Windsor, Connecticut, USA (Poquonock)
1839 - Windsor

Windsor, Ct.

Hartford co. This most ancient town in Connecticut is situated on the west side of Connecticut river, 6 miles N. from Hartford. Population, 1830, 3,220. The surface of the town is generally level, having some extensive plains. The soil is various, and free from stone : some of it is light, but a large proportion of it is fertile, containing extensive tracts of rich meadow.

Farmington river passes through the town, and meeting the Connecticut, gives the town a good hydraulic power.

There are in Windsor 4 paper mills, 2 manufactories of cotton batting, and factories of satinet, Kentucky jean, wire, &c. The business in these manufacturing establishments is very considerable. At a place called Pine Meadow, at the commencement of the locks on the Enfield canal, a variety of ship and other timber is prepared for market. Pine Meadow is opposite to Warehouse Point, in East Windsor.

The centre village in Windsor is pleasantly extended on the banks of the Connecticut: it is well built, well shaded, and commands delightful prospects.

Poquonnuck village is a few miles N. from the centre. It is a manufacturing village, delightfully situated at the head of navigation on Farmington river.

" In 1631, Wahquimacut, an Indian sachem, living near Connecticut river, made a journey to Plymouth and Boston, and earnestly entreated the governors of each of the colonies to send men to make settlements on the river. He represented the fruitfulness of the country, and promised the English, that if they would make a settlement, he would annually supply them with corn, and give them eighty beaver skins.

" The governor of Massachusetts, although he treated the sachem and his company with generosity, paid no attention to his proposals. Mr. Winslow, the governor of Plymouth, judged it worthy of attention. It seems that soon after that, he went into Connecticut, and discovered the river and the adjacent parts. It appeared that the earnestness with which the sachem solicited the English to make settlements on the river, originated from the distressed state of the river Indians. Pekoath, the great sachem of the Pequots, was at war with them and driving them from the" country, and they imagined 'that if the English made settlements on the river, they would assist them in -defending themselves against their too powerful enemies.

"Governor Winslow of Plymouth, being pleased with the appearance of the country, having visited it, the Plymouth people made preparations for erecting a trading house, and establishing a small company upon the river. In 1633, William Holmes, with his associates, having prepared the frame of a house, with boards and materials for covering it immediately, put them on board of a vessel and sailed for Connecticut. Holmes landed and erected his house a little below the mouth of Farmington river, in Windsor. The house was covered with the utmost dispatch, and fortified with palisadoes. The Plymouth people purchased of the Indians the land on which they erected their house. This, governor Wolcott says, was the first house erected in Connecticut.

" In June, 1634, the Dutch sent Jacob Van Curter to purchase lands on the Connecticut. He made a purchase of about twenty acres at Hartford, of Nepuquash, a Pequot captain, on the 25th of October. Curter protested against Holmes, the builder of the Plymouth house. Some time afterwards, the Dutch governor, Van Twiller, of Fort Amsterdam, sent a reinforcement to Connecticut, in order to drive Holmes from the river. A party of seventy men under arms, with banners displayed, assaulted the Plymouth house, but they found it so well fortified, and the men who kept it so vigilant and determined, that it could not be taken without bloodshed. They therefore came to a parley, aud finally returned in peace.

A number of Mr. Wareham's people came, in the summer of 1635, to Connecticut, and made preparations to bring their families and make a permanent settlement. After having made such preparations as they judged necessary, they began to remove .their families and property. On the 15th of October, about sixty men, women and children, with their horses, cattle and swine, commenced their journey from Massachusetts, through the wilderness, to Connecticut river. After a tedious and difficult journey, through swamps and rivers, over mountains and rough grounds,which were passed with great difficulty and fatigue, they arrived safely at the places of their respective destination. They were so long on their journey, and so much time and pains were spent in passing the river, and in getting over their cattle, that after all their exertions, winter came upon them before they were prepared.

