Monday is not a good day to find things open in Weathersfield but the Webb-Dean- Stevens museum was giving their $10 tours. This site gives a good overview, one house at a time.
https://webb-deane-stevens.org/
********************************************
https://webb-deane-stevens.org/historic-houses-barns/silas-deane-house/
and that, along with The Cove was plenty of tourism for me, and with a visit to the nearby Rave cinema for "The House" I filled my day.
https://dailygazette.com/article/2017/07/04/the-house-blunt-good-humored-honesty
************************************************************************
JOSEPH WEBB HOUSE
https://webb-deane-stevens.org/historic-houses-barns/webb-house/
I did not intentionally go to the museum because I was celebrating July 4th, but it was certainly appropriate as part of that holiday.
While all of the three houses I visited had connections to Revolutionary War times, this house was where the most decisive battles were discussed.
I actually stood in the room where George Washington and French General Rochambeau talked over plans to attack NY city. These were later scrapped for other plans to coordinate the French and American forces as they surrounded Cornwallis at Yorktown, ending the war.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington%E2%80%93Rochambeau_Revolutionary_Route
At the time, Wethersfield was a very important and connected town. It had great access via the Connecticut River to the ocean and was safer than the ports nearer New York City.
Ships left with supplies for England, then collected slaves in Africa, and traded these for spices and such in the Caribbean.
https://connecticuthistory.org/connecticut-and-the-west-indies-trade/
Slavery here was still legal and there had been slaves in some of the houses we visited, but their opportunities were less limited than in the South. They could marry, walk about, save to buy their freedom. Also, they were taught to read by their Puritan owners, so they would be able to read the Bible. It does not mean their lives were comfortable.
Hagar and Pompey were slaves in this house.
Here are notes on them from a blog.
"Connecticut does not jump to the forefront of my mind when I think about slavery but there were plenty of slaves here. Tari Joyce, the museum's education coordinator, said the last slave in Connecticut died in 1857. And since some of those slaves lived in Wethersfield, the museum is organizing a special tour of the three historic homes that will show how the slaves who lived there lived.
Three houses were occupied by wealthy men who could afford the best. But that did not mean that being one of their slaves entailed having it easy or comfortable. The slaves in the Webb House slept in the attic and, like my attic, it was rather chilly when I went up there. And dark. Joyce said since candles were hard to produce, slaves most likely did not get many to illuminate that attic.
One of the Webb House's distinctions is that it definitely is one of the many places where George Washington spent the night. Traveling with Washington was his valet, a slave named William Lee. But just because he was closer than most to Washington didn't mean Lee lived a whole lot better. The room where Washington stayed looks pretty comfortable even by today's standards. But Lee slept on the floor outside the bedroom.
The houses are furnished pretty much the way they would have been in the late 1700s and early 1800s and you can see the glaring contrast between what the owners had and what they spared for the slaves.
I took photographs of a bedroom in the Deane house where the home's owners slept and a bed in the slave room. Better than the attic but still pretty spartan.
Two of the slaves who lived in the Webb and Deane houses were Hagar and Pompey. Records indicate that eventually they were freed. Joyce said it is possible they either bought their freedom with money loaned to them by another freed slave, Clo Prutt, or that Prutt bought their freedom herself. What may have made this transaction possible was that by the time they were freed, Hagar and Pompey were valued as being worth no more than a pair of shoes, Joyce said. Hagar and Pompey eventually went to live with Prutt, who made enough money making cloth to buy a house of her own.
Joyce said museum staff became interested in finding out more about the slaves who lived in the houses after seeing burial stones for African Americans in the burying grounds in Old Wethersfield."
They did eventually buy their freedom.
from http://articles.courant.com/2009-02-22/news/6kenblog0222.art_1_slaves-pompey-white-house
Commerce was destroyed when the river changed course and abandoned Wethersfield leaving only The Cove and no real access by water to anywhere.
River flooding in another area had produced the fertile soil that grew the famous iron rich Red Onion.
http://www.newenglandhistoricalsociety.com/rise-fall-wethersfield-red-onion/
Food in those days was rancid and poor. Spices helped some.
