To the Editor:
The Wilton Volunteer Ambulance Corps (WVAC) bought 232 Danbury Rd., where the organization will build its desperately needed new facilities. WVAC’s plans call for demolishing the house, once owned by formerly enslaved John C. Walley.
Let’s help WVAC find a different way!
WVAC Can Build and Save John’s House
- WVAC’s plans call for replacing John’s house with grass. The proposed new facilities will be situated further east; even the proposed parking lot is not on the footprint of John’s home
- WVAC may need help to preserve John’s house. Let’s find out what WVAC needs to preserve John’s house and figure out how to meet those needs!
Can’t the Town or State Intervene?
- Registered local historic properties are protected, but John’s house is not registered. Only owners can register and no owner of 232 Danbury Rd. has ever done so.
- What about Wilton’s Ordinance Concerning Stay of Demolition of Historic Buildings? Because John’s house is over 50 yrs old, the Town can opt to impose a 90-day stay on demolition. But after that demolition can go ahead.
Why is John’s House So Important?
- John’s house is unique. It is the only standing Wilton house owned by a formerly enslaved person.
- John started from nothing. He shed his enslaved name and, thanks to gradual emancipation laws, got his freedom at age 21 and immediately went to work as a paid laborer.
- John worked hard and saved enough to buy a good home for his family. He bought the house at 232 Danbury Rd. in 1838 when it was just the 1.5 story section parallel to the road.
- John later sold for quadruple what he had paid. John, his wife Harriot, and daughter Betsey lived at 232 Danbury Rd. for a decade before moving to Bridgeport
- John put his family and community first. When Harriot and Betsey died, he laid them to rest under a white marble headstone in Mountain Grove Cemetery; John had no other family and when he died, he left everything to a neighbor, not even reserving anything for his own burial.
What Can You Do?
- Write letters, send emails, make phone calls, attend hearings. Be polite! Email the Wilton Volunteer Ambulance Corps or call 203.834.6245. They have the legal right to demolish John’s house, but can choose to save it!
- Attend the Zoning Board of Appeals Hearing, on Wednesday, Sept. 18, at 7:15 p.m. when 232 Danbury Rd. is on the agenda. Public comments are allowed, and the ZBA can grant or deny variances. The file documents are available online and the ZBA meeting is on Zoom. Email your comments to the ZBA with “Application ZBA 24-9-18” in the subject line.
- The Planning & Zoning Commission has the power to approve or deny building plans. Email P&Z and attend the Commission’s Zoom meetings whenever 232 Danbury Rd. is on the agenda. Legal notices of the meetings are posted online.
- Attend the Architectural Review Board Hearing on Thursday, Sept. 5, at 5 p.m. Public comments not allowed and the ARB does not have the power to stop demolition, but you can email Board members (they can express their opinions at the meeting) and show WVAC you care by attending the ARB Zoom meeting.
- The Historic District & Historic Property Commission can recommend a 90-day stay of demolition, so email members to let them know you want them to!
- Follow the story and stay alert! New emails and social media posts will come out whenever there are additional hearings or new tactics to adopt.
Tell everyone you know and get them involved, too!
Dr. Julie Hughes
Archivist, Wilton History Room
Dr. Hughes’ opinions do not reflect those of the Wilton Library, the Wilton Historical Society, or any other institution with which she is affiliated.
John C. Walley Biography
by Dr. Julie Hughes
John C. Walley was born in Wilton in about 1803. John’s grandmother was Philes (aka Gin), who was enslaved by Ebenezer Abbott II (d. 1821), whose home is still standing at 51 Shadow Ln. It is unknown which of Philes’ children was John’s mother (or possibly father), only that it was not Philes “Eliza” Manning Treadwell, mother of the well-known Mormon pioneer, Jane Manning James.
Like his grandmother, John was enslaved by Ebenezer Abbott II. Later, he was enslaved by Ebenezer’s son Nathan Abbott. While enslaved, John was known as Lazarus. According to late 19th century local historian David H. Van Hoosear, who had family connections with the Abbotts, Lazarus believed Nathan Abbott was “in league with the devil.” John presumably was freed at age 21 as required by law, but no records have survived to confirm this.
John married Harriot Brush in Wilton in late December 1829 in a civil ceremony conducted by Wilton Justice of the Peace Erastus Sturges, then again in a religious ceremony on Jan. 3, 1830 officiated by Rev. Origen P. Holcomb of St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church. Harriot’s step-mother was a daughter of John’s grandmother Philes; her name was Dorcas. This fact seems to have led to popular assumptions that Harriot and John were first cousins, when in fact Harriot’s mother was Sylvey Mallin, about whom nothing is known besides her name.
