Jonathan Ingersoll: 

Overcoming A Handicap 

200 Centuries Ago

Attaining success while dealing with a handicap has never been easy. Jonathan Ingersoll faced his very visible problem  two centuries ago and gained considerable success.

Many people with a casual interest in the history of Ridgefield — or Connecticut —   have heard the name of Ingersoll. Best known among this clan locally was the Rev. Jonathan Ingersoll, second minister of the First Congregational Church, who served from 1739 until his death in 1778. (Rev. Ingersoll’s profile has already been published here on Old Ridgefield.)

Less known in town but once a prominent person in the state was his namesake son, Jonathan Ingersoll, who was not only a political leader but the head of family whose members were remarkably accomplished. At the same time he was a man who overcame an unusual handicap, one especially difficult for a lawyer to deal with.

Born in Ridgefield in 1747, young Jonathan grew up here and went off to Yale, where he graduated in 1766. He settled in New Haven, practiced law, and married Grace Isaacs. 

Active in the civic side of the colony, Ingersoll was elected a congressman in 1793 but wound up declining the post before the 3rd Congress convened, and was never sworn in to office. He served as a Superior Court judge from 1798 to 1801 and from 1811 to 1816. He left that job to become lieutenant governor of Connecticut, the ninth person to hold that position. He remained in office until his death in 1823 at the age of 75.

In his autobiographical “Recollections of A Lifetime,” published in 1856, Samuel G. Goodrich (“Peter Parley”) discussed Jonathan, whom he had known when he was a boy and described as physically “erect” and “slender.” Ingersoll suffered from a problem that is probably what physicians today call blepharospasm. 

“He was marked by a nervous twitch of the face, which usually signalized itself when he began to address the jury,” Goodrich said. “On these occasions his eyes opened and shut spasmodically; at the same time he drew the corners of his mouth up and down, the whole seeming as if it was his object to set the court in a roar. Sometimes he succeeded, in spite of all his efforts to the contrary. Indeed, it was impossible for a person on seeing this for the first time, to avoid a smile — perhaps a broad one. 

“It might seem that such a frailty would have been a stumbling-block in his profession; yet it was not so,” Goodrich continued. “I suspect, indeed, that his practice as a lawyer was benefited by it — for the world likes an easy handle to a great name, and this is readily supplied by a personal peculiarity. 

“At all events, such was the dignity of his character, the grace of his language, and the perfection of his logic, his law, and his learning, that he stood among the foremost of his profession. He became lieutenant-governor of the State, a judge of the Supreme Court, and held various other responsible offices.”

Ingersoll must also have been an influential parent: His children and grandchildren became leaders in Connecticut and the nation:

His son, Ralph Isaacs Ingersoll (1789-1872), a lawyer, became a United States congressman from Connecticut from 1825 to 1833. He served three years as U.S. minister to Russia in the 1840s and was elected mayor of New Haven in 1851. (His house at 143 Elm Street is now a building at Yale, from which he graduated in 1808.)

Another son, Charles Anthony Ingersoll (1798-1860), also a lawyer, served as a U.S. District judge for Connecticut from 1853 until his death in 1860.

His daughter, Grace Ingersoll (1786-1816) married a highly placed Frenchman named Pierre Grellet. She moved to France where, according to Goodrich,  she  became a celebrity at the Court of Napoleon “and always maintained a pre-eminence, alike for beauty of person, grace of manners, and delicacy and dignity of character.” Unfortunately, in 1816, she developed a “pulmonary complaint” and, as Goodrich rather darkly phrased it, “descended into the tomb” at the age of 29, leaving behind two young daughters. 

Grandson Colin Macrae Ingersoll (1819-1903)  of New Haven, a lawyer, was a U.S. congressman from Connecticut from 1851 to 1855.

Grandson Charles Roberts Ingersoll (1821-1903) of New Haven,  another lawyer, was governor of Connecticut from 1873 to 1877. 

