MenofmarkinConnecticut Osborn Galpin Norris Menf o Mark in Connecticut FIDEALS O AMERICAN LIFE TOLD IN BIOG RAPHIES AND AUTOBIOGRAPHIES OF EMINENT LIVING AMERICANS EDITEDY B COLONEL N . G. QSBORN EDITOR " NIW HAVEM REGISTER" INTRODUCTORY C HAPTER "What C onnecticut Stands For in the History of the Nation" BY S AMUEL HART, D.D. PRESIDENT C ONNECTICUT HISTORICAL SOCIETY WILLIAM R G OODSPEED HARTFORD, C ONNECTICUT 1906 > L IT:.:: t.u. » » .t Copyright 1 004 by B. F. JOBMSOM EDITOR'S P REFACE The d ifficulties to be encountered in compiling and editing a work of this character are many and varied, and it remains for public opinion to say with what success they have been met and over come. The aim has been to make a representative presentation of the men in the State of Connecticut who have contributed in- marked ways to its professional, industrial, and commercial integrity. It would be an affectation to claim that the work has been thoroughly done. It has in some cases been impossible to secure the cooperation and support of men of mark who belong in a book of this character. At the same time a larger and more sincere effort has been made to achieve the end in view, without exercising a snobbish discrimination, than has ever before been attempted. In asking the indulgence of the public, we do so in the knowledge that our purpose has been to group together, so far as possible, the men and their records, modestly worded, to whose usefulness the historian must in time turn for the human documents necessary to his purpose. I m ust in a word express my appreciation of the work under taken and accomplished by those who have been associated with me, and in particular the many, whose biographies will be found be tween the covers of the "Men of Mark," who, averse to publica tions of this character on account of past experiences, have been willing to take at its face value my characterization of its seriousness ft) and assist me in making it possible. Finally I ask the indulgence ^ of the public for what will unquestionably be detected as short- comings on the part of the Editor and his associates, still short- - comings though anticipated so far as possible. 2" S eptember 20, 1906. K. G. OSBORN, Editor. MENF O MARK IN CONNECTICUT .COL. N O. OSBORN, Editor-in-Chief ADVISORY B OARD HON. W ILLIAM 8. CASE HARTFORD JUDGE S UPERIOR COURT HON. G EORGE 8. GODARD .... HARTFOKD STATE L IBRARIAN HON. F REDERICK J. KINQSBURY, LL.D. WATERBURY MEMBER C ORPORATION TALE UNIVERSITY CAPTAIN E DWARD W. MARSH .... BRIDGEPORT TREASURER P EOPLE'S SAVINGS BANK COL.. N G. OSBORN NEW HAVEN EWEDITOR N HAVEN REGISTER HON. H ENRY ROBERTS HARTFORD GOVERNOR HON. J ONATHAN TRUMBULL .... NORWICH LIBRARIAN P UBLIC LIBRARY ...1 WHAT C ONNECTICUT STANDS FOR INHE T HISTORYF O THE NATION THE E nglish settlement of the territory now included in the State of Connecticut was three-fold in origin and purpose, as it was in place. Soon, however, the three streams of history and of influence were merged into one, and the annals of the colony and the State show how they were combined and what has been the strength of the resultant force in character and in action. There came to Wethersfield, Windsor, and Hartford in 1635 (following the steps of earlier emigrants from Plymouth, who made no permanent settlement) a band of men who had been given, not ungrudgingly, permission to remove from the colony of Massachusetts Bay. Their leaders were men of strong character and of strong will under the restraint of sound judgment. Thomas Hooker and Roger Ludlow, with whom we might name William Pynchon, though he never really came under the jurisdiction of the new colony, were not satisfied with the ecclesiastical and civil principles which prevailed in Boston and its neighborhood. They came with their followers to the western bank of the Great River, then the very limit of civilization, that they might found a commonwealth which should be puritanically religious on its religious side, but in which citizenship should not be dependent on church membership, and laws should have their binding force from the will of those who were to be governed by them. It was a settlement made by practical men under the guid ance of a practical preacher and a practical lawyer. In the same year John Winthrop, the younger, representing a company in which the names of Lord Say and Sele and Lord Brook were prominent, sent a party to build a fort at the mouth of the Connecticut River. Lieutenant Lion Gardiner was put in command of the garrison, and the place became for a few years the seat of an independent govern ment. Soon merged