Nutmeg was particularly popular. Wethersfield sold a "nutmeg" that was all wood. Hence the derogatory term "nutmeggers" for the Wethersfield residents.
Open hearth kitchens were very unhealthy. The embers from the fire were brought out on to grates and the food cooked there. Workers inhaled the smoke and lung diseases developed.
The contraption in this photograph was a weight and pulley system that once set up could turn a spit while meat cooked for as long as twenty minutes.All garbage was tossed out the windows where roving pigs and other animals feasted on it while it went to compost. Ceramics tossed when they were broken and gradually sunk into the ground. Some pieces are now being excavated in the rear area of the Joseph Webb house.
All houses had these hanging leather buckets to use in case of fire. They seemed pretty useless to me.
The Joseph Webb house was impressive. It was a post and beam construction, held together by dowels. Webb died and his wife married Silas Dean who was a Yale graduate who found teaching not productive and came to practice law in Wethersfield.
This created rancor in the family. Webb children did not like Silas nor his child by Mary, Jesse.
So, he moved out, but in spite he built a house right next door, one opulent and full of things to impress the visitor.
Here is a good summary of the house history.
https://webb-deane-stevens.org/historic-houses-barns/webb-house/wallace-nutting-and-the-webb-house/
While Nutting did create murals celebrating the achievements of Revolutionary War times, some of them are inaccurate. Especially incorrect was a large mural of Cornwallis surrendering his sword to George Washington. There actually was no such scene because Cornwallis would not give Washington that honor and Washington would not take the sword from another.
This is perhaps a more accurate rendering of that surrender
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surrender_of_Lord_Cornwallis
In the Yorktown Parlor there was sometimes gambling by the guests. They played a game of Loo
http://sopgaming.blogspot.com/2010/09/colonial-gaming-loo-and-upper-classes.html
*************************************************************************
SILAS DEANE HOUSE
https://webb-deane-stevens.org/historic-houses-barns/silas-deane-house/
It probably had one of the first wrap around porches because the foundation seems to be the kind that needed covering, but the porch could not be included in the renovations because no on could find any paintings of the house that were back in the original times. The porch was there later, until the 1950's when an owner had it removed.
The house was build off center, with the door off to the right. This would attract attention.
There was a dutch door, like those in Spain, allowing for the top of the door to be opened. Also impressive for those times was the cloak closet. They were actually taxed extra for that.
This was all in Puritan times when being eccentric was frowned upon. Bullying and persecution of witches was common.
Silas moved up in upper circles. He was sent to the continental Congress along with John Adams and Benjamin Franklin. However, two people destroyed him. One was his good friend Benedict Arnold.
Another was a former student.
It turned out Bankcroft was a spy.
"Edward Bartholomew Bancroft (January 20, 1745 [O.S. January 9, 1744] – September 7, 1821) was a Massachusetts born physician and chemist who became a double-agent, spying for both the United States and Britain while serving as secretary to the American Commission in Paris during the American Revolution." from Wikipedia
https://webb-deane-stevens.org/the-vilest-deeds-silas-deane-edward-bancroft-and-the-american-revolution/
who ironically showed him how to get loans for arms to Colonials. Money was used for arms and repayed when the ship returned with Virginia tobacco.
He also got pirates to attack the British for a portion of what was on the ships. John Paul Jones was one of those. He gave military commissions to European generals who came to help the fighting, including Thaddeus Kosciuszko.
http://www.iwp.edu/programs/page/tadeusz-kosciuszko-a-man-of-unwavering-principle
https://allthingsliberty.com/2014/07/silas-deane-forgotten-patriot/
http://www.silasdeaneonline.org/slidetour/slidetour1.htm
Not in the lecture was this note that also put Dean on the wrong side of the issue.
"Deane returned to France in 1780 as a private citizen and prepared letters to old friends in America attacking the French alliance and recommending a reconciliation with England. When the letters were published in The Royal Gazette, a Tory paper in New York (1781), he was denounced as a traitor."