Finally, a great-grandson was George Pratt Ingersoll (1861-1927), who was born in New Haven but later lived many years in Ridgefield. Yet another lawyer, he was U.S. minister to Siam from 1917 to 1918 and ran unsuccessfully for Congress in 1910. His significance to Ridgefield is probably chiefly his house, which became an inn in the 1930s and is now Bernard’s restaurant — right across West Lane from the church whose congregation his great-great grandfather led more than two centuries ago.

Ebenezer Olmsted: 

Tax Collector Who Broke the Town

Scandalous behavior by public officials is everyday news in the world today. But even in 18th Century Ridgefield, miscreants made their way into the local government. One prominent leader got himself—and the Town of Ridgefield—into a lot of trouble more than two centuries ago.

Lt. Ebenezer Olmsted was part of Ridgefield’s leading society, an officer in the Continental militia who served under people like Col. Philip Burr Bradley at places like Ticonderoga, and the Battles of Ridgefield, Long Island, and Germantown. He was with Washington at Valley Forge, according to “The Genealogy of the Olmsted Family in America.”

Born in Ridgefield in 1748, Olmsted was a well-connected as could be. He was a grandson of one of the founders of the town. He married Esther Ingersoll, daughter of the Rev. Jonathan Ingersoll, second minister of the First Congregational Church; her brother, Jonathan, was to become lieutenant governor of Connecticut (his son, Ralph, was elected a U.S. congressman). 

Olmsted had a house on Main Street, just south of the Meeting House, a prime piece of real estate. 

But he wound up under arrest, and lost all his possessions, including his home and even  his desk. 

It all began on Dec. 21, 1780, when the Annual Town Meeting appointed Lt. Olmsted  a constable and authorized him “to collect the state tax for the year ensuing.” The appointment was for one year, typical of tax collecting assignments, but it indicated he was held in high esteem — tax collectors had to be trusted people. 

However, six years later, in 1786, the Town Meeting voted to “accept the resignation of Lt. Ebenezer Olmsted of his office of collector of ye state taxes on ye list of 1780, on conditions of his accounting with and paying to the Select Men the full that he has collected and received on the rates made on said list, and deliver up said rate bills and warrants to the Select Men.”

Olmsted had apparently pocketed what he’d collected, quite possibly to pay for that Main Street spread he purchased two years after being named tax collector. He paid 300 pounds for the homestead, after selling his Wilton Road West place for only 75 pounds. 

Or perhaps it was the cost of supporting his family: He and Esther had 10 children.

Why did it take five years to discover Olmsted had not turned in his tax collections? Possibly because the state was behind in its auditing due to the turmoil of the war that had been going on. In addition, the state was heavily in debt because of the war and was hungry for income.

For the next six years, the town’s records are peppered with reports of how it was dealing with the crisis. And a crisis it was.

First, the selectmen arrested Olmsted and confiscated his 13-acre homestead and all his possessions, including other land, eight tons of hay plus oats and flax, and “his desk.” They also took “2,258 Continental Dollars,” which were virtually worthless. 

His old commander, Col. Bradley, headed a committee to auction off the homestead, but that brought in only 120 pounds, far less than was owed to the town (although the amount owed is never stated). 

Col. Bradley was sent to Hartford, apparently to see if Ridgefield’s state tax debt could be forgiven, but the state was insistent. The war had been costly and it needed money.

Finally, abandoning hope of ever getting the money from Olmsted, the town went into debt, borrowing “such sums as shall be necessary to settle ye demands the state treasurer has against the town.” 

So poor and desperate was Ridgefield that, in 1792, it voted to sell its set of “books containing the laws of ye United States.”

One result of the Olmsted fiasco was that the Annual Town Meeting in 1790 voted that henceforth, a performance bond — a form of insurance — would be purchased to cover tax collectors.  To this day, the town requires — and provides — a bond on the tax collector to assure that if a shortfall occurs because of misdeeds, the town is protected.

Olmsted apparently left town in disgrace. He died in 1801 in New Haven at the age of 53. His wife lived 46 more years, dying in St. Louis, Mo., in 1847 at the age of 87.  

Henry K. McHarg: 

A ‘Santa’ to Many

Ridgefield has been the home of many generous people, but often they were little known for their munificence, preferring not to publicize their generosity. One of them was Henry McHarg, a railroad tycoon who, it it said, over his lifetime quietly gave away some $2 million — equivalent today to more than $50 million.

