Lucy’s Story: “Memories of a Commonplace Life”

First of two parts

Last year, E. W. Buell’s granddaughter, Dorothy Gantner Giglio, donated small booklet to the Historical Society. Entitled “A Historical Sketch of the Congregational Church in Gilead, Conn., From the First Settlement of the Town by the English,” written by Reverend Josiah A. Mack, it was read before the Tolland Congregational Association on June 4, 1878.

This valuable work chronicles Gilead’s three longest-serving ministers from its inception until 1856, when the third of these ministers, Reverend Charles Nichols, was “dismissed by council.” This action was supposedly taken despite his “long and useful ministry” in which 77 couples were married, 129 children were baptized, 248 people were laid to rest, and 151 new members joined the church.

In 1825, Gilead had taken a chance on young Nichols, a poor seminary student born in Derby, CT on February 19, 1798. But the 27-year old’s fiery enthusiasm was a good fit for the church, and he ultimately served the Gilead parish for 31 years.

The story of Charles Nichols – and life in mid-19th century Hebron – might have ended with Mack’s cursory work, were it not for three women: Nichols’ youngest daughter Lucy, who wrote an account of growing up in Gilead; Annie Hutchinson Foote, who carefully typed out Lucy’s story ; and local resident Olive White Doubleday, who recently loaned Mrs. Foote’s transcript to the Historical Society.

The document is fascinating, not only for the intimate details of daily living, but also for solving the mystery of Reverend Nichols’ ultimate “dismissal.”

Lucy was born on April 19, 1842, the fifth child of Charles and Louisa West Post, widow of John Post of Gilead. By the time she was born, her father had already overseen the taking down and rebuilding of the Gilead “meetinghouse,” and her eldest sister, Julia, had died at age two. It’s clear that the girl had a lonely childhood, especially since she rarely saw her brother Julius, who was 11 years older and already hard at work on the family’s farm by the time Lucy was born. (He died of typhoid in 1851 when Lucy was only nine.) Older sisters Martha and Laura were extremely close, and were sent to various schools in Massachusetts, leaving Lucy alone with her parents and grandmother.

As a young girl, Lucy arbitrarily took the middle name “Freelove” in honor of her paternal grandmother, an interesting choice. She remembers her father as “a stern, rather severe man: a father whom I feared more than loved… [But] he was a man of strong affections, sternly repressed, according to the old New England ideas of what was right and fitting for a man, and especially for a minister. I have no recollection of his ever playing with me, of my ever sitting on his knee or of any caresses between us.” Likewise, she remembers her mother primarily for her hard work. “Washing, ironing, making and mending clothes: all must be done, and largely by her own hands.” In addition to these demands, there were great expectations on the part of the parishioners regarding the minister’s wife. “Few babies were born in Gilead without her attendance, and when death came to a household her presence to aid the family was expected… She was oppressed by her many and great responsibilities and never seemed light-hearted and really glad to be alive…I did not fear her as I did my father, but she never was my ‘chum.’”

The small child had few toys, so reading became her favorite pastime. “I have no recollection of learning to read nor of any time when I could not read.” While she supposed she must have had rag dolls, “I do not remember them.” The only toys she does remember were corn cobs used to make log cabins, old spinning spools set up and used for a creative type of bowling, which she calls “knocking down spools,” and pieces of old picket fence used to create a makeshift “house”, complete with dishes, which were just broken pieces of crockery.

Reading Lucy’s detailed account of spinning, from carding the wool to winding the finished product into skeins, makes even a novice feel they could follow her instructions. A foreign concept to us today, it was an expected skill. “‘Boughten’ stockings were almost unknown in those days. All the womenfolk knitted.” New clothes were also a luxury. Dresses and pants were handed down generation after generation until they were almost rags. A man’s wedding jacket and coat became his Sunday-go-to-meeting clothing for the rest of his life. The one exception seemed to be shoes. “My shoes were often made by the village shoemaker, Mr. Edwin Strong, and were coarse and clumsy and tied with leather strings. I had better ones for Sunday wear, which my father used to buy for me in Hartford.” Lucy tells the story of many children who walked to the church wearing their daily shoes, then would hide them and put on their “Sunday shoes” before entering the building.

The memoirs contain explicit descriptions of all types of clothing, including bonnets and hats, how they were made, and the types of fabric used. We learn about hair styles, how women’s hair was braided and held up with combs, and how men parted and combed their hair forward when they began to bald.

Lucy notes that Gilead was “five miles to everywhere.” It was five miles to Andover, Marlborough, Bolton, or Columbia. While Hebron was only 3 miles away, it offered only small stores for groceries, and the road (Gilead Street) was extremely rough and rocky. It appears most Gilead residents traveled the 16 miles to Hartford to get supplies. This might seem odd except that one could easily catch a train to Hartford in Bolton at the Hartford-Providence-Fishkill depot.

Daguerreotypes came into vogue and a traveling artist came to Gilead in 1849, offering his services. Lucy writes that a single picture took four minutes to develop, and the subjects had to remain perfectly still that entire time. This often resulted in multiple takes, as someone in the picture was sure to move or sneeze during the long wait. The cost was an astronomical $5, money which a parishioner gave to Reverend Nichols so that he could have a picture taken of his three daughters.

Despite the fact that the War Between the States would break out in less than a decade, Lucy seems oblivious to the issues of slavery, which Connecticut had abolished in 1848, shortly after her birth. She mentions that when a copy of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” was finally brought to their household in 1852, she “devoured the book in a very short time.” She also noted that “the pew next to the door was reserved for colored people… I remember one colored woman and one half-Indian who sometimes sat there.”

Most children attended Gilead Hill School, about a half mile from the meetinghouse. In the mid-19th century, the building was brick, and had two doors, one for girls to enter, and one for the boys. There were two terms, summer and winter, both geared around the growing season so that children would be free to plant in the spring, and harvest crops and berries in the fall. Even so, boys older than 8 rarely attended the summer session.

Interestingly, Reverend Nichols, a teacher prior to his ordination, had opened up a school in his house during winters “for the older boys and girls who wished more education than the district schools afforded. There was no High School nor Academy near, and few parents sent their children away to school.” Lucy was not allowed to attend district school until she was 12, and was home-schooled by her parents up until then. When her parents finally relented, they learned firsthand that district school, with its very young, inexperienced teachers, offered little except play time that bordered on chaos. Favorite among girls, and especially Lucy, were the running games, which she describes in great detail: Thornaway, Run-Across, Hump Stump, and Go to School Cross Lots.

Part II: Lucy describes church life, holidays, deaths and marriages, finding solace with Anna Gilbert and her family, and a secretive letter that caused her father to resign his ministry at Gilead Congregational Church.

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