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In grateful
appreciation to:
Bob Grigg
Curator:
Colebrook Historical
Society
Municipal Historian:
Town of Colebrook,
County of Litchfield,
State of Connecticut, USA
"The view of Colebrook was
drawn from a location about one quarter of a mile south of the Center along
what is today CT Route 183. The church was then located two houses north
of the Colebrook Store."
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The Colebrook Historical Society has, in
its library, a book entitled “Connecticut Historical Collections”
containing a general collection of interesting facts, traditions,
biographical sketches, anecdotes, etc. relating to the history and
antiquities of every town in Connecticut with geographical descriptions.
Illustrated by 190 engravings.
This 560-page book was authored and
illustrated by a gentleman named John Warner Barber. He makes mention of
these engravings in the preface. Remember that in 1836, the publication
date, few if any Americans had ever seen a photograph. That, coupled with
the fact that the general population did not travel around sightseeing as we
do today, prompted him to make the following statement: “The numerous
engravings interspaced through this work, were (with five or six exceptions)
executed from drawings taken on the spot, by the author of this work. Before
deciding upon the correctness of these representations, he wishes his
readers to consider that the appearance of any place will vary considerably
as it is viewed from different points: thus a north view will appear
quite different from one taken at the south.”
Of course it would make no sense today to feel
the need to make such a statement, but historically, it is quite interesting
to see the evolution of various technologies.
The view of Colebrook was drawn from a
location about one quarter of a mile south of the Center along what is today
Conn. Route 183. The church was then located two houses north of the
Colebrook Store. Draper’s house, next to the store (which can be identified
by the columns in front) does not have the rear addition yet. The barns on
the extreme right side are where Jake Thompson’s house sits today; the
church is presently located where the road drops out of sight. That’s Mount
Pisgah in the background, its flanks denuded of trees for firewood and
charcoal and replaced by grazing land for cattle and sheep.
Here is the text for Colebrook:
“Colebrook is an elevated township, the
central part of which is 31 miles northwest of Hartford, and 18 miles
northeast from Litchfield, bounded north by Massachusetts line, east by
Hartland, west by Norfolk and south by Winchester. Its length from east to
west is six miles, and its average breadth five. The township is hilly and
mountainous and the soil a hard gravelly loam, and generally stony. It is in
general rather cold and wet, but affords tolerable good grazing. The main
branch of the Farmington River intersects the eastern part of the town, and
affords excellent mill seats. The population of the town in 1810 was 1,243;
in 1830, it was 1,332. [It is 1,471 at last count.]
It is said that in the year 1796, some
laborers in this town, digging to the depth of nine or ten feet, found three
large tusks, and two thigh bones, the latter of which measured each about
four feet and four inches in length, and twelve inches and a half in
circumference. It is added that when first discovered they were entire; but
that as soon as they were exposed to the air, they moldered into dust.”
The first settler in the town, Benjamin
Horton, located himself about three quarters of a mile south from this
place. [Here the author lists several of the original settlers and describes
how virgin land was cleared. While the techniques described are accurate,
they did not apply to Colebrook. The girdling of the original forest giants
was accomplished twenty or thirty years prior to the first settlers arriving
from Windsor.]
“When the land was new, it produced good oats
and turnips. Apple trees, at the first settlement of the town, did not
flourish. The town was organized into an ecclesiastical society in 1786, and
the first meetinghouse was built about the same time. Rev. Dr. Jonathan
Edwards, of New Haven, son of the celebrated divine of the same name, was
installed the first pastor in 1795. He however continued here but 3 or 4
years, being appointed president of Union College in Schenectady. The Rev.
Chauncey Lee, D.D. was the next minister. [And was still there in that
capacity when this book was written.] There are at present five houses of
worship in the limits of the town, 1 Congregational, 2 Baptist, 1 Methodist
and 1 for various denominations.”
The mammoth bones referred to were discovered
somewhere in Colebrook River and what remains of them are at the Connecticut
Museum in Hartford. In the twentieth century more bones of this type were
found in the meadows west of the Center and also in the swampy area just to
the left of the access road to the Colebrook River Dam. These Pleistocene
creatures followed the retreating glaciers and eventually went extinct,
probably at the hands of the first humans who populated North America, some
8 to 10,000 years ago. When I was in college in Worcester, Mass during the
late 1950s, the Mass Pike was under construction, and a deposit of
pre-glacial soil was unearthed in the town of Shrewsbury by the blade of a
bulldozer. The operator couldn’t believe his eyes, as the lowest layer of
gravel revealed a layer of brilliant red material, which faded into a dark
brown in the space of five to ten seconds. It turned out to be a deposit of
peat that had been covered by the glacier, more than 100,000 years ago, and
kept in an anaerobic [oxygen free] environment until exposed to our
oxygen-rich air. Harvard and the Smithsonian obtained core samples of this
material, which proved to be deeper than 15 feet. I mention this only to
confirm the 1836 statement that the bones “moldered into dust” before their
eyes.
- Bob Grigg
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