While most of his gifts were behind the scenes,  one couldn’t avoid being showy.

In 1906, McHarg sold one of his railroads (Virginia & Southwestern) for $6-million ($162-million in today’s dollars). To show his appreciation for the Virginia & Southwestern employees,  he arranged just before Christmas for a special “Santa Claus” train on which a conductor, dressed as St. Nick, traveled the length of the railroad with presents from McHarg to all his former employees. The gifts included full years’ salaries to the higher officials, month’s salaries to all others who had been employed by the railroad for at least a year and various other gifts for the remaining staff. 

 In July 1910, after the sale of the Texas Central Railroad, he did the same thing.

How many corporate leaders of today would do that?

Henry King McHarg was born in Albany, N.Y., in 1851. His great grandfather was Lt. Joshua King, the Revolutionary War “celebrity” and prominent Ridgefield businessman, and his great great grandfather was the Rev. Jonathan Ingersoll, the second minister of the First Congregational Church (both King and Ingersoll are profiled in Who Was Who).

McHarg attended a private school in Geneva, N.Y. At the age of 15, he joined the investment offices of LeGrand Lockwood, a Wall Street stockbroker. Lockwood’s interests included railroads, among them the Danbury and Norwalk Railroad, of which he was a major stockholder and eventually president. Lockwood’s interest in railroads may have inspired McHarg, who also became fascinated with that rapidly growing industry and wound up owning a at least four railroads around the country. (Lockwood, a Norwalk native who died in 1872, built and lived in what is now the Lockwood-Mathews Mansion, a historical museum in Norwalk.) 

When Lockwood ran into some financial troubles in 1869 and had to downsize his office, McHarg joined the Third National Bank and worked his way up in the world of finance so that on the day after his 21st birthday, he became a member of the New York Stock Exchange (when he retired from the exchange in 1926, he was its oldest member). In 1873, he went into the bond and investment business in partnership with William Adams, under the name of Adams & McHarg. After 12 years, the two split and McHarg continued the business alone.

According to The Encyclopedia of Connecticut biography, published in 1917, “The railroad

interests of Mr. McHarg have for a long period been numerous and important.” His specialty was taking over failing railroads and turning them into successful, profitable operations. Among them were the Texas Central (of which he was president for about 20 years),  the Atlanta, Knoxville & Northern, the Virginia & Southwestern, and Detroit & Mackinac. He was president of all those railroads but also served as a director of many others, including the Danbury and Norwalk Railroad, and the New York, New Haven, and Hartford (later the New Haven railroad), which took over the Danbury and Norwalk line.

“Mr. McHarg’s railroad work has invariably been constructive,” the encyclopedia said. “While the element of speculation, which is never wholly absent from any business undertaking, had its part in his ventures, more especially as they were all the rehabilitation of unsuccessful enterprises, he has contributed substantially to the advancement of the railroad interests of the last third of a century, having imparted to everything he undertook some portion of his vitalizing energy.”

It was through his railroading ventures that McHarg wound up naming a town. For many years he had a home in Stamford. According to Texas historian Tammy Hill Harvey, in April of 1891, a group of Texas Central Railroad bondholders that included Henry McHarg bought the railroad, which was in foreclosure.  McHarg made many trips to Texas to reorganize the Texas Central and in 1899, after a meeting with two men named Swenson who owned a large tract of land for a new town, he struck a deal in which the Swensons gave half their land to the Texas Central in exchange for making the town the new end of the line. A 40-mile track was laid from Albany, Texas, to the new town site, which McHarg named “Stamford” in honor of his own home town. On Jan. 8, 1900, Stamford, Texas was officially incorporated.” (Today, the city of some 3,100 people is best know as the home of the annual “Texas Cowboy Reunion.”)

McHarg was an avid yachtsman and in the 1890s owned the 65-foot cruising schooner, Neaera. He was a founder in 1895 of the Stamford Yacht Club (the club proudly points out that Commodore McHarg was responsible for naming Stamford, Texas, and that McHarg’s vice-commodore at the club was Schuyler Merritt, the Connecticut congressman for whom the Merritt Parkway was named).