As a free man, John worked for Capt. Daniel Betts IV, whose home was across from and a little south of the intersection of Old Highway and Route 7 (it was later moved to 224 Danbury Rd. by the Wilton Historical Society). On March 10, 1838, John purchased a small plot of land and a dwelling house from Daniel (across the road from Daniel’s homestead and adjacent to Daniel’s own land and horse shed). This house is still standing at 232 Danbury Rd.
In addition to working for Daniel, John was an employee of St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church. He earned $9 yearly for ringing the bell, sweeping, and lighting the fire.
Daniel died in March 1845 and, in his November 1844 will, bequeathed to John the same house and land that John had earlier purchased from him. Fortunately the deed was already in John’s hands, as Daniel’s estate was insolvent. Soon after Daniel’s homestead and horse barn lot were auctioned off to pay his debts in 1847, John sold his home at 232 Danbury Rd. for $412, which was approximately four times his original purchase price.
Inflation was negligible over the decade that John owned the property, and population pressure remained about the same, so neither appear to explain the high resale price. It is not known why Daniel originally sold the house to John for so little, but it may suggest a more complex relationship between the men than simply that of employer and employee.
John may have found it difficult to get enough work in Wilton following the death and final settlement of his major employer’s estates. Certainly there was much less to keep John in Wilton by 1848: nearly all of his relatives had converted and left town in the early 1840s, heading west to join the Mormons at Nauvoo, IL. John was among the very few who stayed behind and did not convert.
Whatever the reason, John and his family moved to Bridgeport in 1848, renting a home close to a boarding house operated by Sarah Cam, a Black woman who may also have been Native American. Cam lived at the intersection of Washington Avenue and High Street, which has long since been removed to make way for Route 25. This neighborhood in the 1840s and 1850s had a very small community of African American homeowners and renters, seemingly centered on businesswoman Sarah Cam. The neighborhood was about half a mile north of the much larger Little Liberia in southern Bridgeport, with its African Methodist Episcopal churches and bustling African American and Native American community.
In 1852, John and Harriot’s 13 year old daughter Betsey died. Besides Betsey, John and Harriot also had a son, Samuel, who was baptized in Wilton at St. Matthew’s in 1841. Nothing is known of what happened to him. Harriot died in 1854, aged 46. John buried both in Mountain Grove Cemetery in Bridgeport, where they share a white marble headstone. None of John or Harriot’s extended family in Connecticut had ever had the freedom or the finances to be able to honor their dead with a formal, carved headstone before. Today the headstone has fallen over and the inscription is much eroded; it lies on an extremely steep section of ground at the edge of the cemetery. This was perhaps the only plot John could afford, or the only one the cemetery would sell him.
Very unusually, Harriot and Betsey’s headstone bears an inscription that names Harriot’s mother, Sylvey Mallin. Sylvey must have been particularly important to Harriot, and John would have gone to extra expense to ensure she was named on the stone. It is easier to explain why Harriot’s father Jacob Brush is not named on the headstone: as a young teenager, Harriot accused him of attempting to rape her. He was sentenced to Old Newgate Prison and reportedly died there.
The Brush household during Harriot’s youth was on Grumman Hill near the upper reaches of Stony Brook. White neighbors believed the Brushes were responsible for a spate of small livestock thefts, and accused them of harboring drunken carousing and dancing late into the night. In retaliation, these neighbors fashioned a “torpedo,” reportedly using six pounds of gunpowder, and bombed the Brush residence. No historical records remain to suggest how bad the damage was, or if anyone was injured.
By mid-1858, John fell ill with tuberculosis. His sickness seems to have made it impossible to continue working and as a result money became tight. About six months before he died, John mortgaged many (or possibly all) of his belongings to Sarah Cam for $33, doing so by an official deed recorded in the Bridgeport Land Records. This was a way of making Sarah the technical owner of John’s possessions before his anticipated death, and a far more secure way of transferring his wealth to her than by a will, where her claims might lose out to the interests of other creditors.
At the time of this transfer, John owned two feather beds, a French bedstead, bureau, clock, looking glass, stove with pipe and fixtures, seven quilts, a rocker, six chairs, table, wash stand, and a wood saw. That last item suggests he may have made his living in part as a wood cutter. However he made his eared his money, John had clearly succeeded in providing his family with the simple necessities of a comfortable life.
John died in January 1859. He had reserved no funds for a headstone for himself. His burial location is unknown.