Where I Live – Hebron and Connecticut

A compilation of Local Connections to enhance studies of Connecticut

Using Where I Live by Elizabeth Norman, Melanie Meehan, and Ashley Callan

Connecticut Explored Inc. West Hartford, CT., revised text 2019

By John D. Baron -2023

Page 6-10 –The Land and its People

Directly across from Hebron Elementary School about 1000 feet back from Route 85 is some of the oldest soil in New England. It is made up of crushed stone, soil, and gravel that existed in New England before the last glacier melted. Currently, it is covered by a layer of fertile soil that has built up over the past 10,000 years. This pre-glacial soil now provides moisture for the fertile soil layer above. Originally, this soil deposit was preserved by the last of the glaciers sitting upon it. As a result, the area from Hebron Elementary School to this deposit was where the glacier pushed and dumped larger rocks and gravel. It is not as fertile as further east on the property.

Native Americans, especially after they had started to plant the three sisters (corn, beans, squash), were keen observers of their environment. This is why they seasonally encamped where Hebron Center is now located. This location provided access to low marshy areas just north of Hebron Center rich in naturally occurring food stuffs and the good planting in the area across from Hebron Elementary School.

Early settlers were also aware of this site’s unique fertile quality. They named the flat land that Hebron Center is located on, the Plain of Mamre which was located by the Biblical settlement of Hebron and was linked with the narrative of Abraham.

From the earliest days of settlement, the land across from Hebron Elementary School was owned by prosperous farmers who reaped bounty from the land. Owners like David Barber and Sylvester Gilbert were slave owners. Enslaved individuals were responsible for moving large boulders from the edge of the fertile tract and creating stone lane ways so that crops would not be harmed by herds of farm animals or hay wagons. By the early 1800’s slavery had vanished in Hebron, but wealthy farmers living in the center of town needed farm labor. Most of the land across the street from Hebron Elementary School was then owned by Governor John S. Peters. He employed free African Americans to run his farm. In the early 19^th century at least seven formerly enslaved families live in Hebron Center much like their middleclass Yankee neighbors. These families did not own much land, but earned their living by working for wages farming the land owned by Hebron’s wealthiest farmers. This is a very unusual system to have developed. Until 1848 slavery was legal in Connecticut, but Hebron slave owners decided on their own long before 1848 to manumit their slaves. Once free, these skilled African American farmers found steady employment during Hebron’s most prosperous years. At the same time, slavery was expanding in the American South and heading West. With the Emancipation Proclamation of January 1, 1863, southern slaves were freed, but were re-enslaved by the share cropping system that developed during Reconstruction. This was a very different economic system than what developed in Hebron with wage earning farm laborers.

The land across from Hebron Elementary School is some of the oldest and richest farm land in Hebron. During the Revolutionary War, In the spring of 1781 the French troops stationed in Lebanon left their winter quarters and marched south along what is Route 85 today. This was a fateful military operation, these soldiers recruited from across Europe were part of the last battle of the Revolutionary War – the Battle of Yorktown. From that point forward, the former English Colony of Connecticut would be known as the State of Connecticut and be part of a new nation – the United States of America.  

Pages 8 and 9 Map of Connecticut

Activity -- locating Hebron on the map

Essential Question – How can people get to Hebron from out of state?

1 plane?

2 train?

3 Bus?

4 Car?

What are the nearest cities to Hebron?

What are the nearest Rivers?

Page 10

Essential Question -- What role does water play in Hebron?

Is Hebron on any major rivers?

In an age of sailing where would the nearest ports be to Hebron? Before cars, how would goods from ports get to Hebron?

How far is the nearest salt water beach to Hebron?

Look at a GIS map of Hebron – does Hebron have any streams, brooks, lakes or ponds? Are there any areas in Hebron where the land is wet, but not considered a stream, brook, lake or pond? If so, why are these areas an important part of the watershed?

GIS maps of Hebron are available at https://www.axisgis.com/hebronct/

 

Notice on the map above how the brooks and rivers in the northern part of Hebron drain either to the north east or south west. Burnt Hill is at a watershed. Some of the Burnt Hill drains northeast to the Thames River and some its water drains to the southwest and the Connecticut River.

Sharpening your thinking skills

? Do the streams and rivers of Connecticut suggest that the land along the coast is lower than inland? If so, would this difference in height be a good thing or bad thing?

? Native Americans tended to camp by lakes or ponds. Can you think of some reasons why they would do this? Where are there lakes or ponds in Hebron?

* Archaeological and anecdotal evidence indicate that Burnt Hill, Holbrooks pond, and Amston Lake were areas where there were Native American encampments. The earliest evidence of Indigenous people comes from burnt Hill where Paleoindians hunted 10,000 years ago.

Page 12 and 13--Climate

Hebron Connection—New England Weather is unpredictable

The Great Snow of 1717 occurred when Hebron had been incorporated for only 9 years and there were relatively few families living in Hebron. Native Americans remembered the snow that fell that March as greater than anything their ancestors had ever known. Snow started to fall on March 1^st with more snow coming in on March 4^th and 7^th. The snow that accumulated was almost 5 feet high and winds created snow drifts as high as 20 feet as high as a two-story building. Most houses in Hebron were one story high and people found the best way to get out was through their garret windows. Families had to tunnel their way through snow drifts to get to their barns to feed their livestock and to wells to get water and firewood. Snow had to be cleared from chimney tops so that smoke could escape. The Great Snow was hard on native animals. The deep snow prevented deer from grazing during the winter and hindered their ability to run from predators. For several years after 1717, venison on the table was uncommon.

The summer of 1816 was a difficult time for people living in Hebron and New England in general. In March when the winter freeze should have been ending, the ground was still frozen and it snowed. In April the fruit trees, particularly apple trees began to bud out, but a late frost killed them ending hopes for much cider in the fall. On June 7^th, some parts of Connecticut received 6 inches of snow! By the Fourth of July temperatures were in the 40’s. On August 22^nd there was frost on the ground. Then by August 24^th there was a heat wave and rain. This was followed by a frost that killed off the corn before harvesting in September. Most families living in Hebron earned their living from farming. In 1816 they were unable to plant their crops or harvest hay for their animals. The result was that food prices rose for people living in factory villages like Gay City and Hope Valley, as well as people living in cities. In 1816, furniture maker John Graves began to build his house on Church Street across from the Synagogue. The frozen ground would have made digging the cellar difficult. However, with little farm work to tend to, there were plenty of neighbors to help raise the frame. While cold temperatures made heavy work cooler, frost and ice were hazards on ladders and scaffolding in the middle of summer. Paint and plaster could not be applied due to the cold. The summer of 1816 convinced many Connecticut families and some in Hebron to move out west where farm fields had fewer stones and they hoped warmer summers.

On Sunday, March 11, 1888 at about 7 P.M. snow started to fall in New England and continued until Wednesday depositing over 3 feet of snow and creating snow drifts as high as a two-story building. People had to burrow their way to their woodpile, water pump, barn and outhouse. During this time the train through Amston did not run and the telegraph lines were down. A seventeen-year old girl, Susan Pendleton recalled that youngsters made skis out of barrel staves and delivered goods to people who were “shut in” by the storm.

On September 21, 1938 Hebron was in the path of a huge hurricane. Falling trees fell near buildings and upon cars. The wind blew off part of the roof of St. Peters’ Church, the chimney of the old town record building and the entire north side of the Griffing house standing across from the Wall Street Burying Ground. Almost everyone in Hebron was affected. Barns and corn silos were blown away by the storm in an age when most people in town were farmers. For weeks thereafter, local people earning 35-45 cents an hour, cleaned up fallen trees and debris.

Activity - Comparing Hebron’s weather to other places in Connecticut

Essential question – how does Hebron’s weather compare to other places.

Activity for 2 weeks -- record the day time high for Hebron, New London and Litchfield.

? Which location tends to be warmest?

? Which location tends to be coolest?

? Do you think this pattern would be the same in winter as it is in the fall?

? Why would temperature matter to a farmer raising crops?

? Given what you have discovered and discussed about temperature which would be the best town to have a farm? New London? Hebron? Litchfield?

Reflection—Today working adults tend to leave Hebron each day to go to work. However, families tend to live year-round in Hebron. That’s what a suburb is all about.

Before Europeans arrived the Indigenous people of Connecticut moved with the seasons.

? What benefit to the land might there be to moving each season?

* Native Americans moved with the seasons. Hebron was a summer to fall camping area, but too cold in winter compared to along the coast. Burnt Hill is the highest point in Hebron, it got its name due to Native Americans burning over the undergrowth. At first this was done for hunting purposes to cut down on brambles, but also insects like ticks. When farming was introduced, Burnt Hill was planted with the three sisters (corn, beans, squash) and after harvesting the field stubble was burned. Since the fire could be seen from a distance, Burnt Hill was also an area where different clans met seasonally to trade copper and stone for projectile points and to arrange marriages and other social institutions. Archaeological evidence indicates Burnt Hill has been frequented by humans from about 9-10,000 years ago, some 3500 years before the Great Pyramids were built!

Pages 16 and 17 Connecticut’s first people

Podcast on teaching about Indigenous People

<https://www.stitcher.com/show/where-we-live-rsspodcast-21550/episode/connecticut-tribes-co-create-state-social-studies-curriculum-centering-our-culture-and-our-ways-211220794>

Hebron’s Indigenous Past Background information by Sarah Sportman, Connecticut State Archaeologist, David Leslie PhD, and Sarah Holmes PhD.

Paleoindian Period (12,500-9,500 BP)

In the Northeast, the Paleoindian Period dates from 12,500 to 9,500 BP, during the final glacial period. This was a time marked by a return to severe glacial conditions (McWeeney 1999). The earliest archaeological evidence for human occupation in the New England region dates to approximately 12,500 BP (Singer 2017). The archaeological record reflects a settlement system based primarily on small, highly mobile social groups seasonally dispersed in search of resources. The diet consisted of a wide range of food sources, including small and large game, fish, wild plant foods, and perhaps currently extinct megafauna (Meltzer 1988; Jones 1998). Caribou likely played a significant, if seasonal, role in subsistence. However, small game, fish, fowl, reptiles and wetland tubers were also important components of the diet at this time.

Paleoindian Period land use patterns and subsistence activities in the Northeast are relatively scarce (Spiess, Wilson and Bradley 1998). Few intact Paleoindian sites have been found in Connecticut. To date, five sites have been investigated and published in detail: Upwards of 50 fluted points have been recovered as isolated finds across Connecticut. The scarcity of identified sites in the region indicates that population density was likely very low at this time. The small size of sites dating to this period, and the high degree of landscape disturbance over the past 12,500 years, also contributes to poor site visibility overall.

Late Paleoindian point from Burnt Hill, Hebron, CT. Note that the material for making this spear point came from the Hudson River Valley and might have reached Hebron through an early Indigenous trade route.

Archaic Period (9,500-2,700 BP)

The Archaic Period dates from 9,500 to 2,700 BP in the Northeast and is characterized by generalist hunter-gatherer populations utilizing a variety of seasonally available resources. The period is subdivided into the Early, Middle, Late and Terminal Archaic Periods on the basis of associated changes in environment, projectile point styles and inferred adaptations (Snow 1980; McBride 1984). Artifacts dating to the Middle and Late Archaic Period have been identified within a mile radius of Hebron Elementary School and on Burnt Hill in Hebron.

Each subperiod is discussed below.

The Early Archaic Period (9,500-8,000 BP) Probable time Burnt Hill is first occupied

Pollen evidence indicates a gradual trend toward a warmer climate beginning around 10,000 BP (McWeeney 1999). By this time Pleistocene megafauna had disappeared and given way to modern game species such as moose, muskrat and beaver. It is feasible deer was not abundant until the end of this period when oak began to dominate upland forests. Plant and animal resources became more predictable and abundant as the climate stabilized, permitting Early Archaic populations to utilize a wider range of seasonal resources. Population density remained low during this period as reflected in the sparse representation of Early Archaic sites in the regional archeological record. This low representation could be due to changing environmental conditions deeply burying, inundating or destroying many early sites through erosion, or due to the difficulty of recognizing Early Archaic assemblages (Funk 1997, Jones 1998). Stone tool assemblages dating to the Early Archaic period have been recovered from several sites in the Northeast and indicate this period can be characterized by a numberof distinct episodes. The most poorly understood period between 9,500 and 9,000 BP A quartz lithic industry in which projectile points are extremely rare occurs locally between roughly 9,000 and 8,500 BP

 

Early Archaic point from Burnt Hill, Hebron, CT.

The Middle Archaic Period (8,000-6,000 BP)

Pollen evidence indicates a trend toward a warmer, drier climate during the Middle Archaic Period, as well as the development of alluvial terraces along Connecticut's major river systems (Jones 1999). Most modern nut tree species established themselves during this period providing a new food resource for human foragers and many game animals including deer, turkey and bear. Evidence of Middle Archaic Period occupation in Connecticut is more widely documented than for the preceding periods and indicates specialized seasonal activity in different resource zones during a period of population increase (McBride 1984; Jones 1999). The development of grooved axes suggests the increased importance of wood being used as a raw material, while the presence of pebble net sinkers on some regional sites implies a growing reliance on marine and riverine resources (Dincauze 1976; Snow 1980).

The settlement patterns are oriented, at least seasonally, toward large upland interior wetlands (McBride 1984; Jones 1999). The data suggest seasonal re-use of such locales over a long period of time. Coastal and riverine sites may be poorly documented because of rising sea levels that resulted in deep alluvial burial.

  

Middle Archaic points from Burnt Hill, Hebron, CT.

Late Archaic Period (6,000-3,700 BP)

The Late Archaic Period in the Northeast is characterized by an essentially modern distribution of plant and animal populations. This period is considered a time of cultural fluorescence reflected in evidence of burial ritual, population increase, and long-distance exchange networks (Ritchie 1994; Dincauze 1975; Snow 1980; Cassedy 1999). The Late Archaic Period is one of the best-known temporal sequences in southern New England. During most of this period, large revisited seasonal settlements are located in riverine areas and along large wetland terraces, while smaller more temporary and special purpose sites are situated in the interior and uplands (Ritchie 1969a and b, McBride 1984; Cassedy 1997, 1999). The nature and distribution of sites suggest aggregation during summer months, with seasonal dispersal into smaller groups during the cold weather (McBride and Dewar 1981).

  

Late Archaic points from burnt Hill, Hebron, CT.  

Terminal Archaic Period (3,700-3,000 BP)

A transition in settlement and subsistence patterning began to occur with the onset of the Susquehanna Tradition, also referred to as the Terminal Archaic Period (Dincauze 1975). A number of technological innovations appear as well. These include the use of steatite bowls and the rare manufacture of cord-marked and grit-tempered ceramics. Lithic assemblages contain high proportions of chert and other non-local lithics such as argillite, rhyolite and felsite. Regionally available quartzite was commonly used as well, but the use of local quartz became uncommon at this time. Settlement focused on upper river terraces rather than floodplains as well as expansive lacustrine and wetland settings (McBride and Dewar 1981). The interior and uplands were used less extensively (McBride 1984). Human cremation burials were common at this time (Dincauze 1968; Robinson 1996; Leveillee 1999). These changes in technology, lithic material preference and settlement organization may represent the arrival of non-regional peoples or ideas rather than in situ developments, though the debate over the possibility of migration remains active (Robinson 1996).

 

Terminal Archaic points from Burnt Hill, Hebron, CT

The Woodland Period (2,700-450 BP)

The Woodland Period is characterized by the increased use of clay pottery, celts and non-local raw materials as well as the introduction of bow and arrow technology, smoking pipes and horticulture (Lavin 1984, Feder 1984, 1999). An increase in site size and complexity along with greater sedentism and social complexity was likely the result of an increase in population, particularly at the end of this period (McBride and Dewar 1987; Lavin 1988). The Woodland Period is traditionally subdivided into Early, Middle, and Late periods based on ceramic styles, settlement and subsistence patterns, as well as political and social developments (Ritchie 1969a & b; Snow 1980; Lavin 1984). Despite these changes, most recent scholars see the Woodland Period as a continuation of the traditions and lifeways of the preceding Archaic Period (Feder 1984, 1999).

The Early Woodland Period (2,700-2,000 BP)

Early Woodland regional complexes are generally characterized by stemmed, tapered and rare side-notched point forms; thick, grit-tempered, cord-marked ceramics; tubular pipe-stones; burial ritual; and suggestions of long-distance trade and exchange networks (Lavin 1984; Juli 1999). The Early Woodland Period remains poorly understood, and is less well represented in the archaeological record than the preceding phases of the Late Archaic. This may be the result of shifts in settlement that promoted the formation of larger, but fewer seasonal aggregation camps. It is possible that incipient horticulture focused on native plant species (George 1997). The existence of stone pipes suggests the trade of tobacco into the region by this time.

 

Early Woodland point from Burnt Hill, Hebron, CY.

The Middle Woodland Period (2,000-1,200 BP)

The Middle Woodland Period is characterized by increased ceramic diversity in both style and form, continued examples of long-distance exchange, and at its end the introduction of tropical cultigens (Dragoo 1976; Snow 1980; Juli 1999). Much of our current knowledge of the Middle Woodland Period in southern New England is from work done by Ritchie (1994) in New York State. Ritchie noted an increased use of plant foods such as goosefoot (Chenopodium sp.), which he suggested had a substantial impact upon social and settlement patterns. Ritchie further noted an increased frequency and size of storage facilities during the Middle Woodland Period, which may reflect a growing trend toward sedentism (Ritchie 1994; Snow 1980). At this time jasper tool preforms imported from eastern Pennsylvania are entering the region through broad exchange networks (Luedtke 1987).

Settlement patterns in Connecticut indicate an increased frequency of large sites

adjacent to tidal marshes and wetlands along the Connecticut River, a decrease in large upland occupations, and a corresponding increase in upland temporary camps (McBride 1984). The tidal marshes supported a wide variety of terrestrial and aquatic animal and plant resources, allowing for longer residential stays (McBride 1984). 

Pottery from Amston Lake may date from the Middle Woodland Period.

Late Woodland Period (1,200-450 BP)

The Late Woodland Period is characterized by the increasing and intensive use of maize, beans, and squash and changes in ceramic technology, form, style, and function. Settlement patterns reflect population aggregation in villages along coastal and riverine locales and the eventual establishment of year-round villages. However, the use of the upland-interior areas by small, domestic units or organized task groups on a temporary and short-term basis remains apparent as does this trend toward fewer and larger villages near coasts and rivers. It has been hypothesized that these changes can be attributed to the introduction of maize, beans, and squash, but it is unclear how important cultigens were to the aboriginal diet of southern New England groups, especially those with access to coastal resources (Ritchie 1994; Ceci 1980; McBride 1984; McBride and Dewar 1987; Bendremer and Dewar 1993; Chilton 1999). Although sites clearly demonstrate the use of tropical cultigens in the Connecticut River Valley, wild plant and animal resources were still a primary component of the aboriginal diet. The use of imported chert increases over time in the Connecticut River Valley implying social, economic, and/or political ties to the Hudson Valley region. Ceramic style affinities also suggest western ties at the end of this period (Feder 1999). Activities associated with a more sedentary subsistence pattern, such as the cultivation of maize, beans, and squash, resulted in the development of a more complex social organization. Regional variation between various tribal entities is reflected in stylistic design elements found on pottery in particular. Prior to this time, the populations were fairly mobile, loosely based kin-groups that required little, if any, form of centralized authoritative power. Leadership roles were determined on a case-by-case basis and often shifted according to circumstance. This began to change with increasing sedentism.

Points from Burnt Hill Hebron, CT. At this time there is a local tradition of a seasonal encampment site in Hebron Center where a community grinding stone or quern was located. There may also have been another encampment site close to Amston Lake.

Contact Period Overview

The Seasonal Round

Although the European trading networks impacted the daily lives of Indigenous peoples throughout southern New England, they continued to practice many of their traditional subsistence strategies. Archaeological sites in coastal and inland locations throughout Connecticut reflect a series of occupations taking place within specific resource rich areas on an annual and seasonal basis. Communities settled closer to the coastline and riverbanks to fish and gather mollusks in the spring, summer, and autumn months. Large amounts of shell found along the coastline of Connecticut attest to these activities taking place. For riverine settings there is evidence of ancient fishing weirs and intensive horticulture.

In addition to attracting wildlife, wetlands and marshland provided raw materials such as rushes, cattails and other fibrous plants for making basketry and matting. By mid- April many groups cultivated maize, beans, squash, and tobacco in the fields adjacent to their settlements. Like their neighbors to the south, many communities in the Connecticut River Valley adopted maize horticulture early on and foodstuffs were considered an integral part of trading networks in the area. Local plants were collected, such as nuts, berries, herbs, and tubers. In the colder months, provisions cached away from summer habitations were utilized. As the winter months approached, family groups or bands on the immediate coast removed further inland to wooded areas where archaeological sites reflect the presence of smaller temporary hunting camps.

In contrast to the end of the Late Woodland, after European contact, cultural rather than environmental factors influenced the subsistence patterns of local Indigenous peoples (Ceci 1979). The impact from European trading networks, Native wampum production and the fur trade disrupted the balance of power in the years just prior to the Pequot War in 1637 (McBride 1994:44). After contact, European trade affected Indigenous populations who opted to shift their settlements to one geographical area to intercept and negotiate with their trading partners. This was certainly the case for inland groups along the Connecticut River and other tributaries including those within Hebron. The same applied to coastal dwelling peoples who constructed fortified villages for protection while vying for trade (Ceci 1979). Fortifications were often occupied on a continual basis for at least a segment of the population, possibly housing the sachem’s family. However, other horticultural activities took place within close proximity to these structures.

At the time of European contact, the socio/political organization of Indigenous

communities living in coastal and inland areas of southern New England was becoming more highly stratified. In the larger village sites, the demographic included extended families whose sachem was a close family relation. In the 17th century, it is important to note, infectious disease introduced by the European voyagers and fishermen decimated local Indigenous communities and disrupted traditional leadership roles observed just after contact that were often matrilineal.

 

Gun flints found at Burnt Hill, Hebron, CT. During the 18^th century with the introduction of African American slaves, Hebron became a tri racial community.

Historic Period - Hebron

The lands within modern day Hebron were granted by Attawanwood (Joshua), son to the Mohegan Sachem Uncas, in his will dating to 1676 to Thomas Buckingham, William Shipman and many others referred to as the ‘Saybrook legatees” (Trumbull 1797) . In the17th century, the territory in the upper Connecticut River Valley was the aboriginal homeland of the Podunk, Tunis, Poquonnoc, Wangunk and Sicoags and further north of Bolton, the Nipmuc Wabaquasett. In 1637, prior to the English attack on the Pequot fort

in Mystic, these communities coalesced along the river and paid tribute to the Pequot who controlled trade along the Connecticut River. After the Pequot War, the Mohegan claimed the territory up to the southern border of the Nipmuc Wabaquasett as part of their hereditary right and the Wabaquassett lands through conquest. This issue came to light as a result of the controversy with Owaneco and Samuel Mason over lands transferred to Connecticut. John Chandler’s 1705 survey of Mohegan lands was used as evidence in the complaints by the Mohegan over the loss of their land rights. Hebron’s town bounds were encompassed within Chandler’s survey where the previous year Connecticut’s General Assembly granted several colonists the right to settle on the land. (Trumbull)

John Chandler’s 1705 Map of Connecticut with north at the bottom. The marking on the left translated as “A high hill” may represent Burnt Hill .

