The Stamford Historical Society

Stamford, Connecticut – A Bibliography

Items in alphabetical order by author, including abstracts
–B–

"At length the thing I greatly feared came upon me. A small boat was discovered by the American guard, in one of these coves, by night, in which they suspected that one of my brothers, with some others, had come from the British. They supposed them concealed in the neighborhood and that I must be acquainted with it.
At this time I had just entered my sixteenth year. I was taken and confined in the Guard House; next day examined before a Committee and threatened with sundry deaths if I did not confess what I knew not of. They threatened among other things to confine me at low water and let the tide drown me if I did not expose these honest farmers. At length I was sent back to the Guard House until ten o'clock at night, when I was taken out by an armed mob, conveyed through the field gate one mile from the town to back Creek, then having been striped my body was exposed to the mosquitoes, my hands and feet being confined to a tree near the Salt Marsh, in which situation for two hours time every drop of blood would drawn from my body; when soon after two of the committee said that if I would tell them all I knew, they would release me, if not they would leave me to these men who, perhaps, would kill me.
I told them that I knew nothing that would save my life.
They left me, and the Guard came to me and said they were ordered to give me, if I did not confess, one hundred stripes, and if that did not kill me I would be sentenced to be hanged. Twenty stripes was then executed with severity, after which they sent me again to the Guard House. No 'Tory' was allowed to speak to me, but I was insulted and abused by all.
The next day the committee proposed many means to extort a confession from me, the most terrifying was that of confining me to a log on the carriage in the Saw mill and let the saw cut me in two if I did not expose 'those Torys.' Finally they sentenced me to appear before Col. Davenport, in order that he should send me to head Quarters where all the Torys he sent were surely hanged. Accordingly next day I was brought before Davenport - one of the descendants of the old apostate Davenport, who fled from old England - who, after he had examined me, said with great severity of countenance, 'I think you could have exposed those Tories.'
I said to him 'You might rather think I would have exposed my own father sooner than suffer what I have suffered.' Upon which the old judge could not help acknowledging he never knew any one who had withstood more without exposing confederates, and he finally discharged me the third day." Walter Bates, p. 10.

"The Diary Of Sarah Frost. Written on board the ship 'Two Sisters' during her voyage to Saint John's River, Nova Scotia, in the spring of A. D. 1783. The narrative of Walter Bates has supplied us with an accurate and reliable account of the departure from New York and subsequent arrival at St. John of the first fleet of A. D. 1783.
The following diary will be found to throw additional light upon the nature of the voyage with all its accompanying discomforts. It will also enable the reader in some measure to realize the trials experienced by the Loyalists in parting with near relatives and life-long friends, and give some idea of their first impressions on landing upon our rugged shores.
Sarah (Scofield) Frost and her husband [William] were natives of Stamford, Connecticut, and relatives of Walter Bates. After their settlement on the banks of the Kennebeccasis, at what is now Lower Norton, they manifested much interest in the welfare of the church at Kingston until the erection of a church more conveniently situated. The name of William Frost occurs as a member of the second vestry elected at Kingston on Easter Monday, 1785."
W. O. Raymond, p. 28.

"May 25, 1783. - I left Lloyd's Neck with my family and went on board the Two Sisters, commanded by Capt Brown , for a voyage to Nova Scotia with the rest of the Loyalist sufferers. This evening the captain drank tea with us. He appears to be a very clever gentleman. We expect to sail as soon as the wind shall favor. We have very fair accommodation in the cabin, although it contains six families, besides our own. There are two hundred and fifty passengers on board."
Sarah Frost, p. 29.

The earliest settlers - such as Nehemiah Marks, who was living and doing business in Stamford as early as 1720 - opened stores and other commercial enterprises. By the mid-1800s, city dwellers began coming to the region for summer vacations. After 1880, settlers arrived via the peddlers' routes and, after accumulating a little capital, stayed to open shops and establish themselves socially and politically. The greatest influx came in the 1890s and early 1900s, when many Jews arrived from the Pale of Settlements, eastern and central Europe, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Romania, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

The Jewish Communities of Greater Stamford traces the historical migration through the archived images preserved by the Jewish Historical Society of Greater Stamford. The authors are members of the historical society: Irwin Miller is past president, historian, and founding member; Linda Baulsir, archivist and board member. Together, they have carefully chosen the finest images and written detailed narrative to tell this significant history of the Jewish people and their activities centered in the southwestern corner of Connecticut." Text on back cover.

