Pictures of Mystic, New London & Groton 8/11/2009

These are some of the pictures from the other interesting and historic sites we came across as we were caching and site seeing.

Ashbow Burial Ground-Many eighteenth century Christianized Mohegans were buried at Ashbow Burial Ground. Among them, is famed culture-keeper Martha Uncas. A house was built atop this burial ground in the mid-twentieth century and removed by the Mohegan Tribe when it restored the burial ground in 2000.

Bill Memorial Library

Broadway School

Cove Fish Market & Restaurant-We ate here one night and you order from a walk up window and then they call your number and you take your food to a picnic table outside. The food consisted mostly seafood and was very good.

Denison Homestead Museum-This historic Homestead served as a safe and secure home for six generations of Denisons (two prior generations lived on the property in earlier homes). Ann Borodell Denison Gates, the last Denison to actually reside in the Homestead, created the Denison Society in 1930 for the purpose of perpetuating the family’s heritage. When she passed away in 1940 leaving no children, she bequeathed the Homestead and its contents to the Society. As a result of delays caused by World War II, the Homestead was not opened to the public as a museum until 1948. George Denison came to America in 1632 on the Lion at an early age (while in his teens). Young George was tutored by the Rev. John Eliot, who would later be known as the Apostle to the Indians. George Denison’s life-long friendship and fairness in dealing with the Indians is credited to Rev. Eliot. Upon the death of his wife, Bridget Thompson Denison, George immediately left for England and enlisted in Cromwell’s Ironsides to fight the Royalist forces. He was commissioned a captain in the cavalry. George was wounded at Marston Moor and sent to Ireland to recover. There he met and married Ann Borodell. George and Lady Ann, as she came to be known, returned to Massachusetts where they were warmly welcomed and officially accepted into the little Puritan community. George moved his family to the new settlement of Pequot, Connecticut, now present day New London. There he played a prominent role in the affairs of the New London community. Records show us that Captain George was elected Captain of the Train Band (the local militia), was the census taker, tax assessor, served on the building committee for the Church, a partner in a business to drain some of the marshlands, inspector of the port and deputy to the General Court at Hartford (corresponding to our present-day state representatives). In 1654 two very significant entries were made in the accounts of the day regarding Captain George Denison. The first being the land grant mentioned above and the second was for selling rum to one of his Indian friends. For this he was fined 24 shillings. The Captain’s land was about a dozen miles east of New London in the heart of the old Pequot Indian country. Thus Captain George along with Thomas Stanton, William Chesebrough, Walter Palmer, Thomas Miner, and John Gallup Sr. and Jr. were the first settlers of Stonington. The first house on the property was a lean-to surrounded by a palisade and when the fear of Indian attack was lessened, George built what he referred to as his "grat hous." In the early 1700’s the “grat haus” which Captain George had built on his “palisades” burned to the ground. In 1717, his grandson, known to the family as George the Builder, built the house we see today just west of the original site. It is known as Pequotsepos Manor; however, we assume that it acquired this name much later, possibly from Annie Gates or when it became a museum. That house stands today as a tribute to one of Connecticut’s first families. On August 16, 1930, nearly 700 Denison descendants gathered at the invitation of Ann Borodell Denison Gates at the Homestead for the first Annual Denison Day, thus realizing the cherished dream of Aunt Annie to forever protect and preserve the Denison Homestead and the Denison family history.
The Homestead stands in a class unto itself: a vivid, authentic picture of American home life during the first three centuries of this country. Denisons are known for “never throwing away anything but burned matchsticks”. Thus everything from the 1700’s colonial kitchen to the 1930’s parlor belonged to the Denison families who once lived on this land and now is treasured and protected by their descendents.

Grey Goose Cookery-One of the stores in Old Mystic Village shopping area.

Home, churches and other views of Mystic, Groton and New London.

St. Matthias Anglican Church-This small church was in Old Mystic Village also and di hold services every Sunday.

Ye Townes Antientist Burial Ground New London-Ye Antientist Burial Ground[1] in New London, Connecticut is one of the earliest graveyards in New England, and the oldest colonial cemetery in New London County. The hillside lot of 1.5 acres (6,000 m²) adjoins the original site of the settlement's[2] first meeting-house. From here the visitor has a broad view to the east of the Thames River[3], and on the far shore, the heights of Groton. Reservation of the lot for its purpose had been recorded in the summer of 1645. The first decedent "of mature age" was duly interred there in 1652. But it is the ordinance of June 6, 1653 that legally sets the place apart and declares, "It shall ever bee for a Common Buriall place, and never be impropriated by any." A later record notes the appointment of the sexton —Whose work is to order youth in the meeting-house, sweep the meeting-house, and beat out dogs, for which he is to have 40s. a year : he is also to make all graves ; for a man or woman he is to have 4s., for children, 2s. a grave, to be paid by survivors. Seventeenth century New London was yet a rough and isolated corner of early colonial Connecticut. Private internments were not customary, and this was the only common burial place. The dead were brought in from a distance of six or seven miles, either carried in hurdles, or borne on a bier upon men's shoulders; large companies assembling, and relieving each other at convenient distances. Few of the early graves ever had inscribed markers. The New London of that time possessed no skilled stonecutters, and those early planters simply had not the means. A few surviving families did, however, seek to address the deficiency in later years. At least four stones dated in the 1600s have been found that could not have been placed before 1720. Otherwise —If the best man in the community was struck down, his companions could do no more to testify their regret, than to lay him reverently in the grave, and seal it with a rude granite ... broken with ponderous mallets from some neighboring ledge and wearily dragged with ropes to the place and laid over the remains to secure them from disturbance, and mark the spot where a brother was buried. As time wore away the unadorned burial hillocks, the older were, "covered over with fresh deposits of the dead, so that the numbers here cannot be estimated by the evidences that now remain ... Yet here undoubtably [sic] were deposited nearly the whole generation of our first settlers".


Pictures follow in order of the listings.