanley
Lockwood, and after that Mr. Boardman did not engage in mercantile business.
In September, 1795, Mr. Boardman became a member of the Connecticut Land
Company, and as such, one of the purchasers of the Connecticut Western Reserve,
now forming the northern part of the State of
About the year 1800, Mr. Boardman became quite prominent as a politician
in
the
New Constitution of the State of
From nature, education, and habit, he was emphatically a practical man in
all respects. His business talents were uncommon; and his constancy in their
exercise was rarely if ever surpassed. His natural temperament inclined him to
hilarity, but his strictly moral and industrious habits so far repressed this
natural propensity as to give him rather the appearance of gravity than of its
opposite, in the latter period of his life. Yet his natural and acquired ease
and urbanity render him a pleasing companion both to the grave and the gay.
He was baptized in infancy in the Congregational church, and confirmed,
in the year i8i6, by Bishop Hobart of
In September, 1792, he married Mary Anna Whiting, the eldest daughter of
the Hon. William Whiting of Great Barrington, Mass., who long survived him, and
to them were born three sons and three daughters. She was a very excellent
woman, and had in large degree the care and training of her children, since Mr.
Boardman was many times absent three and four months at a time in
A memoir of her was written by her son-in-law the Rev. J. F. Schroeder,
D.D.; a volume of nearly 500 pages; which is largely historical of the Boardman
and Whiting families.
Col. Elisha Bostwick, son of Samuel Bostwick, was born in 1748, on his
grandfather's, Major John Bostwick, home-stead, where now Mr. John R. Bostwick
resides. This home-stead therefore has been in the same family over 170 years,
and so far as appears is the only piece of land in the town that has remained so
long in the same family name.
Elisha Bostwick was not educated at college as were his brothers Jared and
Samuel, but he received a good education, and was a much better scholar in
spelling than many graduates of colleges of that day. His fine penmanship has
never been surpassed, nor half equaled by any town clerk in
For these services he received at various times certain considerations of value
from the town and also from individuals. His allowance for recording a deed was
one shilling, and in the absence of ready money he received a due bill for this
amount. After his decease something like one thousand of these bills it is said
were found, still unpaid.
He was justice of the peace many years, and the list of marriages he attended,
as such, is still preserved-the first date being in 1799 and the last in 1819,
the whole number being 92.
It is related that in performing one of these ceremonies he had to go to the
lower part of the Neck, a distance of six or seven miles, on a very cold day in
winter, the snow being very deep and still falling, and for this journey and
service he received only the sum of twenty-five cents; but he afterward enjoyed
telling the story so much that probably no wedding service ever afforded him so
much pay by way of amusement as this one.
He was a soldier in the Revolution, and was commissioned Lieutenant-Colonel of
the militia in 1793, and afterwards Colonel.
Col. Bostwick married Betty Ferriss, May 14, 1786, when in the thirty-eighth
year of his age. When he was in his twentieth year, he heard that a daughter was
born to David Ferris, who resided across the river near the old Quaker
burying-ground, and he went over and called to see the baby. While looking at it
in the cradle he said to the mother, "'It is a very nice baby; keep her
until she is grown up and I will marry her.'' "All right," said the
mother, "you shall have her." And so, when the Colonel had been
through the war of the Revolution, and was securely settled in his home, and the
young lady was eighteen years of age, lacking eleven days, they were married.
She was a beautiful young lady, as represented by the family portrait, having
charming black eyes, dark brown hair, and a complexion clear and as beautiful as
the sunlight.
Col. Bostwick was a fine appearing man, a full, manly form, with somewhat of a
military bearing, intelligent and benevolent in the expression of his
countenance, religious and noble in his character; a man in whom all the people
of the town took much honor and delight; and when, after fifty-five years of
service as town clerk, he declined a further election, there was a most
affecting scene at the town meeting. He wrote his letter of resignation and
placed it in the hands of Judge D. Sherman Boardman, a life-long and intimate
friend, to read in the meeting, Mr. Boardman being then 66 years of age, and
only eighteen years younger than Col. Bostwick. This letter Judge Boardman began
to read, but was so much overcome with emotion that he handed it to the clerk of
the meeting, took his seat, and with great effort restrained a further
expression of the pathetic feelings which were induced by a sense of the final
separation between the town and a long-tried, faithful and cheerful servant,
while the entire audience was in the same state of mind with the Judge.
Col. Elisha Bostwick's Letter.