Where I Live page 16 –Thinking About it

In 2023 Hebron was added to the very short list of rare Paleoindian sites in Connecticut.

Question – Of the 6 known Paleolithic sites in Connecticut which is the closest?

* 10,000 years ago, the glaciers had melted and high mountains like Burnt Hill had been carved down to hills. The melting glaciers left behind two long flat plains in Hebron. One is located where Hebron Center and Hebron Elementary School are located and named the Plain of Mamre by early settlers. The other begins above Holbrook’s Pond and runs north to Burnt Hill. This flat area was named the Plain of Abraham.

When the glaciers began to melt, grass, low wind ravaged trees and shrubs began to grow in valleys. This provided mastodons and caribou with food. There wasn’t an abundance of plants to eat, so Paleoindians subsisted on a meat diet using spears to hunt. The tip of the spear would often be made of stone with the edges chipped off to provide a sharp edge. Native People would trade stone that was not local to Hebron. The only metal Indigenous people had was from the copper outcroppings in Granby, Connecticut.

Activity -- Draw a picture of what Hebron might have looked like with low trees, shrubs, and grass on which mastodons and caribou lived with patches of snow and meltwater.

Hands on activity – stone tools were made from knapping or chipping away the edges of stone like flint. Flint knaps a lot like glass leaving behind sharp edges. Students can simulate knapping by using a “Sugar Daddy” on a stick that has been frozen overnight and with round stones from the Dollar Store. They can slowly chip away the edges and form a spear head. Have students think about how Indigenous people would attach this “stone” to a wooden shaft. Since a “Sugar Daddy” is peanut oil free, most students are able to eat the remains eroding the sharp edges of their spear point with their tongues!

Eventually, the climate warmed and fir then deciduous trees dominated the landscape. During the Archaic and Woodland periods, Indigenous people came to hunt in Hebron at Burnt Hill, Hebron Center, and Amston Lake. Woodland animals like deer and rabbits replaced the caribou. Deer could not easily be hunted with a spear. The invention of the bow and arrow made it easier to shoot these animals from a distance. Nets could be used to catch fish in the water and animals on the land.

Hands on Activity—buy a couple of spools of twine from the Dollar Store and cut the twine into 3- foot lengths. Have students work in groups to make nets. It will become very clear to students that working with textiles requires a subset of skills which some have mastered, but not all.

* New England’s Indigenous people were masterful at using materials from their environment to meet their needs. It might be worthwhile to review the concept of needs and wants. Jared Diamond in Guns, Germs and Steel makes the case that there were no wild animals in North America that could be tamed as beasts of burden. Although horses originated in the America’s, they died out long before Europeans arrived. Indigenous People on the American Great Plains reestablished herds of horses brought across the Atlantic by Europeans. There were no American animals that could be milked like cows. Actually, the only animals Indigenous Americans shared with Europeans was the dog. Dogs and humans made a very effective combination of skills and one of the America’s first invasive species. It might be worthwhile for students to make a list of things dogs can do that humans can’t and vice versa.

Humans with stone tools and dogs were able to

* Create shelter from cutting down small saplings and bending them into a dome shape using cedar bark to tie the pieces together. Cattails could be loosely woven together and covered with sections of bark to form a weather tight home with a center fire vented by a smoke hole in the center.

* Create clothing from animal skins. Indigenous people in New England did not weave cloth, but used the hides of the animals they hunted for clothing. Cattail fluff, milkweed or moss could be used for making moccasins warmer or as diapers in a sling around a mother’s shoulders.

* Food was available through sporadic hunting usually by men, but consistently by women using nets and gathering food like cattail roots, sunflowers, and nuts.

Simple hands-on activity – buy some unshelled sunflower seeds (check first to make sure no one is allergic). Give each student a small handful and then when you say “Go” have them shell the seeds using only their fingers for 5 minutes. When the time is up, see who would be the survivors with the most sunflower “meats”

* It was only 1,000 years ago that due to an increase in population Indigenous People turned to farming which had developed in the Middle East 8,500 years earlier. This is an important fact -different cultures use the environment differently. Another factor that Jared Diamond makes is that Europe and Asia are in the same latitude, the Americas are not and Indigenous women had to gather seeds from cold hardy plants over generations for corn from Central America to reach New England. Key Point – Native American women were the first biogenetic scientist! As a result of this genetic process, Indigenous women also gained a knowledge of medicinal plants. Except for hunting which was primarily a male activity (but not exclusively), Indigenous women were the sustainers of their culture and were often elevated to leadership roles in sharp contrast to 17^th century English society!

Hands on activity – plant a three sisters garden plot in your classroom and watch it grow throughout the year. If you use heirloom seeds, you might want to share the seeds from your experiment with students in the spring, so that they can go home and start their own three sisters’ garden and at the same time do something good for the environment.

Another activity might involve preserving corn, beans and pumpkin by drying in the classroom. Roasting pumpkin seeds on a cookie sheet in an oven can be a nutritious snack (as long as no one is allergic). Indigenous people did not use a lot of salt because it was difficult to transport. Have students try the seeds without salt and then with salt and decide which tastes better. Early Europeans commented on how healthy and strong Indigenous people were. Part of this is due to their diet which to modern taste was lacking in salt and sugar! We are indeed what we eat.

Pages 18 and 19 Connecticut’s First Peoples today

Hebron Connection -- European contact benefited and disrupted Indigenous people in Connecticut. Trade and an interchange of technology were benefits. Disease and English concepts of land ownership were detrimental. Conflict in Connecticut occurred shortly after settlement with the Pequot War. Forty years later the decimation of the Nipmuc and Wampanoag resulted from King Phillip’s War, one of the bloodiest wars in American history. Even Native Americans who sided with the English like the Mohegan were forced to give up their lands. In 1676 at the end of King Phillip’s War, Mohegan and Western Niantic Sachem Attawanhood or Joshua was forced to sign over the land that would become Hebron on his deathbed. Indigenous people would continue to plant on Burnt Hill and appear in the town records until the 1840’s. However, they were legally defined as second class citizens and not allowed to vote – a situation that would only be changed in 1924!

English culture changed Native American culture. Ezra Stiles, the president of Yale, drew the following diagram of a furnished Western Niantic wetu in 1761. This sort of wetu or wigwam would be familiar to early Hebron settlers. Early settlers in Gilead could see Indigenous wetus around the Gilead Congregational Church. Indigenous people continued to plant in areas like Burnt Hill until almost the Revolutionary War!

In the fall of 1761, Ezra Stiles visited the Western Niantic Indian community in the Niantic-East Lyme, Connecticut area.  Of the several Indian dwellings or wigwams standing there, he made sketches of two in particular, that of George Waukeets and Phoebe and Eliza Moheage.  Both residences are representative of East Coast Algonquian Native architecture – a structure made with a bent-sapling frame covered with reed mats, tree bark, or animal skins.  

The Mohegans’ wigwam was a little over ten feet high and could accommodate about a dozen individuals.  It contained a raised platform inside, providing space for bedding and other furniture.  By the mid-eighteenth century, familiar household items included colonial-styled tea tables, chests, tables, chairs, and dressers. Heat came from a fire pit hearth placed in the center of the earthen floor.  Larger wigwams, such as those owned by tribal leaders, had several hearths.  Pots made from earthenware or iron hung over the fire from hooks (quaúnghkéete in the Niantic-Mohegan language) that could be adjusted by moveable devices or trammels (paubpygouzinauzshacks)

Page 24 Colonial Town

Hebron Connection—English settlers brought English ideas of individual land ownership with them to Connecticut. Land was not free, but had to be purchased. It is thought that the first Euro-American to ever visit the area that would become Hebron, camped out at the top of Raymond Hill located on Route 85 between Old Colchester Road and Route 207, about a mile south of Hebron Elementary School.. The land on which Hebron is located passed from Indigenous ownership when in 1676, Attawanhood, ( also called Joshua) wrote his will and gave the land to a group of men living in Saybrook, Connecticut. These men known as the Saybrook Legatees or Hebron Proprietors owned all of Hebron. In 1702 they divided the land into 86 home lots, meadow lots, and 100 acre lots. They drew lots and traded land amongst themselves, then started to sell land in Hebron to settlers. People first came to Hebron to settle and live in 1704-1705. William Shipman and Timothy Phelps were two of the first settlers to arrive. They began to build houses and clear fields by where the Church of the Holy Family is now located. They had left their wives and children in Windsor about 20 miles away and had come on foot to Hebron. When they did not return to Windsor on schedule, the Shipman and Phelps families in Windsor began to worry and the wives and children set out to find the men. All went well until they got to Hebron and lost their way. The women stopped at a large rock by where Burrows Hill Road is today. An old Hebron legend records that since night was falling, Mrs. Shipman and Phelps climbed up on the rock and started to call for help. Their husbands heard them and found their way to Burrows Hill where the families were reunited.

Discussion point – Do you think William Shipman and Timothy Phelps’ wives made the right decision to go out to find their husbands?

? Do you think William Shipman and Timothy Phelps were happy to see their family or angry?

Historical Footnote – From 1702-1713 England was at war with the French settlements in Canada. The cause of the war was that the French and their Native
American allies were attacking New England Settlements, burning them to the ground and taking hostages back to Canada. In 1704 /05 when Martha Crow Phelps and Mrs. Shipman set out from Windsor even though the Connecticut Assembly had forbidden settlers in Colchester and other frontier towns from leaving and abandoning a claim to the territory. Thus, the trip from Windsor was more perilous than it might at first seem.

By 1708, Hebron had nine families living in town. Land was set aside for a Green or Common and plans were made to hire a Congregational minister, build a meeting house and parsonage. On May 13, 1708, the General Assembly of Connecticut granted Hebron the privilege of being a town. From that time forward Hebron could legally elect town officials like selectmen and levy taxes. Hebron, Connecticut was established 75 years after the first settlement in Connecticut and 88 years after the Pilgrims came to Plymouth Rock.

Activity – Who are you Gonna call?

Since incorporation in 1708 Hebron Town Government has provided many services for people who live in Hebron.

Make a copy of the Hebron Town Directory or put it up on the Smart Board. Then ask who you would call for the following problems:

1 Someone broke into a storage shed on your property.

2 You want to put an addition onto your house.

3 Your tax bill seems too high.

4 The town road you live on needs to be plowed.

5 Your neighbor’s septic tank is overflowing into your yard.

6 Your grandmother needs transportation to a doctor’s appointment.

7 There’s a raccoon living under your porch.

8 You need a new dog license.

9 Your neighbor is filling in a swamp.

10 You want to find a book on the history of Hebron

Hebron Town Directory –2022

You might want to discuss with your students that some of the above jobs are salaried jobs and some positions are elected.

Activity How does government pay for the services it provides?

The Three levels of government in Hebron.

Discussion question –Why does a dollar toy at Dollar Tree cost $1.06 at the checkout?

Where does this tax money go--- to the town where the store is located, the state of Connecticut, or the United States government in Washington D.C.?

Property taxes provide money for towns.

Federal income tax provides money for the US government

Connecticut income tax provides money for the state of Connecticut

A historic detour -- Did you know Hebron had one citizen who became Governor of the state of Connecticut?

John Samuel Peters was born in September of 1772 on a farm next to Burnt Hill Park. He was named for his grandfather John Peters who first brought his family to Hebron in 1727 and for his uncle, the Reverend Samuel Peters, vicar of St. Peters’ church in Hebron. The Revolutionary War started just 3 years after John S. Peters was born. His father Bemslee Peters supported the English side and spent most of war in England. As a result, John S. Peters’ family was relatively poor, even so, John S. Peters attended school on East Street and then taught school to earn a living. In 1790 he apprenticed for 6 months with Doctor Benjamin Rush of Marbletown, New York. He then studied with Doctor Abner Mosley of Glastonbury. In 1796, he attended medical lectures in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In 1797, the last year of George Washington’s presidency, John S. Peters began to practice medicine in Hebron and did so for the next 40 years.

In 1806, John S. Peters built a stylish brick house for himself that still stands on Church Street next to St. Peters Church. In 1816 he added a small addition or ell to the house to serve as his medical office. John S Peters was chosen by Hebron voters to be Town Clerk several times and Judge of Probate. In 1810, 1816 and 1817 John S. Peters was voted to represent Hebron in Connecticut’s House of Representatives. In 1818 and 1823 he was elected as a Connecticut Senator. In 1827 John S. Peters became Lieutenant Governor of Connecticut and was elected Governor of Connecticut in 1831 and 1832. Governor Peters was a forward looking individual. Three years after the first train was invented, he urged the General Assembly in Hartford to invest in railroads, turnpikes and canals. John S. Peters also thought fostering industry was equally important. He personally invested in mills in Hebron in the Hope Valley area. John S. Peters felt that education was a first priority in government. When he was young, he taught district school in Hebron. As governor he tried to increase funding and reform for education.

Governor John S. Peters was also interested in preserving the past. He was vice president of the Connecticut Historical Society which now preserves a portrait of the governor and documents related to him.

During his term as Governor of Connecticut, a woman named Prudence Crandall opened up a school for African American girls in Canterbury, Connecticut. Prudence Crandall is Connecicut’s state heroine, but unfortunately her school didn’t operate for long and was closed down by the protest of her neighbors. Governor Peters also tried to increase manufacturing in Connecticut and tried to improve education in Connecticut.

One day when he was governor and traveling from Hartford to Hebron by stage coach, the coach passed an old African American woman carrying a large bundle. Governor Peters knocked on thecoach roof for the driver to stop. Although the driver was annoyed at loosing time, he did so and Governor Peters opened the coach door saying “Hop right in Lyddie and ride to Hebron”. The woman was Lydia Peters a descendant of slaves that John S. Peters’ uncle Reverend Samuel Peters owned before the Revolutionary War

After being governor of Connecticut, John S. Peters returned to Hebron to practice medicine. He often treated Native Americans and African Americans and if they were poor would not charge them. John S. Peters never married. He ran a large farm with the paid help of the African American Peters and Barber families proving the labor. Hebron Elementary School stands on part of his farm land. John S. Peters died in 1858 at the age of 86. There’s a large monument to him in St. Peters’ church yard.

Another notable Hebron Politician -- Sylvester Gilbert tells his own story

Sylvester Gilbert from Hebron Bicentennial Book 1908

Autobiography of Sylvester Gilbert

I was born in Gilead Society October 20^th, 1759, in the house built by my father. My father, Samuel Gilbert, was the son of Samuel Gilbert of Hebron, who came from Massachusetts, and his parents from England,

My Mother’s name was Abigail, daughter of Mr. Samuel Rowley of Hebron, the first schoolmaster I ever knew. She was my father’s 2^nd wife and died very suddenly when I was about 9 years old. I remember some of her kind attentions to me with gratitude. I was in early youth very feeble, but through the goodness of God have lived beyond the years of all my brothers and sisters, of whom I was the youngest but one, I had three own brothers and two sisters –I was 83 years old the 20^th of October 1838, and as now, this 12^th day of January 1839, commencing this biographical sketch.

My affectionate and most dearly beloved wife died on the 14^th day of May, 1838, age 81 years, one month and 13 days, a blessed partner and companion, with whom I lived 63 years. She was the daughter of David Barber, Esq., merchant, late of Hebron, deceased.

I was educated at Dartmouth College and graduated in August, 1775, married very young, studied law under the tuition of the late Judge Root, then of Hartford. I was admitted to the Bar in Hartford County in November, 1777. The country then being in an arduous and distressing war with Great Britain, – My law practice was small until 1779 when it began to increase, and at the close of the war became extensive.

In 1786 the County of Tolland was established, and I was appointed State’s attorney for the county In the year 1787 (I was elected as) Town continued to be annually elected to that office, except one year, for a term of 23 years, Previously and subsequently I served the Town and Society in sundry other offices, especially as Town Agent and Selectman, many years.

In September, 1780, one month before I was 25 years old, I was chosen Representative to the Assembly. I was the youngest that had ever been elected in Hebron and was the youngest member of the House. Between this time and October, 1812, I was elected a member 30 times, and attended as many sessions of the Legislature and two special sessions. In May, 1826 for last time, I was chosen and attended as a member and formed the house, being the oldest in membership as I was at first the youngest in years I held the office of Attorney from the State till May, 1807, being 51 years, when I was appointed Chief Judge of the County Court and Judge of probate, which offices I afterwards accepted and in which I continued till 1825, when I arrived to 70 years of age

I did not intend this writing beyond one sheet, but cannot do justice to you or myself without an addition. From the commencement of my law practice till 1810 (I had at this time one or two and sometimes three law students in my office). I commenced a thorough review of the law and spent all the time not otherwise necessarily engaged for two years in preparing lectures for a regular law school, and in 1810 began to read lectures to my pupils and continued this business about seven years, having generally from six to ten students in my office

In the year 1800 I built the house we now dwell in, and in the year 1828 took down my old patrimonial house, and gave the site to the Congregational Society in Hebron on which to erect a meeting house where it now stands. My dear and only wife has borne 13 living children, of which number 5 were born deaf, unless Samuel, the oldest, lost his hearing as we supposed by canker and rash, which reduced him near to death, before he was one year old. Our children were, Samuel, Abigail, Theordora, Sophia, Arathusa, Sylvester, Patience, William Pitt, Lewis, Ralph, Clarissa, Mary and Abigail Eliz. Samuel, William Pitt, Lewis, Clarissa and May are my 5 unfortunates, who in childhood required and received an enduring and constant watchfulness and care of a kind and indulgent mother. We were never able to discover any cause of their deafness except the first.

Hebron, Jan. 18^th, 1837

Sylvester Gilbert

Pages 32-33 169 Towns & 19 cities

Hebron Connection

In 1708 when Hebron became a town, there were nine families living in the entire town.

By 1744, Hebron had grown substantially. How many families / houses can you count of the 1744 map? Almost all of these families were farmers. That’s why there were people living all over town, rather than in one place.

In 1822 the Reverend Samuel Peters wrote about farming in Hebron

“They export much produce yearly and many horses, fat cattle, sheep, and swine to the West Indies and drive many to Boston and New York.”

Raising crops in Hebron was not easy. The first settlers cut down trees to create fields. At first, these fields were fertile and produced big crops, but without the tree roots to hold the soil in place, the wind and water eroded the good soil. By the time of the American Revolution, Hebron fields were no longer producing big crops and without the soil, stones appeared. Farmers either built stone walls or moved to areas with richer soil like Vermont and New York. Some farmers bought slaves to remove the stones, plant and harvest the crops. In 1774, Hebron had 52 slaves living in town. Although Connecticut would not abolish slavery until 1848, by the year 1800, there were only 4 enslaved individuals in Hebron and by 1810, slavery was a thing of the past. Many former enslaved people sold their labor to wealthy Hebron farmers. In 1800, Hebron was the wealthiest town in Tolland County and had one the counties highest number of free African Americans living in it. Over time farming changed from raising livestock for meat to producing dairy items like milk and eggs. Many immigrants from southern and central Europe came to Hebron to farm. Farming remained the most common job in Hebron until about 1960. Today there are few farmers, but many stones walls. 

Why is Hebron a town, but Gilead isn’t?

Settlement in Hebron was a real estate investment, not a religious one. In order to become a town, a settlement had to have a meetinghouse and settled Congregational minister, since church and state were not separated. The location of the meetinghouse became a major issue in Hebron, because that is where the major roads of Hebron would meet. This meant that it was easier for farms along the major roads to transport extra farm goods for sale. For 8 years after incorporation, Hebron citizens argued about where to build the meetinghouse.
Finally, representatives from Connecticut’s General Assembly placed the location approximately where the traffic light on Route 85 and Route 66 cross. Members of the town planted four acres of wheat to induce a minister to their town and in 1715 Rev. John Bliss answered the call. He was ordained in 1717. Although a meetinghouse was built in Hebron Center, families in Gilead, Marlborough and Andover complained they had too far to travel to the central meetinghouse. These complaints became political and in 1734, just 17 years after being ordained, the first Congregational Society dismissed Rev. Bliss, who with 20 Hebron families living on the northern end of town declared his following as Anglicans or Episcopalians. This did not solve the problem of where the Congregational Meetinghouse would be located. In 1747 in an effort to “push the issue”, Moses Hutchinson burned the first meetinghouse down. The General Assembly was again called upon to settle the issue of location, but each time the General Assembly Committee staked a new site, Hebron people pulled the stakes up. Finally in 1747, Connecticut’s General Assembly moved to divide Hebron into four ecclesiastical societies, Hebron Center (1^st Society), Gilead, Marlborough, and Andover, and recognized the Anglican Church in Hebron. Eventually, Marlborough and Andover would become separate towns, but Gilead did not and remained essentially a farming community with a post office, but few stores.

When in the early 1800’s water powered mills producing cloth and other items developed in Hope Valley, Grayville, and Amston, factory workers created small mill villages close to where they worked. Unfortunately, only Amston with Amston Lake had enough waterpower to expand its mills producing silk. As a result, the Amston mill Village was given a post office, but like Gilead remained part of Hebron.

Notable Characters page 38 and 39

Attawanhood or Joshua (The Original Indigenous Owner of Hebron)

The primary job of history to solve mysteries. In the case of Hebron, the mystery revolves around the direct relationship of Attawanhood (also known as Joshua), a Sachem of the Mohegan tribe, and son of well-known Mohegan chief Uncas, the Saybrook Legatees, and the original founders of Hebron.

The Mohegan website provides a brief summary of Attawanhood’s father, Chief Uncas. “Uncas, son of Owaneco, was a Pequot chief. His wife was the daughter of Sassacus, Sachem of the Pequots. "Uncas was exceedingly restless and ambitious. Five times, the Indians said, he rebelled against his superior, and each time was expelled from his possessions, and his followers subjected to the sway of the conqueror.” (History of Norwich, Connecticut: From its possession by the Indians to the year 1866, by Frances Manwaring Caulkins)

“Uncas then removed to the interior and placed himself at the head of the Mohegan clans who occupied lands east of the Connecticut river, and west of the great Pequot River now known as the Thames. While Sassacus traded with the Dutch, Uncas developed alliances with the English. War eventually broke out between the English and the Pequot after the murder of John Oldham [from Wethersfield] in 1636 and the punitive expedition by John Endicott. In May of 1637, Uncas with seventy Mohegan warriors joined ninety Englishmen under the command of Capt. John Mason in the famous expedition against the Pequots, sailing down the Connecticut river to Saybrook, then to Narragansett Bay and attacking the Pequots from the eastward. In a series of bloody battles, Uncas and Mason brought the power of the great Pequot nation to an end.”

There is no doubt that Uncas’ decision to support Mason and the new settlers resulted in the ultimate survival of the Mohegan tribe, while the Pequots were virtually wiped out only years after taking on the colonists. It also signaled the start of the permanent settlement of Connecticut as an English colony, usually attributed to Thomas Hooker. The famous Puritan minister, leading a group of 100 settlers, arrived in the Hartford area in 1636, and joined forces with the two existing settlements, Windsor (established in late1633) and Wethersfield (established in 1634.) With Hooker’s arrival, the three settlements set up a “collective government” and soon adopted their “Fundamental Orders” – clearly a constitutional document deemed the first of its kind for guaranteeing individual rights.