Here in this home of modern architecture he has his formal study and well-equipped library. Here all is order and neatness, even to perfect adjustment of the angles of every book upon shelf or table. Here there is a polished air of finish and of classicism. Here William J. Long is the clergyman and scholar, the learned doctor of philosophy, the graduate of Harvard and of Heidelberg.
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In a business block in the center of Stamford, in a front room on the noisiest part of the city square is Dr. Long's natural history study. Here he revels in a delicious confusion and disarrangement. Newspapers, letters, books, photographs, notebooks, souvenirs of days in the big woods, are everywhere, not even excepting the floor. In fact, the floor seems to have taken up all the odds and ends of overturned wastepaper baskets. One feels as if wending his way through a forest of broken trunks, quantities of leaves, and crumbling debris of all sorts. To make more realistic the impression that one is in the path of a tornado is the rumble of trolley cars, the toots of automobiles, the clatter of horseshoes and iron tires on the pavement, and the calls of drivers and peddlers.
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But here in this study is the chaotic revelry that explains the naturalist let loose from the formal work of the scholar. Conditions here, while writing his books, are like the primitiveness and abandon of his camp in the wilderness, and work seems a play, not a profession. Though his literary and scientific playings, like the investigations that preceded them, have been so extensive as to seem professional, they still retain the playful point of view. It is this spirit, and the sharp contrast in his work, that have sometimes made Dr. Long's natural history misunderstood.

In his literary work, as in his professional and philosophic studies, he has been a thorough, painstaking student of facts, and it has been his aim to make these facts interesting by showing their direct bearing upon human life. As he says in the preface to his 'English Literature,' 'From beginning to end, this book is written upon the assumption that the first virtue of such a work is to be accurate, and the second to be interesting.' It seems probable that these lines were written in the home study.

But his nature writings have been, like the observations upon which they are based, his play and recreation . To an outsider it may seem as if he had unconsciously transposed his basic principle of literature and said, 'The first object of such work is to be interesting and the second to be accurate.'

When I suggested this theory to the naturalist he shook his head doubtfully. "Truth is always the first interest of a scholar,' he said, 'whether one studies life or death, a man or a blackbird, a creed or a political platform. And truth, by the way, is seldom found upon the surface of things. When one writes, however, interest must be added to accuracy, and whatever virtue appears first is merely a matter of emphasis. In my natural history studies, though the work is all play, it takes far more time and effort to verify an observation than to search out original sources in literature.' " Edward F. Bigelow, pp. 345-348.

Provenance. The manuscript was probably brought to Boston by Zachariah Walker, a step-son-in-law of John Bishop and at the time minister in a near-by CT parish. He was born in Boston GHUS [10.] in Harvard class of "1656" and was known to be in Boston in 1685, perhaps bringing the ms for SRW [11.]. His father, Robert, an original settler (DSS [12] ) was buried 30 May 1687 and "ZW" as he signed the preface to AGW [13.] was likely attending family matters soon after. There is a distinct possibility that AGW [14.] was a replacement for the CT election sermon of May 1687 by Joseph Eliot (DNR2 [15] ) which was unavailable or "unacceptable" as it is not known to be printed.

A long trail of misinformation about AGW [16] has complicated the task of firmly identifying it. Harvard catalogue reads "(Boston) printed by (John Foster?)" who had died in 1681. (DAB [17]) The microform card reads "The Fruitful Wife . . . 1690" perhaps misreading the terse inscription by "Abigail Mather, 1690". The Mather pedigree in MCA [18] shows that the most likely "Abigail" was Abigail Phillips who married Cotton Mather. Since she owned her copy of AGW [19] by 1690 it may have been inspiration for Cotton Mather's own bride's book ODZ [20] 1692 (not 1682, HPA [21]) as shown by BOCM [ 22.]. They were both meant to be given away which may explain why AGW [23] is not listed in the books of John Bishop (BJB [24]}, nor in Evans (ABE [25]). Rare indeed." John Bishop IV, p. 21.

