Portland...  On the Move |
Issue 72 ~ News from your Town Hall ~ January 2000
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Martin Luther King Jr. Day, January 17  Supporters had wanted the day to coincide with King’s birthday of January 15, but opponents argued it was too soon after the December holidays and New Year’s. Moving its observance to the third Monday of the month boosted its popularity because it made for a three day weekend. The first national celebration was held on January 20, 1986. |
"If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, here lived a great sweeper who did his job well." ---Martin Luther King Jr. |
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Portland History Carved in Stone By: Doris Sherrow What Happened To The Wangunk? The Wangunk Indians and early settlers of Portland seem to have gotten along quite well. James Stanclift hired a brave named Sacient to deliver gravestones. The tribe welcomed Giles Hall, Job Bates, Richard Strickland, and others onto their land as fellow farmers and hunters. Cuschoy helped two local officials lay out part of High Street. So what happened to induce the Wangunk to leave Portland? From all appearances, there were two main factors. First, younger Wangunks began to move out of the area, to places where other tribes were gathering, as the English presence increased in the land. Second, various officials seem to have begun a subtle pressure on the Indians to leave the area, at least in part to further the development—by the English—of their towns. The first official foray into the reservation came from the Congregational Church, when they bought land for their new minister, Moses Bartlett, in 1731. They chose 40 acres of the Wangunk reservation bounded by what are now Bartlett, High, and William streets. It seems curious that no English settler had land to sell to the new minister, that 40 acres of Wangunk land had to be taken. Nor did Bartlett build his house on the south side of the lot, near the church. He built on the north side, on Bartlett Street opposite Prospect, facing part of the reservation. In the 1740s, the church decided it had outgrown its building. The siting of the meeting house was traditionally a controversial issue in early towns: both civil and ecclesiastical meetings were held there, and the men who lived closer would have more power in the town’s affairs. Portland seems to have had an ongoing controversy between settlers in what is now Middle Haddam and those along Main Street and up the Glastonbury Turnpike. The standard solution to a siting-the-meeting-house dispute was to have a committee from the General Assembly, ostensibly disinterested parties, to determine a fair location. The committee which came to Portland in the late 1740s found the fairest location to be squarely in the middle of the Wangunk reservation, on what is now the northeast corner of Bartlett and Prospect streets, opposite Rev. Bartlett’s house. | Why there? It was hardly the geographical center between Middle Haddam and Main Street. Could the General Assembly have been pursuing a policy of easing the Indians off land which they felt could be more productively occupied by English settlers? A couple years later, they voted to reserve 500 pounds for use by any Indians who would migrate to Stockbridge, Massachusetts, where many had gathered. Despite whatever pressure might have been rising, the Wangunk retained their mettle. The church hoped to buy three acres. The buyers were instructed to get three acres if the price was 15 pounds per acre, otherwise to buy one acre. The Wangunk held out for 18 pounds, and the settlers bought a single acre. A few short months later, James Sasepequen sold a fellow tribesman one acre, similar in every respect to the church acre, for 15 pounds: was this coincidence or was he sending a message to the increasingly avaricious settlers? In 1756 the settlers petitioned the General Assembly for permission to buy the rest of the Wangunks’ land. These are the reasons they gave: the spot for the meeting house had been picked by the General Assembly (which was true) —"we was obliged to build there," they wailed—and now no inhabitants could settle nearby because it was Indian land. Furthermore, it would be good land for tilling, "yet it bares no charge to Society, Town, or Colony, therefore great damage to us all but especially to us who want to have our charge eased." In other words, it was generating no tax money, and the townsmen wanted it to generate tax money so that their own taxes could be lowered. The English said further that the "Indian owners are dispersed—few live on said land; those that do … are all together unable to support themselves & are daley supported by some of our inhabitants." Cuschoy, the sachem, was allegedly lame and unable to work. Cuschoy, for his part, explained that there were no more than 12 or 13 descendants besides himself, and that they were dispersed and would be difficult to locate. A committee from the General Assembly came to Portland to investigate. They found that no Indians were being "daley supported" by any English, a fact which town poor records from the period confirm. They did, however, vote to allow the settlers to buy the Wangunk land in 1765. The 12 to 13 descendants that Cuschoy had claimed would be hard to locate mushroomed into approximately 30, who somehow found their way back to Middletown to sign the deed for the property. From these deeds, it appears as if the Wangunk community had been slowly migrating away, to Farmington, to Stockbridge, and west. The signatures on the deeds suggest that the young people had left the area—there were more couples and minors from outlying areas—leaving the old people, like Cuschoy and his wife, in Portland. Compare this to 20th-century city dynamics, where families matured in the city in the early 20th century, then moved to the suburbs, leaving their elderly parents behind in the old neighborhood. |
Interestingly, almost no one built on the larger parcel of reservation land for nearly two centuries after it was purchased. Cuschoy, and his wife, Tyke, finished out their lives in Portland. She became blind and was supported by the money from the sale of the reservation in her final years. According to Beers’ History of Middlesex County, a departing Wangunk once told a Penfield Hill resident, "All night long Indian spirits cry, cry in the woods…" It is hard to see a picture this sad from the surviving documents. The Wangunk seem to have lived side by side with the English never once doubting that they were equals. However, their community did begin to steadily erode. The land sales probably precipitated that erosion, not unlike the slow sale into commercial usage of a lovely old residential neighborhood. Probably young people migrated away in order to increase their chances of finding suitable Indian mates, and to find less-settled lands in Massachusetts and New York. The last of the Wangunks, Old Betty, disappeared from the records in the early 1800s. Ever Healthy, Ever Green 
Food Poisoning:An Unsuspected Danger Food poisoning is something we usually think about during the warm summer picnic season, if at all. But food poisoning is a year-round problem that takes a greater toll than most people realize. Experts say that people suffering from food-borne illnesses frequently do not realize it. Instead, they think they caught a "bug" or "24 hour flu." Many of these situations are actually cases of food poisoning that could have been prevented. Check your food-handling habits against these recommendations to see if you have some bad habits: How do you thaw meat and poultry? Thawing these foods on the counter at room temperature leaves them at high risk of dangerous levels of bacterial growth. The "danger-zone" when bacteria multiply fastest is between 40 and 140 degrees F; thawing at room temperature generally allows parts of the food to stay within this danger zone while other parts are still thawing. | Thaw meat and poultry one of three ways: in your refrigerator overnight, in a microwave, or in a water-tight plastic bag submerged in cold water that is changed every 30 minutes.