Around 1925, after his wife Fredericka had died, McHarg decided to move to the town of his family’s roots, buying a house on Nod Road a little south of Whipstick Road. Two years later he married Elizabeth Clark Pierce; she was 36 and he, 76. The Nod Road home remained his main residence for the rest of his life. 

McHarg was a philanthropist who usually went out of his way to keep his donations anonymous. “It is reported that they totaled $2 million, but rarely was public mention made of them,” The Times said in his obituary. But the newspaper did point out that one of his many New York City contributions was $5,000 ($70,000 today) to the “Home for Old Men and Aged Couples,” operated by the Episcopal church.

He showed considerable generosity in Stamford, where he had lived for more than 35, giving large amounts of money to organizations like Stamford Hospital, the YMCA,  and the
Ferguson Library.

His contributions in Ridgefield were kept quiet — except for one he made 37 years before he moved to town. McHarg donated to the First Congregational Church the land on which its landmark stone church was built in 1888.

Henry McHarg died in 1941 of a heart attack while wintering in Florida. His wife, Elizabeth, continued to live in Ridgefield until 1966 when she moved to Apache Junction, Ariz. She helped pioneer the organic gardening movement in the Ridgefield area in the 1930s, was active in the Red Cross during World War II, and after the war revitalized the Ridgefield chapter of Children’s Services of Connecticut (now Family and Children’s Aid). She died in 1976 at the age of 85. 

What must have been one of the most trying periods for the McHarg family occurred in the 1930s when the aging Henry Sr., then 82, was sued by his son, Henry Jr., then 53, for failing to give him control of the Detroit & Mackinac Railroad as Senior had apparently promised. Junior had

worked for years as the railroad’s vice president and general manager at a small salary that he accepted with the understanding the railroad would someday be his.

But after his mother died and his father remarried, dad decided he wanted to sell the railroad so he could give most of the proceeds to charity. The son would get $300,000 after dad died.

Henry Jr. did not like that, and sued his father for $1 million. The two became “enemies” for several years.

When the suit was finally settled, the story in The New York Times brought tears to the eyes of many readers.

New York State Supreme Court Justice Aaron J. Levy presided over the case in October of 1934. After several conferences, a settlement was reached in which Senior would make a new will, leaving a third of his estate — nearly $1 million — to Junior and Junior’s three children. 

The lawyer for Junior tried to get the son to shake hands with his father and become friends again. Junior refused. The judge then told the younger McHarg: “Don’t you know this defendant is your father, whether he is right or wrong?”

“You don’t know the bitterness I have suffered over these years,” replied the son.

“I don’t want to hear about that,” said Justice Levy. “My suggestion in the light of this settlement, and even apart from it, is that you go and tender your hand to your father and ask him to forgive you.”

“The son then asked for time to consider the proposal,” the Times said, “but Judge Levy asked him to act at once. The younger McHarg then agreed, and walked up to his father at the counsel table, extending his hand. The father looked up, blinked in surprise and then took his son’s hand and embraced him. Both wept for some moments. 

“After they sat together for a time, the son told the court, ‘I am glad Your Honor brought me to think of it. Now we will both be very happy and I know my children will be also.’

“‘I would give this boy my soul,’ said the father.”

The two left the court, arm in arm.

Junior died in 1943, only two years after his father.

Rev. Jonathan Ingersoll: 

A Historic Minister 

Ridgefield’s earliest Congregational preachers must have found something to their liking in Ridgefield. Between 1715 and 1811, nearly a century, there were only three settled ministers. But while each served many years here, the one in the middle — the Rev. Jonathan Ingersoll — lasted longer than any minister in the First Congregational Church’s more than three centuries. He spent 39 years as the congregation’s leader, and would no doubt have continued to serve longer had he not died of  “an apoplectic fit” at the age of 64. He left behind a family that became part of the town until the 1960s.

Ingersoll’s predecessor — the town’s first minister, Thomas Hauley — was only 49 when he died after preaching 25 years here, and his successor — the Rev. S. G. Goodrich — also spent 25 years here before moving to upstate congregation.