It’s not as though peace with the Native American tribes was a given in the mid-17^th century; indeed, some tribes began fighting among themselves, and in 1643, Uncas and his Mohegans faced the Narragansetts in battle, with Uncas easily winning. It was about this time that Uncas and his sons, Owaneco and Attawanhood, began a series of land transfers and grants to English settlers who had helped them throughout the tumultuous period.

In 1659, Uncas and his sons, according to the deed filed in Norwich on August 20, 1663, “bargained, sold and passed over, and doe by these presents, bargain, sell and pass over unto the Towne and Inhabitants of Norwich, nine miles square of lands…with all ponds, rivers, woods, quarries, mines with all Royalties, privileges and appurtenances thereunto belonging to them the sayd Inhabitants of Norwich, their heirs and successors forever…” It’s highly doubtful that the Mohegans wrote such language, the basis of which can be found in English law, and according to Forrest Morgan’s 1904 edition of Connecticut as a Colony and as a State, Uncas sold this land in order to fund his ongoing conflict with the Narragansetts.

In 1675, King Philip’s War broke out, causing great damage and loss of life throughout New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Connecticut. It has been described repeatedly as the “bloodiest and most costly war in colonial history,” and should not be confused with the “French and Indian War” of 1754-1763.

Towns throughout Massachusetts, Connecticut and even Rhode Island were being established at a rapid rate, and Native Americans were increasingly concerned about encroachment on their territories. Prior to King Philip’s War (named after the chief of the Wampanoag tribe, Metacomet, known as “King Philip” by the colonists), interactions were often tense, but generally peaceful. But the colonists of what is now southern and eastern New England were soon viewed by some tribes as a threatening presence, especially as their small population grew at a rapid rate over time and the number of settlements increased almost monthly. Metacomet decided to take on the settler’s encroachment challenge, but again with disastrous results.

While most of the fighting occurred in Massachusetts, Suffield, CT was also attacked, and Providence, the capital of Rhode Island, was abandoned by colonists and burned to the ground by the Wampanoags, who by that time been joined by other, smaller Native American tribes. Uncas was now too old to fight in King Philip’s War, but, according to Mohegan history, “Owaneco, with several hundred Mohegans, rendered valuable assistance to the colonists in their fight against the unfriendly Indians. Attawanhood (Joshua), another son, with a band of thirty Indians scoured the woods in the route of the retreating foe, and took active part in the conflict.”

On February 29, 1676, shortly after the “Great Swamp Fight” of December 15, 1675 (in which the combined forces of colonists and Mohegans successfully destroyed a Narragansett fort in Kingston, Rhode Island) and shortly before his death in May of that same year, Attawanhood issued his “Last Will and Testament.” Because the entire conflict had begun over land rights, it is significant to note that this son of Uncas legally granted a significant amount of land to the colonists.

The document begins “I Joshua Sachim Son of Uncau Sachim Living nigh Eigh tmile Island on the River of Connecticut and within Bounds of Lyme being Sick of Body but of good and perfect memory and not knowing how soon I may depart this Life…” There follows an extremely complicated and confusing description of the lands being given over to a group of men later referred to as the “Saybrook Legatees.” Key names listed in Attawanhood’s will – in terms of Hebron’s ultimate future – were John Talcott, John Pratt, John Chapman, Abraham Post, and Edward Shipman. In the second paragraph of his will, Attawanhood specifically stated: “To Francis Busnell Son & Edward Shipman Son and Mr. John Westall to Every and each of them Three thousand acres…””

In May 1684, Connecticut Governor Robert Treat “conceded that neither he nor [John] Talcott could positively Assert or determine anything concerning the true bounds of said country.” Part of the problem, then and now, was the use of Native American boundary descriptions that consisted of “strange names of places unknown to us.” Yet despite some confusion over the exact boundaries of the land grants, the area now known as “Hebron” was considered by all to be part of the lands granted in Attawanhood’s will.

One of the state’s most famous historians, Benjamin Trumbull, was born in Hebron in 1735 and graduated from Yale University in 1759 with a degree in theology. Trumbull published the first volume of his Complete History of Connecticut in 1797. His recount of Hebron’s settlement provides further insight into our town’s origins:

“Upon the petition of John Pratt, Robert Chapman, John Clark, and Stephen Post, [the governor and council] appointed a committee in behalf of the legatees of Joshua Uncas [i.e., Attawanhood], the assembly granted a township which they named Hebron. The settlement of the town began in June, 1704. The first people who made settlements in the town were William Shipman, Timothy Phelps, Samuel Filer, Caleb Jones, Stephen Post, Jacob Root, Samuel Curtis, Edward Sawyer, Joseph Youngs, and Benoni Trumbull. They were from Windsor, Saybrook, Long-Island, and Northampton. The settlement, at first, went on but slowly; partly, by reason of opposition made by Mason and the Mohegans, and partly, by reason of the extensive tracts claimed by proprietors, who made no settlements. Several acts of the assembly were made, and committees appointed to encourage and assist the planters. By these means they so increased in numbers and wealth that in about six or seven years they were enabled to erect a meeting-house and settle a minister among them.”

Martha Crow Phelps –One of Hebron’s Original settlers

Martha Crow (Phelps) was born in Windsor Connecticut in 1670. On November 4^th, 1686 she married Timothy Phelps. Initially the Phelps family lived in Windsor, but by 1704, Timothy Phelps had purchased land in Hebron and began to establish a farm in the frontier wilderness of Hebron. In 1704, England was at War with the French and Native Americans in Canada in a conflict known as Queen Anne’s War. Devastating Raids like the one at Deerfield in 1704 put frontier settlements in jeopardy. As a result, the Connecticut Assembly forbade anyone settled on the frontier from leaving, so as not to abandon the British claim to the land. At that time both Timothy Phelps and William Shipman were clearing land for their farms in Hebron, a brave thing to do with a war going on. In 1706 Martha Crow Phelps set out with her children Martha age 16, Timothy age 14, Noah age 12, Cornelius age 8, Charles age 6, and baby Ashbel age 2 to meet her husband in Hebron. They family followed Native American trails and blazed paths, but lost their way as night was approaching. Fearing an attack from wolves or other wild animals, Martha Crow Phelps and her children sought shelter at Prophets Rock on Burrows Hill. They could hear the sound of ax, but could not place where it was coming from. By yelling at the top of their lungs, they were able to attract the attention of Mr. Timothy Phelps and his neighbor William Shipman who following the commotion in the wilderness found Martha Crow Phelps and children. The Phelps family was one of Hebron’s first settled families and lived along Church Street by the Church of the Holy Family. Timothy Phelps died in 1729 at age 65, but his wife Martha Crow Phelps lived to be 105, dying in 1775, the year the first shots of the American Revolution were heard. 

Obadiah Horsford – Hebron’s First Physician and Benefactor

Obadiah Horsford was one of the first settlers of Hebron. He purchased land and built his house around 1714 where RHAM Junior and Senior High Schools are located. Obadiah Horsford was a physician, but mainly a farmer. He was also interested in town affairs. Since Church and State were tied together by colonial law (and would be until 1818) setting up a Congregational Church was a high priority with early settlers. Hebron’s first minister Rev. John Bliss became minister of his Hebron Congregation in 1716. A meetinghouse was started in 1714, but not completed until 1720 due to discussions over where it should be located. At various points during that time, Dr. Horsford’s barn was used for services. Obadiah Horsford was captain of Hebron’s militia. Men between 16 and 60 were required to train and serve as soldiers to protect their town across the colony of Connecticut. In the 1720’s Obadiah Horsford gave the land along with his neighbor John Mann for a burying ground along what is now Wall Street.

Cesar Peters

Cesar Peters was purchased as a young boy of 8 to 10 years old by the Widow Mary Peters. It is not known if Cesar was his original name, but it was the name he was known by in Hebron. He grew up enslaved on the Peters farm located next to Burnt Hill Park. Cesar Peters made a real impression upon people who knew him. He worked hard and was quick to learn farm skills and how to read. He so impressed his owner that on several occasions she said she would free Cesar Peters when he was older. Unfortunately, as Mary Peters’ children grew up and married, Cesar Peters thought he would do the same. He married an enslaved woman named Lois which greatly angered Mary Peters. She threatened to sell Cesar and did – to her son the Rev. Samuel Peters, minister of Saint Peters Church in Hebron and the Anglican Church in Hartford. Rev Peters had returned a few years earlier from being ordained in the Anglican Church in Great Britain. With his salary from his two parishes, Rev. Peters started to buy up neighbors’ farms to create a modest New England Plantation. This allowed Cesar Peters family to live separately from his owner. Another enslaved family headed by Pomp Mundo had a similar living arrangement.

As an Anglican minister, Rev. Peters was required to offer prayers for the English royal family every Sunday. As the events leading up to the American Revolution unfolded, this put Rev. Peters at odds with the Sons of Liberty and Connecticut’s Governor Trumbull. Thus, Cesar Peters’ life became linked with that of his owner Rev. Peters. After the infamous Boston Tea Party, Boston harbor was closed until the English East India Company was reimbursed for the destroyed tea. Governor Trumbull asked that Connecticut towns hold meetings to supply food to the people of Boston. Hebron had the first meeting in the colony. Rev. Peters made such a strong point that the tea was private property and needed to be paid for legally, that Hebron citizens voted not to send any aid to Boston. Hartford held the next town meeting and again Rev. Peters persuaded the citizens not to support Governor Trumbull. This enraged the Sons of Liberty who marched to Hebron and terrorized Rev Peters to the point that in the fall of 1774, long before the first shots were fired at Lexington and Concord, Rev. Peters abandoned his holding of 600 acres in Hebron with seven houses, as well as his slaves, and fled to England. Eventually during the Revolutionary War, the new State of Connecticut would confiscate and rent out Rev. Peters’ plantation, but did not free his slaves, but evicted them. By the end of the Revolutionary War, Cesar Peters’ family found housing in an abandoned blacksmith shop at Burnt Hill Park.

Around 1786, Rev. Peters’ nephew Nathaniel Mann traveled to Great Britain to finish his medical education and visited his Uncle Rev. Peters in London. Nathaniel Mann convinced Rev. Peters to finance a merchant business that would operate out of New York City, but at the last moment was switched to Hebron. The merchant business soon failed and Rev. Peters’ creditors hounded him for repayment. In turn, Nathaniel Mann could not repay his uncle, but with his uncle’s power of attorney, Nathaniel Mann decided to sell off Cesar Peters’ family to settle his debt. On September 27, 1787, Nathaniel Mann brandishing a sword with a party of about 10 men arrived at dusk at Cesar Peters’ house. They bound the family, but one of Cesar Peters’ sons escaped and the women of Burnt Hill tried to forestall the abduction. Patience Graves was threatened at sword point to desist. When the Burnt Hill men returned from militia practice, they were enlisted to help save Cesar Peters’ family which they did. Elijah Graves, Patience Graves’ husband drew up an unpaid bill for clothing he was working on for Cesar Peters, but for which he had not been paid. Hebron’s Selectmen were enlisted to ride to Norwich to bring Cesar Peters’ family back as payment for the clothing bill. The Selectmen were successful and Cesar Peters’ family was placed under the protected custody of Elijah Graves for two years.

In 1789 several Burnt Hill neighbors lobbied the Connecticut General Assembly with testimonies about Cesar Peters’ character and were successful in having Cesar Peters’ family and Pomp Mundo emancipated. With the help of local Hebron lawyers, Cesar Peters then attempted to sue his abductors for damages, but withdrew the case at the last moment and moved out of town. Living in Colchester, Coventry and Tolland, Cesar Peters and his sons worked hard to save money. When his wife Lois died, Cesar Peters married a widow named Sim and added her children to his.

In 1806, Cesar Peters had saved enough money to purchase the two-story Mann House where Nathaniel Mann had grown up with $186 in cash. The property consisted of a two-story house, a barn and two acres of land. Cesar peters found ready employment as a skilled African-American farmer working for gentlemen farmers living in the developing Hebron Center. Cesar Peters died on July 4^th, 1814 owning his own home site and solvent with an inventory much like his middling income neighbors. Listed in his inventory is a set of chairs, 8 wine glasses, tea equipment, and a set of china. His descendants would benefit from his success by providing skilled farm labor to Hebron’s center village elites and assuming a middleclass life style. From slavery to success, Cesar Peters’ narrative bears testimony to a story much different from that of African Americans in the South after emancipation. 

Josephine (White) Griffing

Josephine Griffing's Gravestone in Hebron Born in Hebron in 1814, Josephine (White) Griffing was educated at Burrows Hill School and Bacon Academy. She married Charles Griffing in 1835 and then left Hebron in 1842 for Litchfield, Ohio.

Josephine soon became a sought-after speaker for Abolition as well as Women’s Rights. Her lectures and writing brought her to national prominence.

In Washington, D.C. after the Civil War, she helped found the Freedmen’s Bureau, an organization to help newly-freed slaves acquire the skills they would need to survive in the post-war economy. She received backing from President Lincoln and Secretary of War Stanton in a bid to become first commissioner of the Freedmen’s Bureau. Ironically, however, the job was given to a man.

She worked tirelessly over the remainder of her life and helped find northern homes for more than 7,500 freed people. She also helped establish two industrial schools to help train destitute and unskilled women in a trade. Upon her death in 1872, her body was returned to Hebron’s Burrows Hill Cemetery. She was perhaps the bravest crusader ever to be born in our community.

Levi Strong Backus—The World’s First Deaf Editor 

— Levi Strong Backus (June 23, 1803 - March 17, 1869) was born in Hebron, Connecticut the eldest son of Jebez Backus (1777-1855), a tanner and saddle maker in Bolton, Connecticut, who married Octa[via] Strong (1783-1816) in 1801. He was named for his grandfather, Levi Strong (1762-1823). He was apparently born deaf, likely a genetic defect, since his sister Lucy Ann who died at five months of age in 1808, was also deaf.² He attended the Hartford Academy for the Deaf in Hartford, Connecticut, and after graduation, became a teacher in the Central Asylum School for the Deaf and Dumb (est. 1823) in the hamlet of Buel, just outside the village of Canajoharie, New York.³ He married one of his former students, Anna Raymond Ormsby,⁴ in the same year that the village of Canajoharie was incorporated (1829). The village "is situated at the confluence of Bowman's creek with the Mohawk and on the Erie canal 55 miles from Albany. It consists of about 100 houses, a Lutheran church, and an academy."⁵ The school itself closed in 1836, and Levi Backus saw that his 33 students were transferred to the Asylum for the Deaf and Dumb in New York City.⁶ That winter Backus organized a newspaper devoted to the deaf community called the Radii (later the The Canajoharie Radii and Taxpayer's Journal). A catalogue of newspapers published in 1884 has this entry: "1837. — The Radii, at Canajoharie, by Levi S. Backus a deaf mute. In 1840 removed to Fort Plain, and in 1856 to Madison County. Subsequently returned to Canajoharie. Still published."⁷ Backus applied to get the Radii distributed free of cost to the members of the deaf community throughout New York state.⁸ In 1844 he was able to use the state subsidy to mail the Radii to deaf people across the state.⁹ The original Canajoharie site of the paper fell victim to the fire of 1840, the same year that saw the publication of the present book.¹⁰ Backus was the first person in America to insert pictures of the hand signs for the deaf in a newspaper's masthead.

Because of his association with deafness, Backus was particularly interested in non-verbal communication by means of signs. In later years he became a book publisher for other authors, printing a book on grammar (1858) and another of poetry (1861). He died in Montgomery, New York, in 1869, survived by his widow.

Ezekiel Skinner (1777 - 1855) –Founder of the African Country of Liberia

Ezekiel Skinner, the only child of Ezekiel and Mary Skinner, was born in Glastonbury, Conn., on the 27th of June, 1777. His mother died when he was five years old, and his father when he was ten. Being thus early left an orphan, he was consigned to the care of his uncle, Benjamin Skinner, who resided at Marlborough, Conn., and, when he had reached a suitable age, was apprenticed to the trade of a blacksmith. Here he labored diligently with his hands, but his vigorous mind was also at work in higher departments of knowledge, and without any assistance he had very soon gone through an extended course of Arithmetic. Having resolved on a different course of life from that to which his trade would have destined him, he bought the last year of his apprenticeship, and spent it in attending school. He then commenced the study of Medicine, under the direction of Doctor, afterward Governor, Peters, of Hebron, Conn., where he remained three years. At the end of this time, notwithstanding his poverty, he obtained the means for going to Philadelphia, to complete his medical studies under Dr. Rush, and his illustrious associates, in the Medical Institution of that city. At this period, Skinner was a Deist; and his natural frankness and boldness led him, on this subject as on every other, to speak out his convictions with the utmost freedom. Many years afterwards, when he had become not only a Christian, but a Christian Minister, he is said to have remarked that there were two places in which he greatly wished to preach before he died — one was Hebron, where he was brought up, — the other was Philadelphia, where he had once stood up in an assembly of three thousand people, and declared to them that he wished to have his infidel sentiments engraved on his tomb-stone — he wanted, he said, to preach in Philadelphia, and take these words back. His wish in respect to preaching in both places was gratified. Mr. Skinner received his license to practice Medicine in 1801; and, on the 22d of November of that year, was married to Sarah, daughter of Nathaniel and Agnes Mott, — a native of Chatham, Conn. His first settlement as a Physician was at Granville, Mass.; and here he was brought to a serious review, and ultimately to an abandonment, of his Deistical opinions, and to a hearty reception of the doctrines of Christianity, and a very satisfactory experience of its power. He now became a member of the Congregational church under the pastoral care of the Rev. Joel Baker, — having been educated in that communion. On his removal to Lebanon, (Exeter parish,) in the same State, shortly after, he at first joined the Congregational church, under the pastoral care of the Rev. John Gurley, but, having subsequently adopted the views of the Baptists, he was immersed, and united with the Baptist Church in Lebanon, it is believed in 1807. He had, for some time before, been troubled with doubts on the subject of Baptism, but had never heard a sermon from a Baptist preacher until after his removal to Lebanon. Dr. Skinner's sympathies in politics were strongly with the Democratic party of that day; and when the War of 1812 with Great Britain began, no man was more confident than he that his country was in the right. Not long after the commencement of the War as the enlistments for the army were not sufficiently numerous to meet the demand. Dr. Skinner, with his characteristic patriotic ardor, enlisted himself, — not as a Surgeon, — a place which he might have honorably filled, but as a Sergeant. He joined the army on the Canada frontier in 1812; but it was soon discovered that he was a skillful physician, and he was taken out of the ranks, and made an assistant of some sort in the hospital. He left the army after a few months, on account of the failure of his health, having procured another person to take his place. From Lebanon Dr. Skinner removed to Stafford, Conn., and, while engaged there in the practice of Medicine, began to preach, and was licensed in 1819, by the Baptist church in that place, under the pastoral care of the Rev. Benjamin M. Hill. His preaching proved highly acceptable; and in 1822 he was ordained to the pastoral care of the Baptist Church in Ashford, Conn., where he officiated nine years, and also Pastor of the Baptist Church in Westford, where he officiated seventeen years, including a period of four years which was spent in the service of the Colonization Society. He continued his medical practice in connection with his duties as a Minister. Dr. Skinner's son, Benjamin Rush Skinner, a young gentleman of much promise, was born in Granville, Mass., January 7, 1803, and, having completed his Literary and Theological course at Hamilton, was ordained as an Evangelist at New Ipswich, N. H., November 19, 1827; was accepted by the Foreign Missionary Board as one of their missionaries, and, on the 12th of October, 1830, embarked from near Norfolk, Va., for Liberia. Within less than a year, however, he fell a victim to the climate; and when the tidings of his death reached his father, who was then settled, both as a minister and a physician, at Ashford, he began almost immediately to inquire whether it was not his duty to go and occupy the place which his son's death had vacated. Though he had reached a period of life (nearly sixty years) when most persons would have shrunk from such an enterprise, his faith and fortitude were found fully adequate to it, and it was not long before he was making arrangements for his departure. In the summer of 1834 he sailed for Liberia, where, in several different capacities, he rendered most important services to the Colony; of which a sufficiently detailed account will be found in the two letters appended to this narrative, from gentlemen who were officially connected with the enterprise. On his final return from Africa, in 1837, (for he visited this country during his sojourn there,) he resumed his pastoral relations with his former charge, and continued his labors, both as a Physician and a Minister, without interruption, till a few months before his death, when he was disabled for continuous effort, by bodily infirmity. In April, 1855, having resigned the pastoral charge of the Church at Westford, he went to reside with his only surviving son, (Dr. E. D. Skinner,) a respectable medical practitioner at Greenport, L. I., where he gradually declined, though he did not entirely desist from active service till two weeks before his death. He died on the 25th of December, 1855, aged seventy-eight years. A Sermon on the occasion of his death was preached by the Pastor of the Baptist Church at Greenport, from II. Tim. iv. 7, 8. Dr. Skinner was the father of six children, three of whom, with their mother, (1858,) survive

Susan Pendleton – Hebron Historian

Though many now living in Hebron have never heard of her, Susan Bingham Pendleton was one of the most well-known women in our community in the first half of the 20^th century. But it would come as no surprise to those that remember Susie to learn that she was the topic of a library book club discussion just last year in Smithfield, Rhode Island.

Born May 1, 1870 to Dr. Cyrus H. Pendleton and his wife, Mary Welles Pendleton, Susan was the middle child of the Pendleton’s five children (a sixth child, Winfield, died a day after birth.) Clarissa, Anne, Susie, Grace, and Cyrus E. were all born and raised in the classic Federal home on Church Street, right in the center of town, known to everyone at the time as “Pendletonia.”

In addition to being the town’s only doctor for almost 50 years, Dr. Pendleton was very active in the community, at various times in his life serving as Town Clerk, Selectman, Judge of Probate, District Health Officer, and member of the Committee of Education and the Hebron Literary Association. The library was of particular importance to Dr. Pendleton; he served as its first president from 1898 until 1919.

He was a scholarly man who wrote in Greek, read his Hebrew Testament upside down (“because it was more interesting that way”), and mixed his own medicinal potions right in his home. He was also known as being somewhat odd. Once, he decided that he wanted to measure the distance between towns in a scientific way. So he wrapped a rag around one of his wagon wheels (to keep them from slipping), and drove from Hebron to Marlborough, carefully counting the turns of the wheel, and then multiplying the number of turns by the wheel’s circumference!

All of the children were taught to value education, but Susan in particular demonstrated her father’s intellectual prowess at an early age. In the early 1880’s, and barely a teenager, Susie joined a group of other Hebron women to form what was known as the “Rosebud Society,” a group dedicated to books and learned discussions. Through a number of evolutions, the Hebron Literary Society was eventually born. According to John Sibun, “There was not a building to house the books, and they were loaned out from the front hall of Pendletonia; the “librarian” was whichever member of the Pendleton family who happened to answer the door.”

That initiation into the literary group probably influenced Susie as much as growing up in the Pendleton home. Like many other women of the time, she graduated from Willimantic Normal School, which today is Eastern Connecticut State University. For a short period of time, she taught school in both Hebron and Columbia. In 1908, she played a major role in the celebrations of Hebron’s 200^th anniversary of incorporation, assisting her long time friend, Ida Porter Douglas. As official Poetess of the event, she also wrote and delivered a poem simply titled Hebron.

