TOLLAND, MASSACHUSETTS

TOLLAND HISTORY. COM

Joesph Clark III was born in Winsted Connecticut on December 5, 1943 and began his life in the old original Marshall farmhouse where his parents had moved 8 years earlier. His father, Joseph (1909-1989) had moved a mile down the road from where he himself was born but his mother Dorothy (1911-1987) was a "city" girl, born and raised in Winsted, Connecticut which in those days was a big city whose life was far removed from the dirt roads of dirt poor Tolland.
Life was not easy and the family of five lived in conditions which would have been similar to the inhabitants thereof from 150 years hence. Work was hard and material rewards few as they eeeked a living from the very soil that had been first turned in 1781. They had a small dairy herd plus maple syrup in the spring. In the fall apples were harvested from the existing orchard until Joseph planted a fine orchard of 200 trees of his own. A small sawmill on the premises that turned out boards and planks of pine and hemlock cut on the 300 acre farm, kept the families team of horses busy hauling the logs through the frozen snow. There would no tractor until 1958.

Still life was good in this town of 120 people. Joseph III (JC3) however, lonely and ecccentric at an early age, was not enamored of all the hard work. He wandered the halls of the old farmhouse which were remodeled and kept pristine by his mother, and wandered the miles of trails and roads through the deep woods thinking constantly about the people who came before and what they were like and how they lived, and wondered how they existed at all.

The Burt Hill Cememtary 300 feet from the old house was filled with people who had lived there or nearby and JC3 always sought out information about them even while he w as a small boy. Homer Hale, a neighbor whose own grandfather was a neighbor of the Marshall family told many stories about the two farms which were once connected. Listening made the information all the more valuable. At the general store and at the Clark family picnic each year (his father had 11 siblings) tales were exchanged and tradition established that influenced JC3 even more.

After graduating from the towns only school, in 1957, the only 8th grader, JC3 went to high school in Connecticut and only then realized how he wanted to be away. He became a radio announcer and worked from 1962 through 1982 at 16 radio stations along the east coast as a disk jockey including an all night dj show in Washington DC.

"I am consumed by history" he said more than once as he delved into the deep layers of tradition of the farm where he was raised and converted the residue of this research into growing self printed volumns of work. He drew maps and digrams of trails and hiding places. he published the short lived "High Country Almanc" and was the first to coin the term "Tolland, the High Country" which was adopted by a number of business in town. Bumper stickers in the 1980s carried the phrase everywhere.

The first thin booklet appeared in 1979 to be followed by longer volumns.A stint as a newspaper staff writer and reporter gathering more research along the way.

Then , in 1994, Joseph J. Clark III, gragarious and approachable, always a public person previously, involved with town politics and publisher of the towns newsletter until 1994, a contributer and player in town activities all his life, suddenly dropped from public view, rarly if ever seen outside his gated property.

TOLLAND WAS INCORPORATED IN 1810 ALONG WITH SEVERAL OTHER WESTERN MASSACHUSETTS TOWNS. IT WAS FORMED FROM THE WEST PARISH OF THE TOWN OF GRANVILLE, MASSACHUESTTS WHICH WAS FIRST SETTLED IN 1728 , INCORPORATED AS A DISTRICT IN 1754 AND AS A TOWN IN 1777.

TOLLANDS POPULATION IN 1810 WAS RELIABLY, 695 PERSONS, THE HIGHEST IN THE TOWNS HISTORY. THE 2005 POPULATION OF 419 IN THE HIGHEST SINCE.

THE HIGHEST TOWN IN HAMPDEN COUNTY, (BUT FIRST BEING IN HAMPSHIRE COUNTY)TOLLAND BORDERS FOUR COUNTIES, TWO IN CONNECTICUT AND TWO IN MASSACHUETTS, AND IS THE HIGHEST POINT IN MASSACHUSETTS ONE HUNDRED MILES FROM THE COAST AND TEN MILES EITHER SIDE OF THE BORDER OF THE TWO STATES.

Agriculture was of course the only occupation of consequense in Tolland the first 100 years of its official existance. Even so, the harshness of the weather and the rockyness of the soil limited agriculture for many years after its settling to allow for time to clear the land. Before that it was mostly pasture in between the outcrops of ledge and the surface boulders. Making stonewalls was the towns main pastime.

Tollands geography was unkind to any endeavor including manufacturing which was basically non existant. It did not have streams large enough to float a log or enough volumn to operate water wheels year round. Its elevation made transportation terrible for 100 plus years, the steep mountains between the town and the closest village of importance stymied commerce. The only exception being those mills along the Farmington River more than 1000 feet below the average elevation of the town.

Colonial law, especially that under control of the British, limited formation any new towns to those with established churches, the Congregational Church being the law of the land in the Bay Colony. Without a church and a minister no new towns would be considered by the Great and General Court in Boston. Tollands church was establish in the then west parish, or West Granville in 1795 with the hiring of the Rev. Roger Harrison as its first pastor in 1798. the town was apporved for its charter in 1810.

