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Woodbury Conn.

Connecticut’s Rev. John Stoddard Sells His Wife, Loses His Church

John Stoddard – Revolutionary War veteran, Congregational minister and descendent of a long-established Connecticut family – pushed his life onto the rocks at the age of 30 when he decided to sell his wife.

Born in Woodbury. Conn., in 1767, John Stoddard was the great-grandson of Anthony Stoddard, pastor for 61 years at the town’s First Church. Several sources list John as a private in the “Connecticut Line,” the troops that Connecticut had to provide to fight the American Revolution.

John Stoddard Gets a Wife

In September 1786, John married Phebe Northrup from Washington, Conn. The couple had two children while John studied the ministry. After traveling some, Stoddard arrived in Jamaica, Vt. Then in 1794, John Stoddard became pastor of the Congregational Church there.

The Congregational Church was the second church in Jamaica. The Baptists had previously established a church. In a town vote, Stoddard was not officially called to serve as minister, but the town did give him land. It had previously given 100 acres to the Baptist Church for use of its minister. It split that grant in half and gave half to the Congregational Church for use of Stoddard.

Stoddard was part of a small increase in immigration that to Vermont. Families from southern New England had found their prospects stifled at the end of the Revolution. So they travelled to rural Vermont to establish their fortunes.

Stoddard didn’t last long as pastor, however. Because he sold his wife.

Wife Selling

Wife-selling was not unheard of in the early days of America. An old custom, it came from Great Britain where the upper class had difficulty breaking the marriage bond. Divorce was both rare and expensive. And generally the courts required a cause, such as desertion or adultery.

Selling a Wife (1812–14), painting by Thomas Rowlandson

The lower classes also required a cause for divorce. But they had another, quicker way out of a bad marriage. A husband could sell his wife to another man for a few shillings or other compensation. It was sort of a precursor to no-fault divorces.

Often the wife directed the sale because she already caught the eye of her future husband/buyer. But at the very least, the wife needed to support the sale. Because if matters came to court, selling a wife could get sticky.

In 1645, Bagett (Bygod) Egleston of Windsor, Conn., had to pay a fine of 20 shillings for selling his wife Sarah. Details of the case are scarce, though apparently the sale was not to her liking. That resulted in the court’s involvement. A later interpretation of the story held that Sarah, much younger than Bagett ,hounded him so that he wished to get rid of her.

Stories in the Press

And Alice Morse Earle in her Colonial Dames and Good Wives reported on another wife sale gone awry. This one failed, perhaps, due to buyer’s remorse. The details appeared in the Boston Evening Post of March 15, 1736.

Boston. The beginning of last Week a pretty odd and uncommon Adventure happened in this Town, between 2 Men about a certain woman, each one claiming her as his Wife, but so it was, that one of them had actually disposed of his Right in her to the other for Fifteen Shillings this Currency, who had only paid ten of it in part, and refus’d to pay the other Five, inclining rather to quit the Woman and lose his Earnest; but two Gentlemen happening to be present, who were Friends to Peace, charitably gave him half a Crown a piece, to enable him to fulfil his Agreement, which the Creditor readily took, and gave the Woman a modest Salute, wishing her well, and his Brother Sterling much Joy of his Bargain.

Earle, who wrote about many New England customs, explained.

The meagre sale-money, fifteen shillings, was the usual sum which changed hands in England at similar transactions, though one dame of high degree was sold for a hundred guineas.

John Stoddard Sells a Wife

By all accounts, Stoddard’s wife was happy with the sale. His congregation, not so much.

In 1797, Rev. Stoddard sought an honorable dismission from his post with the church. A dismission without the word honorable attached simply would mean he had left the church — probably in bad graces. An honorable dismission would signal to any other churches that Stoddard had been a good minister and, should he be looking for work, he should be considered. The church denied his request, and instead appointed a council to hear complaints against Rev. Stoddard, of which there were many. The church records report.

Ezra Livermore charged him with deceit in relation of the manner of his coming to Jamaica, but the council thought that while there was a show of it, there was no intention of deceiving.

We recommend to pastor and people, solemnly and faithfully to examine themselves at this day when the frowns of Providence are so evidently upon them. Be entreated, beloved, to inquire impartially what you have done amiss, and humble yourselves before God under his rebukes.