Jonathan Ingersoll was born in 1713 in Derby (then part of Milford), a son of Jonathan and Sarah Ingersoll whose ancestors were among the early settlers of Hartford and the Pioneer Valley of Massachusetts. Like so many ministers who came to Ridgefield, Ingersoll graduated from Yale, in 1736. His first preaching post was at a Presbyterian church in New Jersey (Congregationalists and Presbyterians were closely allied in the 18th Century) and in 1739, he was called to replace Mr. Hauley in Ridgefield. A year later he married Dorcas Moss, a minister’s daughter from Derby.

From all accounts he was well-respected in Ridgefield. “He is described as a man of brilliant intellect, of great strength and force of character,” said George L. Rockwell in his “History of Ridgefield” (1927).

Unlike most clergymen in Ridgefield’s long history, Ingersoll took a break from his local duties to serve in the military. He was chaplain for the town’s militia and, during the French and Indian War, he volunteered as a chaplain with Connecticut troops — including 22 Ridgefield men — serving around Lake George and Fort Ticonderoga (then called Carillon).  

According to Tim Abbott, a sixth great grandson of Ingersoll, “In 1758 he was chaplain for Colonel David Wooster’s 4th Regiment in Abercromby’s ill-fated expedition against the French at Carillon.  Wooster’s men were caught up in the attack, and Chaplain Ingersoll wrote to a fellow church colleague that God showed ‘distinguishing mercy to the Connecticut Troops’ who suffered few deaths in that dreadful slaughter.”

During Lord Amherst’s campaign the following year he was chaplain of the 3rd Regiment, again under Colonel Wooster, traveling from captured Fort Carillon to Oswego and then down the St. Lawrence.

His intellect, and perhaps also his notable family and his service with Wooster, gave Ingersoll a wide reputation and in 1761, he was invited to preach before the General Assembly on Election Day. He offered the colonial politicians a word of gentle warning: “You are the fathers of the common-wealth, and all our eyes are upon you,” he said. “See to it that your powers of mind are sanctified by grace, and always remember that you judge for the Lord. Let the interest of religion, and the welfare of the community (which indeed are necessarily connected), let these lye near your hearts.”

When it came to the Revolution, Ingersoll probably tended to be on the conservative side of the issues. When George III became king in 1760, Ingersoll had praised him as “richly endowed with all royal gifts and graces,” adding that through his influence, “we hope for the enjoyment of the best of liberties and privileges for for a great while to come.”

In “We Gather Together,” a 2011 history of the First Congregational Church, author Charles Hambrick-Stowe says, “Circumstances soon forced the church to decide how to pray for civil authorities, whether to continue to support George III and the Empire or the movement for independence. Jonathan Ingersoll probably shared  the views of his brother Jared, a political leader in the colony who hoped that compromise and moderation would resolve the Stamp Act crisis of 1765. Jared Ingersoll worked to reduce the rate of the tax and accepted the position of stamp distributor for Connecticut in order to soften its impact. His efforts were rewarded with accusations of treason that destroyed his political career.”

Ridgefield in the mid-1770s leaned to the Tory side. “Jonathan Ingersoll’s leadership is often cited as influencing a town vote opposing the Continental Congress in January 1775,” the Rev. Hambrick-Stowe writes. However, “the beginning of armed conflict at Lexington and Concord in April and the subsequent siege of Boston swayed many in town to the Patriot side.” It is unknown whether Ingersoll was among those so swayed, but many in his congregation were leading supporters of the revolutionary cause. So were three of his sons in law.

Capt. David Olmsted, who was married to Abigail Ingersoll, fought at the Battle of Ridgefield. He became a leading town and state official after the war.

Another of Ingersoll’s daughters, Anne, married Lt. Joshua King, a Revolutionary officer who was in charge of the imprisoned British spy, Major John Andre, before his execution. Because of Anne, King settled in Ridgefield, established the King and Dole store (which grew into Bedient’s Hardware), and became a major landowner. But, in the church’s eyes, what is perhaps more remarkable about this union is that it led to Henry King McHarg (1851-1941),  great great grandson of the Rev. Jonathan Ingersoll. McHarg,  a wealthy banker and railroad president, donated to First Congregational the land on which its current landmark stone church was built in 1888. (McHarg lived on Nod Road until his death in 1941 but his much younger wife, Elizabeth, remained in town until the 1960s, dying in 1976 at the age of 84.)