Interestingly, it was Susan Pendleton who took the 1920 census for Hebron. She canvassed the residents, and carefully recorded their age, occupation, where they were born, and where their parents were born. For her own occupation, she listed “None,” even though she was 50 years old and a budding writer. True to her keen wit, for which she was well known, she also wrote the word “Lied” in her personal records when Roger Porter claimed to be 40 and Della Wilcox Porter claimed to be 43 (they were 42 and 45 respectively.) But in the end, she kept their secret and reported the younger ages.

Susie is best remembered as a poet, journalist, and historian. She is also remembered as somewhat of a “firecracker,” to quote one long-time resident. Her roles as historian and newspaper writer are closely intertwined. Susie was a correspondent for the Hartford Times, and for almost 40 years, she reported Hebron news for the Manchester Herald. In a significant number of those stories, she wrote about Hebron’s history, building on the research done by Hebron’s first unofficial historian, F. Clarence Bissell, as well as the documentary work she and her father had done.

But she never wrote for the Hartford Courant. The “firecracker” in her probably destroyed that possibility in October 1920, just a few weeks after the 19^th amendment granting women the right to vote was approved in Connecticut. Susie wrote a scathing Letter to the Editor which she demanded the Courant publish. “I am beginning to become quite interested in republicans,” the staunch Democrat wrote. “Picking up a recent paper of yours, I notice that you print a statement to the effect that when Senator-elect Lunergan visited Hebron only three (or was it four?) women were present to listen to him. Not a man. Why not lie about Wilson, the League of Nations, and so on? Why bother to lie about Hebron? I was there….” She then continues, insinuating the Courant favored the Republican party. For her efforts, she received a scathing response from the Courant editor. “The writer, who calls the Courant a liar and signs herself “very truly yours,” may be inconsistent, but she is welcome to her opinion…This Hebron voter will learn, in time,” he wrote.

One of Susie’s best known writings in the Herald was called “Hebron in History and Story.” Encompassing many pages, the lengthy article (published in a number of editions) presents a history of Hebron going back to the Native American roots of the land. It also contains references to events that might otherwise be lost, such as F. C. Bissell’s 1924 journey, leading a group of Hebron people, to locate Prophet’s Rock or that Miss Adelle White, whose ancestors had lived in the Burrows Hill area since the town’s beginnings, claimed that the original settlers actually called the landmark “Prospect Rock.”

Her writings always seemed to capture a bit of the new with the old, and as such become reference materials, especially in locating old buildings. When talking about Reverend John Bliss in 1715, she notes “his house was on Godfrey Hill, then known as Church Hill…” or “the first [Puritan] meetings in Hebron were first held at the house of Caleb Jones in 1709 (on the road leading east from where Loren Lord’s house now is.)” Today, these are important clues to researchers and genealogists trying to piece together old maps and determine where certain early 18^th century events occurred.

As a poet, Susie’s They Shall Remain continues to provide a look at Hebron as seen by someone who grew up during some of the most challenging events the community has ever witnessed, including the Great Fire of 1882, the Blizzard of 1888, and the Hurricane of 1938. The book, compiled by Austin Warren, was published in 1966 shortly before Susie’s 96^th birthday.

It is poems such as “Secret” in the 38-page volume that lend insight into the Susan Bingham Pendleton most people didn’t know. In that poem she wrote:

I will lock it tight away
Under a clamped lid.
(But will not people turn and say
“She keeps something hid”?)
My heart shall be its hiding place…

In Part II: Susie’s poems reveal a woman who kept her emotions in check, as was the expectation of that day. But through the oral history she passed on to her great nephew, Horace Sellers, who lived with Susie off and on for 50 years, we learn much more about the private life and shattered dreams of this very public woman.

In Part I: Susan Bingham Pendleton was heavily influenced by her intellectual, although sometimes eccentric, father, Dr. Cyrus H. Pendleton. She was a public person, one of the icons of Hebron at her time, and a prolific writer. Susie knew that people recognized a certain sadness in her, though only a privileged few understood it. In her poem “Secret,” she had written: “I will lock it tight away under a clamped lid. (But will not people turn and say “She keeps something hid”?) My heart shall be its hiding place…”

It is through the oral history, passed down from Susie to her great-nephew, Horace Sellers, that we learn more about this remarkable woman. Horace lived with her and her sister Clarissa (known as Clara) at the large house on Church Street, referred to by all as “Pendletonia,” off and on beginning in 1947. During those years, he learned much about his famous aunt.

Even though she once had an opportunity to leave, Susie had remained in Hebron, an isolated community in which people were pretty much stuck with each other when it came to socializing. From outward appearances, she was a bright, beautiful woman who found contentment in her community work, her writing, and her social engagements.

But one “secret” Susie tried to keep mostly likely influenced her decision to become a writer, artist, and poet. From an early age, she had struggled to hear the happy chatter typical of the teas and picnics dominating Hebron social life at the turn of the 20^th century. “It was some kind of bone misalignment in her ears that she was probably born with,” said Horace. “Hearing aids couldn’t help.” It would be years before the general public became aware that Susie had a significant hearing problem. Horace clearly remembers that “as she got older, she took to writing notes to people. She could talk fine, but she couldn’t hear their responses, so writing was just much easier for her. I still have some notes she used to write me.”

Although few knew it, Susie found herself in a number of “competitive situations” with Caroline Kellogg, another single woman and the long-time librarian at the Hebron Public Library. Carrie, who was almost 20 years older, was also a writer, although not nearly as prolific as Susie. “The relationship between the two,” says Horace, “was frosty.”

Part of the reason for that “frosty” relationship might have centered on Ida Porter (later Mrs. Charles Douglas.) Ida had a way of surrounding herself with women of like interests, taking on the men in town, and ultimately accomplishing many good things for the community. Both Susie and Carrie were devoted to books and the need for a library, so it was natural that they seek a friendship with Ida, the recognized leader in the creation of the Hebron Public Library in 1898.

It was Susie who at a very early age joined Ida in the Rosebud Society and later the Hebron Literary Association that ultimately led to the first library building project. It was also Susie who worked hand-in-hand with Ida on Hebron’s 1908 celebration of the town’s 200^th anniversary of incorporation (a goal of Ida’s), and it was Susie who for years had performed with Ida in local plays.

But it was ultimately Carrie who was given the honor of memorializing Ida’s contributions to the Hebron Library Association.

Carrie began her address with the words, “Because, I suppose, of the many years in which we were so intimately connected in the welfare of our library, I have been asked to try to tell a little of what Mrs. Charles Douglas has meant to it. It is a large order, for how can I put the doings of the thirty years we worked together in the few lines allotted me? ... I do not mean to praise her out of reason, yet words spoken truly must of necessity reveal the beauty of her character.”

Later, in 1937, Carrie mailed her handwritten speech, complete with scratch-outs and notes in the margins, to Dr. Douglas. For some odd reason, the letter ended up among Susie’s possessions, although no one knows exactly how or why. It is not known whether Susie felt slighted. After all, her friendship with Ida went back fifty years, far longer than Carrie’s thirty years!

Over time Susie and Carrie had found themselves joined together in the forefront of other community affairs, such as leading the charge for women’s suffrage. At the turn of the century, Connecticut women were only allowed to vote on Town School Committee members. In 1911, there were only eight Hebron women registered to vote for even that, with Susie and Carrie being the only single women. In 1912, they were joined by another single woman, Daisy White. Interestingly, in the 1913 School Committee elections, it was only these three maiden ladies – Susie, Carrie, and Daisy – that actually voted; the six married women did not. Unencumbered with husbands, perhaps Susie and Carrie competed to lead the suffrage banner for all Hebron women, but that is not known.

“When Carrie died in 1945, her will listed people who were allowed into her house and take one item. My mother was on the list, and she selected a Chippendale mirror. When she came home, she said she got it for Susan.” Susie’s response was short and to the point: “I don’t want it.” Horace still has Carrie’s mirror.

Despite her leading role in the community, Susie’s biggest secret had a profound impact on her, as evidenced in the poetry she wrote over many decades.

Many of those poems have a dark side to them, and there is no doubt that someone broke Susie’s heart. In “To Be Shut Of Love,” she wrote: “I am glad to be shut of love, To pull out of it and get by. I looked at a red flower, Asked God to let me die….I look back with a scornful wonder, Back on those tides of pain; I’m glad it’s all over, all over – I wish it were here again.”

Sometime in her late 20’s or early 30’s, Susie had indeed been in love with a man whose name is now forgotten. He was in the manufacturing business and planned to move to the Midwest, perhaps Cleveland, taking Susie with him. But Dr. Pendleton put his foot down. “No daughter of mine is going to marry an Adventurer,” he told her. Susie kept the painful secret “locked tight away” throughout her lie. She told the story to Horace only once, never mentioning the incident again.

If anyone in town knew about the “Adventurer,” they never let on. True to the times they lived in, it was simply never discussed. But her poetry reveals the true depth of her heartbreak. At times, Susie seems almost angry with God, with the concept of love and beauty, and with herself, knowing she had no other means of venting her tremendous loss.

In an often overlooked poem, “A Window Through,” Susie wrote of sitting in church at the age of 10, lost in the blue skies she could see through the windows, thinking that surely it must be Heaven she was seeing. But the poem concludes “Was it true that I worshipped God? And was it a prayer?” And in “Sweet Fern, Bayberry,” she wrote another telling verse: “Do the great ones above on their part, Toy thus with the human heart? Ah, do our sorrows rise, Perfuming the craving skies?”

Another of Susie’s poems was titled “Do Not Pray Too Hard,” in which she wrote: “But once I wanted! Tore the sky apart! God in reply like thunder spoke! My prayer was granted. And my heart broke.” In reading the sum total of Susie’s poetry, most likely she had prayed that God would lead her in the most difficult choice of her life: abide by her father’s wishes or marry her beloved suitor.

Peppered throughout the poems are constant references to “secrets,” “fears” and “death.” But she knew it wasn’t proper to share those thoughts; after all, as she wrote in “Keep It Dark,” “Folks who are afraid of the world mustn’t let other folks know.”

Selected poems of Susan Bingham Pendleton were published in 1966 in a slim volume called They Will Remain, also the title of the final poem in the collection. A year later, when she was 97 years old, Susie was awarded a Certificate of Merit from the Fine Arts Foundation of Connecticut for her contribution to American poetry. They Shall Remain is available at www.HebronHistoricalSociety.org.

Shortly before her 100^th birthday, Susie told her great-nephew that she wanted to go into a nursing home. “It was something she really wanted; the big rambling house had just become too much for her,” said Horace. Susie, along with her secrets and memories, moved to a place in Mansfield, leaving Hebron behind.

On April 3, 1972, less than a month shy of her 102^nd birthday, Susan Bingham Pendleton passed away. She is buried with her parents at St. Peters Cemetery.

Alice Elizabeth Hills Foote –Long Lived Hebron Resident

Alice Elizabeth Hills Foote is still remembered for many things. Born September 21, 1868, she passed away on June 14, 1980 at the age of 111, just 3 months shy of her 112th birthday. Alice still holds the title of "Longest Living Resident" in the State of Connecticut. Her annual birthdays, starting at age 100, were covered by every major newspaper in the state.

Alice was famous for her rugs and rugmaking, her commitment to the Gilead Congregational Church, her love of family and community... and her homemade doughnuts!

Izzy Turshen: Hebron’s “Renaissance Man”

His name isn’t really “Izzy,” you know. Some remember that he was officially “Ira Charles Turshen.” But even that isn’t true….his birth name was Isidore. Wanting an American name, he purposely changed it to “Ira,” but for some reason, he remained “Izzy” to everyone, and he is still “Izzy” today in Hebron’s rich folklore. Reprinted from June 2006 edition of Hebron Marlborough Life.

Longtime residents remember Izzy well, and easily recount his many contributions to Hebron during his lifetime. They also admit they know little about Izzy’s pre-Hebron years.

Izzy was born in a small shtetl in Nesvig, in the province of Minsk, Russia, the son of Abraham and Marsha Turshen. Even Izzy never knew his birth date because of the lack of records, but his 8th grade certificate would indicate he was born in 1899 or 1900. Abraham came to America shortly thereafter, leaving behind his wife, Izzy, and two daughters, Dorothy and Bella. Working hard in the garment industry, he was able to bring his family to the States four years later.

Abe was all about work, and that message was delivered early to his children. Izzy worked hard, but he was also an accomplished athlete, as well as a burgeoning artist and architect, which Abe just couldn’t understand. Izzy remembered a time when he didn’t show up for work, opting to play baseball instead. Abe went looking for him and found him on the fields, just as Izzy was up to bat. When Izzy hit the ball, Abe thought he was running away from him. So he chased him all around the diamond, never realizing that his son had just hit a home run!

It was a tumultuous relationship; ultimately Izzy ran away from home at 15. Two life-changing events occurred during his time away: he found work on a Colchester farm, and came to love rural Connecticut, and he contacted malaria, and lost most of his hair. From that time on, no one ever saw Izzy without a hat, something that is well-remembered today. “Dad would wear his hat until he went to bed at night; when we went to the movies, he would keep it on until the lights went down,” remembers his daughter, Marsha Turshen DuBeau.

After a stint working on the trains selling snacks, Izzy returned to New York, where he ultimately met and married Sophie Gross. They followed in the path of their Jewish parents, and opened a floor covering and used furniture business, settling in Brooklyn. But the call to rural Connecticut was still in Izzy’s heart, and when he read in 1924 that a grain business was for sale in Amston, he jumped at the chance.

As happened with many commercial buildings at that time, the Turshen’s mill burned down in 1927, smoldering for weeks because of the stored gain and the fact that it was a wooden building. Izzy’s creative mind took over, and he rebuilt the factory himself using brick. The building included what would become Izzy’s signature trademark, a circular window. Once completed, it became one of the most successful operations in all of Hebron, primarily due to its proximity to the Turnerville Train Depot and the hard work the Turshens put into the enterprise.

Izzy and Sophie soon became integral parts of the Hebron Jewish community, primarily because they had been educated in America and spoke fluent English. Because of their store, which served residents in Columbia, Lebanon, Gilead and Amston, they also soon became friends with many of Hebron’s longest residents, including the Hildings, the Hills, the Porters, the Hortons, and the Cobbs. They were also friends to many tramps, which were common in Depression days. “Mom would always give them food. But she was also kept a fireplace poker at the ready, just in case there was trouble,” says daughter Lotti Turshen Morris.

Sophie was an Orthodox Jew, but Marsha describes her family’s approach to religion as “pragmatic orthodoxy.” The family kept kosher, and the family housekeeper, Mrs. Sarah Rathbun, learned to cook kosher food (sneaking in New England pastries any time she could.) But the store also operated on Saturdays, the Jewish Sabbath. On occasion, Izzy would take his children to Swift’s in Willimantic to buy goods for the store, yet also eat a ham sandwich from the luncheonette next door, warning his children “Don’t let your mother know!”

Izzy took it upon himself to publish a newsletter called The Amston Poster. On December 15, 1935, he proudly announced that he had joined the IGA. His newsletters were always welcomed for a number of reasons; he included updates on the volunteer fire department, environmental issues in town, updates on road improvements, births and deaths, and sports news. Izzy was actively pursuing another of his passions – baseball – and managing Hebron’s famous teams. “There are two religions in town,” Izzy would tell his son Richard “Dick” Turshen. “Sunday morning everyone goes to Church, and Sunday afternoon everyone goes to the baseball game.” Ballplayers were usually transported to the games on Izzy’s truck.

As time went on, Izzy became known as a good listener and advisor. Many, especially young people, sought his advice. The Turshen children remember their home was visited almost daily by someone seeking Izzy’s advice. He was also known for using humor to deliver his seasoned advice. “Dad would go to town meetings, and when things got heated, he would tell a joke and get everyone laughing. Then he would offer his opinion, and people would listen,” says Lotti. Dick adds, “Sometimes those jokes were a bit off-color, which had people laughing even more.”

Perhaps Izzy’s greatest accomplishment, in his own eyes, was building Hebron’s synagogue, which today is considered one of Connecticut’s crown architectural jewels. People had been meeting in private homes for Sabbath services for decades, and the need for a building was publicized as early as 1935. A building committee was formed, although Izzy was not particularly happy with their findings. He wanted a structure that would last for generations; the building committee felt they had to live within their limited budget. According to Dick, “My father told them, ‘Let me design and build the synagogue; I’ll make up the difference for any cost overruns.’” The congregation agreed, and Izzy was off and running. He gathered old bricks from collapsed buildings, and Dick became the “straw boss,” directing his sisters and other children who chipped off the concrete from the old bricks for a penny each.

Izzy personally built the synagogue, using the recycled bricks on the north, west and south sides (those walls have now been stuccoed over and painted white.) The entrance on the east side was built with new bricks, an Art Deco design that included Izzy’s signature circular window. He handmade the Star of David stained glass window using, of course, scrap glass he had collected. “Dad was a natural artist and architect, but he was brought up in a time when pursing his dreams wasn’t possible. The synagogue gave him an opportunity to show his talents,” said Marsha. The Agudas Achim Synagogue of the United Brethren of Hebron was officially dedicated on September 14, 1941.

World War II began shortly thereafter, and Izzy answered the call to lead Hebron’s War Council. He soon became known for his daily rounds through the neighborhoods, seeking rubber and scrap metal for the war effort. His truck was decorated with signs urging Hitler and Hirohito to hurry on down to the dark side. Local children would pile onto the truck, wanting to help. Indeed, says Marsha, Izzy kept a Crisco can in his bedroom; every day he would pick up anything from the ground that was metallic, and at night, deposit the material into the can. It was Izzy’s truck that hauled Hebron’s war canon to the depository as a contribution to the effort. When the war was over, people missed seeing Izzy’s truck making the rounds.

Izzy sold the store following his first heart attack in 1946. Sophie became the Amston Postmaster the following year. Izzy died on January 19, 1950, following a second heart attack. The stalwart Sophie learned to drive and lived an independent life, continuing as Postmaster until her own death in October 1958, the result of an automobile accident on the Merritt Parkway.

All three of Izzy and Sophie’s children today gratefully remember the values their parents taught them. “We have so much respect for our father and mother, and we know their ideas, standards, and feelings about how you treat people have been the greatest gift they could have ever given us,” said Lotti.

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Zachmanns Recall Life in Hebron’s “Little Italy

The United States witnessed significant population growth at the start of the 20th century as immigrants fled tumultuous Europe and headed towards America in hopes of a new life.  The vast majority of these immigrants landed in New York City, and from there, spread throughout the country. 

Connecticut’s vast farming lands were especially attractive to the newcomers, and soon the state, and Hebron, were welcoming new families.  Numerous Eastern Europeans (and some Northern Europeans) settled in central Hebron and Turnerville (Amston).  Interestingly, Southern Europeans (predominately Italians) chose to live in the northern part of Hebron.  Nestled between the Foote, Hills and Ellis farms, Italians soon dominated almost all of North Street, from Hebron all the way to Bolton, and the area became affectionately known as “Little Italy.”

Thanks to the memories, pictures and records of Rena Borsotti Zachmann and her husband Joe, we learn much about life in Hebron’s Italian community.  Other Italian families who settled in the area were the Saglios, Barrassos, Gambolatis, Negroes, Fracchias, Cordanis, and Peracchios.

In 1920, Emilio and Maria Borsotti, and their two adult sons, Severino and Peter, all of whom had been born in Italy, decided to make Hebron their home. (Their daughters, Esterina and Maria, who had also been born in Italy, decided to stay in New York.) The Borsottis bought the property located at 128 North Street from Theresa Gambolati for $9000.  The purchase consisted of a large farmhouse, which, at that time, had a large, distinctive front porch.  According to legend, the house had once been owned by Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy under President Abraham Lincoln.  The purchase also included a 192-acre farm, a barn and silo, and all the livestock and tools.  The vast majority of the land was on North Street, although there also a smaller parcel on Gilead Street, just south of Foote Hills Farm.

Italian was spoken in the home, as it was in almost all of the Italian homes, and it became the job of the children to teach their parents English.  But the language barrier was overcome, and Emilio was soon hard at work, establishing a successful dairy farm and orchard.  Like most of the other Italian families, the Borsottis also grew vegetables such as cabbage, cauliflower and strawberries.  The Borsottis were frequent customers of Elton Buell, whose mill operation had become famous for the crates it manufactured for shipping cauliflower throughout Connecticut and Massachusetts.

In 1925, Severino married Italian-born Irma Pattarini, who had met her future husband while visiting her sister in Manchester.  They moved in with Emilio, Maria and Peter, and all five adults worked hard on the farm.  After Peter married Anna Reale, Emilio and Maria decided to move into an apartment across the street, and leave the farming operations to their two sons and their families, who continued living in the house.

It was an exciting time in Hebron.  New farming and dairy technologies were beginning to be introduced, and other inventions began to become commonplace in town.  The Borsotti brothers, in addition to their farming duties, were also hired to dig all the holes for the first telephone poles along North Street. 

Irma gave birth to George in 1927, and to Rena in 1928.  The two children walked down North Street to the White School (located at the intersections of today’s Route 94 and 85), where they attended grades 1 through 8.  There were no buses for that particular school route.  At the White School, they formed friendships with their classmates, such as the Links and Foote children, whose families had lived in Hebron for generations.

During World War II, Peter took a job with Pratt & Whitney, and he and his family moved to the apartment complex across the street where Emilio and Maria still lived.  The Borsotti farming operations were left solely in Severino and Irma’s hands. Although Rena and George both attended Windham High School, they helped their parents with the farm when not in school.

About this time that New York-born Joseph Zachmann appeared in Hebron.  Joe, a spirited young man, had enlisted in the Navy at age 17 and served on two different ships, the U.S.S. Biscayne and the U.S.S. Warren, both troop transport ships based in the Pacific theatre.  He had seen much during World War II, including Japanese kamikaze pilots that hit a nearby ship in which all but 10 sailors were killed. 

Returning to New York, Joe enrolled at Newtown High School to finish his last year of schooling.  The program required that he complete two summers as a farming apprentice.  He successfully applied for an apprenticeship at the Hills’ dairy farm, where he lived in the main house with Homer and Catherine, and their children Wilbur, Allan, Mary and Beverly. 

Joe became particularly friendly with George Borsotti, and soon noticed Rena at baseball games.  One day he told George, “Tell your sister I want to take her to the movies tonight.”  That night, he picked up Rena, and they went to the movies in Manchester, followed by dinner at Shady Glen. 

The couple dated for almost two years, and Irma frequently invited Joe for some of her delicious meals.  They went to many barn and square dances, especially those at the Gilead Grange; dancing was quite popular in those days.  “Everybody dressed up for the dances; the boys always wore suits and ties,” recalls Rena.  On September 1, 1951, the couple married at St. James Catholic Church in Manchester.  The occasion was especially significant for Joe.  Father Vito Mistretta, a Catholic priest who had befriended Joe during his early Navy years, flew to Connecticut to perform the ceremony.

Joe was working as a civil servant in the Bronx, so Rena gave up her job with the Department of Agriculture in Hartford, and moved to New York.  Adjusting to the fourth floor 3-room apartment was difficult.  Nine months after daughter Mary was born in 1954, Joe decided that he wanted to raise his family in Connecticut.  “New York was no place to raise children; they couldn’t play anywhere without by chased and I didn’t want that,” said Joe.  Rena was delighted!