The church was for 150 years the main insitution in the town but it also suffered from poor attendance and dropping membership to the point where it had to share ministers with other churches in the area.
From 1810 to 1963 the town steadily lost population, dropping 590 persons form its official roles during that time. Farming gradually deminished in town even by the 20th century and the town fell to decay and partial ruin with abandoned farms and buildings falling in everywhere. The people went elsewhere when land particularly to the west was uncovered and details about rockless fields already cleared and winters that were not as long.

By 1900 outside interest and outside money began to find its way into the forlorn community with barely enough money in its treasury to cut the brush from encroaching on the roadsides. By that time two private fish and game clubs and presrves with a large New York City membership had formed in town prividing willing buyers for strapped farms and bringing a large portion of the abandoned community under taxable entities. One of those organizations, the Tunxis Club, is till in existance today.

Apple growing was revived when the newly formed Chapin apple farm introduced modern horticulture methods to the community, the remants still visible today. Electricty made its appearence in town in 1935 but the telephone, a "gift from heaven " for the towns isolated houswives, came along the dusty roads to the lonely farmhouses that remained, in 1914.

From 1822 to 1917 the Harrison tavern, first started by Rev. Roger Harrison, was the anchor business in Tolland Center, the only real village part of the town during that era. He also opertaed a boarding house and was postmaster in Tolland until his death in 1853. The Harrison tavern, post office and Inn remained in his family , being passed on to his son, his sons wife and their daughter until 1917 when the last Harrison moved from town.

There were from time to time other stores in the center including one for logging products but none that lasted. Following the demise of the Harrison establishment a store was opened by Eugene Moore just east of the center and the post office moved there. It eventually burned down in 1938 and for a few years was relocated back at the old Harrison house until the store and post office, now being run by Orville Moore moved into its own premises again in 1940. In 1944 the Tolland post office closed for good but the store remained open.

Along with farming, logging, sawmilling, first by water wheel then by steam engine, then in the 20th century, trucking and construction emrged as Tollands main industry. Farming ended as a dairy persuit in 1969 and by 1994, the last two full time working farms of any sort ended operation. Now, beginning in the 1950s, more and more people sought employment out of town and far away except for those who were involved in logging and trucking. Meanwhile the population continued its downward spiral until 1963, when the Wildwood housing development began in town.

Around lonely Cranberry pond a massive vacation development started in Tolland before disbelieving eyes and soon construction in this pre zoning, pre regulation days began seriously. Suddenly small vacation homes on tiny lots around the newly re-dammed Cranberry Pond filled the town with excitmenet...and money, and people. A number of smaller vacation developments started and ended as well during the 1970s starting a boom in land sales, and in town beauracracy. The population began to rise as more people moved in, slowly bringing the count to 150, then 200, then 250 and on upward.

Today the lingering effects of upwardly mobile land prices waxing and waning in town from one month to another has reinforced the fact that construction and associated home building and services have entirely replaced farming and other agricutural persuits as the towns leading industry.

Today Tolland is dealing with increased taxes,crime and all the other pressures of rural life. Transportation is still an issue as so many if not all people in town who work, drive many miles over roads that have not changed all that much in the last 30 years. Meanwhile the town has no store, no school, (part of the Southwick-Tolland school region) no telephone (Sandisfield)...and no post office (Granville.)

A shot taken of the old Marshall House by Marshall family members who came back to visit in 1899, the Toupense era. Home of Joseph Clark III, (JC3).

Breakdown of property ownership gleaned from old deeds. 1697 Bedford Plantation founded (later Granville)
1728 Nathanial Dwight surveys Bedford Plantation.
1756 Thomas Clapp, President of Yale Univeristy (then Yale College)buys southern portion of Jon Elliots surveyed share of Bedford Plantation, about 500 acres which goes on to form main part of modern Clark farm.
1765 Clapps relatives inherit his property
1781 Pitkin family, Clapps relatives and descendants, trades the 500 acres to Perez Marshall of Simsbury for land he owned there.
1817 Property is deeded to son Samual Marshall
1832 Samual Marshalls son Lester is primary owner.
1886 The Marshall family ownership ends and sells to Xavier Toupense
1928 John C Winn, a neighbor buys Toupense farm.
1935 Joseph Clark,(1909-1989) buys Winns farm.
1981 Joseph and Dorothy Clark form deed with son Joseph III who goes on to own property.
2005 Majority of this property transferred to a private trust.

The Marshall-Toupense farm is located on Burt Hill Road in Tolland, Massachusetts, USA. This is a much investigated property, literally hundreds of deeds and documents including family records and diaries have been examined over the years building a mountain of information about the ancient farm and its owners.

There are still many gaps in this field of inquiery, massive gaps in fact especially in the Toupense era, (1886-1928). Attempts to contact scattered family members have ben largely unsuccessful but improving as of late.

Included in this site is a general account of who lived here and when and about the progression of activities in this, the last steady working farm in Tolland from the "old era".

This is also a site being gradually developed.

Contact Inkoming@netzero.net

THE CLARK FAMILY OF TOLLAND, MASSACHUSETTS

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