Imitate the meek and benevolent temper of Christ, one toward another, forgive one another, and pray one for another, if any man have a quarrel against any as you hope to obtain forgiveness of your Father in Heaven. Let all wrath and malice and bitterness be put away from you with all strife. Be guarded, brethren, against a spirit of division, seek the unity of the spirit in the bonds of peace. Be careful and tender of each other’s character, with charity, disposed to cover rather than to magnify each other’s faults.

With that, Stoddard was dismissed.

Aftermath

And what of Phebe Stoddard? Her trail is lost, though some inspired genealogist could probably close the loop on this story.

Both Federal Writers’ Project Guide to the Green Mountain State and Gazetteer and Business Directory of Windham County, Vt. reported that she was happy with the transfer. She went on to raise a family with her new husband.

Wife-selling, as a custom, was more common in England – where it was sometimes conducted in a public forum or market. It died out in the late 1800s.

This story was updated in 2022.

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The Hope and Despair of Acadian Exiles, 1755-1766

In the winter of 1755, two Marshfield, Mass., selectmen knocked on the door of the Michel family, seven Acadian exiles. They brought bad news: The two oldest sons, 23-year-old Francis and 15-year-old Paul, had to go into involuntary servitude. Francis would work for a farmer, Paul as a sailor, though he suffered from debilitating seasickness.

New England had no love for the French families living among them. But the French families — Acadian exiles — had no choice because the British had resettled them there by force.

Acadian Exiles

When the French and Indian War raged in Nova Scotia, French families refused to take a loyalty oath to the British ended up in exile. The Acadian refugees who landed in Puritan New England bore the stigma of their Catholic religion — and of their poverty.

Beginning in 1755, the British took nearly 10,000 Acadians from their homes and forcibly deported them to the British colonies and to England. They confiscated or burned the Acadian exiles’ houses and farms, and deliberately separated families.

The colonies, Massachusetts and Connecticut, treated the Acadian exiles like prisoners of war. They could not practice their religion, nor could they move from town to town.

The Michel family had more luck than most. They survived the disease-ridden voyage to Boston, and the family stayed together. The two eldest sons threw off their indentures and worked for wages. The town even helped feed and shelter them.

French and Indian War

Map of Acadia

For many years the French and British fought over Acadia. The region included Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, parts of southern Quebec and northern Maine.

By 1713 the British took control and demanded loyalty from Acadians. Most refused, earning the nickname “French Neutrals.” That posed a problem for the British, since the French far outnumbered them in Acadia.

Gov. William Shirley

Massachusetts officials also worried about the Acadians. Gov. William Shirley feared for the safety of Massachusetts merchants and sailors in Acadian waters. Usually three or four boats from Boston anchored there at a time.

In 1751, the French began to build Fort Beausejour in nearby New Brunswick. Shirley began recruiting forces to kick them out of Acadia. Troops that left Boston in May of 1755 captured Fort Beausejour in June.

Le Grand Derangement

Illustration of the Acadians listening to the deportation order.

On Sept. 5, 1755, the expulsion of the Acadians began. The British announced they would seize the homes and property of the French Neutrals. The Acadians called it Le Grand Derangement.

The British lured Acadian men into churches under false pretenses and then locked them inside. They seized others in their homes and their fields. Their wives and children had to feed them at gunpoint until ships took them away. The British took over their farms and livestock, pillaging and burning their homes to make sure they wouldn’t return.

Estimates vary, but the British rounded up as many as 10,000 Acadians out of a population of 12,000. On Oct. 8, 1755, they boarded ships provided by Thomas Hancock, uncle of John Hancock. The ships sailed to the 13 British colonies in North America and to France. Several thousand died of disease, starvation and drowning.

John Winslow, the second in command in Nova Scotia, described the scene. They “began to Embarke the Inhabitants who went verry solentarily and Unwillingly. the women in Great Distress Carrying Their Children In their arms.”

Others, he wrote, carried their decrepit parents in carts in scenes of confusion, woe and distress.

Acadian Exiles in Massachusetts

On Nov. 15, 1755 the first overcrowded ships filled with sick, hungry Acadian exiles arrived. There hadn’t been enough food for the journey and many died of smallpox or malaria.

A deportation ship

Nearly 2,000 Acadians sailed into Boston Harbor to be parceled out to the colony’s 98 towns. The General Court gave overseers of the poor the power to ’employ, bind out or support’ the Acadian families. That generally meant indentured servitude.

The first ship, the sloop Seaflower, entered Boston Harbor with 206 destitute Acadians aboard. They then continued to arrive until the French and Indian War ended in 1763. Once on shore, the colony treated them like convicts.

Thomas Hutchinson in 1750.