Here is some speculative theories into his death.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frmLoMvgaRo
The kitchen and open hearth cooking created lung diseases. embers brought on the floor, on a grating to cook on.
********************************
ISSAH STEVENS HOUSE
https://webb-deane-stevens.org/historic-houses-barns/isaac-stevens-house/
http://travelphotobase.com/u/CT/CTKWW3.HTM
Stevens was a leather worker during the time of the Industrial revolution. The increased dependence on machines gave people more leisure time for things like needlepoint and music lessons.
Here is the piano forte.
This chair interested me, especially since I just repaired one at home here that was not so ornate, but of similar design.
by women artists. Rare in those days.
They now had wallpaper. Simple with few choices but used.
I can't quite place these photographs in the appropriate houses, but they do reflect interesting parts of these old places.
This one I believe was in the Webb house. It is an interesting cupboard which now displays china, but probably in the old days was used to lock up valuable spices. Servants would often not have keys because spices could be stolen and resold. The woman of the house kept her key in a special pocket designed just to keep it safe.
The grounds included a pleasant garden and some of the flowers were in bloom
*******************************************************************************
THE COVE
It was a very hot day. I was happy to drive away from the houses and their weak fans and go the The Cove. This is a small bit of water left after the river changed course. It is now a park and boat launch area.
I sat for quite a while enjoying the refreshment of the breeze, drinking a cold seltzer from my cooler and having some green grapes.
No boats were running. All were moored out from shore.
The water was so high that it had made getting on the dock areas impossible. It swamped garbage cans and the garbage floated out to the shore.
One fellow grabbed a bag and picked up the cans that could be turned in for deposit.
He had lived a few years ago in Wethersfield and moved to NYC to be close to his elderly mother and his sister only to have them decide to leave. He wanted to get back to Wethersfield, but the prices of property were high.
He drove up from the city often and walked his dog in the park.
There are many old buildings in downtown Weathersfield. Here is an interesting one.
I stopped and had some no fat/no sugar iced cream at this place. I chose a rich chocolate flavor and it was delightful. The place was well attended and popular.
https://webb-deane-stevens.org/
********************************************
https://webb-deane-stevens.org/historic-houses-barns/silas-deane-house/
and that, along with The Cove was plenty of tourism for me, and with a visit to the nearby Rave cinema for "The House" I filled my day.
https://dailygazette.com/article/2017/07/04/the-house-blunt-good-humored-honesty
************************************************************************
JOSEPH WEBB HOUSE
https://webb-deane-stevens.org/historic-houses-barns/webb-house/
I did not intentionally go to the museum because I was celebrating July 4th, but it was certainly appropriate as part of that holiday.
While all of the three houses I visited had connections to Revolutionary War times, this house was where the most decisive battles were discussed.
I actually stood in the room where George Washington and French General Rochambeau talked over plans to attack NY city. These were later scrapped for other plans to coordinate the French and American forces as they surrounded Cornwallis at Yorktown, ending the war.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington%E2%80%93Rochambeau_Revolutionary_Route
At the time, Wethersfield was a very important and connected town. It had great access via the Connecticut River to the ocean and was safer than the ports nearer New York City.
Ships left with supplies for England, then collected slaves in Africa, and traded these for spices and such in the Caribbean.
https://connecticuthistory.org/connecticut-and-the-west-indies-trade/
Slavery here was still legal and there had been slaves in some of the houses we visited, but their opportunities were less limited than in the South. They could marry, walk about, save to buy their freedom. Also, they were taught to read by their Puritan owners, so they would be able to read the Bible. It does not mean their lives were comfortable.
Hagar and Pompey were slaves in this house.
Here are notes on them from a blog.
"Connecticut does not jump to the forefront of my mind when I think about slavery but there were plenty of slaves here. Tari Joyce, the museum's education coordinator, said the last slave in Connecticut died in 1857. And since some of those slaves lived in Wethersfield, the museum is organizing a special tour of the three historic homes that will show how the slaves who lived there lived.
