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History Lesson Part 4

Stories of a few early settlements that were settled in or founded by our ancestors.

Since learning we are descended from the Pilgrims, I have done a little Pilgrim research. Although much of their story is familiar, I have discovered that there is a lot I did not know about the Pilgrims. Hopefully there will be enough "new" information here to keep you interested as well. But first a question. If April Showers bring May Flowers, what do May Flowers bring? Answer: Pilgrims!

The Pilgrim story starts in England in the 1500's. Many people were unhappy with the Church of England and wanted a change. Some of these were known as Puritans, people who wanted to "purify" the church by removing certain practices derived from the Roman Catholic Church. One particular group of Puritans was the Separatists. They believed membership in the Church of England was in violation of the Bible. They wanted the church and state to be entirely separated and each congregation to manage its own affairs; they were later called Congregationalists. However, since the church and state were one, this was considered treason. The Separatists had to leave their country to pursue their religion.

Around 1610 a group of Separatists left England to live in Holland. They were part of a congregation that had formed in Scrooby, England in 1606. They stayed in Amsterdam for a year and then moved to Leiden. Leiden was a cloth manufacturing town. While the Separatists were free to follow their religious beliefs there, most of them could only get low paying jobs as textile workers. After a decade of low wages and poor quality of life, many of the Separatists decided to move again. They considered Guiana, on the coast of South America, "but decided that the hot climate would 'not well agree with our English bodies' ". They considered joining the colony of Virginia, but feared more religious persecution. They finally decided on Virginia, but as far north as possible, near the mouth of the Hudson River.

However, people could not simply go across the ocean and settle. The land was managed by companies who required a license to settle there. This required a sizable investment, and required the Separatists to recruit non-Separatists as well. Eventually the license was acquired and a ship called the Speedwell was purchased to take the Separatists back to England. From there they would meet the remainder of their party and sail to Virginia. The Speedwell left Holland on July 22, 1620.

The Separatists, who called themselves "the Saints", sailed to Southampton, England to meet up with their fellow investors, who they called "the Strangers". The Strangers were to sail across the ocean on a chartered ship named Mayflower. Soon after their departure, it was discovered that the Speedwell was leaking badly. The ships returned to port twice for repairs, and it was finally decided to leave the Speedwell behind. Among the passengers left behind was our ancestor Thomas Blossom. Finally, on September 6, 1620, 102 passengers plus the crew packed themselves into the Mayflower to sail for Virginia. Among the passengers were our ancestors Mr. and Mrs. Edward Fuller, along with their son Samuel, Edward's brother, also named Samuel, and Edward's sister Susanna (who was pregnant), her husband William White, and their child Resolved. Absent was our ancestor Matthew Fuller, the oldest son of Edward. Many families had to split up for this journey, some members stayed home while others went to establish new homes in Virginia. Although I have never seen this recorded, I assume it is probably the reason why seventeen year old Matthew stayed behind.

The journey was long, approximately 2,750 miles. The people, with their few belongings, were cramped into the ship. One historian suggests that some of the passengers may have had hogs on board the ship. What a smell! There was very little food. There was no way to do laundry. There were a number of children on board. Can you imagine all the "Are we there yet's"! One of the children was apparently a trouble maker. Shortly after landfall, he shot off one of his father's guns and caused a fire on board the ship! There were three pregnant women on board, one of whom gave birth during the crossing. The child was named Oceanus. There was only one unmarried girl of "marriageable" age on board. Can you imagine how she must have been feeling after a voyage with all those men? Surprisingly, there were only two deaths during the journey, one passenger and one crewman. Finally, after 64 days, land was sighted near Cape Cod. Two days later, November 11, 1620, the Mayflower was anchored in what is now known as Provincetown harbor. While anchored at Provincetown, Susanna White gave birth to a child named Peregrine. Our distant cousin Peregrine was the first Pilgrim child born in New England.