"TO THE INHABITANTS OF THE TOWN OF
GENTLEMEN:-The time I think has now arrived which in course of Divine
I am now in the 84th year of my age. You, Gentlemen, and your venerable fathers
(now no more) having appointed me to that office for 55 years in succession; and
I have in that time filled 21 volumes of land records; and now, borne down as I
am with old age, and with afflictions, and with sorrows, I deem it my duty to
decline further appointment.
And now, alas! Where shall I find words to express my gratitude and thankfulness
to the Town for all their past favors, and above all, to my God for all his
mercies: so that my present feelings, and the tender emotions of my mind are
such that I lose the power of utterance ! I add no more, and must close
abruptly.
ELISHA BOSTWICK."
Upon the presentation of this letter, the town meeting caused the following
record to be made:- "At an Annual Town Meeting of the inhabitants of the
town of New Milford, legally warned and held at the Town house in said New
Milford on the 1st Monday of October, 1832; Nathaniel Perry chosen moderator,
Oliver W. Pickett clerk pro tern. Voted that the thanks of the Town be presented
to Col. Elisha Bostwick for his long and faithful services in the office of Town
Clerk, and that his communication this day made to this meeting declining a
reappointment be recorded upon the Record Book of the Town."
Colonel Bostwick was Representative from the town of
The first occurrence of Roger Sherman’s name on the town records is in
connection with the town meeting, Feb. 6, 1744, when by a vote he was granted
the privilege of crossing the Great Bridge for one year by paying ten shillings
and becoming subject to taxes for its repairs, a courtesy extended for many
years to persons just settled in the town; but from that time on, for sixteen
years, his name is a very prominent one on both town and church records, and
especially on the former as surveyor of lands. He was very active in the first
church, where, among other positions
of
usefulness, he was “chosen to the office of Deacon on trial” in 1755, and in
1757, was “established Deacon of this church.” He was clerk of the
Ecclesiastical Society some years, and treasurer of the same while the third
meeting-house was being built and completed and for this last service was paid
£30, in 1755.
His first place of residence in
As a citizen he was an exceedingly busy man, being engaged in every
useful and improving enterprise. Besides accepting office in the church, the
ecclesiastical society, and the town, he entered into every good work. Not long
after he came here, the “Great Bridge” over the Housatonic, being new, and
the first one constructed over that river, was carried away by a flood, and he
rallied a few of the leading men of the town to venture with himself in
rebuilding it arid making it a toll-bridge. Before he left the town, a
proposition was discussed to set up inoculation for small-pox, and he was the
one with a few others to venture on this hazardous, but benevolent work, as an
experiment.
He was appointed by the general assembly county surveyor in 1745, for New
Haven county, in which he continued until Litchfield county was organized in
1752, and then he was appointed to the same office in that county, which
position he held until 1758. In this office he did a great amount of work, as
the records of the towns and state show. During this time he studied law, and
was admitted to the bar in 1754; was appointed county judge in 1757, and judge
of the quorum in 1759—60—61, and was a representative in several sessions.
He removed to
in
1761, where he entered upon his profession, and the next year was chosen the
Governor’s Assistant and appointed Judge of the Superior Court, which office
he held 23 years.
He was elected a member of the first Continental Congress, which met
revolutionary
war, he was a member of the board of war, and a member of the Governor’s
Council of Safety in
He was mayor of the city of
He was elected Senator of the
One of the most appreciative, summary statements of the characteristics
of this very noted statesman is found in Hollister’s History of
Connecticut,’ which is here repeated, because of its precise truthfulness and
completeness
“Roger Sherman was of a grave and massive understanding, a man who
1ooked at the most difficult questions, and untied their tangled knots, without
having his vision dimmed or his head made dizzy. He appears to have known the
science of government and the relations of society from his childhood, and to
have needed no teaching, because he saw moral, ethical, and political truths, in
all their relations, better than they could be imparted to him by others. He
took for granted as self-evident the maxims that had made Plato prematurely old,
and had consumed the best hours of Bacon and Sir Thomas More in attempting to
elaborate and reconcile the anomalies and inconsistencies of the British
constitution. With more well-digested thoughts to communicate than any other
member of the convention [to form the
constitution]
he used fewer words to express his sentiments than any of his compeers. Indeed,
his thoughts can hardly be said to he expressed, but were rather incorporated
with his language. His views, uttered in a plain though didactic form, seemed to
be presented not so much in a course of reasoning as to be an embodiment of pure
reason itself.”