Three houses were occupied by wealthy men who could afford the best. But that did not mean that being one of their slaves entailed having it easy or comfortable. The slaves in the Webb House slept in the attic and, like my attic, it was rather chilly when I went up there. And dark. Joyce said since candles were hard to produce, slaves most likely did not get many to illuminate that attic.
One of the Webb House's distinctions is that it definitely is one of the many places where George Washington spent the night. Traveling with Washington was his valet, a slave named William Lee. But just because he was closer than most to Washington didn't mean Lee lived a whole lot better. The room where Washington stayed looks pretty comfortable even by today's standards. But Lee slept on the floor outside the bedroom.
The houses are furnished pretty much the way they would have been in the late 1700s and early 1800s and you can see the glaring contrast between what the owners had and what they spared for the slaves.
I took photographs of a bedroom in the Deane house where the home's owners slept and a bed in the slave room. Better than the attic but still pretty spartan.
Two of the slaves who lived in the Webb and Deane houses were Hagar and Pompey. Records indicate that eventually they were freed. Joyce said it is possible they either bought their freedom with money loaned to them by another freed slave, Clo Prutt, or that Prutt bought their freedom herself. What may have made this transaction possible was that by the time they were freed, Hagar and Pompey were valued as being worth no more than a pair of shoes, Joyce said. Hagar and Pompey eventually went to live with Prutt, who made enough money making cloth to buy a house of her own.
Joyce said museum staff became interested in finding out more about the slaves who lived in the houses after seeing burial stones for African Americans in the burying grounds in Old Wethersfield."
"It's such an important story," she said about the experience of slaves in Wethersfield. It is estimated that about five percent of Wethersfield's population at the time of the Revolutionary War was not white, although how many of them were African American slaves is not clear, Joyce said.
They did eventually buy their freedom.
from http://articles.courant.com/2009-02-22/news/6kenblog0222.art_1_slaves-pompey-white-house
Commerce was destroyed when the river changed course and abandoned Wethersfield leaving only The Cove and no real access by water to anywhere.
River flooding in another area had produced the fertile soil that grew the famous iron rich Red Onion.
http://www.newenglandhistoricalsociety.com/rise-fall-wethersfield-red-onion/
Food in those days was rancid and poor. Spices helped some.
Nutmeg was particularly popular. Wethersfield sold a "nutmeg" that was all wood. Hence the derogatory term "nutmeggers" for the Wethersfield residents.
Open hearth kitchens were very unhealthy. The embers from the fire were brought out on to grates and the food cooked there. Workers inhaled the smoke and lung diseases developed.
The contraption in this photograph was a weight and pulley system that once set up could turn a spit while meat cooked for as long as twenty minutes.All garbage was tossed out the windows where roving pigs and other animals feasted on it while it went to compost. Ceramics tossed when they were broken and gradually sunk into the ground. Some pieces are now being excavated in the rear area of the Joseph Webb house.
All houses had these hanging leather buckets to use in case of fire. They seemed pretty useless to me.
The Joseph Webb house was impressive. It was a post and beam construction, held together by dowels. Webb died and his wife married Silas Dean who was a Yale graduate who found teaching not productive and came to practice law in Wethersfield.
This created rancor in the family. Webb children did not like Silas nor his child by Mary, Jesse.
So, he moved out, but in spite he built a house right next door, one opulent and full of things to impress the visitor.
Here is a good summary of the house history.
https://webb-deane-stevens.org/historic-houses-barns/webb-house/wallace-nutting-and-the-webb-house/
While Nutting did create murals celebrating the achievements of Revolutionary War times, some of them are inaccurate. Especially incorrect was a large mural of Cornwallis surrendering his sword to George Washington. There actually was no such scene because Cornwallis would not give Washington that honor and Washington would not take the sword from another.
This is perhaps a more accurate rendering of that surrender
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surrender_of_Lord_Cornwallis
In the Yorktown Parlor there was sometimes gambling by the guests. They played a game of Loo
http://sopgaming.blogspot.com/2010/09/colonial-gaming-loo-and-upper-classes.html
*************************************************************************
SILAS DEANE HOUSE
https://webb-deane-stevens.org/historic-houses-barns/silas-deane-house/
It probably had one of the first wrap around porches because the foundation seems to be the kind that needed covering, but the porch could not be included in the renovations because no on could find any paintings of the house that were back in the original times. The porch was there later, until the 1950's when an owner had it removed.