It was also on November 11, 1620 that the Pilgrims, and the non-Pilgrims on board the ship, signed the Mayflower Compact. This came about because it was determined that they had landed in the wrong place. Virginia was governed by the English, but at their present location there would be no government in place. The Mayflower Compact established their government. In 1621, the Mayflower Compact was superseded in authority by the Pierce Patent, which was authorized by the King of England and gave the Pilgrims the right to self-government.

As stated above, it was quickly determined that the Pilgrims had landed in the wrong place. Although they were at approximately the correct latitude, they were quite a ways east of their intended destination. Once Cape Cod was sighted, they turned south to head for the Hudson River. However, due to the lateness of the year and treacherous seas which nearly shipwrecked the Mayflower, they decided to stay and explore the area, hoping to find a suitable building location. On one of their outings they discovered, and took for themselves, a large cache of stored corn, which had been left by the local Indians. This corn was what was used for the Pilgrim's crops the following spring. On their third outing, the explorers found an area of cleared fields and plenty of fresh running water near Plymouth. Supposedly, this was the famous "Landing on Plymouth Rock", but no one knows for sure, as no first hand account of "The Landing" is known to exist. They returned to the Mayflower and sailed into Plymouth Harbor on December 16, 1620. A week later they began constructing their new homes.

The reason the Pilgrims were able to find an area of cleared fields was the fields were part of an area known as Patuxet, which belonged to the Wampanoag Indians. However, a plague had struck the inhabitants of this area in 1618 which killed all but one member of the Patuxet tribe. The only survivor was Tisquantum, called Squanto, who was in England at the time of the plague. Tisquantum had been captured by English explorers in 1605. While in England he learned the language and was often used as a guide and interpreter for sea captains exploring the coast of New England. In 1619, Tisquantum was allowed to return home, but there was no one left to return to. He moved in with a neighboring tribe at Pokanoket, which was led by a chief named Massasoit.

The first winter at Plymouth was very stressful for the Pilgrims. New England winters are far more cold and brutal than winters in England. People had to remain in close quarters on board the Mayflower until structures could be built on land. On Christmas Day, the people working on shore continued working as usual. This is because the Separatists believed that Christmas day was a human invention with no basis in the Bible. However, the people on board the Mayflower were given a special ration of beer by the captain, who was not a Separatist. On January 14, 1621, a fire destroyed the thatched roof of the Pilgrim's first structure, which was used to house the sick members of the colony, but fortunately no one was hurt. By the spring of 1621, exposure, malnutrition and illness had led to the death of half the group, both passengers and crewmen. Among the casualties the first winter were Mr. and Mrs. Edward Fuller and William White. Finally, enough structures were built to allow the Mayflower to sail back to England. The Mayflower left Plymouth on April 5, 1621.

Two months after settling at Plymouth, an Indian from Maine, by the name of Samoset, walked into the Colony and welcomed the Pilgrims in English. Samoset had learned the language from English fishermen who crossed the North Atlantic each year to fish for cod. The Pilgrims and Samoset talked all day and night. He told the Pilgrims of the plague which had killed all of the Patuxet people, and of the bad feelings the local tribes had towards the English following some kidnapping by an English captain who had visited the area a few years before.

After Samoset had led several tradings with the Pilgrims, he told the Wampanoag living at Pokanoket that the Pilgrims wanted to make peace with them. Massasoit sent Tisquantum to be interpreter, and on March 22, 1621, the Pilgrims met Tisquantum for the first time. After an exchange of greetings and gifts, Tisquantum negotiated a peace treaty between the Wampanoag and the Pilgrims. It stated that the Wampanoag and Pilgrims would not harm each other, and would become a military alliance as well. This treaty of peace lasted for more than fifty years.

Tisquantum befriended the Pilgrims and became the colony's chief interpreter and agent in their interaction with the Indians. He showed them where to catch fish and eels, and that spring he showed them how to manure their corn. Without Tisquantum's help, the Pilgrims would probably have had severe famine over the next year, and would have lived in constant fear of their Indian neighbors. Tisquantum stayed with the Pilgrims in Plymouth until his death in 1622.