Some took pity on the Acadian exiles. As a member of the General Court, Thomas Hutchinson tried to keep families together and helped write letters petitioning the Legislature. He may have helped Joseph Michel write a letter asking that his sons be released from their indenture. In Westborough, Ebenezer Parkman (grandfather of historian Francis Parkman) befriended Simon Leblanc and gave work to his children.

More often the Acadian exiles were feared and hated. A letter to the editor of the Boston Gazette cautioned the Acadian exiles could escape in stolen ships. Or they could destroy the town or powder house, ‘heated with Passion and Popish zeal.”

If there were any Catholic priests in Massachusetts, they weren’t allowed to say Mass. Acadians who wanted to get married did so by laymen and hoped they could renew their vows in front of a French priest some day in the future.

Departation of the Acadians

Acadian Exiles

At first, the Acadian exiles had some freedom. Some took jobs as sailors and left for Canada. In response, the General Court passed a law in April forbidding Acadian exiles to work as sailors. Soon after, lawmakers ordered them to stay within the boundaries of their assigned towns.

Marbleheaders complained about the 37 Acadians they got stuck with. The exiles could escape by water, but the town would have to support them if they didn’t.

An Acadian fisherman named Belloni Melancon ended up in the frontier village of Lancaster. He apprenticed his son to an artisan to earn money, but the artisan beat him so badly he couldn’t use his arm for a month. Then the town got sick of supporting the destitute Melancons. Some townspeople took Belloni’s crippled wife from her bed and threw her into a cart.

Melancon then petitioned the General Court to let him move to Weymouth, where he could earn a living as a fisherman. The General Court allowed him to go to Weymouth and fish, and the state paid for his rent and wood.

On The Town

Thomas Hancock by John Smibert

The towns expected the General Court to reimburse them for the expense of keeping the Acadian exiles. The General Court in turn expected payment from Nova Scotia. Nova Scotia expected payment from Great Britain. Only Massachusetts helped pay to feed, house and clothe the Acadian exiles who couldn’t support themselves.

In Newton, only two of the 13 Acadian exiles could work, since most were children. The town billed the General Court for a six-month supply of food for them: 206-3/4 pounds of pork, 166 quarts of milk and 10 bushels of Indian meal to the Acadians.

In Methuen, Laurence Mius protested in the fall of 1756 that he worked for two months, but received only three rods of old cloth, two pounds of dried cod and a pound of pork fat. The overseer of the poor chased him with a poker and beat him so badly he spit blood for a day.

In Wilmington, John Labrador and his seven children lived in a house with no roof. He complained when the house flooded, and a town councilor told him to build a boat and navigate in it.

Not Wanted Here

Early on, Massachusetts officials tried to get rid of some of the refugees. Thomas Hancock outfitted a vessel to take some of them to North Carolina in May 1756. But the Acadian exiles overpowered the crew and forced their way back.

Massachusetts asked New Hampshire to take in some of the Acadians, but New Hampshire refused.

Some Acadian exiles were confined to the workhouse or hospital in Boston. But then in 1760, colonial troops returned from the war. The sick Acadian exiles were turned out of the hospital to make room for the sick and wounded troops.

In 1762, French forces occupied St. John’s in Newfoundland, galvanizing the Acadians. In response, the British rounded up more Acadians and put them aboard five English vessels headed toward Boston. But then the Massachusetts government refused them permission to land and sent them back to Halifax.

Map of deportation

Acadian Exiles in Connecticut

Acadian exiles began arriving in New London, Conn., in late 1755 and continued through the next year. In the end, 400 arrived in Connecticut and went to 50 different towns. Haddon received three, Hartford 13, Wethersfield nine, Farmington 14, and so forth.

A 76-year-old man and his seven grandchildren went to Woodbury in the winter of 1756. The malnourished, vermin-ridden cousins had been separated from their parents. The town’s overseer of the poor put the children to work for joiners and farmers.

On Jan. 2, 1757, four adults described as ‘skeletal,’ ‘naked’ and ‘having the itch, vermin, etc.,’ staggered into Woodbury for a joyous reunion with their children. The British sent the parents to Annapolis, Md. They then spent a year petitioning officials to let them reunite with their children.

War Ends

Under the Treaty of Paris of 1763, the Acadian exiles had 19 months to leave the British North American colonies for any French colony. They began petitioning to go home to Nova Scotia, to Quebec, to France, or to the French West Indies, specifically Saint-Domingue (Haiti).

However, they had to pay for their own transport.