With no job, the Zachmanns returned to Hebron, living in a house on Foote Hills Farm for $25 a month.  Joe ultimately took a job driving a milk tanker, and became a familiar face at the Hebron dairy farms.  Two more daughters were born, Jean in 1956 and JoAnn in 1960.  The Zachmanns also helped with the Borsotti farm operations, and moved in with Irma after Severino died in 1957. 

The farm proved too much to handle after Severino’s death, and the land was rented out.  Irma deeded two acres of land from the Gilead farming parcel to Joe and Rena, where they spent the next two years building their house.  On the night they moved in, they brought Irma with them.   

Many of the Italian farming operations along North Street began winding down operations about this time. Ultimately, the Borsotti farm was sold to the Neumans, and later sold to the MacDonalds.  There was a large fire at the house in 1977, and the Moss family ultimately bought the property.  Today, it is owned by the late Betsy Foote Osborn.

After their daughters graduated from RHAM High School, Rena took a job at the Pratt & Whitney Research Library.  Irma continued to be active in the Hebron community, and in 1997, the first year the contest was held, was named “Maple Fest Queen.”  Joe and Rena still have her “key to the city,” a piece of blue packaging ribbon with a car key attached!  Irma lived with the Zachmanns until her death in 1997.

Joe retired in 1992; Rena retired in 1994.  Today, when not traveling or gardening, Rena works at the polls and Joe continues to cut wood for his entire family.  Their three daughters all reside in Hebron.  Italian traditions remain strong with the family.

Why did Italian families choose to settle in the north side of Hebron?  Joe believes it is because of the terrain in Gilead.  “The land is so much like the land in Italy, especially the rolling hills where they had had their orchards.  It was a gentle reminder of the country they left behind when they started their new lives in America.

Reflections…. On the Lives of Lulu and Gil Jones

Tell me then what is this glory
That come to our fighting Sons
Tell then what is the honor
To be killed by German guns…

Last month, the Douglas Library showcased female Hebron authors in honor of Women’s History Month.  One of those was the book Reflections:  Poems of Lucille Porter Jones. 

Hebron is fortunate to count many famous women poets in its history, including Susan Bingham Pendleton, Ethel Rogers Brehant, and Dorothy Brehant Taggart.  But it is the poetry of “Lulu” Jones that, at times, is so gut-wrenching that men and women alike find themselves fighting tears when reading it. 

Who was this compelling woman, who, at the tender age of 16, married Carlton “Gil” Jones, one of Hebron’s most famous baseball players?  What kind of suffering must she have known, having lost her uncle, Merle Jones, in World War I, and both her brother, Marshall, and her beloved son, Carlton, in World War II?  Through her poetry, much of which was influenced by her losses, Lulu has left a legacy that will live forever.

Lucille, born in 1905, was the daughter of the “other” Porter line in Hebron, Elihu and his wife Flora Williams.  Elihu and Flora owned the large Porter Farm on Old Andover Road, and it was here that Lulu worked after completing her 8th grade studies at Hebron Center School.  It is not known how she met the handsome Carlton Hills Jones, four years her senior, and the son of Hebron’s famous auctioneer and probate judge, Carlton Blish “Carly B.” Jones.  The Jones family had been in Hebron for generations; Elihu and Flora were first generation Hebronians.  Regardless, shortly after their meeting, Lulu and Gil were married in 1920, and by the following year, had a son, Carlton Porter Jones.  Not surprising for that day and time, Lulu’s mother gave birth a year after that to Marshall, making Lulu’s brother younger than her own son. 

It was a busy decade for Lulu and her husband.  Gil was already an established baseball player, and Hebron, like so many other small rural Connecticut communities, was thoroughly consumed by baseball.  An outstanding pitcher, the 230-pound Gil had many nicknames in the press:  Cannonball Jones, Farmer Gil and Farmer Jones (which was interesting since he wasn’t a farmer!)  He played for a number of well-known teams, including the Eastern Connecticut State League, the Fitchville Athletic Club, the Yantic Twilights, Glastonbury, East Hampton Bellringers, and the Waterbury Brasscos.  He often left Lulu on her own as he traveled the state, auditioning or playing for a number of teams.  But he always sent her postcards, letting his beloved wife know what was going on.  It appears from the address on the 1927 postcards that Lulu was staying with her parents, who by then were living in Andover, having already sold their farm to Claude Jones. 

In the late 1920’s, Gil returned to Hebron permanently and opened his garage in the center of town, across the street from his father’s house (the Mobil station now occupies that parcel of land.)  Even though he continued to play baseball well into his 50’s, the garage was his primary source of income.  In 1931, ten years after Carlton was born, Lulu and Gil celebrated the birth of their second, and last, child, daughter, Betty.

There weren’t that many cars in the 30’s but still, the need was there for a garage and gasoline pumps.  “Alma Porter had gas pumps in front of her post office and store, and so did Dad,” remembers daughter Betty.  “As more and more people bought cars, which always seemed to need repair, they would come to Dad’s garage, and just got in the habit of buying their gas from him too.”  Like so many Hebron properties, it fell victim to fire, and burned to the ground.  But Gil rebuilt it in 1930, and found a new passion in the fledgling Hebron Volunteer Fire Department.  He was its first Chief at its official date of incorporation.  It was Gil who argued furiously for the town to invest in its first fire truck, delivered in 1937.

“Mother was a quiet person, basically a housewife, but she was a fantastic cook!” says Betty.  “The back half of the garage had a hot dog stand, and Mother ran that for several years.  That may be where she got her reputation for good cooking.”  Lulu was also active in the First Congregational Church, serving as a Sunday School teacher, and the original Hebron Women’s Club.  All the while, Carlton played frequently with her younger brother, Marshall.

The Hurricane of 1938 profoundly affected Gil and Lulu.  Betty remembers being let out of Hebron Center school early, and running the short distance to her house, where she ran from window to window, watching the trees fall.  Many people were stranded, and they founded their way to the Jones house, where Lulu worked almost round the clock feeding them.  It was maybe the best of times for Lulu, who felt great satisfaction in helping out those less fortunate than herself.

Lulu felt dread when World War II commenced.  Hebron had lost only one member during World War I, and it was her uncle, George Merle Porter.  Gil immediately signed up with the Hebron War Council, and was named the official Air Raid Warden.  In 1943, Lulu’s brother was called up, then her son.  In addition, many of the children that had surrounded her for years, including Lloyd Gray, the son of her best friend Susan Miner Gray, Hebron’s Town Clerk, were also called up.   Lulu turned her inner anxiety to writing, first to brother Marshall at Fort Devens in Massachusetts:

I wish you luck in this new adventure
Your country calls you to,
May you have success, courage and valor
In everything you do.

She also wrote about Carlton, who had been sent to Fort Riley, Kansas:

I went about my work today
The same old work, the same old way…
I miss your happy smiling face
I miss your things strewn ‘round the place
I miss the things you always do
In other words, I just miss You.

Marshall, a member of the Air Force, was declared missing in action on June 10, 1944.  It is believed that his plane went down over the English Channel, and he is even today official “Missing In Action.”  The devastated Lulu, referring to her brother as “my son” wrote: 

Little boy, don’t reach so high…
Maybe when you’ve grown my son
And you’ve had your share of fun
You can try your wings in flight
And reach that moon some starry night.

Just six weeks later, the telegram from the War Department came again.  Betty, who was visiting Uncle Claude at the Andover Road farm, heard the telephone ring, and was told to go home immediately.  She flew on her bike, only to find the house filled with people.  Reverend George Milne stayed with Lulu, but nothing could really console her.  Lulu stopped going to church, and pictures of Carlton disappeared from the walls.  She poured her emotions into writing, remembering the day Carlton had left:

“Don’t worry Mom, I’ll hurry back
as soon as this war is won.
I’ll finish all the things and such
That I had just begun.
We’ll take that trip we talked about
There’s lots of things to see.
Don’t worry Mom, I’ll be right back”
Is what he said to me.

The war is not yet over
The victory not yet won.
But he will never finish
The things he’d just begun.
He told me not to worry
And he asked me not to cry
“Don’t worry Mom,” is what he said….

And then he said Goodbye.

 In her poem “Heartache”, Lulu wrote:

I prayed for you while you were there
It did no good – my mother’s prayer
The war will end and peace will come
But not to us….

As with all tragedy, time somewhat healed the wounds.  Pictures of Carlton slowly but surely reappeared on the walls of the Jones’ home, and Lulu ultimately began attending Betty’s church in Westchester.  Trips to Maine helped ease her soul, as did Gil’s constant support.  Indeed, says Betty, Gil was frequently teased for always holding Lulu’s hand, or having his arm around her.  Their love grew even deeper as a result of the tragedies.

Gil continued working at his garage until 1976, shortly before his death of cancer.  Lulu joined him in the peace and serenity of God’s heaven in 1980.  Appropriately, Reverend Milne eulogized Lucille Porter Jones at her service, “Lulu’s life was a quiet one; faithful, strong and good – a reminder of the deep, strong goodness that often passes unnoticed, but that holds the world together…”

The old Jones garage is today the home of Daisies and Daffodils florist shop.  The Jones homestead, inaccurately referred to as the “Ous House,” was torn down as part of the Douglas Library expansion project in 1997.  The legacy of Gil and Lulu Jones will live on forever. 

Hebron Immigrants, 1912-1920: The Hildings Leave A Permanent Mark

Immigration and immigrants are hot topics in today’s world. Hebron has witnessed significant “newcomers” on basically 50-year intervals: the 1850’s; the first two decades of the 20th century; the 1950’s; and the 1990’s. Particularly interesting is the international immigrant influx from 1912 to 1920. Their influence is still with us today.

The Pagach family, with their Czechoslovakian background, moved to Hebron in 1912; the Kowalski’s from Poland came in 1918, followed shortly by their cousins, the Pomprowicz’s, in 1920. The Ukrainian Kulynyck family came in 1920. The Italian Barrasso and the Saglio families also came in the early 1920’s. At that same time, Hebron saw Jewish families moving into Hebron, such as the Garbich’s from Argentina and the Turshen’s from Poland. Many of these families and their descendents are still here today.

One family, the Hildings, originally from Sweden, kept exceptionally detailed records of their farm, leaving us with a unique bird’s-eye view of Hebron in the early 20th century. But it was the intermingling of the old and new Hebron that makes the family unique.

Like most immigrants, John and Carolina Hilding started out in New York. Working as a tailor, John longed to return to his Swedish farming roots. Ultimately, the Hildings purchased a farm in Spring Valley, and specialized in honey, chickens and eggs. Four sons (Charles, Samuel, Edward and Albert) and two daughters (Victoria and Stella) went to school and ran the farm as John continued to work in New York, returning to Spring Valley on the weekends.

John and Carolina decided to move to Connecticut in 1909, selling the Spring Valley farm and using the proceeds to purchase a farm in Columbia. Neighbors to the Clifford Robinsons, the Hildings operated a successful grain and dairy operation. The milk was hauled every day by horse and wagon to the Turnerville Depot, where it was taken by train to the New Haven Dairy. Two events shaped the course of Hilding family history while living in Columbia. First, they attended the Hebron Congregational Church, where they were befriended by longtime resident, F. Clarence Bissell. Second, they took their grain to Porter’s Grist Mill, and it was here that one of the sons, Albert, met his future wife, Ethel Helen Porter.

It’s not really known exactly why John and Carolina sold the Columbia farm in 1912 and moved to Pine Bush, New York. Their grandson, Win Hilding (who now lives in Storrs), believes there was a water shortage, which may have played a significant role in their decision. One can’t run a dairy farm without water! Whatever the reason, the Hildings took the $3000 profit from the sale of the Columbia property, and purchased the Pine Bush dairy farm. Milk was now delivered to the Borden Dairy Company, and monthly checks were carefully recorded.

A mere 15 months later, the Hildings decided to return to Connecticut, again for reasons truly unknown. Win Hilding writes, “Bad thunderstorms, poor soil, market problems or nostalgia for their friends in Connecticut made them decide to return.” The decision may have also been influenced by Bissell, their old friend, who offered to sell his 100 acre farm on Church Street for a very reasonable price.

The Bissell property was sold to the “Hilding Brothers” – not their parents – for $3250. Charles, by now a successful shipping broker for the R. F. Downing Company in New York City, conducted the negotiations. Bissell sent Charles a telegram on January 4, 1914: “Will meet you in Hebron Wednesday at three o’clock and complete the trade…bring certified check rather than currency… write me on Monday if this suits your convenience.” Charles then sent a telegram to his brother Sam on January 5th with a simple message: “Bissel [sic] accepts; await letter.”

Sam acted as official agent for the brothers, and on January 7, 1914, signed the sale papers in his elegant, 19th century-style handwriting. He put down $2000 in cash and agreed to a $1250 mortgage over five years at 5% interest. On January 12, Bissell (who was now living in Hartford and serving as Connecticut’s Deputy State Comptroller) wrote to the brothers that he had just moved out all his furniture, and that the current renter would vacate the property by April 1. “We are now having some very blustering cold weather and I think you are wise in not trying to move until later in the season,” he wrote. The three brothers, Sam, Ed and Albert, with parents and sister Victoria in tow, moved into the property in March 1914. Charles remained in New York.

Like all the immigrant families coming into Hebron, the Hilding brothers were hard workers. Sam and Ed were the apparent workhorses; Albert was not only hard-working, he was the record keeper and perhaps the genius behind the farm’s success. The interest payments were faithfully sent to Bissell every June and December, as outlined in the sale papers. Sam sent one payment, but Albert made all the others.

The first major task for the brothers was building a new dairy barn, a milk house, and an ice house, jobs that took them almost a year. Chestnut timbers from the Buell saw mill in Gilead were hauled by wagon, and concrete floors were poured. By February 1915, the brothers were back in the dairy business, once again selling milk to the New Haven Dairy Company, although it was no longer a happy business arrangement. Albert kept daily farm records, recording weather conditions, output of the cows and chickens, and payments made to laborers.

Albert, still enamored with the beautiful and vivacious Ethel Porter, married her in 1917. Ethel and her aunt, Ida (who ultimately married Dr. Charles Douglas), were among the most popular women in town. Ethel and Albert’s marriage, in many ways, was a perfect match. Ethel brought out the best in the quiet, serious Albert, and Albert brought deep love and commitment to Ethel. With Ethel at his side, Albert became an integral part of the Hebron community, especially the Hebron Library Board of Directors and the Hebron Congregational Church, organizations he served for 50 years. Ethel remained active in the Original Hebron Women’s Club, the Congregational Church and performed for local community theatre. Their three children, Winthrop, Alberta, and Lois, were the light of their parents’ lives.

If you look at the Hilding homestead (now the parsonage for Church of the Holy Family), it appears to be two homes, joined together by a center ell. Albert, Ethel and the children occupied the northern part of the home; John, Carolina, Sam, Ed, and Victoria occupied the southern part. The home was filled with people, but the layout of the house offered privacy and a living arrangement that worked well.

It was the egg and chicken business that ultimately made the Hilding farm successful. Why? “Monopolistic practices” by the big dairies led to very low profit levels (2 cents per quart) and milk production quotas. The brothers were early leaders in attempts to unionize other Connecticut dairy farmers, and were blacklisted by New Haven Dairy for six years. Right after this, Albert became a postal carrier for the Amston post office to supplement the family’s income, a position he held for 34 years. He became a local folk hero for delivering mail on the day that the 1938 hurricane devastated Hebron.

With the advent of electricity, and using incubators purchased from Montgomery Ward, the brothers soon realized that the profit was in selling chicks. They ended the dairy business ended permanently in 1943. Two years later, the brothers had expanded the chicken coops to two stories, with a capacity of 2000 laying hens. The chicken and egg business continued successfully until the farm was finally sold to Harry Megson in 1965.

John and Carolina died at the homestead and are buried in Hebron. Ed, Sam, and Victoria never married; their life was the farm. Charles eventually purchased a home on Church Street (now owned by the Haydon family), just north of his brothers, and was a frequent visitor to Hebron. The surviving Hilding family members, Sam, Ed, Albert and Ethel and their children, then moved to new homes on Chestnut Hill Road, land that had once been owned by Ethel’s father, Henry Clinton Porter.

The Hilding farm is referred to today as the “Johnson” property, a site purchased by the Town of Hebron a year ago for open space and recreation purposes. But for over 50 years, three brothers worked the land and became an integral and welcome part of our community. What an example they have set for us, the 21st century wave of “newcomers.”

Lloyd Gray—World War Two Veteran

Farewell, Gray Eagle

Lloyd Sherwood Gray, a lifelong Hebronian, passed away very early Saturday morning, January 15, 2005, just 20 days after entering Windham Hospital. Lloyd was a local folk hero. Most everyone has heard stories of his daredevil escapades in a variety of aircraft starting from around age 19. Most everyone will remember the twinkle in his eye and his sometimes subtle, sometimes outrageous humor.

Lloyd had the uncanny ability to make friends throughout his life; he could count friends that go all the way back to his childhood, “new” friends and neighbors that he has been close to for the past 20 years, and us “baby” friends who were fortunate enough to get to know Lloyd in the past year or so.

Lloyd was a humble man. He was not afraid to talk about his regrets in life, he was not afraid to talk about the things dearest in his life. He was not afraid to express his emotions about his family and friends and his love of flying. He was not afraid to express his love for his wife, Lucille Kelley Gray, and his mother, Susan Miner Gray.

Lloyd ended almost every one of our conversations and visits with, “Righto. Signing off for now, and thanks a million.”

Thanks a million for so many happy memories, Gray Eagle.

Jackie Robinson pages 42 and 43

Jackie Robinson never lived in Hebron nor is there any record that he ever visited here. It is certain that many Hebron people followed his career. Baseball and other sports are leading events in integrating racial differences.

Baseball was a popular sport in Hebron during the latter 1800’s and early 1900’s. It was a sport usually played only by boys and men in the beginning, but had wide appeal.

In the 1870’s Hebron was a host-town for 6 Chinese boys who came from wealthy Chinese merchant families and were sponsored by the Chinese Imperial government to come to America to learn about modern technology. They were part of the Chinese Educational Mission and were to live with Massachusetts and Connecticut families to learn English and increase their knowledge of American technology. Hebron hosted the largest number of Chinese students of any rural town. Arriving by ship on the United States west coast, these boys were some of the first passengers on the newly complete transcontinental railroad. These boys were divided into a group of four who lived in the Post House which stood between the United Brethren Synagogue and the traffic light. These students attended school in Hebron Center and were looked after by a young single woman named Mary Jane Post. Two other students live with Charles and Charlotte Phelps on Burnt Hill and attended either the Jagger School on Wall Street or the Lord School on East Street. Initially the boys spoke relatively little English and spent their first few weeks growing accustom to living in a foreign place –Hebron. When attending school, the boys would also be sent to Hartford to the Chinese Educational Mission headquarters where they would learn classical Chinese subjects in order to pass the Chinse civil service examination when they returned to China. Chen Qian Sheng, LuXigui, Cheng Daye, and Huang Wei Ching who lived with Ms. Post initially found it hard to blend in living in Hebron Center. They wore their Chinese robes, tied their long hair in a que and learned their lessons by memorizing the words out loud. Local Hebron children chide them shouting at them “Pigtail Chinaman eat rat soup”. This taunting stopped however when it became apparent that the Chinese boys excelled at playing baseball. From that point on, school yard baseball teams were quick to choos their Chinese classmates first when setting up teams.

Shen Dehui and his brother Shen Deyao who lived on the Phelps farm on Burnt Hill had a different experience. The two boys came from the Shanghai area of China and thus spoke a different dialect than the boys living in Hebron Center who spoke Cantonese. Children can sometimes be cruel to one another and in one taunting encounter one of the Chinese boys was said to have pulled out a knife and threatened another student. Both boys were recalled back to China, but wrote letters back to their host family, usually addressed to “Dear Mother Phelps”

As the Chinese students became more familiar with American life, they began to abandon their cultural traditions, clothes and hair styles. These changes led the Chinese officials to question the role of the program and eventually all the Chinese Education Mission students returned to China.

Their time in the United States benefited them Both Chen Qian Sheng and Lu Xigui became high ranking military officers at the Tiajin Arsenal in northern China. Cheng Daye became a telegraph Administrator and Huang Wei Ching became a military officer. Shen Dehui and Shen Deyao also found positions in China’s north with positions associated with coal mining and the Chinese railroad.

With the boys’ departure, Hebron returned to its quiet country ways, but the fact that baseball provided the common denominator for bridging a huge cultural gap was not forgotten.

The Economy then and now 51-54

Automobiles produced in Amston

In 1916 the Sterling Automobile Co. opened a small plant in Amston. They began to produce a two-seater roadster and an Ams. Sterling 5 passenger torpedo. A luxury car called the Royal Amston was planned but never built. Charles Ams displayed his prototype car at the New York Auto Show in 1916. It was hoped that 15 cars per month would be made in Amston, but in reality production was very slow and technical issues frequent. In all no more than 20-30 cars were ever produced in Hebron. Each vehicle was individually manufactured rather than being part of a mechanized assembly line. By September of 1917 the company was renamed the Amston Motor Car Company, but there were few investors for the new company and as a result of competition in manufacturing Amston Motor Car Company failed. The legacy of Amston’s motor car industry remains in its name. Until Charles Ams set up shop, this area of Hebron was known as Turnerville. The name was changed anticipating that Amston might grow like Detroit.

Phineas Turner had a much more successful manufacturing career. Turner bought the old Hebron iron works in Amston and the property surrounding Amston Lake. This insured a steady supply of water power for his silk mills. Producing American silk had begun in Mansfield by the Hanks Brothers and John Gilbert Junior of Hebron planting mulberry trees and processing the silk cocoons into thread. Phineas Turner followed their example and established silk factory in Amston. In the 1870’s he employed newly migrant Irish women to staff his manufactory, but in the 1880’s he recruited Swiss silk workers. The Amston mills produced silk thread not woven cloth and operated until about 1900 when Phineas Turner died and his son decided to halt manufacturing. Phineas Turner was an eager supporter of the railroad going through Amston. As a result, other immigrants found their way to Hebron. By the early 20^th century several Italian families lived in Gilead, Jewish families lived in Amston and Hebron Center, Slovak and Polish families lived on dairy farms scattered through town. These new immigrants practiced a different form of farming than had been practiced in Hebron. By specializing in dairy herds or raising chickens, these farmers took under producing Hebron farms and made them profitable again. In the early 20^th century almost everyone living in Hebron was doing some sort of farming reviving the economy of the town.

Hebron inventions 55-59

Samuel Morey

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Samuel Morey
1909 illustration by A. C. Gow which appeared as the frontispiece in a 1915 biography
Born	October 23, 1762 Hebron, Connecticut, U.S.
Died	April 17, 1843 (aged 80) Fairlee, Vermont, U.S.
Resting place	West Cemetery, Orford, New Hampshire
Nationality	American
Occupation(s)	Businessman Inventor
Engineering career
Significant advance	Heated-surface carburetor Ethanol internal combustion engine Steamboat design and construction

Samuel Morey (October 23, 1762 – April 17, 1843) was an American inventor, who worked on early internal combustion engines and was a pioneer in steamships who accumulated a total of 20 patents.