Thanks to Tisquantum, the harvest of 1621 was a good one for the Pilgrims. In the fall of 1621 the Pilgrims celebrated an annual harvest festival. For three days the 51 pilgrims and 90 of their Wampanoag neighbors celebrated the harvest. Among the Pilgrims at the so called "First Thanksgiving" were two distant uncles, Edward Fuller's son and his brother, both named Samuel Fuller. There also was an aunt, Edward Fuller's sister Susanna, and two distant cousins, her children Resolved and Peregrine. Based on original first hand accounts of the celebration, the only foods mentioned were: wheat (called "corn" by the Pilgrims), Indian corn, barley, peas, "waterfowl", five deer, fish (namely bass and cod), and wild turkey. Few people realize that the Pilgrims did not celebrate Thanksgiving the next year, or any year thereafter, though some of their descendants later made a "Forefather's Day" that occurred around December 21. Several Presidents, including George Washington, made one-time Thanksgiving holidays. It was not until 1863 that Abraham Lincoln finally made Thanksgiving a national holiday.

The colony at Plymouth continued to grow for a number of years. In November of 1621, 35 more people arrived on the Fortune. Among them was our ancestor William Palmer. In August 1623, the Anne arrived, bringing with it our ancestor Francis Blossom, daughter of Thomas Blossom. Francis became the wife of William Palmer. By 1624, Plymouth's population was about 180 persons and 32 houses had been built. In 1629 Thomas Blossom arrived in Plymouth on a different ship named the Mayflower. Apparently Mayflower was a popular name for ships in those days. By 1639 Plymouth Colony had grown large enough to institute a system of representative government. Also in 1639 Plymouth built its first prison. In 1640, our ancestor Matthew Fuller came to Plymouth. During 1643 Plymouth joined with the Massachusetts Bay, Connecticut and New-Haven Colonies to form The United Colonies of New England. In 1656, our ancestor Thomas Barnes arrived in Plymouth on the Speedwell. I do not know if this was the same ship used by the Separatists in 1621. Also in 1656, members of the Religious Society of Friends, commonly known as Quakers, arrived in Plymouth Colony. By October 1657, laws had been passed against Quakers. So much for religious freedom! Matthew Fuller was one of the few members of Plymouth willing to take a stand for continued religious freedom. In fact he was fined for speaking out against the laws. He was against the laws because his daughter Mary had married a Quaker. In 1661 Wampanoag Chief Massasoit died. In 1662 Massasoit's son Metachem, known as Philip, reconfirmed the treaty between his tribe and Plymouth Colony. In 1671, controversy arose between Philip and Plymouth. This eventually led to King Philip's war, which lasted from June 1675 until August 1676. By 1685 Plymouth Colony was large enough to be divided into three administrative centers: Plymouth, Barnstable and Bristol Counties. In October 1691, England decided to join the colonies of Plymouth, Maine and Massachusetts Bay into one Royal Province. The last official meeting of the Plymouth General Court was held in June of 1692.

"As one small candle may light a thousand, so the light here kindled hath shone unto many,
yea in some sort to our whole nation...."
                                                        William Bradford, Governor of Plymouth Colony

After having said so much about the Pilgrims, it only seems right that I should mention something about the Massachusetts Bay Colony. This is the colony that our ancestor John Sill came to in 1637.

The Puritans had asked King James I to "purify" the Church of England of certain ceremonies derived from the Roman Catholic Church. "I will make them conform or I will harry them out of the land" was the King's response. Thus, a few years after the arrival of the Pilgrims came the arrival of the Puritans, who were also determined to find a place where their religious views and practices would be free from persecution. This began a period of time known as The Great Migration. During this period of time, from about 1630 until 1640, approximately 20,000 people left England, most of them settling in the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

In 1623 a group of English businessmen had founded a settlement at Cape Ann. A few years later the settlement failed and the survivors founded Naumkeag, later known as Salem. In 1628 a shipload of Puritan emigrants led by John Endicott left England to join the others at Salem. The following year a royal charter was granted to the Massachusetts Bay Company, to promote the settlement of the territory that had been granted to the Puritans. The charter was the foundation of the government of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. The first large group of Puritan settlers arrived in 1630 under the leadership of John Winthrop. Winthrop's Fleet, carrying nearly 1,000 settlers, also landed in Salem, Massachusetts. Two hundred died the first winter and two hundred more returned to England the following spring.