The house was build off center, with the door off to the right. This would attract attention.
There was a dutch door, like those in Spain, allowing for the top of the door to be opened. Also impressive for those times was the cloak closet. They were actually taxed extra for that.
This was all in Puritan times when being eccentric was frowned upon. Bullying and persecution of witches was common.
Silas moved up in upper circles. He was sent to the continental Congress along with John Adams and Benjamin Franklin. However, two people destroyed him. One was his good friend Benedict Arnold.
Another was a former student.
It turned out Bankcroft was a spy.
"Edward Bartholomew Bancroft (January 20, 1745 [O.S. January 9, 1744] – September 7, 1821) was a Massachusetts born physician and chemist who became a double-agent, spying for both the United States and Britain while serving as secretary to the American Commission in Paris during the American Revolution." from Wikipedia
https://webb-deane-stevens.org/the-vilest-deeds-silas-deane-edward-bancroft-and-the-american-revolution/
who ironically showed him how to get loans for arms to Colonials. Money was used for arms and repayed when the ship returned with Virginia tobacco.
He also got pirates to attack the British for a portion of what was on the ships. John Paul Jones was one of those. He gave military commissions to European generals who came to help the fighting, including Thaddeus Kosciuszko.
http://www.iwp.edu/programs/page/tadeusz-kosciuszko-a-man-of-unwavering-principle
https://allthingsliberty.com/2014/07/silas-deane-forgotten-patriot/
http://www.silasdeaneonline.org/slidetour/slidetour1.htm
Not in the lecture was this note that also put Dean on the wrong side of the issue.
"Deane returned to France in 1780 as a private citizen and prepared letters to old friends in America attacking the French alliance and recommending a reconciliation with England. When the letters were published in The Royal Gazette, a Tory paper in New York (1781), he was denounced as a traitor."
Here is some speculative theories into his death.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frmLoMvgaRo
The kitchen and open hearth cooking created lung diseases. embers brought on the floor, on a grating to cook on.
********************************
ISSAH STEVENS HOUSE
https://webb-deane-stevens.org/historic-houses-barns/isaac-stevens-house/
http://travelphotobase.com/u/CT/CTKWW3.HTM
Stevens was a leather worker during the time of the Industrial revolution. The increased dependence on machines gave people more leisure time for things like needlepoint and music lessons.
Here is the piano forte.
This chair interested me, especially since I just repaired one at home here that was not so ornate, but of similar design.
by women artists. Rare in those days.
They now had wallpaper. Simple with few choices but used.
This was a place I did not get to visit as it was closed. It was across the street from the three houses. Sometime to do next time.
I can't quite place these photographs in the appropriate houses, but they do reflect interesting parts of these old places.
This one I believe was in the Webb house. It is an interesting cupboard which now displays china, but probably in the old days was used to lock up valuable spices. Servants would often not have keys because spices could be stolen and resold. The woman of the house kept her key in a special pocket designed just to keep it safe.
The grounds included a pleasant garden and some of the flowers were in bloom
*******************************************************************************
THE COVE
It was a very hot day. I was happy to drive away from the houses and their weak fans and go the The Cove. This is a small bit of water left after the river changed course. It is now a park and boat launch area.
I sat for quite a while enjoying the refreshment of the breeze, drinking a cold seltzer from my cooler and having some green grapes.
No boats were running. All were moored out from shore.
The water was so high that it had made getting on the dock areas impossible. It swamped garbage cans and the garbage floated out to the shore.
One fellow grabbed a bag and picked up the cans that could be turned in for deposit.
He had lived a few years ago in Wethersfield and moved to NYC to be close to his elderly mother and his sister only to have them decide to leave. He wanted to get back to Wethersfield, but the prices of property were high.
He drove up from the city often and walked his dog in the park.
There are many old buildings in downtown Weathersfield. Here is an interesting one.
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