Early life

The son of a Revolutionary War Officer.^[1] He was the second of seven children born to Israel Morey (1735–1809) and Martha Palmer (1733–1810) and was born in Hebron, Connecticut,^[2] but moved to Orford, New Hampshire, with his family in 1768. His father Israel Morey served in the colonial militia and rapidly rose from private to general.^[3] Samuel Morey operated a successful lumber business in Orford and Fairlee, Vermont. He died in 1843, and was buried in Orford. Lake Morey in Vermont is named in his honor.^[4]

Steam work

US Patent X306 (Force from Water with Assist of Steam) issued in November 1800

Morey's first patent, in 1793,^[5] was for a steam-powered spit, but he had grander plans. Morey realized that steam could be a power source in the 1780s, and he probably appreciated a steamboat's potential from work on his father's ferry and the locks he designed along the Connecticut river. In the early 1790s he fitted a paddle wheel and steam engine to a small boat and powered it up and down the Connecticut River. Legend has it, this was done on a Sunday morning, when the town was at church, to avoid ridicule if he failed.^[4]

The most important aspect of this craft was the paddle wheel. It was an old idea – supposedly dating to antiquities – and previously tried with a steam engine. Jonathan Hulls of England used a rear-mounted paddle wheel in 1737 but an inefficient method of turning the steam engine's reciprocating motion into the circular motion hobbled it. In 1789, Nathan Reed of Massachusetts experimented with a paddle wheel, and considered patenting it, but eventually patented a different method instead. The American John Fitch experimented with side-mounted paddle wheels, but in 1791 used and patented oars instead. Morey's may have been the first successful use of a steam power paddle wheel, which was the best method of propulsion until the propeller, invented by Fitch, was perfected.

A Road Marker in Vermont is inscribed with his accomplishment, "Samuel Morey, resident of Orford (New Hampshire) and later Fairlee (Vermont), successfully operated a steamboat on the Conn. River in 1793. Making over 4000 experiments, this early scientist patented an internal combustion engine in 1826 to anticipate the age of the motor car and airplane."^[6]

Morey's first boat was little more than a proof of concept, so he built another in New York. In a letter to New York legislator William Duer, Morey describes how over the next three summers he traveled down to New York, and the following summer to Hartford, Connecticut to improve and exhibit his boat. Finally, in 1797 he went to Bordentown, New Jersey (a stop on Fitch's failed Philadelphia-to-Trenton passenger service), because it was “sickly in New York”, and built a boat employing two side-mounted paddle wheels. At this point, Morey considered his boat ready for commercial use and sought financial backers. For reasons that are unclear, his backing fell through because of “a series of misfortunes”.^[2] This is likely the end of Morey's direct work with steamboats – although there are many tales of a later fourth steamboat– but not the end of his steam engine patents. In addition to one received in 1795 for improvements he made working on the steam engine in boat, he received patents for other applications and improvements in 1799, 1800, and 1803.

Despite Morey's success in building a working steamboat, credit for the first successful steamboat line goes to Robert Fulton and his financier, Chancellor Robert Livingston.^[2] This was a cause for contention, as Morey claims that they took some of his ideas. His account, which seems more reasonable than later, derived accounts, is laid out in his letter to Duer and is as follows. The summer after the one Morey spent at Hartford, he returned to New York and gave Livingston a ride in his boat (perhaps at the advice of Benjamin Silliman – publisher of Morey's papers – who knew Livingston to be a supporter of the arts). He was impressed and offered Morey a “considerable sum” if he could improve the boat's speed to 8 miles per hour. He also offered $7,000 for the rights to use his current work around New York but Morey declined the offer. However, he continued working towards Livingston's speed goal. Morey had conversations with Fulton and Livingston, and Livingston even traveled to Orford to see him (although Morey doesn't say when or what was discussed). Later, Morey reportedly was aboard Fulton's boat and expressed to Fulton his displeasure that his ideas had netted Fulton much but nothing for himself.

In 1815, Morey patented a “revolving” steam engine,^[2] described at length in the American Journal of Science in 1819 by John Sullivan, its purchaser. With the exception of one harsh initial review predicting that it would barely work – which was rebuffed by Sullivan, it was apparently well received and Sullivan's description appeared in the Edinburgh Philosophical Journal along with an introduction praising American steam engine and boat refinements. Instead of a stationary cylinder driving a rod that turns a wheel through a second linkage, it seems that the cylinder is allowed to pivot as the rod moves, which then turns a crank. The cylinder's pivot doubles as a valve that controls the direction and flow of steam according to its position. The claimed advantages of this configuration are lightweight, high-speed operation, durable construction, and low cost. This engine met with some commercial success; recorded applications include tugboats, a glass factory, and a sawmill in the Boston naval yard.^[2] One tugboat even sailed to South Carolina, where its owner was pleased by its performance. Morey received one more steam patent in 1817 but his interest had been captured by experiments with flammable vapors, which had started some time before.

Experiments with vapors and combustion

In an 1834 letter to Silliman, Morey wrote: “It is now more than twenty years since I have been in the constant, I may say daily practice of making experiments on the decomposition of water, by mixing with its vapor that of spirits of turpentine, and a great portion of atmospheric air.”^[2] This would seem to understate the scope of some research that led to such diverse discoveries as the liquid fueled internal combustion engine, a method for carbonating water, and odd bubbles formed by molten resin. The last two appeared in journals in England and Germany, respectively.^[2] Morey noted differences in flames near knots, perhaps rich in sap, or in wet wood. Eventually he experimented with anything he could find: “tar, rosin, rough turpentine, or the spirit, or alcohol, or any kind of oil, fat, or tallow; mineral coal, pitch-pine wood, and the knots, birch bark, pumpkin, sun-flower, flax, and other seeds; as well as many other substances.”

His experiments are described at length over several articles in the American Journal of Science and Arts. They are light on theory, and Silliman comments that “[Morey's] results are often very valuable, and perhaps, in some cases, not the less so, for having been sought without the direction of preconceived, theoretical views.”^[2] This is mostly true; theory enters into these articles mostly for possible explanations. However, in 1834, 15 years after his first publication on the subject, he proposes a theory of combustion that has electricity as its basic force. Hints of this theory may be visible in his first paper, but his early experiments were not guided by it.^[2]

His first practical application was to heat water for his revolving engine. He observed that passing steam over burning coal or tar caused the flames to burn brighter and without smoke, and he theorized that the steam was decomposed in this process. Word of these experiments reached the eminent French chemist Gay-Lussac, and he commented on them in Annales de Chimie et de Physique in 1819.^[2] He contended that the temperature was insufficient to cause decomposition. Instead, the steam freed more flammable vapors in the fuel causing the flame's change. Morey was correct. He produced what is now known as town gas.^[2] The oxygen from the water combines with carbon from the fuel to form carbon monoxide and the hydrogen forms a diatomic molecule. Both later burn to form water and carbon dioxide. Morey was not the first to use water-gas for lighting, and his devices, including the patented 1818 American Water Burner, simply used the gas immediately instead of piping it to be burnt elsewhere, done as early as 1792 in England. Morey apparently did not know of this advance or at least did not recognize it as the same process. Strangely, in 1819 J. F. Dana of Dartmouth and Harvard proposed attaching steam boilers to street lamps to take advantage of Morey's discovery, but water-gas was already being piped to some London street lamps from a central source in 1812. Still, Morey's device did produce more light, and there is evidence that it resulted in more efficient combustion.^[2]

Internal combustion work

During his experiments, Morey discovered that the vapor of turpentine, when mixed with air, was explosive. He recognized its potential, developed an engine, and wrote an unpublished description in 1824, which he modified in 1825 and 1826. He finally published and patented the idea later in that year.^[2] The revisions between the drafts are small, and deal mostly with reworking of the engine's valves.^[7]

The engine has much in common with modern ones. It has two cylinders, a carburetor, a familiar arrangement of valves and cams. However, unlike modern engines, and unlike the earlier 1807 François Isaac de Rivaz engine, the explosion did not directly provide power. Instead, the explosion expelled air from the cylinder through a one-way valve. The cylinder was cooled by a water jacket and water injected into the combustion chamber after it fired. The cooling gasses caused a vacuum and atmospheric pressure drove the piston.^[2] Morey did mention trying direct action, and elaborated on it in other descriptions.^[2] However, his method was more complicated and possibly less efficient because it used more of the engine's stroke to draw in fuel.

Morey demonstrated his engine in New York and Philadelphia and there are eyewitness reports for both. In Philadelphia, he demonstrated it powering a boat and a wagon. Unfortunately, when he decided to demonstrate the car on the street, he fell off after starting the engine and the vehicle powered across Market Street into a ditch. This was the second car ride in the world, and the first in the United States. Despite these mostly successful demonstrations, Morey could not find a buyer, and became frustrated. A letter from Reverend Dana of Orford written in October 1829 tells of Morey's trip to Baltimore, “I am told, the Capt. is determined to make one more vigorous effort, to sell his patent right for some of his modern inventions [he later singles out the vapor engine], and if he does not now succeed, he will give the matter up, and return to Orford, to spend his days in quiet.”^[2] Morey did not find a buyer, and as he was then in his late 60s, it made sense to stop traveling up and down the east coast and call it quits.

While the engine was state of the art, it was not novel in many respects. Morey seemed aware of contemporary internal combustion work – Hardenberg, who wrote a book on Morey's engine, adeptly noted that in his 1825 draft Morey “stated that he named his invention ‘vapor engine, to distinguish it from the… gas engine.’”^[2] However, Hardenberg concludes that Morey could only have known of three engines similar to his. He never mentioned them, and Hardenberg concludes that they did not influence Morey. His internal combustion engine is the first documented in the United States, and his use of liquid fuel and a heated surface carburetor was world's first. Another interesting feature was the wire mesh used to prevent the combustion from reaching the carburetor. This feature was reinvented and patented again in 1872 because the patent office had lost Morey’s patent in the 1836 patent office fire.^[2] The lack of interest in his vapor engine is unfortunate, because the vapor engine was his most^[2] farsighted invention. Morey notes in his unpublished 1824 draft that:

Is there not some reason to expect that the discovery will greatly change the commercial and personal intercourse of the country. There is good reason I trust to conclude that transportation on good roads or railroad may be done much cheaper as well as quicker than by locks and canals, besides having the great advantage of being done, much of it, in the winter a time much the most convenient of the farmer. In their personal intercourse, if it should be generally thought most prudent to continue their intercourse on the earth’s surface, yet I think there will be little use of horses for that purpose.

— Samuel Morey, unpublished

He mentions "the earth's surface" because elsewhere he proposed using the engine to propel balloons. Now that the internal combustion engine's potential has been realized, people often focus on his engine. The first push to popularize his work was done by Charles Duryea, a fellow inventor who produced the first gasoline engine in America around 1890. He funded the creation of two working replicas of Morey's Engine — one is in the possession of the Smithsonian and the other is owned by Dean Kamen — and posited that Morey's engine was a direct precursor of the modern engine, a position with which others disagree. Recently, Morey's work has received renewed attention by people other than locals and engineers, in particular American comedian Jay Leno, who is an avid car collector.

Writing

Messrs. Rush and Muhlenburg: Dear Sir: — Perhaps I ought to have written sooner, but with all my exertions, and they have been as important as they ever were with you, I could not perfect, to my mind, the application of the "new power" to a boat until within two weeks. It will now run as regular as any that are driven with steam, and with very little expense. The boat is about nine teen feet long, 5 \ wide and the engine occupies only about eighteen inches of the stern, and sometimes goes between 7 and 8 miles per hour. The same engine may unquestionably, when in better hands, be made to drive one, properly constructed, of twice the capacity, at least ten. Its application to stationary purposes I perfected last winter. Throughout the whole time I have been constantly perfecting the engine. I expect to leave here in two or three days for home to arrange my business for winter, and if possible to collect some money for you and Mr. Garrett, as well as some for myself, which I could do were there any in the country, as I have more than $3,000 of salable personal property and good debts. But whether I get any or not, you may expect to see me next month, if I am alive and well as usual. I have the engine already packed up to be put with the mails on board a Packet, as soon as I can get ready to start from home. Have been inclined to think I should send it to Baltimore in the first instance, but shall postpone entirely anything further. When I have the pleasure to see you I hope to learn what will be the best course to be taken. It remains for me to have the engine applied to a carriage on a rail, road, and when that is done, I should think I have done my part. I can but hope and trust the ensuing winter will see the engine well applied to a carriage on a railroad. With sentiments of the greatest esteem and friendship, I am dear Sirs, as ever, Yours, SAM' MOREY. Sept., 1829.

Captain Samuel Morey, a native of Connecticut, but a resident of Oxford, N. H., began his experiments in 1790, and that year propelled his boat by a stern wheel, from Hartford to New York City, at the rate of five miles an hour. On her return trip from New York to Greenwich, Conn., she had as passengers Chancellor Livingston, Edward Livingston, John Stevens, of Hoboken, N. J., and others ; this was the sixth boat built in the United States. In a letter written to William A. Duer, Esq., some years later, Captain Morey says : " As nearly as I can recollect, it was as early as 1790 that I turned my attention to improving the steam engine and in applying it to the purpose of propelling boats. In June, 1797, I went to Bordentown, on the Delaware, and there constructed a steamboat and devised the plan of propelling by means of wheels on the side. The shafts ran across the boat with a crank in the middle worked from the beam of the engine with a shackle-bar. The boat was only exhibited in Philadelphia. I took out patents for my improvements. 1 never had any doubt but that I had a right to take out a patent for the application of two wheels to a steamboat, and often told Mr. Fulton and Mr. Livingston that I had. To the latter I once asserted this right when on board his steamboat with him." Morey, like his predecessors, was prevented from continuing his experiments for lack of means.^[8]

Letter not found. 5 September 1802. Acknowledged in Daniel Brent to Morey, 9 Oct. 1802 (DNA: RG 59, DL, vol. 14). Brent informed Morey that his letter had arrived in JM’s absence “and I have just received his directions, since his return, to forward the enclosed exemplification of the Patent alluded to, to you, and to return you fifty cents, and I herewith do so.” Samuel Morey (1762–1843) was an inventor who held a number of patents, including a steam-operated spit (1793), a windmill (1796), a steam pump (1799), and the internal combustion engine (1826). He began steamboat experiments in 1790 and was awarded a patent in 1803 for improvements on a steam engine.^[9]

Patent "discovery"

In 2004, 10 of Morey's patents, including the one for the internal combustion engine, were "found" in the Dartmouth College archives. In truth, they had never really been lost.^[2]

Morey holds the earliest patent for an internal-combustion engine. Other patents include a steam-powered rotisserie.^[10][11]

 

Ghost Train and Irish labor—

One of the greatest engineering feats that took place in the United States after the Civil War was the creation of the transcontinental railroad. Abraham Lincoln thought that linking the nation coast to coast should be the nation’s priority after winning the Civil War. Hebron also had a railroad connection. The first locomotive was invented in Great Britain in 1829. By 1832 Connecticut Governor John S. Peters from Hebron was advocating building railroads in Connecticut. It was not until the 1870’s that a railroad was built. In 1869, the Town of Hebron voted for bonds to finance a railroad going through Amston. It would take many years to pay off that debt. It was clearing the final debt in 1949 that the funds were available to build Hebron Elementary School. To build the railroad which had to be built on a long level surface with no hills or valleys, many Irish and other immigrant laborers were hired. This was the first time so many immigrants coming from a different culture appeared in town. The railroad ran from New Haven, to Middletown, Willimantic through Amston to Haverhill, Massachusetts. From the 1890’s onward six passenger trains a day plus freight traveled through Hebron. There was a 10-minute local passenger service that ran from Amston to Colchester five times a day. Between 1891 and 1895 a fast train between New Haven and Haverhill ran through Amston at night. It didn’t stop, but each night the white train went on through with many people calling it “The Ghost Train”. The train went so fast and appeared so eerie against the night that many people would come out at night just to watch it go by. Freight service provided by the train allowed Hebron farmers to ship their milk to cities without having to make cheese or butter. However, as highways improved after WWII, the American railroad system declined. Passenger service to Hebron ended in 1927. The last freight service ended in 1952. Today you can explore the route of Hebron’s railroad by walking the Airline Trail. If you do notice how level and flat the surface is but how many hills had to be cut down or valleys filled in. Most of this work was done without power equipment, just men with shovels and pickaxes and carts!

 Places to explore 62-67

Burnt Hill Park

171 acres includes-

• 3 Multi purpose fields (soccer, lacrosse and football)
• 2 baseball fields
• Walking trails
• Pavilion
• Bathrooms
• Park Operations Building 
• Parks and Recreation office

Veterans Memorial Park

This is a town owned park located on a 17 acre site on Wall Street.  A paved parking lot of approximately 100 spaces is situated near the front of the park.  It includes the following-

• Soccer field
• Two children's playscapes
• A skateboard park- open sunrise to sunset
• Baseball field- 70' baselines; 225' 
• Walking trail- 9/10 mile in length
• Bathrooms
• Outdoor basketball court
• Softball field 

Grayville Falls

Grayville Falls offers both passive and active recreation opportunities such as picnicking, walking, fishing, quiet enjoyment of the waterfalls and river, and access to the Air Line State Park Trail.  The park is fairly remote, has rugged terrain, is very natural in character and therefore lends itself to passive uses.

Old Colchester Road Field

This is a town owned field located on a 3.8 acre site on Old Colchester Rd.  Improvements include a small, unpaved parking area, a baseball/ softball field with 60 foot baselines, and a small soccer field that is superimposed over the outfield of the baseball/ softball field.

Gilead Hill School

The school is used for community recreation and summer sports.  Outdoor recreation facilities include two softball fields and a multi-purpose field.  There is also a small field area used by the baseball league informally as a t-ball field.  A playscape is located at the rear of the school.  The playscape is available to the public when school is not in session. 

Hebron Elementary School

Hebron Elementary School has a wonderful outdoor recreation area for pre-school aged children including a playscape.  There is also a multi-purpose field and a 1/4 mile walking track.

RHAM Regional Schools

This is a collaboration of RHAM Middle School and RHAM High School.  Both schools are located near the Hebron Center on a campus that shares common athletic fields.  Each has its own gymnasium but share the outdoor sports and recreation facilities that have been fully upgraded as part of the Regional High School Expansion plans.  These facilities include a regulation 400 meter track, two baseball fields, a softball field and multi-purpose fields.

St. Peter's Field

This is a baseball field located on Church St. constructed on land leased from the St. Peter's Episcopal Church.  This ball field is used by the Hebron Youth Baseball and Softball Association and consists of a 70 foot baseball field.

Raymond Brook Trail

UNDER CONSTRUCTION

Air Line State Park Trail

This multi-use train in Hebron provides opportunities for hiking, biking, jogging, cross-country skiing and horseback riding.  This trail is owned by the State of Connecticut.  It physically connects the towns of Colchester and Lebanon and the potential exists for further connections.  The trail also provides access and outstanding views of the Raymond Brook marsh; lands primarily owned by the State of CT.  For more information please click on the link below-

https://portal.ct.gov/DEEP/State-Parks/Parks/Air-Line-State-Park-Trail

Salmon River State Forest 

This park, partially located in Hebron, contains opportunities for hiking and fishing.  These extensive lands include the Holbrook Pond facility where boating and fishing are permitted.

Gay City State Park

Gay City State Park is located in Hebron on the Bolton town line.  It contains hiking trails, picnicking facilities, cross country skiing opportunities and a beach for public swimming.  For more information please visit the link below-

https://portal.ct.gov/DEEP/State-Parks/Parks/Gay-City-State-Park

Cemeteries 

Pages 68-69 Education

Education has always been a priority in Hebron. Colonial Connecticut law required that once a town was incorporated, it needed to provide basic education. Reading Writing and Arithmetic were taught as basic skills needed by farmers and their wives, as well as tradesmen. Hebron’s first school was located where the traffic light is located at the intersection of Route 85 and Route 66. Teachers were hired and paid for with tax money from the town. Parents needed to provide wood and educational materials. Education was not compulsory, so there were many different lessons going on at the same time. The Burrows Hill School is a very early example of a district school. It was modernized in the 1800’s when Connecticut embraced the idea of educational reform. Some of the improvements made were the creation of a blackboard (literally two boards nailed together painted black). A stove in the center of the schoolroom rather than a fireplace at one end. Desks and benches meant children could sit and learn while others recited their lessons. By the early 1800’s slates, school books and paper were more readily available. Higher education was available in Hebron in the mid 1700’s through Peter Sweatland’s school located in Andover. Here mainly boys would learn advanced mathematics and foreign languages like Greek and Latin. Peter Sweatland’s school not only train young men to go off to colleges like Yale, but also taught some Indigenous students as well. The most famous school for Indigenous people was located in nearby Columbia taught by the Rev. Eleazer Wheelock and supported by Hebron minister Benjamin Pomeroy who had married Wheelock’s sister. In 1743, Wheelock took in a student named Samson Occom, a Mohegan who knew English and had converted to Christianity in his childhood. He taught Occom for four years; the youth was a ready student, learning to read and write in Hebrew as well as deeply studying theology. After preaching for several years to the Pequot people in Montauk on eastern Long Island, Occom was ordained in Suffolk County, New York, as a Presbyterian minister. He returned to Connecticut to preach to the Mohegan and later organized Christian Indians as the Brothertown Indians.

Wheelock's success in preparing Occom for the ministry encouraged him to found a school in Lebanon, Connecticut, for Native Americans. He planned to teach the boys in both secular and Christian subjects, so they could return to their native culture as missionaries. The girls would learn "housewifery" and English skills including reading and writing. Charitable contributions from New England and England supported the Moor's Charity School, which was located on Lebanon's town green. Some students became homesick or even ill and died; few became missionaries.

Establishment of Dartmouth and presidency

After sending Occom and another minister on a speaking tour of England to raise money for the charity school, Wheelock decided to enlarge it, as well as adding college classes for the education of American colonists in the classics, philosophy, and literature. He began to search for another location for the schools. Wheelock obtained a charter from King George III on December 13, 1769. Having worked and raised funds for the education of Native Americans, Occom and the British Board of Trustees headed by Lord Dartmouth opposed the addition of the college to benefit the sons of the colonists.

Wheelock kept the lord's donation and named the college after him, as Dartmouth College. He chose Hanover, New Hampshire, for the location and became the college's president. In 1771, four students were graduated in Dartmouth's first commencement, including Wheelock's son John. While some Native Americans attended Dartmouth, it primarily served the sons of American colonists.

By the early 1800’s Hebron was divided into school districts so that each child had no fewer than a mile or two to walk to school. Each district has to build a schoolhouse (often built on the side of the road on town land). Parents supplied firewood with the town providing a teacher. There are still a number of one room schoolhouses in Hebron. Many have been converted into homes. African Americans were educated alongside of Yankee students. Much of what is known about African Americans in Hebron comes from early school records. Hebron would continue to have one room schools until 1949 when Hebron Elementary School was built. With a centralized school came the need for transportation. With compulsory education, grades could be established with a standardized curriculum. Hebron may have had an academy in the early 1800’s to provide education above the district school level. Usually if students wanted to go on with their education Hebron students needed to go to boarding school and pay tuition. This changed when there was rail service to Bacon Academy. Until RHAM Junior and Senior High was built in 1957, high school students were bused to Windham. For about a decade in the 1920’s St. Peters’ Church ran a summer school for scholars from around the country. Participants would come from all over and stay with local families and attend lectures at St. Peters. This was in the tradition of the Lecture house which stood across from the little brick record building in Hebron Center where speakers were hired in the mid 1800’s to give lectures to towns people.