1. SRW Sound Repentance, S. Wakeman, 1685, - at NYPL. Hereafter simply cited as SRW.
2. JOF Joy of Faith, S. Lee, 1687, Harvard Houghton Library
3. DAPO Dictionary of Colonial American Printing Ornaments, E. Reilly, 1978.
4. AGW fragment of A Good Wife in possession of ARB (Arthur R. Bishop, Manchester, England - via XGA [Exchange for Genealogical Archives, Boston/London]. see also:

a. CPB Cheerfully Provide, fragment in possession of Bishop family in Maine.
b. GMB Godly Man's Blessing (AGW) via XGA from Virginia Bishop family.
*These fragments, along with "The Fruitful Vine" once owned by Abigail Mather, now at Harvard Houghton Library (whose staff deserves the fullest acclaim for celerity and patience) comprise all the known portions of "A Good Wife". Hereafter simply cited as AGW.

5. SRW
6. ARB Arthur R. Bishop, Manchester England - via XGA [Exchange for Genealogical Archives, Boston/London]
7. ACB A(lbert) C(arlos) Bates, Connecticut Historical Society, letter to E. L. Gay 5 April 1911.
8. AGW
9. HPA History of Printing in America, Isaiah Thomas, 1874, American Antiquarian Society. Hereafter simply cited as HPA
10. GHUS Graduates of Harvard University, J. L. Sibley, 1881.
11. SRW
12. DSS Diary of Samuel Sewall, 1674-1718, M. H. Thomas, 1973
13. AGW
14. AGW
15. DNR2 Diary of Noadiah Russell 1687, Connecticut Historical Society, Hartford, 1934.
16. AGW
17. DAB Dictionary of American Biography, 1917
18. MCA Magnalia Christi Americana, Cotton Mather, Massachusetts Historical Society, 1852
19. AGW
20. ODZ Ornaments ...Daughters of Zion, Cotton Mather, 1692 at Boston Athenaeum
21. HPA
22. BOCM Bibliography of Cotton Mather Works, T. J. Holmes, 1940
23. AGW
24. BJB Books of John Bishop taken 3 Jan 1694/5 by John Davenport III - at Connecticut State Library
25. ABE American Bibliography, Charles Evans, 1941

All notes and abbreviations by John Bishop IV. Numbering of notes for this bibliography by Ronald Marcus

"A good Wife is like a fruitful vine, in Rendering herself delightful, Pleasant, Amiable to her husband. The vine is a sightly, delectable, PLEASANT plant. 'The Vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of judah are His pleasant plants." Isa. 5.7. It were easie to enlarge here, I may but hint at things. How delectable is the vine in all respects!
The SMELL of the Vine is pleasant. 'The vines give a good Smell.' Cant.2.13. So the Behaviour, Carriage, Jestures, Words, Actions of a good wife, favour and smell of LOVE; a good smell indeed: her Bed & Board is perfumed with Better spice than Mirrhe, Aloes, and Cinamon: or than all the 'powders of the merchant.' Oyntment and Perfume do not so rejoice the heart of a men, as doth the Sweetness of a good Wife by hearty Affection.
The SHADE of the vine is comfortable and refreshing. Therefore Arbours are made of them: And the happiness, the tranquility, the Halcyon dayes which the people of Israel enjoyed under Solomon, is thus set forth: 'Judah and Israel dwelt safely every man under his VINE, and under his fig-tree, &c. I King. 4. 25. So doth a Good Wife render her self exceeding comfortable and Refreshing to her husband. When Good-man comes in Weary from his work, Sweating , melted out of the field; or comes down out of his Study almost 'exanimated', having his spirits exhausted and drunk up; O how doth the Amiable, Loving, Tender, Careful, Cheerful carriage of a good wife Recreate and Refresh Him, like reposing himself under a shady Vine." John Bishop, pp. 35-36.