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Chapter Two The JUDGe’s WORlD Aa Eliphalet Bulkeley was born in Colchester, Connecticut, in the summer of 1803. At the time of Eliphalet’s birth, the Bulkeleys, now five generations strong, were one of the leading families of Colchester. During those years, Colchester grew steadily as a manufacturing town, and with this industrial growth came the demand for labor. By the time Eliphalet graduated from the local Bacon Academy and left for Yale College in 1820, Colchester’s population was over 2,000.∞ Judge William P. Williams accepted Bulkeley to study law in Williams’s Lebanon, Connecticut , o≈ces after Bulkeley received his Yale degree.≤ While in Lebanon, Eliphalet began to court a local girl, Lydia Smith Morgan. Lydia could trace her roots back two centuries to three brothers who left England for the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1636.≥ The oldest of the three brothers, John, went directly to Virginia. The second brother, Miles—the foundation for the J. P. Morgan line—settled in West Springfield (Holyoke), Massachusetts, and some of his descendants later migrated to Hartford. The last of the brothers, James, put down roots in New London and started a third branch of the Morgan family tree in America. This third line was the one from which Lydia Smith Morgan descended. Her parents, Avery and Jerusha Morgan, lived in Bozrah, where young Lydia was born and raised. The family later moved to Colchester.∂ Six years out of Yale, Eliphalet Bulkeley married Lydia Morgan and the couple soon settled in East Haddam, one of over 200 small manufacturing villages scattered throughout Connecticut. Other than the great ports of Hartford and Middletown, East Haddam was the busiest Connecticut River town.∑ The land, formerly an underdeveloped section of Haddam known as ‘‘thirty-mile plantation ,’’ became accessible in 1670 when two highways, Creek Row and Town Street, were laid out. Fifteen years later, the first homesteads took shape. In 1695, a ferry service began operating between Hayden’s Shipyard in East Haddam—later Goodspeed’s—and what is now Tylerville in Haddam. In the first half of the nineteenth century, there were three landings in East Haddam—the Lower Landing at Hayden’s Shipyard; the Upper Landing, which was the principal dock used by arriving and departing travelers; and farther north, a commercial landing near East Haddam Island. It was at the Upper Landing—o√ Old ∞≠ c r o w b a r g o v e r n o r East Haddam Road—where a counting house was erected to collect tolls from passing ships. By the time the Bulkeleys arrived in East Haddam in 1830, two ferries equipped with horse treadmills shuttled passengers and farm equipment to Haddam.∏ The passage across the river was a quick and fairly routine a√air.π East Haddam di√ered from other successful waterpower manufacturing towns, like Whitneyville, where Eli Whitney manufactured guns; Gaylordsville, where William Gaylord ran sawmills; or Terryville and Collinsville where Eli Terry and the Collins brothers made clocks and axes respectively. True, East Haddam nurtured manufactories and mills that employed tanners, coopers, cabinetmakers, wagon builders, cobblers, milliners, distillers, and malt makers. Nonetheless, East Haddam also supported shipbuilding. On the waterfront, a succession of yard owners including James Greene, Daniel Warner, Horace Hayden, and Joseph Goodspeed and his two sons George and William honed their craft. The lowlying waterfront in the southern end of town and East Haddam’s deep channel favored the Connecticut River shipbuilding trade.∫ Besides the legal work these abundant businesses threw o√, this bustling river port suited the Bulkeleys on several scores. First, East Haddam was only ten miles from Colchester, so the couple did not feel completely cut o√ from family and friends. Second, there were already a few Bulkeleys and Morgans living in East Haddam, making the move less wrenching.Ω Lastly, East Haddam fell almost equidistant from Connecticut’s two capital cities—Hartford and New Haven— crucial since Bulkeley aspired to enter politics. In 1832, after practicing law for little more than a year, Eliphalet Bulkeley was appointed judge of the court of probate for East Haddam. Thereafter, folks referred to Eliphalet as Judge Bulkeley, or simply ‘‘the Judge.’’∞≠ The Judge’s 1832 daybook lists clients in Chester, Colchester, Hebron, Westbrook , Middletown, Haddam, and Old Saybrook. Generally he received two dollars for a property conveyance and one dollar for simple legal advice. He entered a ten-dollar charge for ‘‘William Coe/Negro/Defend you on a charge of assault’’ and noted seven dollars defending...

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