Chauncey Judd – Part II

#Middlebury

The Wooster house, shown in this December 1900 photo, is where Chauncey Judd was held captive in the basement. It is still standing at 1067 South St. in Middlebury. (Robert Rafford scan)

By DR. ROBERT L. RAFFORD

Chauncey Judd was in trouble, and his fear grew steadily. He had stumbled upon a party of Tories in the middle of the night, and they decided they could not let him loose to reveal their identities to others. They had just conducted a raid on the household of Captain Ebenezer and Phebe (Smith) Dayton in Bethany, and were laden with the fruit of their plunder; they also had firearms, and Chauncey knew that spelled danger.

The Captain, a supporter of the Revolution, was away in Boston, so the raid was pulled off without much violence. Loaded with contraband, and fueled with drink, the band, taking Chauncey with them, soon headed to their homes in Middlebury and Naugatuck, and the first night was spent in a barn owned by the family of Jobamah Gunn in Gunntown.

Nearby is Middlebury’s beautiful Longmeadow Pond and brook, and it was here that Captain Graham, the leader of the band, a Tory who had deserted from the patriots’ ranks, thought the time had come to permanently silence their captive. Others who knew Chauncey personally were hesitant to take such a drastic measure. Nevertheless, Chauncey found himself pleading for his life. For the meantime, there was no decision to do away with him, but they were aware that either his death or his disappearance would provide notice to area patriots that there was something amiss.

With Chauncey, terribly frightened by this time, the band next headed to the house of one of their members, David Wooster Sr. in Gunntown (now in northern Oxford on the border with Middlebury); Gunntown was named after the Gunn family, which had lived there for many decades. Many in the Wooster family were Loyalist sympathizers; the historic Wooster house, built about 1750, is still standing at 1067 South St. in Middlebury.

It was in the basement of this house that the British Captain Graham decided Chauncey should be shot and cast into the well, a scene redolent of the Biblical story of Joseph. Chauncey, not yet a member of any religious group, found himself praying to God for the divine intervention that had delivered Joseph.

Intervention came in the form of Mrs. Wooster’s stubborn refusal to have murder committed in her house. Although sympathetic to the Loyalist cause, she found such a deed in her own house too much to bear. Threatening to expose the lot of them, she demanded they spare the life of young Chauncey. The party was no longer welcome to stay at this house; as talk continued, the raiders came to the conclusion that the best thing to do, for now, was to escape to Long Island, where sympathetic Tories would welcome and shelter them against any patriotic revolutionaries.

Meanwhile, local patriots were already aware that Chauncey Judd did not return home when expected, and they soon pieced together the likely scenario that the gang that burglarized the Dayton house may have had something to do with this. The gang, fearing they were being followed, also spent some time at Dayton Den, a cave in Middlebury, about a mile and a half west of the Wooster homestead, hiding from any pursuers following them. The cave did not afford much comfort, so they sent a scout to the house of blacksmith Noah Candee. But Candee was too well known as a Tory, so they stayed at the cave until nightfall and then headed out.

They arrived next at the home and tavern of Captain and Mrs. John and Eunice Wooster, on the main road between the present villages of Oxford and Seymour. The Woosters owned a slave, Tobiah, and his wife, Rachel, and at this point in the story, author Israel Perkins Warren provided readers with an excursus into the lives of persons of color within the area. The subject of race relations has always played a significant role in our part of the world, and the Revolutionary War was not exempt from its influence.

Bob Rafford is the Middlebury Historical Society president and Middlebury’s municipal historian. To join or contact the society, visit MiddleburyHistoricalSociety.org or call Bob at 203-206-4717.