In 1766, 900 Acadian exiles in Massachusetts gathered in Boston and decided to return to their native land. They marched 400 miles through the wilderness. Many died along the way. Then in Acadia they found the English had taken over their farms. They found new homes in the counties of Digby and Yarmouth.

Many found their way to Louisiana, where they are called Cajuns.

The Michel Family

Petition of Joseph Michel

The Michel family belonged to the lucky ones. A wealthy Marshfield landowner, Nathaniel Ray Thomas, supported them briefly. The town helped pay for wood for cooking and heating, let the family use a cow for milk and eventually paid for Joseph Michel’s funeral.

Michel then petitioned the General Court for help. He argued that Francis and Papul already had jobs and the indenture should be considered null and void. The General Court investigated and finally agreed with Michel. Since the Acadian boys were willing to work, they shouldn’t be forced into indenture, the Court decided. The family then stayed in Marshfield after the war ended.

End Notes

For an alphabetical list of the Acadians/French Neutrals exiled to Connecticut, click here.

For a list of the Acadians/French Neutrals exiled to Massachusetts – and to the specific towns they were parceled out to – click here and here.

Photos: Map of Acadia 1754 By Mikmaq – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1351882; Portrait of Thomas Hancock, By Cullen328 (Jim Heaphy) – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=18351503. With thanks to The Acadian Diaspora by Christopher Hodson and Le Grand Derangement 1755-1766, The Acadian Exile in Massachusetts by the Massachusetts Secretary of State.

This story was updated in 2023.

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Leroy Anderson: An Immigrants’ Son Takes A Sleigh Ride to the Hollywood Walk of Fame

In the early 1930s, a Harvard graduate student named Leroy Anderson almost made the biggest mistake of his life. He had taken a job teaching languages at a school in Pennsylvania. Though he was a trained musician, he didn’t think a musical career held much promise.

Leroy Anderson

At the last minute, Leroy Anderson changed his mind and became director of the Harvard University Band. He composed some witty pieces for the band, which Boston Pops conductor Arthur Fiedler heard and loved. Fiedler asked him to write something for the Pops.

Anderson then became one of the most successful composers of light orchestral music ever.

You may not recognize the name Leroy Anderson, but you know his music. Sleigh Ride, which he wrote in an August heat wave in 1948, has been performed by a wider variety of musicians than any other piece in the history of Western music.

Sleigh Ride wasn’t his only hit.

Leroy Anderson, Hitmaker

His recording of Blue Tango in 1952 was the first orchestral piece reach No. 1 on the Billboard charts. Plink, Plank, Plunk was the theme song for the popular television show I’ve Got A Secret from 1962 to 1971. AndTypewriter has been the theme song of the BBC 4 Radio Show The News Quiz since 1977.

Leroy Anderson was born June 29, 1908, in Cambridge, Mass., the son of Swedish immigrants. His father, Bror, worked as a clerk in the Central Square Post Office; his mother, Anna Margareta, played organ at the Swedish Evangelical Mission Church. He grew up on 12 Chatham Street in Cambridge. He said he got all his education on one street: Broadway.

Anderson attended Harvard Grammar School, Cambridge High and Latin (now Cambridge Rindge and Latin) and Harvard University. He also studied at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston.

And yet he worked toward a PhD in German and Scandinavian languages while working as a music tutor at Radcliffe College. He enlisted as a private in the U.S. Army in 1942 and was sent to Iceland as a translator and interpreter for the U.S. Counter Intelligence Corps. While there he wrote an Icelandic grammar book for the army. He was promoted to captain and sent to the Pentagon in 1945 as chief of the Scandinavian Desk of Military Intelligence. That didn’t stop him from composing. In 1945 he wrote The Syncopated Clock. He was then offered the post of U.S. military attaché to Sweden, but he had finally decided to make composing his full-time profession.

Accolades

It was a good call. Leroy Anderson won many accolades during his life, including a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and election to the Songwriters Hall of Fame.

Harvard named its new band headquarters after him and Cambridge named the corner near his boyhood home Leroy Anderson Square.

In 1972, the Boston Pops Orchestra paid tribute to Leroy Anderson in a nationally broadcast concert. He guest conducted one piece. He then told his wife, Eleanor, it was the most important evening of his life.

Leroy Anderson died on May 18, 1975, in Woodbury, Conn., where he and his family lived since 1946.

The Leroy Anderson House in Woodbury, Connecticut is on the National Register of Historic Places. You can hear the Boston Pops play Sleigh Ride here, Syncopated Clock here, Typewriter here and Fiddle Faddle here.

