That the founders of this community, both men and women, were persons of no ordinary mental and physical vigor, is attested by the excellent mental and physical condition of their descendants, after generations of intermarriage within their own borders. At the present day, it would puzzle an expert to calculate their complicated relationships. In a visit to this locality, some years since, we met two of the handsomest, brightest and sweetest old ladies we ever beheld, each of whom had passed her eightieth year, and each of whom bore the name of Esther (as did the wife of John Waterhouse). Both were descendants of John Rogers, and of the first settlers of Quakertown, several times over.[[182]] One of them told us that her grandmother took a cap-border to meeting to hem in the time of the great countermove, at which time and for which cause she was whipped at the New London whipping-post; also that for chopping a few sticks of wood in his back yard, on Sunday, a Quakertown man was “dragged to New London prison.” This is but a hint of the traditions that linger in this community regarding the days of persecution. The other lady, a daughter of Elder Zephania Watrous, lived in the old meeting-house, where she was born. In the room with this gentle and comely old lady were five generations of the Watrous family, herself the eldest, and a child of four or five years the youngest, all fair representatives of Quakertown people; healthy, intelligent and good-looking.
To a stranger in these parts, it is a wonder how the inhabitants have maintained themselves in such an apparently sterile and rocky region.[[183]] In fact, these people did not depend upon agriculture for a livelihood. Although thus isolated, they were from the first thrifty, ingenious and enterprising. The property of the first settlers having been divided and subdivided among large families, it was not long before their descendants must either desert their own community or invent methods of bringing into Quakertown adequate profits from without. Consequently, we find them, early in the nineteenth century, selling, in neighboring towns, cloths, threads, yarn and other commodities of their own manufacture. A large proportion of the men learned trades and worked away from home during the week. Many of them were stone-masons, a trade easily learned in this rocky region, and one in which they became experts. In later times, we find some of them extensively engaged in raising small fruits, especially strawberries.
Although, with the decline of persecution, no new leader arose to rank with those of the past, bright minds have not been lacking in later days in this fast thinning community, which, like other remote country places, has suffered by the emigration of its youth to more promising fields of action.
Timothy Watrous, 2d, invented the first machine for cutting cold iron into nails. He also made an entire dock himself.
Samuel Chapman, a descendant of John Rogers and John Waterhouse, is said to have made and sailed the first steamship on the Mississippi. He founded large iron-works in New Orleans. His son Nathan was one of the founders of the Standard Iron Works of Mystic.
Jonathan Whipple, a descendant of John Rogers, having a deaf and dumb son, conceived the idea of teaching him to speak and to understand by the motion of the lips, by which method he soon spoke sonorously and distinctly, and became a man of integrity and cultivation. Zerah C. Whipple, a grandson of Jonathan, becoming interested in this discovery, resolved to devote his life to its perfection. He invented the Whipple Natural Alphabet, and with the aid of his grandfather, Jonathan, founded The Home School for the deaf and dumb, at Mystic.
Julia Crouch, author of “Three Successful Girls” (a descendant of John Rogers and John Bolles), was a Rogerene of Quakertown.
Ida Whipple Benham, a well-known poet, and for many years an efficient member of the Peace Society, was of Quakertown origin.[[184]]
In recent years, the Rogerenes of Quakertown have given much attention to the cause of peace and arbitration. The Universal Peace Union having been established by the Quakers, soon after the rebellion, the people of Quakertown invited members of that Society to join them in holding a Peace Convention near Mystic, the most suitable available point in the vicinity of Quakertown. Accordingly, in August, 1868, the first of an unbroken series of yearly Peace Meetings was held in an attractive grove on a hill by the Mystic River. Including the invited guests, there were present forty-three persons. The second meeting, in September, 1869, showed such an increase of interest and attendance that the Connecticut Peace Society was organized, as a branch of The Universal Peace Union, and Jonathan Whipple of Quakertown was elected president. This venerable man (to whom we have before referred), besides publishing and circulating The Bond of Peace (a paper advocating peace principles), had long been active as a speaker and correspondent in the cause so dear to his heart.
In 1871, James E. Whipple, of Quakertown, a young man of high moral character, having refused from conscientious scruples to pay the military tax imposed upon him, was arrested by the town authorities of Ledyard and confined in the Norwich jail, where he remained several weeks.