Читать книгу Looking Back: An Autobiography - Merrick Abner Richardson - Страница 21

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John, my Grandfather Richardson, son of Uriah, built his home on the east side of the Devil's Hopyard, while Abner, one of John Dimock's ten sons, built his home on the west side.

John Richardson raised a family of boys, John, Warren, Collins, Marvin, Orson, and one girl, Fanny, while Abner Dimock raised a family of girls, Lovey, Manerva, Luna, Hannah, Arminia, Abigail, and one boy, Abner.

Warren Richardson crossed the Hopyard, wooed and won Luna Dimock, and they built their nest near Wabbaquassett Lake, where the flowers bloom in early spring, wild birds awake the summer morn and the babbling brook sings through the winding vale below, all day long.

Here they raised a group of laughing, frolicing, romping backwoods mischief and their names were:

Mariette A.—Married Frank Slater.

Eliza L.—Married Lucius Kibbes.

Adelia A.—Married Epaphro Dimock.

Caroline C.—Married Lucius Aborn.

Collins W.—Married Martha Aborn.

Merrick A.—Married Mary Hoyt.

Gordon M.—Married Amanda Pitt.

Janette A.—Married George Newell.

Wabbaquassett retained its virgin bloom of nature long after the surrounding country had been occupied by white invaders.

Stafford, Ellington, Somers and Tolland Streets had become self-centered, while the sleeping beauty, Wabbaquassett, was held by the Nipmunks as a sort of rendezvous for the Pequods, Mohegans. Mohawks, Narragansetts and several other tribes who were roaming over New England, stealing fowls, cattle and even children, for the red man felt that the brooks, lakes and forests, together with all they contained, virtually belonged to him.

Wabbaquassett of old, with its broad sandy shore, dreaming in the protecting arms of a dense forest of oak, pine, chestnut and maple giants was truly the gem of New England.

When the Richardsons, Dimocks, Newells and Aborns began their encroachment into these forests the Indians were loath to leave their pow-wow home in the oak grove, on the south shore of the lake, for the American Indian dreaded the law more than the tomahawk, but the following instance routed them.

A buck named Wappa, who lived on the shore, south of the old West Rock, killed his squaw, Dianah, for which he was tried at Tolland Street and hanged. On the gallows he saw Captain Abner Dimock, my mother's father, among the spectators and called for him to come on the gallows and pray for him.

My father and mother were in the crowd and when the sheriff asked the Indian if he was ready, mother fainted. The execution took place August 22, 1816, after which the Indians left Wabbaquassett and never returned.

In those days, Wabbaquassett, since called Square Pond, and now Crystal Lake, was the nucleus of four prominent families, Dimocks, Richardsons, Newells and Aborns.

The group consisted of the following families:

Abner Dimock	Anson Newell
Orwell Dimock	Armherst Newell
Ephraim Dimock	Charles Newell
Lorain Dimock	Ezekiel Newell
Sexton Dimock	Ephraim Newell
Warren Richardson	Lucius Aborn
Orson Richardson	Parkel Aborn
Marvin Richardson	Morton Aborn
John Richardson	Gilbert Aborn
Royal Richardson	Jedediah Aborn

Of these twenty families in 1850 I now find, at the Lake, only one descendant, A. M. Richardson, son of my brother, Collins, who with his interesting wife, Bessie, actually holds the fort alone.