An amusing episode happened at Hebron’ s center village school house in the 1840’s. The building was two stories high and the town used the second floor for town meetings. Evidently the building was not well built. During a town meeting when school was not in session, the floor gave way on one side sending the men assembled for voting downhill on top of one another. No one was seriously injured and the town meeting was moved to the Congregational Church steps. A few years later in 1863 the town purchased the old Town Hall that had been built originally as a Methodist Meeting house

Key Questions for Local History

Commentary provided by John D. Baron, May 26, 2022 

Nota Bene –The following questions provide an inventory of great men and events, but the history of a place is firmly rooted in the changing lives and attitudes of its people which may be expressed in more subtle ways.

How does our town contribute to CT’s history?

Hebron is an integral part of Connecticut’s history, not so much for great events or famous people, but as a mirror of how Connecticut contributed to United States History. In brief

* Hebron was first visited by Native Americans some 9000 years ago. These hunter and gatherers were present 2500 years before the Great Pyramids were built. They used their natural resources to sustain their population that farming did not develop until about 1000 years ago. While Egyptian culture is recognized as a great civilization, the creation of Egypt occurred because the ancient Egyptians could no longer support their population without organized agriculture. Civilizations put great pressure on local resources and often result from local resources being over exploited. That was not the case in Hebron.

* English contact brought disease and war which diminished the Indigenous population. English settlers introduced a host of essentially invasive plants and animals that were not native to New England. A typical English or Yankee farm grew wheat, rye, potatoes, and English grasses for hay. Farmer animals on a farm included hay consuming horse, cattle, sheep and goats. Omnivorous pigs and chickens. These plants and animals in conjunction with the concept of land ownership drastically changed Hebron’s resources. By cutting down trees, the soil dried and eroded and by the second generation, eroded stones began to appear which resulted in stonewalls being built.

* English government forms like the town meeting initially excluded large numbers of individuals based on race, gender, age, religion, and economic status. It has taken over 300 years to reach the inclusiveness of Native American government at the time of contact. Hebron’s history would mirror state and local history from 1708 onward.

* Hebron farmers were heavily engaged in the West Indian trade. They traded New England firewood, barrel staves, shingles, brick, and foodstuffs for West Indian sugar, molasses, rum and slaves. In 1774 there 52 enslaved people in Hebron which was in the middle range of slave ownership in Hartford County which included Hartford, Middletown, Colchester, and Wethersfield.

* Connecticut would not abolish slavery until 13 years before the Civil War. Most Hebron slave owners had freed their property by 1800. Hebron became a magnet for free African Americans and by the early 19^th century had more free African Americans living within its bounds than any other town in the newly formed Tolland County.

* In the early 19^th century textile mills and paper manufactories sprang up on Hebron. While this freed Yankee women from having to weave clothe and provide you women with a place to work, it also promoted slavery in the cotton producing south. The northeast’s economy was so focused on cotton production that the mayor of New York City promoted the idea of the city joining the Confederacy at the start of the Civil War.

* The introduction of the railroad and concentration of manufacturing in large urban centers destroyed Hebron’s farming and small manufacturing economy. Migration out of Hebron increased. The development of silk mills in Amston introduced immigrants to Hebron starting with the Irish, Italians, Germans, Swedes, Jews, and Slovaks. Some immigrants worked in the silk mills of Amston while other using more scientific methods redeveloped Hebron’s farms into profitable dairy and chicken farms.

* World War II and car ownership changed Hebron. In the 1960’s, the first subdivision of Hebron began with London Park on the north end of town. This would lead Hebron to become a community where most people worked out of town.

What symbols represent our town?

Hebron has an odd symbol representing it. It’s an old-fashioned pump, giving rise to the nick name Pumptown. 

Why?

From settlement to 1763, the British and French colonies were at war with one another. The French and Indian War or Seven Years War was the last all-out war and the fall of Fort Louisburg was key event. Hebron soldiers fought in many of these wars and when Fort Louisburg fell in 1758, the local residents decided to celebrate. They decided they would salute the victory with a cannon firing. The only problem was that there were no canons to fire in Hebron. So, they created one by hollowing out a huge oak trunk and banding it with iron. The “canon” looked like a water pump that was put on its side and was nicknamed the “pump”.

The Pump was dragged to the top of Godfrey Hill, just to the north of Holbrook Pond where the burying ground is located. The citizens of Hebron gathered for the celebration. The Pump was loaded with gun powder, speeches were made and then the fuse was lighted. The Pump blew itself apart and exploded in a large blast of noise and everyone was satisfied (remarkably, no one was injured)! 

There is local legend that word of this courageous event reached England and that the British government sent over a bronze canon to replace the wooden one. However, it never arrived.

In 1858, to celebrate Hebron’s 100^th anniversary, Lucius Hendee who was the local postmaster created a stamp with the words “Hebron, Con. 1758”

How are local landmarks named?

Historically most landmarks were given English names and related to agriculture. Across from Hebron Elementary School was the Mason Lot named after a Boston investor sued David Barber as part of a debt foreclosure. Further to the east was Sylvester Gilbert’s “great pasture”.

Gilead was named by the General Assembly in 1747. Amston was originally named Turnerville after the mill owner in that area. Later when the Amst car was produced there it became Amston. Hope Valley was originally Hopeville. The factory in Grayville was run by the Gray family. The Gay family were involved with the factory at Gay City 

There exists no research for how roads got their name. Today the Town of Hebron uses the name of the person land is purchased from to designate proprieties. Thus, the John E, Horton Boulevard land was Henry Peters’ farm. (an African American descendant of Cesar Peters). The Bernstein property was John Northam’s farm.

The African American Burial Ground acquired its moniker because it was the free part of the burial ground and thus enslaved people were buried there. After manumission, African Americans chose to be buried there next to their relatives. 

Why were specific individuals in Hebron honored through monuments or memorials and how did they affect the history of Hebron and CT?

Hebron has relatively few historic monuments or markers. The cannon at the War Memorial to the west of Hebron Center features the names of soldiers who fought in World War II. Their graves are marked with flags for Memorial Day. The canon there was brought to Hebron after the
Civil War by the Hanna brothers.

A marker by the Hebron Congregational Church commemorates that the first missionary society in Connecticut was formed across the street by the Rev. Amos Bassett in 1798. This group would be instrumental in sending missionaries to the Sandwich Islands, now known as Hawaii. Rev. Bassett after serving as Congregational minister in Hebron for 30 years left Hebron in 1824 to become principal of the Foreign Mission school in Cornwall. John Demos’ book The Heathen School traces how this well meant institution became a scene of racial violence when two Cherokee students married local women.

A marker by the Old Town Hall noted that Hebron was the birthplace of the Rev. Samuel Peters. Peters was the first rector of St. Peters’ Church and was an ardent Loyalist who was driven from his vast holding in Hebron by the Sons of Liberty in 1774 before the Revolutionary War began. He left behind his two enslaved families. His nephew and brother-in-law tried to sells Cesar Peters’ family to settle their debts to Rev. Peters. However, Burnt Hill neighbors intervened and eventually gave testimonies on the part of Cesar Peters which led to his family’s manumission. In 1781, Rev. Samuel Peters published A General History of Connecticut the first published history of any American Colony. He was the first publish the stories of the Windham Frogs (which is why there’s a Frog Bridge in Willimantic). Also, he made famous the Wethersfield Onion maidens of Wethersfield whose red onions fed West Indian slaves.

Rev. Peters was part of sizeable community of Loyalists in Hebron that included two of his brothers and nephew who fought for the British. The Revolutionary War was a civil war within the Peters and Hebron community, but shows that not all colonial men wanted to be separated from the British Empire which at the time was the largest empire in the world.

In St. Peters’ churchyard is the large monument to Governor John S. Peters who lived in the brick house to the north. Although his father was a Loyalist, John S. Peters became Governor of Connecticut in 1833. The same year in which Prudence Crandall of Canterbury opened her school for African Americans. John S. Peters practiced medicine in Hebron before going into politics. He often treated Hebron’s African and Native Americans and would cancel their debts if they could not pay. His monument is to the left of this 1890’s sketch of the graveyard. 

In the Wall Street Burying Ground is the table stone of Hebron’s Congregational minister Rev. Benjamin Pomeroy who with his brother-in -aw founded Moor’s Indian Charity School in Columbia. Like Sweatland’s Academy in Hebron at the same time Native Americans came to learn to read and write so they could write their own treaties. Moor’s Indian Charity School graduated Samson Occum who met King George the III and achieved the financial support of the Lord of Dartmouth. As a result, Moor’s Indian Charity School relocated to New Hampshire and is now Dartmouth College. 

In 2022 two Witness Stone Markers were placed in Hebron to commemorate the lives of Pomp Mundo and Cesar Peters, enslaved individuals belonging to Rev. Samuel Peters. Pomp Mundo’s story is typical of many Connecticut slaves. He was sold from owner to owner and was in his fifties when he was freed and started a family. He had 8 children, but faced financial hardships. He tried to settle in Lebanon, but was returned to Hebron as a pauper. In the 1790’s he rented the John and Mary peters farm on East Street, but could not turn a profit. He eventually moved to Vermont and supported himself as an impoverished farm laborer. Cesar Peters’ narrative is well known. He came to Hebron as an enslaved boy. Enslaved to Rev. Samuel Peters, he was not freed when the state of Connecticut confiscated and rented Rev. Peter’s 600 acres of plow land, 7 houses, 9 barns and 4000 fruit trees. As a result, Rev. Peters’ Hebron relatives tried to sell Cesar Peters’ family in 1787 to settle their debt to Rev. Peters. They failed because Burnt Hill women attempted to rescue the family and put their husbands up to a ruse about stolen clothes that kept Cesar Peters’ family in Hebron. Once manumitted Cesar Peters’ tried to sue his abductors, but withdrew the case at the last moment. In 1806 Cesar Peters purchased the two-story house of one of his abductors located next to the RHAM campus. Cesar Peters prospered and became a middle-income farmer working for the doctors and lawyers living in Hebron Center. When he died on July 4, 1814 his house was furnished like his Yankee neighbors, his estate was solvent and his family established in Hebron. Many of his descendants fought in the Civil War.

What historical events occured in Hebron? How did they shape our community?

What role have members of our local community had in major events in CT’s history?

* English settlement led to the division and privatization of land which resulted in wars with the French to determine who would dominate eastern North America. The firing of the Pump in 1758 marks the close of this period and the beginning of the West Indian trade. Rev. Samuel Peters owned a middling sized plantation in Hebron.

* The Revolutionary War developed shortly after the 1763 Treaty of Paris which negated the French threat and opened up new land for settlement. Rising colonial consumerism and standard of living resulted in disagreement over taxes. Hebron men answered the Lexington Alarm and fought on both sides. As the provisions state, Hebron farmers benefited by selling farm produce. The Revolutionary War altered Hebron’s and Connecticut’s social stratification giving rise to new individual in the newly established social order. Sylvester Gilbert would become a mover and shaker of the new republic and open a law school in Hebron Center. John S. Peters would become Governor of Connecticut in 1833.

* Technologic developments like turnpikes, the Erie Canal, water powered mills and eventually trains, put Hebron at a disadvantage. Exhaustive use of farmland led to a westward migration. The westward migration of the Gilbert family would lead to a Gilbert descendant Cass Gilbert being born in Ohio. Cass Gilbert was the architect who designed the Woolworth Building in New York and US Supreme Court building in Washington D.C.

* Hebron men, African American and Indigenous as well as white would serve in the wars with the French and Revolution. African American and Yankees from Hebron fought in the Civil War. Hebron men took part in WWI and WWII and more recent wars. During each of these wars, the home front was maintained by family members living and working in Hebron.

How have science, technology, and innovation affected the development of Hebron?

* Native Americans technology evolved using stone tools and local resources to meet their needs. Stone tools advanced from spears to bows and arrows. The introduction of the 3 sisters about 1000 years ago changed the Native American technology from hunting and gathering to farming, but both economies were based on relocating seasonally so as not to exhaust local resources.

* English farming practices forever altered Hebron with the introduction of metals, ceramics, glass, woven clothe and concepts of individual ownership. Cutting down trees for farmland caused the soil to dry out and erode resulting in the impoverishment of the soil and a legacy of stone walls. Surveying equipment allowed land to be divided into ever smaller parcels. The record of this phenomena is preserved in the Hebron Town clerks’ office covering the past 300 years.

* The industrial revolution led to the development of textile mills in Hebron freeing women from making their own cloth. Water power provided the energy source.

* The development of the railroad led to fossil fuels like coal being used in Hebron.

* By the late 19^th century oil powered innovations rapidly led to energy needs being refocused from local and sustainable to global and non- sustainable. For most of the 20^th century automobiles, macadam roads, kerosene then electric lights and oil-fired furnaces have replaced horses, dirt roads, candles, and fireplaces or stoves.

* Suburban development developed using lumber from the West Coast, asphalt shingles, cement, aluminum or vinyl siding which has made local architecture interchangeable with suburban architecture elsewhere in the United States.

* In brief ever changing technology has created consumer households in Hebron tapped into a global market subject to worldwide global trends and reduced self -sufficiency.

How has Hebron changed and/or stayed the same over time?

Obviously, Hebron was changed drastically with English settlement. Yankee culture was changed by immigration, but Hebron remained essentially an agricultural town. Suburbanism has drastically limited farming Hebron. Ned Ellis’ dairy farm in Gilead is the largest still functioning farm in town. Open space preservation has protected some land from further development. Areas like Amston Lake have become densely populated. Various plant diseases like the Dutch Elm, chestnut blight and emerald beetle have changed the local ecosystem. At the present time invasive species like barberry, dog rose, and Japanese bittersweet have overrun abandoned areas and roadside edges.

How is our local government run?

Historically Hebron’s local government was focused on the town meeting. Initially the franchised was limited to property owning white men. This was expanded over time. A Board of Selectmen were elected along with other town officials to handle day to day responsibilities.

Currently, an elected Board of Selectmen along with a Town Manager and Town Planner run the town. Town meetings have been replaced by referendums. A variety of town committees and individuals meet specific interests or concerns in Hebron.

What political issues have local leaders been forced to address in the past 10 years? 

Rapid suburbanization has led to the need for suburban amenities including schools, recreation areas, water and sewage treatment, roads and town services without a diversified tax base. Recently diversity and a need for low income housing has emerged

What resources are in our community?

In terms of physical resources, Hebron’s greatest resource is its land and water. Land has provided space for farming prehistorically and into the 20^th century. Land is now available for housing and recreation. Water power was utilized in the early 19^th century for mills.

Why is our town shaped the way it is?

In 1676 at the end of King Phillips Ware, one of the bloodiest wars in American history, Attawanhood, also called Joshua, Sachem of the Western Nehantics and third son of Uncas, Great Sachem of the Mohegans was forced to sign over huge tract of land to a group of real estate investors. Joshua had fought on the English side, but he did not want his people to be deported and sold as slaves like the defeated Nipmuc and Wampanoag. The real estate investors were known as the Legatees of Saybrook and bought the land so they could make a profit. The local version of this is that the land of Hebron was acquired legally which it was, but under duress.

The terms of will were vague and granted a rectangle of land eight by eighteen miles in size, but when a survey was actually done what would become Hebron was more like seven by ten miles! This led to disputes with the surrounding towns which would go on for years.

In 1702, the proprietors created 86 lots and started to sell them to actual settlers. Lots were set out as home lots, long lots and meadow lots (located by Holbrook Pond. The lots seem to have run on a north / south orientation which reinforced Hebron’s rectangular profile. The first settlers, William Shipman and Timothy Phelps from Windsor, arrive in 1704-05. From that time forward the 100 acre lots sold by the Proprietors have been divided and redivided. It is still possible to find stonewalls that mark some of the 100 acre lots. 

Below is a view of a 100-acre lot to the north of Burnt Hill Park. It was the site of the John and Mary Peters’ farmstead which they acquired in 1727. Cesar Peters, an enslaved man who spent most of his early life here is probably responsible for the well laid stone walls. This is also the birthplace of John S. Peters who was Governor of Connecticut in 1833. 

How did Hebron get its name?

In 1707, there were 9 families in Hebron and efforts had been made to start to build a meetinghouse and settle a minister. The Proprietors applied to the Connecticut General Assembly to become a town. The first written evidence of the name of the town appeared in February 19, 1707 with the formal incorporation in May of 1708. No one knows why the name was chosen. When translated from the Hebrew Hebron means “a settlement created by people coming from diverse directions”. Since settlers came from Saybrook along the coast and Windsor on the Connecticut River this seems like an apt, but probably unintentional source for the name. Hebron was the second town in Connecticut named after a Biblical location. Lebanon was the first. At the time of settlement there were about 30 towns in Connecticut located along the coast or along the Connecticut River. Hebron was part of the settlement of the eastern Connecticut hill towns. Today there are about 27 communities in the nation named Hebron. When Gilead applied to be a separate parish the original name chosen was Rehoboth, but the name was changed at the colonial level to Gilead.

What are the landmarks/geographical features of Hebron that are named after indigenous peoples in CT? 

Due to the devastation of first the Pequot War in the 1630’s in Connecticut and the more widespread King Phillip’s War in southern New England, there were relatively few Native Americans living in the Hebron area by the early 1700’s. As a result, very few place names in town have an Algonkian name. The closest connection is “Burnt Hill” which appears in the early 18^th century. It is so named because this was at first a favored hunting area and later a prized planting area for Native Americans. For hunting the forest floor would be burn over to cut down on thorny vegetation and provide clear sight lines. When agriculture was introduced about 1000 years ago, areas would be burned perhaps in the spring and certainly in the fall for planting. Since Burnt Hill is the highest point in Hebron, these fires could be seen by others in the area and Burnt Hill became a place for clan celebrations and trade. Native Americans would continue to plant on Burnt Hill well after settlement which explains why settlement on Burnt Hill was delayed until the second half of the 18^th century.

Prophet’s Rock on Burrows Hill Road is a glacial erratic that was used by Native Americans, but is associated today as the place where William Shipman and Timothy Phelps wives arrived in Hebron and called out from the top of the rock for help. As a result, their husbands clearing land by the Church of the Holy Family heard them and were reunited there.

Burnt Hill, Hebron Center and Amston Lake are all areas from which Native American artifacts have been recovered.

Submit a “My Town” for Your Town

Hebron, Connecticut

Where is my town?

Hebron is an eastern Connecticut’s hill town. It is relatively hilly and the soil ranges in quality which historically fostered a grazing farm economy. Hebron is on the watershed of the Connecticut and Thames Rivers. Until the 20^th century Hebron’s economy was focused on agriculture especially on livestock shipped to the West Indies and driven overland to Boston and New York. During the early 19^th century, the town supported several small textile mills and paper mills. By 1850 Hebron hosted the largest free African American population of any town in Tolland County. Farms and mills began to decline after the Civil War and were reinvigorated by immigrants who set up specialized dairy and chicken farms. In close proximity to many cities, Hebron developed into a suburban community in the late 20^th century.

How was it founded?

Native American occupation of the Hebron area dates back some 8000 years. It was the ancestral land of the Western Nehantics and later the Mohegans. The land for Hebron was acquired in 1676 after the defeat of the Nipmuc and Wampanoag peoples in King Phillip’s War. Attawanhood or Joshua, sachem of the Western Nehantics and son of Uncas of the Mohegans, granted the land under duress to a group of land speculators called the Saybrook Legatees. After dividing the town up into 86 lots, land was sold off to potential settlers. The first settlers came from Windsor around 1704 and were joined by settlers from coastal Connecticut and Massachusetts. The town was formally incorporated in 1708 with nine families. By 1744, just forty years after settlement, there were over 200 families living in Hebron. This rapid increase in population strained the farming economy. By the late 18^th century many Hebron people emigrated out of town in search of better farmland.

How do its residents make a living?

Historically most Hebron residents were farmers who might also practice a trade. Hebron animals and produce found a ready market in the West Indian trade and with livestock drives to Boston and New York. In the early 19^th century limited manufacturing of cotton, wool and paper briefly flourished next to Hebron’s streams. By the mid-19^th century silk production in Amston developed and the Turner Silk Mill became one of the first venues for immigrants to settle in Hebron. Traditional Yankee agriculture declined in the latter 19^th century. At that point, immigrant farmers from Germany, Italy, Sweden, Russia, and Slovakia introduced dairy and chicken farming. Briefly in 1917 the Amst Motor Car was manufactured in Amston. With the advent of the automobile and updated road system after WWII, Hebron became a suburban town with workers leaving the town to work in nearby cities. The current population is 9,482.

How did it grow?

Natural increase and a successful agricultural economy account for Hebron’s rapid growth in the 18^th and early 19^th century. In 1774 there 1855 white inhabitants in Hebron and 52 African Americans, most enslaved to Hebron farmers. By 1800 Hebron people had manumitted their slaves and Hebron became a magnet attracting emancipated African Americans from eastern Connecticut who earned their living by providing farm labor. By 1830 the white population hovered around 1856 with 84 free African Americans. By 1850 Hebron had the largest free African American residents of any town in Tolland County. Growth dropped off rapidly after the Civil War and was somewhat altered by European immigrants settling on Yankee farms. With the advent of automobile transportation in the 1960’s, Hebron’s population increased and farming gave way to suburbs.

Who are its notable people?

Several notable people were born or lived in Hebron.

Congregational minister Rev. Benjamin Pomeroy, worked with his brother-in-law Eleazar Wheelock to establish a school for Native Americans in Columbia which eventually became Dartmouth College.

Anglican minister Rev. Samuel Peters ran a prosperous plantation in Hebron until he was forced to abandon his holdings by the Sons of Liberty in 1774. In Great Britain he published his General History of Connecticut in 1781, the first history published of any of the former colonies. Rev. Peters is the first to have recounted the Windham Frog story, the Onion Maidens of Wethersfield and Connecticut’s blue laws

Physician John S. Peters was governor of Connecticut in 1833, the year Prudence Crandall of Canterbury established her school for African Americans.

Rev. Benjamin Trumbull wrote a history of Connecticut in 1797.

Josephine Sophia White Griffing was an American reformer who campaigned against slavery and for women's rights. She was born and taught school in Hebron, but eventually moved to the Midwest where she was active in the underground railroad. At the end of the American Civil War she moved to Washington, D.C., to help work with the unemployed freed men. Much of her work was done through the Freedmen’s Bureau, where she worked as an assistant to the assistant commissioner and as an agent. Later in her life, she was active in advancing women’s rights. She is buried in Hebron.

Cesar Peters was a slave the Peters family of Hebron in the mid-18^th century. When his owner, Rev. Samuel Peters was forced to flee Hebron by the Sons of Liberty in 1774, Cesar Peters remained on his owner’s plantation until 1787, when relatives of Rev. Peters attempted to sell his family to pay their debts. Cesar Peters’ neighbors rescued his family from sale to South Carolina and in 1789 petitioned the Connecticut Assembly to free his entire family. Once manumitted, Cesar Peters bought his former abductor’s home and established himself as a middling level farmer in Hebron’s Center. Cesar Peters died on July 4, 1814.