Another of Ingersoll’s sons-in-law, a lieutenant in the Revolution, did not fare so well afterwards. Ebenezer Olmsted, husband of Esther Ingersoll, got caught pocketing state tax money he had taken in as a Ridgefield tax collector and wound up having all his property confiscated by the town. Perhaps fortunately for Ingersoll, he had died before Olmsted’s malfeasance took place and threw the town nearly into financial ruin (see separate “Who Was Who” profile).

Ingersoll’s son, Jonathan (1747-1823), became a respected post-war political leader. The Ridgefield native, another Yale graduate, served as lieutenant governor of Connecticut and as a Superior Court judge. He was also elected a congressman from Connecticut, but declined the job before being sworn in.

Finally, his brother’s son, Jared Ingersoll, not only supported the Revolution, but also helped write the U.S. Constitution and was a signer of the document.

Although most people would not think of Ridgefield as being a place where people were enslaved, slaves were found in most Connecticut communities in 18th Century — and in the Ingersoll household. In 1730, Connecticut’s 38,000 residents included about 700 slaves. By 1770, it had more than 6,400 slaves, the largest population of any New England colony. Half of all the ministers, lawyers, and public officials owned slaves, and a third of all the doctors, reports Connecticut historian Jackson Turner Main.

Jonathan Ingersoll was among Ridgefield’s slave owners. However, in 1777, shortly before his death, Ingersoll asked the Board of Selectmen to approve making his slave, Cyphax, a free man. Under colony law, the selectmen had to make sure the freed person wouldn’t be a burden on the town. The selectmen approved of Cyphax, who was 20 years old, and he was freed. 

By 1790,  five slaves were still left in Ridgefield. 

Ebenezer Olmsted: 

Tax Collector Who Broke the Town

Scandalous behavior by public officials is everyday news in the world today. But even in 18th Century Ridgefield, miscreants made their way into the local government. One prominent leader got himself—and the Town of Ridgefield—into a lot of trouble more than two centuries ago.

Lt. Ebenezer Olmsted was part of Ridgefield’s leading society, an officer in the Continental militia who served under people like Col. Philip Burr Bradley at places like Ticonderoga, and the Battles of Ridgefield, Long Island, and Germantown. He was with Washington at Valley Forge, according to “The Genealogy of the Olmsted Family in America.”

Born in Ridgefield in 1748, Olmsted was a well-connected as could be. He was a grandson of one of the founders of the town. He married Esther Ingersoll, daughter of the Rev. Jonathan Ingersoll, second minister of the First Congregational Church; her brother, Jonathan, was to become lieutenant governor of Connecticut (his son, Ralph, was elected a U.S. congressman). 

Olmsted had a house on Main Street, just south of the Meeting House, a prime piece of real estate. 

But he wound up under arrest, and lost all his possessions, including his home and even  his desk. 

It all began on Dec. 21, 1780, when the Annual Town Meeting appointed Lt. Olmsted  a constable and authorized him “to collect the state tax for the year ensuing.” The appointment was for one year, typical of tax collecting assignments, but it indicated he was held in high esteem — tax collectors had to be trusted people. 

However, six years later, in 1786, the Town Meeting voted to “accept the resignation of Lt. Ebenezer Olmsted of his office of collector of ye state taxes on ye list of 1780, on conditions of his accounting with and paying to the Select Men the full that he has collected and received on the rates made on said list, and deliver up said rate bills and warrants to the Select Men.”

Olmsted had apparently pocketed what he’d collected, quite possibly to pay for that Main Street spread he purchased two years after being named tax collector. He paid 300 pounds for the homestead, after selling his Wilton Road West place for only 75 pounds. 

Or perhaps it was the cost of supporting his family: He and Esther had 10 children.