Winthrop established Boston as the capital of the colony. Citizenship, called freemanship, was restricted to church members. In 1632 the freemen gained the right to elect the governor , and in 1634 the freemen of each town won the right to send deputies to the General Court. Much like the pilgrims before them, the Puritans banished Quakers from the colony. The strict control of life led some people to leave the colony. Two famous dissenters were Roger Williams, who founded Providence, Rhode Island and Rev. Thomas Hooker, who founded Hartford, Connecticut.

Despite the strict control by Winthrop, new immigrants continued to arrive, settling along the coast and a short distance inland. Farming, lumbering, and fishing were the principal occupations. Movement into the interior brought conflict with the Indians, which led to the Pequot War in1637. However, by 1640, the immigration had stopped. The English Civil Wars began that year and further emigration from England was discouraged.

Despite the loss of new immigrants to the colony, Massachusetts Bay continued to flourish for many years. The colony was mostly left alone to govern itself. However, in 1660, at the conclusion of the Civil Wars, a policy of stricter control was instituted. Massachusetts resisted all attempts at regulation and lost its charter in 1684, becoming a part of the Dominion of New England. In 1691, Massachusetts became a Royal Province under a Governor appointed by the Crown. The restrictions placed on the colony as a result of becoming a Royal Province caused controversies which eventually led to the Revolutionary War.

I'm sure anyone reading this book has heard of the Pilgrims at Plymouth, and quite possibly of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. While digging through the old family histories I have stumbled upon another very important settlement which was founded in the 1630's: Hartford, Connecticut. As you might imagine, this story involves our ancestors too. Quite a few of them actually. What follows is a brief history of Hartford, Connecticut and it's founder, Rev. Thomas Hooker.

Thomas Hooker was born in 1586 to Puritan parents. He grew up to be a preacher and lecturer in the towns around his home. However, his Puritan beliefs went against the Church of England. He was persecuted and harassed to the point that he fled the country and moved to Holland in 1630.

In 1632 a group of Puritans left Braintree, England and settled in Mount Wollaston (now known as Quincy), Massachusetts. For reasons I do not know, they were removed by order of the court to Newtowne, Massachusetts sometime during their first year. The group became known as The Braintree Colony. In 1633 they wrote to Rev. Thomas Hooker and asked him to be their pastor. Thomas Hooker and his assistant Samuel Stone came to Boston on September 4, 1633 and shortly after he became the pastor of the Braintree congregation.

Life in Newtowne was not exactly what Rev. Hooker was looking for. Although they were all Puritans, the views of the leaders of Newtowne were much more strict than Rev. Hooker liked. In the summer of 1634, Rev. Hooker sent out a band of twelve men, known as the Adventurers, to find a new place to live. Among the Adventurers was our ancestor James Olmstead. They explored an area of the Fresh River, known as the Quonehtacut River to the local Indian tribes. They most certainly came across a trading post and fort known as The House of Good Hope, which was established by the Dutch in 1633. They returned to Newtowne with a favorable report and resolved to begin several plantations there.

In October of 1635, Rev. Hooker and about 60 men, women, and children left Newtowne and went by land towards Connecticut. It took them two weeks to walk the roughly 100 mile journey through the wilderness. They sent their furniture and provisions in boats which were to meet them when they reached the river. However, winter came early that year. The boats were either wrecked or frozen in the mouth of the river. When the people reached their destination, they soon began to starve. A few remained in Connecticut, but most of the party returned through the wilderness to Newtowne.