Pomp Mundo was also a slave of Rev Samuel Peters, but his narrative is very different. Pomp Mundo earned funds to purchase his freedom from his Norwich owner in 1768, but instead his owner sold him. Rev. Peters purchased Pomp Mundo around 1774 with the intent of freeing him, but the Hebron Selectmen refused. Pomp Mundo married and raised a family. He was eventually manumitted in 1789, but given his age found it difficult to support himself. In the 1790’s Pomp Mundo moved to Vermont as a farm laborer and vanished from the records.

Additional Resources – Walking Tour of Hebron Center

Meet Your Neighbors --Pocket Tour

Douglass library Parking lot –Standing on the sidewalk viewing the parking lot it hard to imagine this was the site of an Eastern Woodland Indigenous camp. Up until the late 20^th century a large stone quern for grinding maize or corn stood in this area. The presence of a community quern indicates the site was established between 300-800 years ago as Indigenous people transformed their economy from hunting and gathering to seasonal planting and hunting. During the Historic period Hebron was on the fringe of traditional Pequot-Mohegan and Nipmuc hunting grounds

Walking and Talking Thoughts – Corn, potatoes, and tomatoes are all foods that originated with Native Americans. What would your meals be like without these three vegetables?

Old Town Hall –This building was originally built in 1838 as a two-story Methodist Church. Around the time of the Civil War, the Town of Hebron acquired it, removed the lower story and converted it into a town hall. Hebron town government was established in 1708 about four years after its settlement. The green was laid out for the town militia to train on. For at least half of its history only white male property owners 21 years or older could vote. After the Civil War, the right to vote and participate in local government was extended to African Americans 50 years later women gained the right to vote, finally in 1924 Native Americans were allowed a voice in government.

Walking and Talking Thoughts – The New England town meeting is often cited as one of the purest forms of democracy. How representative was it, if only men could vote?

Ous / Jones House site –The location of this garden was until the late 20^th century the location of a blacksmith shop and wheelwright’s shop dating from the 18^th century. Hebron green was very sparsely settled in the 18^th century, but was the location where town roads met. Blacksmiths and wheelwrights were the fore runners of modern automobile repair shops and were often located where there was the most traffic in a community. At some point in the 19^th or early 20^th century the shops were converted into a dwelling.

Gill Jones Garage—As Hebron developed from the 18^th century through the 20^th century, transportation technology changed. In the mid-20^th century Gil Jones ran an automobile repair garage here replacing the blacksmith and wagon shops previously mentioned. By the late 20^th century, a gas station across the street replaced this repair shop as the Eisenhower highway system and state and local roads developed turning rural towns like Hebron into suburban communities.

Walking and Talking Thoughts – How do roads and highways continue to shape how Hebron develops?

Corner of Route 316 and Route 66 – Before this brick building formerly used as a gas station was built a gambrel roof house stood here, dating from the late 18^th century. It was disassembled in the 1960’s and parts were sold to an antiques dealer Lillian Blakley Cogan in Farmington, Connecticut and incorporated in her home there. Picture of house.

Pomprowisc and Stanek Houses – As seen in this postcard view from around 1900

Two houses stood beyond the gambrel roof house on the corner. In the 20^th century these houses were occupied by the Pomprowicz family from Poland and the Stanek family from Slovakia. Agriculture had been a mainstay of Hebron’s economy from its start, but by the late 19^th and early 20^th century traditional Yankee farming could not compete with produce and livestock shipped in from the west. As land prices plummeted newly arrived immigrant groups established a different form of farming based on dairy herds, poultry, and market produce for Connecticut’s cities.

Walking and Talking Thoughts – In 300 years the town of Hebron has changed many times. Buildings have been built, remodeled, destroyed and replaced. Compare the post card image with what you see today.

Henry and Horace Peters / Lude Barber sites heading east on Route 66 toward Ted’s Supermarket –Although highly developed now with commercial enterprises, this stretch of road on the old Columbia turnpike was occupied in the early and mid-19^th century by several African American families who lived on their own farms, but supplemented their income by providing farm labor for center village professionals whose occupations did not allow them time to farm. Unlike in the American South where emancipated African Americans became poor sharecroppers, the African American families living in Hebron’s Center lived in a middle-income lifestyle. Although the Peters and Barber families lived side by side, Hebron was not a segregated community in the 19^th century. African American “Black Yankees” worked, lived, learned, and worshipped side by side with “White Yankees”

Walking and Talking Thoughts By 1850 Hebron had the largest African American population of any town in Tolland County. Hoes does that compare to Hebron today?

Obadiah Horsford site RHAM Site – Obadiah Horsford was the town’s first physician and early town leader. Until the Congregational Meeting House was built, church meetings were held in Horsford’s barn. When Obadiah Horsford died in 1744, he was one of the wealthiest residents in town. At that time his house consisted of four rooms, two on either side of a center chimney.

Walking and Talking Thoughts – By 1744 Hebron was reaching the end of its settlement phase and on its way to becoming a prosperous community. Wealth came to be judged on ownership of land and goods. Obadiah Horsford was not a slave owner, but many of his children were. How do you think slave labor contributed to making Hebron a prosperous community before the Revolutionary War?

Owens House site, support garage for RHAM– Built about 1755 Josiah Owen’s handsome two story central Chimney house was an early example of the Georgian style. It originally had double doors and the windows in the principal rooms upstairs and down were 12/12 sash, but the window over the front door, rear of the house and window in the pediment of the garret were narrower. The house was built with two generations in mind, the left front room and rear kitchen fireplaces both had bake ovens consisted solely of stone rather than using brick. The House was disassembled in 2000.

Walking and Talking Thoughts –Does anything remain to show that this house once stood here?

Blacksmith shop and tannery in hollow between RHAM support shed and crest of hill—In the mid-19^th century a blacksmith shop and tannery operated along the edges of this seasonal brook on the highway to Andover. Tanneries were often located on the outskirts of towns, due to strong odor caused by tanning hides.

Walking and Talking Thoughts – Time and human activity erode connections to the past. Look at this site, is there any evidence that buildings stood here?

Cesar and Sym Peters site-- This is the site of one of the oldest houses in Hebron built originally by the Mann Family in the early 18^th century. In 1806 a former slave of the Rev. Samuel Peters of Hebron whose family was rescued by townspeople from being sold to a southern planter, bought the two-story house on this site for $186 cash and lived here until his death in 1814. Cesar Peters and his wife Sym, owned a house, barn and two acres. Cesar Peters provided farm labor for Center Village professionals and found a secure economic niche in Hebron. When Cesar Peters died, he was a middling income farmer living in a house furnished with fashionable goods like a set of chairs, tea equipment, 8 wine glasses and a set of china

Walking and Talking Thoughts Consider the Cesar Peters narrative, how does it speak to the Martin Luther King Jr quote below?

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Mann House across from New Hebron Cemetery —In 1782 the Mann family decided to build a new larger house to the north of their original dwelling. Trees were selected from the property, felled and the frame was hewn from them. Although primarily a farming family, Cyrus Mann who lived here also ran a store in Hebron Center.

Walking and Talking Thoughts As the Mann family moved up socially in Hebron, they moved to a new house. How does this theme play out in Hebron today?

Old burying ground—The burying ground was laid out about 1723. The first burial was that of William Shipman one of the first settlers who was fatally injured from a fall off of his roof. Plots in the burying ground were sold and thus families tended to remain together, although this is sometimes hard to determine due to multiple marriages. The back of the burial ground was set aside for free burials and it was in this area that many of Hebron’s African Americans were buried.

Walking and Talking Thoughts Hebron was historically not a segregated community, but the Old Burying Ground is. Why do you suppose this was the case?

Kollack house,corner of Routes 66 and 316– In the mid-19^th century two deaf parents the Kollacks raised a son who could hear in this house. Eventually the son would find employment in the mills of Colchester. This building survived the Fire of 1882

Walking and Talking Thoughts What would it be like to be deaf and raise a child who could hear?

Fire of 1882 – In 1882 a spring breeze blew papers onto the roof of a store located where the traffic light marks the intersection of Route 85 and 66, the fire soon spread to the neighboring Congregational church and east to this spot on the north side of the green, it jumped over the old town hall, but burned a house and the center district school on the south side of the green

Walking and Talking Thoughts Look at this view of the north side of the Hebron Green. What has changed since the fire of 1882?

Sylvester Gilbert House Site-- Sylvester Gilbert was a town leader during the Revolutionary War for a while he ran a law school located on this property. He and his wife had 13 children, five of whom were born deaf, but all of whom found a place in the community – one as a silversmith and another son as a cabinetmaker, two of his daughters were in the first classes of the American School for Deaf in Hartford. Sylvester Gilbert was also a slave holder and Chloe and Patience? Were labored here for their owner

Walking and Talking Thoughts As a leading citizen Sylvester Gilbert used his position in the community to help his deaf children find a productive role. Why were the choices of having his sons trained as a silversmith and cabinetmaker wise choices in accommodating their disabilities?

Congregational Church –Before a Connecticut town could be incorporated or established, it needed to have a settled minister. Hebron had a difficult time in finding one. Eventually, John Bliss was lured to Hebron by promises of a salary, firewood and fields of grain. The First Meetinghouse stood where the traffic light is now located. Most 18^th century ministers settled for life, but because Hebron’s population was located on widely spaced farms, a dispute broke out in the 1730’s over where to locate a new meetinghouse. This resulted in Rev. Bliss declaring himself for the Anglican or Episcopal Church. The dispute over the location of the new meetinghouse reached a fevered pitch when the existing meeting house was subjected to arson. Efforts to establish its new location from the General Assembly resulted in the stakes marking the building being pulled up several times, eventually resulting in Hebron breaking into the parishes of Hebron, Gilead, Marlborough, and Andover and earning the sobriquet of “Hebron – Stronghold of Satan”. The Rev. Benjamin Pomeroy replaced Rev. Bliss. He was a “New Light” preacher and guided his congregation through the American Revolution. His wife was the sister of Ebenezer Wheelock, the Columbian Congregational minister who organized Moore’s Indian School to educate and Christianize Indigenous People. Benjamin Pomeroy was a founding member of this school which later became Dartmouth College. Benjamin Pomeroy was also a slave holder and his slaves worshipped each Sunday at this spot.

Walking and Talking Thoughts This is a picture of the third meetinghouse.

Why are church spires so iconic in New England’s landscape?

Town Records Building – Om 1909 Hebron celebrated it Bicentennial. Hebron had changed over 200 years. In the 18^th and early 19^th century Hebron was the home of White Yankees, Black Yankees, and migratory Native Americans. Two hundred years later, Native Americans had ceased visiting Hebron on a seasonal basis, Hebron’s African American population had shrunk to a few individuals, many Yankee inhabitants had left town. Deserted farms and farmhouses doted the Hebron landscape. Hebron received a boost to its economy and lifeline to its survival through immigrants from central, eastern, and southern Europe. While initially resented, these newly arrived individuals and families found a way to revitalize Hebron’s agricultural economy. The records building represents the change in Hebron’s social patterns. The names recorded on tax lists would no longer be just Yankee names, but names from around the world.

Walking and Talking Thoughts If you live in Hebron, how many of your neighbors can trace their roots back to Hebron’s Yankee past.? How many of you neighbors have family roots that connect them with other parts of the world?

Fuller’s Tavern located west of traffic light on Routes 85 and 66–Every town needed a tavern and Fuller’s tavern served that need in Hebron. Taverns were a contact point with the outside world and brought fresh ideas and products to Hebron. It also offered employment opportunities for African Americans. In the late 18^th and early 19^th century Fuller’s tavern was the largest employer of African Americans, both free and enslaved in Hebron.

Walking and Talking Thoughts Inns provided meals, alcoholic beverages, and a place to sleep. What modern buildings in Hebron fulfill these functions. 

Horton House – Built in 1856, the Dr. Orrin White House is one of Hebron’s most revolutionary structures. It’s flat tin roof from Mitchell’s tin shop across the way, over hanging eaves and modern kitchen in the cellar proclaimed the progressiveness of its owner, Dr. Orrin White. As a professional, he hired African American and newly arrived Irish help to run his farm and household. He died tending to suffers of an epidemic that broke out amongst Hebron’s African American community

Walking and Talking Thoughts By 1860 the Orrin Household employed an Irish maid like many other Center Village Households. Many of these newly arrived Irish immigrants were Catholic. How do you suppose the spent their Sundays when their employers went off to attend Protestant services in town?

Gull School -- In the late 20^th century, Hebron’s plan of preservation was based on either moving historic structures or demolishing them. This district school is an example of the relocation of historic structures. It has been moved at least twice. It is typical of Hebron’s district schools, but not of a Center Village schoolhouse which was often two stories.

Walking and Talking Thoughts How does changing a building’s location, change the meaning of a landscape?

Marjorie Martin’s House–This is one of Hebron’s truly authentic 18^th century dwellings and has many associations with the development of Hebron. In the 18^th century it was once one of the farms owned by the Congregational Minister, Rev. Mr. Pomeroy. In the 19^th century it served as a center of higher learning and as business of a hat maker. In the 20^th century, it was the home of the town librarian. Remarkably, it was little altered, despite its variety of uses.

Walking and Talking Thoughts Historically jobs for women were scarce outside of the home. How would opening a academy being an ideal solution for a woman in the early 19^th century?

Pliny Parker House– Pliny Parker who built this house was a farmer and broom maker. His account book survives and provides insight into how Hebron was changing in the 1840’s. At that time, he noted he hired an Irish worker Patrick and was astounded that Patrick kept Christmas as a holiday. He Also noted that on occasion "an Indian squaw” came to Hebron selling baskets

Walking and Talking Thoughts New England towns tend to ignore the fact that Native Americans continued to live within their bounds after settlement. How does the reference to the Native American suggest this woman had found an economic niche in Hebron different from her Yankee neighbors?

Eber Oran-- Eber Oran or Oran Eber owned property in this area, but is recorded as renting a house with 3 fireplaces in the Center Village. As an African American, he represents the prosperous role African Americans had in Hebron in the early 19^th century – owning property, living in a large house and also having indentured servants, some of whom were African American. Other African Americans were not so lucky. Pomp Mundo whose family was enslaved along with Cesar Peters family was warned out of Lebanon as a pauper when Eber Oran lived.

Walking and Talking Thoughts How does Eber Oran’s narrative suggest he had become the equal of his Yankee neighbors?

WWii station—WWII affected the whole nation, including Hebron Rationing and black out curtains became the order of the day as local units looked for the presence of enemy aircraft. This building originally stood east of the Hebron Center on Robinson Hill, but was relocated to Hebron Center to preserve it.

Walking and Talking Thoughts Rationing of consumer goods was a way of life for Hebron families during WWII. Have you ever lived through a period where consumer goods have been scarce and unavailable? How has this affected the price?

Kellogg House – This is one of the few houses in Hebron Center that testifies to its development starting in the 1790’s. Built by Squire Dutton, it is of a central hall configuration. It is also a house associated with several of Hebron’s Center Village families. Squire Dutton was a slave holder and it is recorded he had a slave who he let indulge his liking for butter. In the latter 1790’s, Rev. Amos Bassett organized Connecticut’s first missionary Society here – an early example of American Manifest Destiny. Dubbed “Maple Shade” in the early 19^th century, this was the home of the Annable family, a member of which was William Annable, a young man paralyzed from the waist down, who wrote a series of amazing letters to his soon to be brother-in-law Joseph Kellogg and drew sketches of Hebron.

Walking and Talking Thoughts How has the above scene changed today?

Post House – The Post house and store that stood here were relocated in part to Norfolk, Connecticut in the 1940’s. It was the most architecturally sophisticated in Hebron and with the loss of houses to the north due to the fire of 1882, rendered green as rather mundane. In the 1870’s Mary Jane Post hosted a number of students here sent over by the Imperial government of China to learn about Western technology. Although initially discriminated against due to their different ethnicity, the Chinese students excelled at playing baseball and were eventually accepted by their fellow Center Village contemporaries. These students returned to China ibn the 1870’s and assumed important positions that helped China modernize. Today they are hailed in their native land as heroes who first went abroad to help their nation join the ranks of the modern world.

Walking and Talking Thoughts What would it be like to live in a place and not know the language? Interestingly the Chinese students gained acceptance with the local Hebron boys who initially chanted “Chiney, Chiney China men, eatee rat soup” by excelling in playing baseball which bridged the language barrier.

Synagogue-- This building sits on the site of one of Sylvester Gilbert’s children’s home. When it burned, the site took on a new meaning as the center of faith of Hebron’s Jewish community. Designed by Ira Terschen, it was one of the most architecturally sophisticated buildings of Hebron Center in the 20^th century. Eastern Connecticut’s Jewish settlement owes much to the plans of Baron de Hirsch who envisioned settling discriminated Jews from Eastern Europe on to failing Yankee farms. It was an agricultural renaissance, progressive farming methods were applied to failing farms. However, Jewish tradition required the ability to be able to walk each Sabbath to the Synagogue. Immigrating from the Russian Polish Pale, so called Church Street once harbored more speakers of Yiddish than English.

Walking and Talking Thoughts Notice the date of construction on this building. The Baron de Hirsch plan introduced a culture very different from traditional Yankee culture into Eastern Connecticut. In doing so, it saved the Connecticut farming economy. How many surrounding towns have synagogues built in the early 20^th century? How did Jewish culture change these communities?

Bassett House – The Congregational minister Rev. Amos Bassett built this house about 1806. His wife Sally Tinker had been disapproved of by the deacons of the church as a suitable match. However, Mr. Bassett had a mind of his own and was not swayed by local gossip. Rev. Bassett had organized Connecticut’s first missionary Society in the 1790, but left Hebron to become the second principal of the Missionary School established in Cromwell, CT., where following in the tradition of Moore’s Indian School, Native Americans and other Indigenous Peoples were brought to be educated and Christianized. During Mr. Bassett’s tenure as principal, growing racism resulted in a race riot against Native Americans marrying into Yankee families.

Walking and Talking Thoughts Can you find the Bassett house in this view of Hebron? How has it and this view changed since then? 

Gov Peters House– John S. Peters is the only Hebron resident to have become Governor of Connecticut. Although his short term is often characterized as non- eventful, it was during this time that Prudence Crandall opened her school for African Americans in Canterbury, CT which was shut down by race riots and the passage of Black laws that forbade students of color from other states receiving and education within Connecticut’s borders. Gov. Peters started life as a physician and his account book is filled with instances of him treating and forgiving debts owed to him by Native and African Americans.

Walking and Talking Thoughts The ell to the south of Gov Peters house was his medical office. John S. Peters’ father was an ardent Loyalist, but his son was elected Governor of the State of Connecticut. What do you think this says about how the Revolutionary War affected Hebron?

St Peters Church–
When it was built St. Peters was one of the most fashionable architectural buildings of its kind in Connecticut. It originally boasted Gothic spires and turrets which did not weather the New England climate as well as anticipated. The congregation was organized in the 1730’s mainly for geographic rather than theological reasons. The original church stood north on Route 85 on Godfrey Hill. However, in 1818 Connecticut adopted a new constitution that finally gave Episcopalians and equal footing with Congregationalist. It was a double edge sword. Episcopalian gained legitimacy, while formerly enfranchised African Americans were stripped of their right to vote.

Walking and Talking Thoughts How has this building changed from when it was first built?

The Rev. Samuel Peters is buried in the graveyard here. A contemporary of the Founding Fathers, he has been reviled in American history for his loyalty to England. He and his 2 younger brothers were forced to abandon their plantation located on East Street during the early years of the Revolutionary War and left their female relatives in charge. Loyalist communities in eastern Connecticut are fairly rare and Rev. Peters’ estate which was comprised of 7 houses, 9 barns, 4000 fruit trees and six slaves was vast. While living in London, Rev. Samuel Peters provided his relatives in Hebron with a direct link to London fashion. The Peters House at Burnt Hill Park and several examples of Hebron furniture represent this link.

Walking and Talking Thoughts Rev Peters experience during the Revolutionary War was vastly different from his nephew Gov. Peters. How does Rev Peters’ experience suggest the Revolutionary War was as much a Civil War as a Revolution?

Driveway of Church of the Holy family – In 1704 this was wilderness. The Connecticut General Assembly mandated that settlers in this region had to obtain legal permission to abandon their farms in order to avoid attacks by French and Native Americans. Never-the less the wives of Mr. Phelps and Mr. Shipman braved the wilderness to find their husbands and establish their homes on this site. Known since the mid-19^th century, this site was buried under concrete with the recent sidewalk expansion

Walking and Talking Thoughts This site was recently paved over by the new sidewalk. Do you think the site should have been preserved?

Graves House Newly arrived John Graves probably met his future wife while working on updating the Jonathan Peters House at Burnt Hill. John Graves represents an entrepreneurial type of individual who blossomed during the early years of the republic. He was probably responsible for taking style designs sent over from England by his relative Rev. Samuel Peters and introducing them to Hebron. As a house wright and cabinetmaker, he shaped the built landscape of the town we know today. By the end of his life, the strains of house building had taken their toll and he retired as a broom maker. During the Civil War his heirs sold the house to Dr. Cyrus Pendleton, who with his daughters would record Hebron’s past for the future.

Walking and Talking Thoughts Where do Hebron people get their furniture today? How is that different from when Hebron supported several cabinetmakers living in the Center Village?

Hewitt House –Hebron Center has one of the greatest concentrations of brick buildings in town. This building has had many owners and many functions. William Annable describes a ball being held here and more recent times the building was Victorianized. Much of the Victorianization has been removed

Walking and Talking Thoughts Look at this view, what changes can you find in it from today?

Celio Store – This is probably one of the oldest stores in Hebron. It seems to be the same building illustrated by William Annable in the 1840’s with a more modern addition added to the front. Merchants provided a window on the world for Hebron consumers providing goods from far away. By the same token consumers helped to prolong economies based on slavery which kept the price of consumer goods low.

Walking and Talking Thoughts In the mid-19^th century there were five stores in Hebron Center. Hebron farmers were never self- sufficient. What goods would a farmer have to buy from a store in the 18^th and 19^th century?

Parsonage—This building was built by John Graves for the First Congregational Society. Ministers were conduits shaping the thoughts of their parishioners. Little is known about Hebron’s first society ministers, but the record suggest they were ardent supporters of African Americans, temperance, and perhaps women’s rights.

Walking and Talking Thoughts Ministers and their wives were socially dynamic forces in New England towns leading the way toward social change. How does social change come about in Hebron today?

American Legion – This building was built after the fire of 1882. Before then a two-story structure stood here which for a while functioned as both center village school and town Hall. Period construction was not always good. The floor collapsed during a town meeting and sent voters (at that time only white men) to the steps of the Congregational Church to finish their meeting. Hebron School records record that African and Yankee students attended to their lessons side by side in the structure that originally stood here.

Walking and Talking Thoughts Education has been a strong concern in Hebron for 300 years. How does this building suggest the education Center Village students received was different from those students who attended the Gull School?

Douglass Library -- Often times town legacies are built on fortunes gained from social evils. Dr. Douglass earned a reputation and money from curing addicts addicted to alcohol. He had deep Hebron roots associated with improving the lot of humanity. He and his wife were early advocates for literacy and women’s rights and provided the funds for the Douglass library to further their goals

Walking and Talking Thoughts Why would providing funds for a library lead to social change? How are you involved in the changing values of the 21^st century?