Why did it take five years to discover Olmsted had not turned in his tax collections? Possibly because the state was behind in its auditing due to the turmoil of the war that had been going on. In addition, the state was heavily in debt because of the war and was hungry for income.

For the next six years, the town’s records are peppered with reports of how it was dealing with the crisis. And a crisis it was.

First, the selectmen arrested Olmsted and confiscated his 13-acre homestead and all his possessions, including other land, eight tons of hay plus oats and flax, and “his desk.” They also took “2,258 Continental Dollars,” which were virtually worthless. 

His old commander, Col. Bradley, headed a committee to auction off the homestead, but that brought in only 120 pounds, far less than was owed to the town (although the amount owed is never stated). 

Col. Bradley was sent to Hartford, apparently to see if Ridgefield’s state tax debt could be forgiven, but the state was insistent. The war had been costly and it needed money.

Finally, abandoning hope of ever getting the money from Olmsted, the town went into debt, borrowing “such sums as shall be necessary to settle ye demands the state treasurer has against the town.” 

So poor and desperate was Ridgefield that, in 1792, it voted to sell its set of “books containing the laws of ye United States.”

One result of the Olmsted fiasco was that the Annual Town Meeting in 1790 voted that henceforth, a performance bond — a former of insurance — would be purchased to cover tax collectors.  To this day, the town requires — and provides — a bond on the tax collector to assure that if a shortfall occurs because of misdeeds, the town is protected.

Olmsted apparently left town in disgrace. He died in 1801 in New Haven at the age of 53. His wife lived 46 more years, dying in St. Louis, Mo., in 1847 at the age of 87.  

Capt. David Olmstead: 

The Tale of the Red Petticoat

Capt. David Olmsted was a leading citizen in the last third of the 18th Century. He was a Revolutionary War hero, longtime state representative, and friend of the makers and shakers of Ridgefield. His father was descended from the founders of the town and his mother was the daughter of Col. David Goodrich, who fought in Queen Anne’s War. His wife was the daughter of the town’s second minister, whose nephew helped write the United States Constitution.

But if David Olmsted is remembered at all today, it for a few angry words he allegedly shouted at his wife after the Battle of Ridgefield.

David Olmsted was born in Ridgefield in 1748, a son of Deacon Nathan Olmsted and Millicent Goodrich Olmsted. He grew up in Ridgefield and, in 1769, married Abigail Ingersoll, daughter of the Rev. Jonathan Ingersoll, minister of the First Congregational Church and a cousin of Jared Ingersoll, who worked on and signed the Constitution. He was 20, she 18. The couple had eight children.

Unlike his father-in-law, who opposed the Continental Congress in 1775, David Olmsted was all for the cause of the revolution. As a captain in the continental army, he led companies of volunteers at West Point, in the defense of Greenwich, and at the alarm at Fairfield. But he is most important locally for his participation in the Battle of Ridgefield on April 27, 1777.

In his book, “Farmers Against the Crown,” Keith Jones describes major players at the battle scene and observes: “Nearby was Captain David Olmsted, whose little one-and-a-half story ‘saltbox’

home still stands in the south end of town along (what else) Olmstead Lane. Olmsted...was one of the first Ridgefield men to commit to the Patriot cause, having led a company to Washington’s army in early ’76. The commander-in-chief must have made a forceful impression on the 27-year-old captain, for on this very day one year earlier (April 27, 1776), he named a newly born son George Washington Olmsted! In addition to defending his home and four young children, Captain Olmstead had scores to settle with the Redcoats — cousin Roger fell in action in 1775, and cousin David was killed Jan. 4, 1777, in Washington’s victory at Princeton.”

But it was after the battle and presumably after the British left town when the story of the Red Petticoat finds its origin.

Smithsonian historian Silvio A. Bedini was the first person to recount the tale in print. In his 1958 history of the town, “Ridgefield in Review,” Bedini wrote: “The Red Petticoat story exists in

several versions in the local lore of the Battle of Ridgefield, which has been handed down by word of mouth from generation to generation. One account told of Mrs. David Olmsted, who lived in either the original Olmsted homestead … on Olmsted Lane, or  in the Olmsted house [just to the south]. Captain David Olmsted, the owner of the homestead, fought at the barricade and took shelter in the woods when the British advanced through the town.