On May 31, 1636, they tried again. Rev. Hooker with approximately 100 of his followers again set out overland for Connecticut. They had with them 160 head of cattle whose milk they used for food. Mrs. Hooker for some reason could not or would not walk and was carried on a litter through the wilderness. The people carried their belongings with them. About 2 weeks later, they again reached the Connecticut River. Among the followers of Rev. Hooker were our ancestors James Ensign and family, Thomas Lord and family, and James Olmstead and family. Ancestors of other branches of the Sill family were represented as well.

Upon arrival, the settlers began to make shelters for themselves and their cattle. Apparently they just dug out places in the hillsides to live until more permanent structures could be built. Once that was accomplished, they sent out a couple of men to meet with the local Indians with the purpose of signing a treaty and purchasing land. What was used for bartering is not known, but the men were successful and purchased for the group a large parcel of land which was immediately distributed among the proprietors.

In the early years of Hartford, the settlers had to defend themselves from numerous Indian attacks. These were presumably from tribes other than the one who signed the treaty. Eventually the people of Hartford, as well as the neighboring communities of Wethersfield and Windsor joined together for protection and formed the Connecticut Colony. The colony established it's own set of laws, the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut, in 1639. It set up a government that was independent of any other authority and it is considered the first written constitution in American history. Because of this, Connecticut is still known today as The Constitution State. In 1662, King Charles II of England granted a charter to the Colony of Connecticut, whose capitol was, and still is, located in Hartford.

When Joseph Sill moved his family from Massachusetts to Connecticut following King Philip's War, he moved to a valley just north of the town of Lyme. The valley was bounded on the west by the Lieutenant River, about one and a half miles from it's entrance into Long Island Sound. The river was navigable by small vessels at high tide. It was bounded on the south and east by Mill Creek, which is an outlet of what was called the Great Lake, and is now known as Roger's Lake. The area is located between the present day towns of Hamburg and Old Lyme, to the east of State Highway 156 and to the north of U.S Highway 1.

Joseph and his brother Zechariah had a combined total of eighteen children, all of whom grew up to have families of their own. There were so many Sill's living in this valley that it came to be known as Silltown. I have included a restored version of a map of Silltown that I found in Old Silltown.

Although not a settlement, I mention this cemetery because of it's connection to Silltown. The Duck River Cemetery can be found near Old Lyme, Connecticut . In this cemetery, over thirty of our earliest ancestors are buried. They are all buried in one area of the cemetery which has been enclosed by a chain fence and named "the Sill Enclosure". They represent members of the second through the eighth generations of the Sill family in America. On Memorial Day the Colonial and Revolutionary soldiers buried there are still remembered, as flags are flown over the graves of Captain Joseph Sill and Colonel David Fithian Sill.

Although not as prominent in early America the other cities mentioned here, Avon is important for our family since so many of our relatives lived there.

The first structure ever built in Avon was built in 1844. It is still standing and is located at the corner of Beloit-Newark Road and Avon Store Road. The lumber for the construction of the house was hauled from Milwaukee by oxen. It was originally used as a hotel and was later used as a farmhouse. As late as 1966 the house was being used as a residence for the Schmitz family, who are relatives of ours descended from Montgomery Harper. My father says he thinks the Schmitz family still lives there.
UPDATE 3-22-2008: After a visit with Clayton McNitt's grandson Paul Schilling, I learned that the house currently on the corner is the old schoolhouse. The original structure mentioned above is no longer standing.

Around the time of the first structure being built, the Harper family moved to the area. Their son Nathan was born in Ohio on March 7, 1842 and their daughter Caroline was born in Avon on March 10, 1844, so they obviously got there somewhere between those two dates. The Harper family lived on a farm about a mile and a half east of Avon on Nelson Road, between the intersections of Beloit-Newark and Carroll Roads. I have never seen the family's name mentioned in connection with Avon, so they must not have been as influential there as they had been in the past in Ohio and New York. Part of the reason is probably because there was a smaller group of them that moved to Wisconsin. And most of them were female. In those days the females were not the "important" members of the family. The males in the family were too young to be influential, and when older, were called to serve in the Civil War.