“With a broad-based consciousness, extended as the line of the horizon,
where calm philosophy and wild theory meet and seem to run into each other, he
saw at a glance the most abstruse subjects presented to his consideration, and
fused them down, as if by the heat of a furnace, into globes of solid maxims and
demonstrable propositions. Nor did he look merely at the present hour, but, with
a sympathy as lively as his ken was far-reaching,
he
penetrated the curtains that hid future generations from the Sight of common
men, and made as careful provision for the unborn millions of his countrymen as
for the generation that was then upon the stage of life. With no false pride to
sustain at the expense of virtue, or schemes of grasping ambition to gratify,
with no favorites to flutter around him and claim the first fruits of his
confidence and labors fearless to announce an opinion as he was modest and
delicate in his mode of doing it, he was able at a moment’s warning to bring
his best intellectual resources into the field of debate.
“These traits of character belonged to
colony,
and the Rev. John Sherman, who was famous throughout
intellectual
powers of a high order were not adequate of themselves to form such a character
as
tried
in the school of poverty, and to buffet the waves of adversity, before it could
gain nerve and strength enough to baffle the sophistries of the British
ministry, defy the sword of a tyrant, or successfully oppose itself to the
headlong flood of popular passions.
This last reference to “the school of poverty “has been understood in
an extreme sense, which is very far from the facts in the case. Because Roger
Sherman worked as a shoemaker in those days, it must not be inferred that he
could be said, strictly, to be in poverty, for he was not. Soon after he came to
New Milford, while yet a single man, he was appointed a surveyor of lands for
New Haven County, a more than ordinarily remunerative office in those days, and
in 1752, when Litchfield county was organized, he was appointed to the same
office in that county. One commission which he executed as surveyor, in 1751,
for the government, brought him £83 14s., and this was only one of a number of
orders he fulfilled for the government within a few years. For ten years, his
employment by private individuals to resurvey tracts of land, which had been
laid out “by estimation at first, in New Milford, must have taken a large
amount of his time and brought him a remuneration that but few people obtained
at that date. In the case of many of these surveys, he drew a plan of the tract
surveyed upon the pages of the land records, where they are abundantly evident
still, and they are executed according to the measurement of distances.
He was a man of great business ability and energy, and could not have
been idle if he had possessed millions; his moral as well as intellectual and
physical qualities forbade it. He was appointed on various committees for
churches and adjoining towns, and entrusted with all sorts of commissions which
needed care and responsibility. It is said that his introduction to the study of
law came from having been sent by a judge of a court on a considerable journey
to obtain certain information, take it down in writing, and deliver it. When the
judge saw it he was amazed, and asked him, “Did you ever study law?“
“Never,” replied Mr. Sherman. “Well,” said the judge, “You ought to
have been a lawyer long ago, for your report is as good as any lawyer’s would
have been.” Hence, Mr. Hollister’s statement,
that
“he knew law by instinct,” was historically true.
Mr. Sherman was also the owner of several hundred acres of land,
including a dwelling-house, which he purchased before he had been here seven
years, and for which he paid in old tenor money to the amount of £2,000. A part
of this money, perhaps, came from his father’s estate in his own right and
inheritance, that estate having been worth several hundred pounds, for he gave
his mother one-third of his dwelling-house and home -lot, for her thirds of her
husband’s estate; so says the deed. All this land he had purchased without
selling any.
The superiority of Roger Sherman’s intellectual qualities and perfect
self-control was illustrated while in Congress, in an impromptu reply to one of
the
Mr. Sherman’s influence in forming national sentiments of liberty and
government is well represented in the following extracts from Hollister’s
History of Connecticut.
“He had represented
“He was one of the master spirits of the general convention which
adopted the Federal Constitution, and his keen and farsighted intellect was of
great aid in securing the peaceful adoption of that instrument.
“The smaller states, of which
Dr. Franklin proposed to the committee of conference, that the states
should be equally represented in the second or upper branch of the legislature,
and that all bills of appropriation should originate with the first or popular
branch, which was to be chosen in accordance with the three-fifths ratio, and
upon a basis of one representative to every forty thousand inhabitants. The
delegates from the larger states were deeply chagrined that they should have
fallen into the net spread for them by
It
was then, when the convention was again in confusion, that the gentlemen
representing
the
age in which he lived, in all that related to the elective franchise.”
All objections to the Constitution vanished before the learning,
discernment, and eloquence of Johnson,
In the senate of the
RETURN TO THE TOWN OF NEW MILFORD MAIN PAGE
This page was created by Linda Pingel on
January 17, 2004
copyright 2004 - all rights reserved
This page may be freely linked but not copied.