" About the beginning of December, provisions generally failed in the settlements on the river, and famine and death looked the inhabitants in the face. In their distress, some of them in this severe season attempted to go through the wilderness to the nearest settlement in Massachusetts. A company of thirteen, who made the attempt, lost one of their number, who, in passing a river, fell through the ice and was drowned. The other twelve were ten days on their journey, and had they not received assistance from the Indians, would all have perished. Such was the general distress by the 3d and 4th of December, that a considerable part of the settlers were obliged to leave their habitations. Seventy persons, men, women and children, were obliged, in the severity of winter, to go down to the mouth of the river to meet their provisions, as the only expedient to preserve their lives. Not meeting the vessels which they expected, they all went on board of the Rebecca, a vessel of about 60 tons. This vessel, two days before, was frozen in, twenty miles up the river; but by the falling of a small rain, and the influence of the tide, the ice became so broken, that she made a shift to get out. She however ran upon the bar, and the people were forced to unlade her to get her off. She was reladed, and in five days reached Boston. Had it not been for these providential circumstances, the people must have perished from famine.

"The people who remained and kept their stations on the river, suffered in an extreme degree. After all the help they were able to obtain, by hunting and from the Indians, they were obliged to subsist on acorns, malt and grains. The cattle, which could not be got over the river before winter, lived by browsing in the woods and meadows. They wintered as well, or better, than those that were brought over, and for which all the provision was made, and care taken, of which the settlers were capable. A great number of the cattle, however, perished. The Dorchester or Windsor people lost, in this species of property, about two hundred pounds sterling. Upon the breaking up of winter, and during the summer following, the settlers came in large companies, and the settlements at Windsor, Hartford and Wethersfield were firmly established."

The first of the four following epitaphs is supposed to be the most ancient monumental inscription in the state.

Heere lyeth Ephraim Hvit,
sometimes Teacher to ye chyrch of
Windsor, who
died September 4th,
1644.

Who when hee lived wee drew ovr vitall breath,
Who when hee died his dying was ovr death,
Who was ye stay of stale, ye chvrches staff,
Alas, the times forbid an epitaph.
__________

Here
vnder lyeth the body of Henry Wolcot,
sometimes
a Maiestrate of this Ivrisdiction, who died ye 30th day
of May,
Anno Salvtis 1655, Ætatis 77.
__________

Here lyeth
the body of the Hon. Roger Wolcott, Esq.
of Windsor, who
for several years was Governor of the
Colony of Connecticut, died
May 17th,
Anno Salutis 1767,
Ætatis 89.
Earth's highest station ends in " Here he lies ;
" And " dust to dust" concludes her noblest song.

To the memory of Oliver Ellsworth, LL. D., an assistant in the Council, and a judge of the Superior Court of the State of Connecticut. A member of the Convention which formed, and of the State Convention of Connecticut, which adopted the Constitution of the U. States.—Senator and Chief Justice of the U. States ; one of the Envoys extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary, who made the convention of 1800 between the U. States and the French Republic. Amiable and exemplary in all the relations of the domestic, social and Christian character. Pre-eminently useful in all the offices he sustained, whose great talents under the guidance of inflexible integrity, consummate wisdom, and enlightened zeal, placed him among the first of the illustrious statesmen who achieved and established the independence of the American Republic. Born at Windsor April 29th, 1745, and died Nov. 26, 1807.

The ancient boundaries of Windsor extended 46 miles in circumference, lying on both sides of the river. Within these limits there were ten distinct Indian tribes or sovereignties. In the year 1670 there was a large Indian fortress at Windsor, and nineteen natives to one Englishman : but another race has arisen:—
"The chiefs of other days are departed.
They have gone without their fame.
The people are like the waves of the ocean:
Like the leaves of woody Morven,
They pass away in the rustling blast,
And other leaves lift their green heads
on high."


The New England Gazetteer containing descriptions of all the states, counties and towns in New England: also descriptions of the principal mountains, rivers lakes, capes, bays, harbors, islands and fashionable resorts within that territory. By John Hayward, author of the Columbian Traveller, Religious Creeds, &c. &c. Boston: John Hayward. Boyd & White, Concord, N.H. 1839

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