The Town of Colchester
part 1
HISTORY OF 275 YEARS OF THE TOWN OF COLCHESTER
(house2.jpg) Foote Family Homestead -Neidle (ca 1785) on Broadway
The town of Colchester was envisioned by a
group of men from Wethersfield who, in 1698, obtained authority from the
General Court of the Colony of Connecticut in Hartford to lay out a new
plantation in a large tract of virgin wilderness at or near a place called
Jeremy's Farm on the road to New London. Nathaniel Foote of Colchester
in the County of Essex, England had emigrated to the Colony of Connecticut
earlier in the 17th Century. His grandson, Nathaniel Foote, obtained
a deed to the land in question from Owaneco, Sachem of the Mohegan Indians.
One account maintains that a red coat, 25 silver buttons, and some rum
had something to do with the harmony of the transaction. Foote was
probably responsible for having the settlement called "Colchester." Originally
included in the County of Hartford, it was much later transferred to the
County of New London.
A settlement could not function as a town until a minister
had been settled on
a yearly basis and a parish had been
organized. In
1703 Colchester received this authority when
the General Court
organized a church body here. A minister
had been one of the
original settlers named in the charter
issued in 1698.
Until 1703, the land had been held in common by the
settlers. Now
a town "Measurer" was appointed to measure
and allot land to
entitled persons. Several grist mills and
saw mills to provide
grain and lumber were built in the next
few years beside dams
built in the streams.
In the early days of the colonization of the New World
there was no separation
of church and state. The state, by
means of the General
Court, organized a parish (or church)
in a town. The
church controlled the citizenship of the towns-
people since no one
could vote who was not a person in good
standing and a member
of the church. When a resident had
fulfilled all requirements,
he was voted to become a "freeman"
and was entitled to
the privileges of citizenship.
The first minister was the Reverend John Bulkeley. His
first church or "meeting
house", of crude construction, was
built in 1706 on the
first street to be laid out, called Town
Street. This
street, nearly 200 feet wide, is now the southern
end of Old Hebron
Road. A new church was built in 1714
near the present Federated
Church. By this time, there were
50 families in town.
The settlement progressed rapidly until,
in 1725, the population
had expanded over the town's farthest
limits.
Attendance at church was very important and those people
living at a considerable
distance found it impossible at certain
times of the year
to get to the services in the center. Conse-
quently, in the years
that followed, the General Court organized
three more ecclesiastical
societies in Colchester, namely New
Salem in 1725, Westchester
in 1728, and Marlborough in 1747.
In time, two of these
parishes, Salem and Marlborough, sep-
arated from Colchester
to become towns. Westchester Parish
remained part of Colchester.
Thus, on two occasions, the
original area of the
town was considerably reduced.
The children were first educated in the principles of
their religion and
were catechised at least once a week by
the Selectmen.
Years later, one-room district schools were
built, as many as
16 at one period. The first district school
was the center school
south of the church. There was no
institution of higher
learning at this time.
A local farmer and slave holder, Pierpont Bacon, at the
point of death and
having no one to whom he wished to
leave his wealth,
was persuaded to perpetuate his memory by
having a school, bearing
his name, built near the church.
The old district school
was removed to a spot behind the
Third Congregational
Church, built in ~ to replace the
one built in 1714.
(This church was said to have greatly
resembled the Old
S9ut~Church of Boston. The present
church was built in
~Bacon Academy was built on
the site of the first
distnct school in 1803. Bacon's will
provided that his
estate (over $35,000) be used to build a
school for instruction
in all branches of learning, free of
charge, to all the
children of the town. The construction
of the Academy cost
a little over $7,000.
The Academy became a celebrated secondary educational
institution, second
to none in New England. Pupils came from
nearly every state
in the union. By 1830, other academies
having been built
in the nation, Bacon Academy suffered a
loss in tuition pupils
and its efficiency declined. Many men
and women, prominent
in all walks of life, have been faith-
fully and successfully
educated at the old school.
Among the men of national reputation who graduated
from Bacon Academy
were Steven Austin, first graduate, who,
with Sam Houston,
was considered a founder of an independ-
ent Texas; William
Buckingham and Morgan Bulkeley, gov-
ernors of Connecticut;
Lyman Trumbull, governor of Illinois
and intimate friend
of Abraham Lincoln; Edwin Morgan,
governor of New York;
William Larrabee, governor of Iowa;
Morrison Waite, Chief
Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court;
Issac Crary, founder
of the University of Michigan; James
Champlin, president
of Colby College; John T. Swift, professor
at the University
of Tokyo, Japan; Eliphalet Bulkeley, first
Another House on Broadway
(house1.jpg) Lyman Trumbull's birthplace, Gov of Illinois and friend
of Abraham Lincoln.(ca 1790)
Buildings on Norwich Avenue
See also:
Colchester Cemetery 302-1 (recorded 1934)(Old Burying Ground) = colcem1a.htm
Colchester Cemetery (Old Burying Ground) (Bulkeley visit) = colchest.htm
Colchester Cemetery
Colchester Records of birth, death, marriage = colcrec1.htm
Colchester Town History page 2 = coltown2.htm
Rod Bigelow
8 Prospect Circle
Massena, N.Y. 13662
bigelow@slic.com
Rod Bigelow at SLIC 
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