Also sometime very early in Avon's history, John and Lydia McNitt moved to the area. John was Nelson Sill's uncle. I think he moved to Avon very early and probably had quite a little bit of money because he owned four of the original twenty two lots in town and the farmland he owned was right across the river from the edge of town. John and Lydia had no children that I am aware of and their land was eventually either purchased or inherited by Nelson Sill.

In these early years Avon was a rather prosperous town. The population exceeded 400 and the "downtown" area boasted a cheese factory, a shoe shop, a blacksmith shop, a pump factory, two churches, a school, a sawmill, a grist mill, three doctors, and two general stores. The town even had it's own brass band. One of the general stores had a post office. The mail was carried to town from Brodhead. The land that one of the general stores was located on was owned by a Ballou, who I believe was William V. Ballou. He was the husband of Nelson Sill's first daughter, Ella. He must have also had a little bit of money as he owned a couple of lots right on the edge of town.

Exactly when Nelson Sill got to town is not known. However he married Adelia Brown on December 25, 1859. As near as I can tell from census records, Nelson and Adelia lived and farmed with his uncle John McNitt. The 1860 census says John was 65 years old and deaf, so he may have needed help on the farm. Old atlases show that Nelson eventually owned all of John McNitt's land and also bought and sold many other parcels of land in the area. He eventually settled down on some land about half a mile east of town, on the south side of Beloit-Newark Road. This land was directly on the proposed line of The Sugar River Valley Railroad, which had made plans to build a railroad through Avon. This line was to have connected Avon to Chicago and made it one of the more prosperous towns in the area. Directly across the road from Nelson Sill's farm was land owned by Ole Dustrude. John Freedlund's family moved there in 1894 and rented the Dustrude farm for the next ten years.

Troubles began in the 1860's when the Sugar River Valley Railroad ran out of money. The grading for the new rail line was completed but no tracks were ever laid.  The Sugar River Valley Railroad was purchased by the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroad in 1880.  By this time much of the roadbed had been washed away by Sugar River floods.  They decided to route the new line to Brodhead instead. There were also troubles with the local mill. A dam and raceway had been built along the Sugar River for the mill. However the river flooded every year and washed out the dam. After a number of years of rebuilding the dam, the mill was eventually abandoned. Eventually people started leaving the area. By 1905, the Ballous, Dustrudes, Harpers, Freedlunds, and Sills had all left town.

What had once looked like a promising community now has nothing left but ruins. A 1966 article said Avon's population was 50. I doubt that it is even that high today. None of the old businesses remain. Although there are still a few families living there, the only remnants of the town that might have been are a few old falling down buildings and the foundations of others that have already fallen.

I have recently learned that in 1893 the mill and the land surrounding it was purchased by John Freedlund. I don't believe he ever lived on the land, but the land remained in the family until 1995 when ownership was transferred to the Natural Land Institute. Although it is no longer owned by the family, it is public land and can be visited anytime.

With the mill land no longer in the family's possession, our only real connection to Avon these days is found in the Avon cemetery. Many of our ancestors and other relatives are buried there. Among them are Montgomery and Angelina Harper and their daughters Caroline Winshell and Sabrina Sherwood, Mary Crosby-the daughter of Montgomery Harper and his first wife Sabrina, Effie and Eva Freedlund-infant daughters of John and Emma Freedlund, John McNitt and possibly his wife Lydia. Also buried there is Mary Barker, the mother of Ralph Barker, who married Margaret Angelina Sill.  Although they are technically not related, Nelson Sill's first wife Adelia, her father, an uncle, a sister and two brothers are buried in Avon.  There are also Gardners, Crosbys, Ballous, Randalls, and many others buried there who are probably related to us in some way.

To learn a little more about the history of Avon and see some pictures I have taken of the village, go to my
History of Avon, Wisconsin page.

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