What to do with leftovers? They should be cooled quickly in a refrigerator or freezer. Some people leave cooked food out on the counter for extended periods to cool before refrigerating it, but that allows more time in the "danger zone" temperatures. To speed cooling with less danger zone time, divide large batches of heated leftovers into small portions in shallow containers. The total amount of time a food is exposed to room temperature, including serving time, should not exceed 2 hours. Keep this in mind when you bring leftover foods from restaurants as well. How often, in the course of cleaning out your refrigerator (which many of us don’t do often enough) have you wondered, "Should I throw this out?" On one hand, we certainly don’t want to waste food, but on the other hand, we don’t want to risk making ourselves or our families sick either. The old stand-by, "When in doubt, throw it out" still applies. Remember, food containing harmful bacteria does not necessarily look or smell any different, so don’t rely on appearance or odor to determine if the food is still useable. As far as how long it is safe to keep meat in the refrigerator, raw ground meat can only be kept one or two days, while solid cuts of meat can be kept for three to five days. Cooked meat, deli meat, and opened packages of lunch meat should be used within three to four days. Raw chicken and turkey should be kept refrigerated for no more than one or two days. Cooked poultry can be held for three to four days, as long as it is not covered with broth or gravy (in that case only one to two days). Last, but not least, always wash your hands thoroughly with soap before handling food. You should also wash your hands well after handling any raw meat, fish, poultry or eggs. Scrub all counters, cutting boards and utensils with hot soapy water immediately after contact with any raw meat, fish, poultry or eggs, too. By getting yourself into these safe food-handling habits, you can considerably cut your chances of getting food poisoning, which, if you’ve ever suffered from it, you know is well worth the effort to avoid. |
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Waist Watching Being over weight is in itself a health risk, doctors say, but the dangers are even greater if most of the fat is carried around the waist. Cells around the abdomen swell with fat as a result of overeating, then dump the fat back into the bloodstream. Extra fat in the blood interferes with the liver’s control of insulin levels and simultaneously prompts the liver to make more fat-containing particles that can clog the arteries, often leading to heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, and other health problems. If you are a woman and your waist measures more than 35 inches, or if you are a man and your waist measures more than 40 inches, talk to your doctor or other health professional about the health risks of your weight and what you can do to reduce them. Common Exercise Myths Fitness expert Mark St. Peter commends people for taking up exercise but points out some common mistakes that many novices make: Doing too much too soon – Exercising harder and faster doesn’t make you get fit faster. Indeed, it often leads to getting hurt faster. Start slowly and increase your activity over time. Believing that exercise equals weight loss – Exercise does improve overall health, but it must be combined with a balanced diet to take off pounds. Focusing on trouble spots – You may be most concerned with, say, your waist or thighs, but it’s important to exercise all the muscles in your body for a higher metabolism, which will burn calories more efficiently. Safety First! National Bath Safety Month 
Check your bathroom for hazards by following these tips from home safety experts:
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Confronting Harassment Under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, sexual harassment is defined as "direct sexual advances and propositions." In the book Back Off! How to Confront and Stop Sexual Harassment and Harassers, author Martha Langelan outlines the following strategy for victims of unwanted advances to use against harassers:
Avoid Gossip! Office gossip may seem harmless and perhaps even fun, but it can harm reputations and careers, including your own. Before repeating a story or rumor, ask yourself these three questions suggested by the human resources department of United Technologies Corp. of Hartford: Is it true? Is it fair? Is it necessary? If the answer to any of these is no, don’t pass the story along. Creating Good Readers The U.S. Department of Education says parents can play a big role in their children’s reading success. Here’s how:
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