“His wife remained at home with her children, anxiously awaiting word of her husband and of the progress of the conflict. When the detachment of British troops came marching along Olmstead Lane to the camp site [on Wilton Road West], she feared that her home would suffer the fate of others that had been burned by the British during the day. Looking about for some means of saving it, she thought of posing as a Tory. Having no other suitable symbol at her disposal, she removed her red petticoat and waved it from the house as the British soldiers came marching off West Lane Road and along the lane. The British, thinking it was a Tory house, left it unharmed.

“When her husband arrived home at last during the night or on the following day, Mrs. Olmsted proudly recounted the incident, pleased with her presence of mind. Not so her husband. Livid with rage, Captain Olmstead thundered: ‘Woman, if I had seen you, I would have shot you dead!’ Far better it would have been to have this home destroyed than to have his wife suspected of being a Tory.”

 Could the story be true and could Olmsted have really uttered such strong and offensive words to his wife? Possibly; he would probably have been exhausted and perhaps discouraged from the encounter with the British, and may have blurted out his frustration in the unkind words. If he said it, did he mean it? Probably not. It is quite likely that Abigail Olmsted was a strong, highly intelligent woman who would not have put up with a husband who said he would kill her. Since she and David went on to have four more children and remained together for the rest of her life, it seems likely that he would have apologized for his outburst — if it happened at all.

Adding some doubt to the veracity of the whole story is the fact that his homestead did, in fact,  suffer fairly substantial damage from the British. Property owners who suffered losses due to enemy action in the Revolution could seek compensation from the Connecticut government, and many did. According to research done by Keith Jones, “a reimbursement request exceeding £54 appears under Captain Olmsted’s name on the summary of damages submitted by town selectmen to the General Assembly.” £54 was a good deal of money back then.

Both town historian Dick Venus and battle historian Keith Jones said the house standing today at 91 Olmstead Lane is likely the Captain David Olmsted place. It was so marked with a sign during the town’s celebration of the Bicentennial in 1776, and Silvio Bedini said he thought of the three old Olmsted houses on the road, #91 was most likely the one owned by David. 

While the legend has no basis in historical records, it did inspire a 1969 book for youngsters. In “The Red Petticoat,” by Joan Palmer of South Salem, a girl named Eliza Bouton waves a red petticoat out the window while her father and grandfather are off fighting the British on Main Street. However, she did so not to save her house, but to protect a young, wounded patriot, carrying a desperately needed message for General Washington, who had collapsed on her home’s doorstep. Needless to say, no one talked of shooting her for her petticoat trickery.

Toward the end of the war, Olmsted was promoted to lieutenant colonel — but local history and perhaps his local contemporaries continued to call him Captain Olmsted. After the war he became active in the government, serving as a member of the Board of Selectmen and holding other offices. From 1781 until 1798, he was often elected one of Ridgefield’s representatives to the state Legislature — helping Connecticut and Ridgefield to recovery during the post-war years. He often served in the legislature alongside Col. Philip Burr Bradley or Lt. Joshua King, two veterans of the Revolution and leading Ridgefield citizens.

However, around the beginning of the 19th Century, Olmsted did what many New England

farmers were doing: He went west. Good land was becoming scarce here and western New York promised new possibilities. He and Abigail and their family moved to Onondaga County, N.Y., , becoming one of the first settlers of the area around Jamesville, now part of the town of DeWitt. There, he was known as Colonel Olmsted. By 1806, he owned a tavern, which a local history reported was “popularly considered the best hostelry west of Utica.” (This was a community that knew about spirits; Jamesville area was settled between 1790 and 1800 and, in 1798, one Matthew Dumfrie was already building a distillery, malt house and brewery there, producing the first beer and whiskey made in Onondaga County — a territory that includes Syracuse.)

Abigail died in 1805. Olmsted subsequently married Abiah Keeler, a native of Norwalk who, like others, had headed west. They had no children.

Olmsted died in 1815 at the age of 66. He is buried alongside Abigail in the Walnut Grove Cemetery, Jamesville, Onondaga County, N.Y.