Image of Anderson conducting By MCA Records – Original publication: Cover of "The Best of Leroy Anderson: Sleigh Ride" (Mca, 1997)Immediate source: Cover of "The Best of Leroy Anderson: Sleigh Ride" album, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=36467649.

To learn more about Anderson, click on http://www.leroyanderson.com/. This story updated in 2022.

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Matthew Lyon, Vermont’s Spitting Congressman

Much about Matthew Lyon of Fair Haven, Vt., is unclear, but one thing is certain. He started the first congressional brawl on Jan. 30, 1798 when he spat tobacco juice into the face of Roger Griswold, a Federalist from Connecticut.

The Brawl between Matthew Lyon and Roger Griswold

Matthew Lyon, a Jeffersonian Republican-Democrat, had arrived in Philadelphia half a year earlier ‘full of himself and seething with aggression.’ He had finally been elected to the U.S. House of Representatives after several tries, and he was there to ‘take the side of the democrats against the aristocrats.’

One aristocrat said he felt, ‘ grieved that the saliva of an Irishman should be left upon the face of an American.’

Matthew Lyon

Matthew Lyon was born on July 14, 1749 in County Wicklow Ireland. His father may have been executed for treason against the British. Whatever the case, he worked to support his widowed mother and started to learn printing and bookbinding.

He emigrated to Woodbury, Conn., in 1764 as an indentured servant. Ten years later he joined other white settlers and moved to Wallingford, Vt. (then the New Hampshire Grants). In Wallingford, he bought cheap land and organized a militia.

When the American Revolution broke out, Matthew Lyon joined the Green Mountain Boys and took part in the capture of Fort Ticonderoga. But then Gen. Horatio Gates court-martialed him and had him dishonorably discharged.

There are two versions of what actually happened. According to Lyon and others, he and his men were told to guard a cornfield, and he asked to leave Gates and join Seth Warner. According to others — his political enemies — he was cashiered for cowardice and forced to wear a wooden sword to show his shame.

Matthew Lyon did join Warner’s regiment and later rose to the rank of colonel in the Vermont militia. He also received an appointment as deputy secretary to Governor Thomas Chittenden, whose daughter he married.

He parlayed that connection into a seat in the Vermont House of Representatives. In 1779, he founded Fair Haven, Vt., and finally won election to Congress on his fourth try.

In Fair Haven he established the first store, built several mills and started a newspaper that eventually became the Rutland Herald.

The Fight

Matthew Lyon

Feelings ran high in 1798 between the Federalists and Democratic-Republicans.

As a Jeffersonian, Matthew Lyon viewed himself as a champion of the common man against the wealthy, well-educated Federalists.

During a ballot count on the House floor on Jan. 30, 1798, Matthew Lyon began to bait Roger Griswold. He told him the Connecticut Federalists didn’t represent nine-tenths of their constituents.

If he ran a printing press in Connecticut, he said, he would start a revolution there in six months.

Griswold leaned over and asked if he would fight with a wooden sword. Lyon spat tobacco juice in his face, earning him the nickname, ‘The Spitting Lyon.’

Retaliation

The Federalists excoriated Lyon. One Massachusetts Federalist said Lyon, a ‘kennel of filth,’ should be expelled from Congress. Another called him a ‘nasty, brutish, spitting animal.’

Lyon retorted he had no choice because Federalist newspapers would bandy him about as a ‘mean poltroon’ if he had said nothing to Griswold.

On Feb. 15, 1798, Griswold retaliated. While Lyon retrieved his mail, Griswold jumped up and began beating him about the head with a wooden cane. Lyon grabbed a pair of tongs to defend himself. Other congressmen managed to pull them apart, grabbing Griswold by the legs to separate him from Lyon.

The House Ethics Committee later recommended censure, but the full House rejected the motion.

Jail and Revenge

Later that year, President John Adams signed the Alien and Sedition Acts into law. They criminalized criticism of the federal government, and Matthew Lyon was the first to be tried and convicted under the Acts.

Lyon spent four months in a Vergennes, Vt., jail. The Green Mountain Boys threatened to destroy it, but Lyon urged them not to. He ran for Congress from the jail and won.

Two years later, Matthew Lyon got his revenge: He cast the deciding vote in the election of Thomas Jefferson over John Adams.

Image of Matthew Lyon By Billmckern – State House Portrait, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=49864949. This story was updated in 2022.

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