Encyclopedia of Connecticut biography, genealogical-memorial ...

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dam, and is so adapted for that purpose
that, one seeing it for the first time, would
think it had been designed and built by
man. There is but one other freak of
nature similar to this in the country. Indians,
before they were crowded out by
the white man, lived on the banks of this
pond, and hunted and fished there for a
livelihood. This pond with the ledge and
the meadow under it came into the pos-
session of William Kirkham by the death
of his father in 1815. That same year he
married and built a new home on the
street at the east end of the "ledge" on the
bank of the pond. This house recently
burned after standing more than one hundred
years. There was a big water-wheel
that gave power for running the mill,
which was used for making cloth and also
cider, cider vinegar and cider brandy.
This was William Kirkham's home for
the major part of twenty-five years. But
the inclinations of Mr. Kirkham were
more toward the vocation of a teacher
than a business life, and for about thirty
years he taught school at Hartford and
in other places in Connecticut and in
Springfield, Massachusetts. After teaching
in Springfield a number of years, mak-
ing his home while there with his brother
John, he moved his family to Springfield,
about 1835, and they all lived there for
several years. The moving was done in
the winter, the household goods being
transported by ox-sled for thirty-two
miles, and Mrs. Kirkham and the children
by horse and sleigh. Because Mr. Kirkham
was teaching in Springfield, the burden
of moving, closing the house, dispos-
ing of a small but varied assortment of
livestock, fell upon his wife. Her's was
the self-sacrificing life of the unapplauded
heroine.
He sings to the wide world, and she to her nest.
In the nice ear of nature which song is the best?
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF BIOGRAPHY
123
William Kirkham was a member of the
Congregational Church and prominent in
church circles. He had an excellent tenor
voice, and had been taught music by his
father. He was a fifer in the Governor's
Footguard for many years. In 1840 he
sold the Mill Pond property and bought
a farm on the main street of Newington
Center which still is held by his descend-
ants. Of the children borne him by his
wife Sophia, seven grew to maturity.
(VII) John Stoddard Kirkham, son of
William and Sophia (Leffingwell) Kirkham,
was born April 6, 1826, at Newing-
ton ; died February 8, 1918. His education
was acquired at the old Newington
Academy and in schools of Hartford and
Springfield, Massachusetts. He was a
"Forty-niner" and a member of the company
organized and headed by Major
Horace Goodwin of Hartford that made
that historic trip in a schooner, owned and
fitted out by the company, around Cape
Horn to California in the quest of gold.
The journey "around the Horn" occupied
six months, the first port of call being
Rio de Janeiro. Arriving at San Francisco,
the ship was abandoned and John
Stoddard Kirkham, in a company composed
of six friends, went into the moun-
tains, where they were very successful in
their search for gold. They later engaged
in the ambitious venture of damming and
turning from its course the Sacramento
River. They succeeded in their undertak-
ing, only—on the night the job was fin-
ished—to have the dam swept away by a
freshet that roared down from the moun-
tains in a resistless torrent. Youth, a
good constitution and powerful physique
have their limitations, and as a result of
working in the ice-cold water from the
melting snow of the mountains, John
Stoddard Kirkham was stricken with
pneumonia, and this attack was followed