in Connecticut, it contributed to it no small part of the experience of the Pequot War, and helped at least to 1|J W HAT CONNECTICUT STANDS FOU given a element of caution in meeting danger, combined with vigor in warding it off. Three years later, in 1638, another company came from England by way of Boston, and took up their home at the fair haven — they presently called it the New Haven — at the mouth of the Quinnipiack. They were independents, like the pilgrims who had settled Plymonth ; there was among them a strange combination of spirit of almost fanatical ecclesiasticism and a spirit of commercial adventure; they were led by the theologian, John Davenport, and the wealthy merchant, Theophilus Eaton; they expected to found a theocracy in which the saints should rule, and they hoped to increase the worldly prosperity of which some of their number already had a goodly share. With this company there were affiliated from the next year Milford and Guilford, the latter being the best example of a community of yeomen devoted to agriculture. Doubtless the religious and civil history of the future State was largely molded by the founders of the River colony, while its record for neighborli- ness and bravery may be traced back to Saybrook fort; and speaking generally, we look to New Haven for strong intellectual influences and for the sources of material prosperity fostered by invention and secured by trade. Earlyn i 1639 the freemen of the three towns in the River colony met in a general assembly and, adopting the first written constitu tion in history, " associated and conjoined themselves to be one public state or commonwealth." The government which they estab lished, with no recognition of King or parliament or of any devolved authority, was a pure democracy, the example and pattern of all the democracies in this land or elsewhere; and the recognition of the three towns, each with its reserved rights, was also the example and pattern of all true federal governments. The germ of the Nation was in that assembly of citizens and in their work, and all the history of our land has been profoundly affected by it. As its immediate consequence there sprang at once into existence an abso lutely independent state; its members were citizens of England, and not unwilling to be called by the name, but they could hardly be called English subjects, and their commonwealth, though a colony, was not a dependency of the crown. When, at the restoration of the monarchy in the mother country, Winthrop presented a petition for a charter and a charter was granted, it was not asked or given INHE T HISTORY OP THE NATION for t he bestowal of rights or the creation of obligations; on the con trary, it contained an acknowledgment on the part of what was vaguely recognized as having a permanent authority over the land, of the existing condition of things. So liberal was it in its provis ions, that one wonders how it was brought about that the sovereign and his counsellors ever gave their approval to it ; and so well adapted was it to the needs of the people here that for more than forty years after the Declaration of Independence it was retained as the funda mental law of the state. In but one instance, that, namely, of Sir Edmund Andros, was Connecticut called upon to submit to a gov ernor who was not of her own choice; she followed her own laws, and not those of the English parliament until she formally adopted them as her own; she distributed estates according to the Scripture rule which she had accepted and in defiance of the English statutes, and her action was upheld by the supreme tribunal across the sea; she even refused the writ of habeas corpus because her legislature had not formally incorporated it in her code. And all this she did quietly and soberly. " The consistent policy of Connecticut," says an historian — and it would be easy to prove the assertion in detail through many years — " was to avoid notoriety and public attitudes ; to secure her privileges without attracting needless notice; to act as intensely and vigorously as possible when action seemed necessary and promising; but to say as little as possible, yield as little as possible, and evade as much as possible when open resistance was evident folly. Her line of public conduct was precisely the same after as before 1662 (the date of the charter). And its success was re markable; it is safe to say that the diplomatic skill, forethought, and self-control shown by the men who guided the course of Con necticut daring this period have seldom been equaled on the larger fields of the world's history.