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THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY
ASTOR, LENOX TILDEN FOUNDATIONS
Im" trumbull,
ENCYCLOPEDIA
OF
CONNECTICUT BIOGRAPHY
GENEALOGICAL-MEMORIAL
REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS
Compiled with assistance of the following
ADVISORY COMMITTEE
SAMUEL HART, D.D., D.C.L.
Dean of Berkeley Divinity School; President of Connecticut Historical Society.
THOMAS SNELL WEAVER
Superintendent of City Schools, Hartford; Journalist, former Editor Willimantic Jour- nal, and associated with New Haven Register, Boston Globe, Hartford Post and Hartford Courant. Member of Library Committee Con- necticut Historical Society.
JOSEPH ANDERSON, D.D.
President of Mattatuck Historical Society; forty years pastor of First Congregational Church, Waterbury; Editor Anderson's His- tory of Waterbury.
WALTER RALPH STEINER, M.D.
Member of State Historical Society; Member of State Medical Society; Fellow of American Medical Association; Secretary Congress of American Physicians and Surgeons; Librarian Hartford Medical Society.
HADLAI AUSTIN HULL, LL.B.
Attorney, New London; Major in Spanish- American War.
STORRS OZIAS SEYMOUR, D.D.
President of Litchfield Historical Society; President of Wolcott and Litchfield Library Association; Rector Emeritus of St. Michael's (P. E.) Church, Litchfield (23 years active rector ).
JOHN GAYLORD DAVENPORT, D.D.
Pastor Emeritus Second Church of Waterbury (30 years active) ; Member of Connecticut His- torical Society; Member of Mattatuck Histori- cal Society; ex-Governor and Chaplain of Con- necticut Society, Sons of Founders and Pa- triots; ex-Deputy Governor National Society, same order.
GEORGE CURTIS WALDO, A.M., LITT.D.
Editor of Bridgeport Standard 49 years; one of Founders of Bridgeport Scientific Society; ex-Vice-President of Fairfield County Histori- cal Society; Author of History of Bridgeport.
FREDERICK BOSTWICK
Librarian New Haven Colony Historical Soci- ety; Register S. A. R., Connecticut; Honorary Member of National Genealogical Society; Member of Connecticut Historical Society, Connecticut Library Association, Mississippi Valley Historical Association; Associate Edi- tor Genealogical History of Connecticut; ex- President New Haven-Chautauqua Union.
GUILFORD SMITH
President of Windham National Bank; Mem- ber of Connecticut Society, Mayflower De- scendants.
LEWIS ELIOT STANTON, A.B.
(Yale, 1855). Member of American Bar Asso- ciation and State Bar Association; Assistant United States Attorney 1870-1885; United States Attorney District of Connecticut 1885- 1888 (resigned); Representative Hartford, 1880.
ILLUSTRATED
THE AMERICAN HISTORICAL SOCIETY INCORPORATED
BOSTON
NEW YORK CHICAG)
1917
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Foreword
E ACH one of us is "the heir of all the ages. in the foremost files of time." We build upon the solid foundations laid by the strenuous efforts of the fathers who have gone before us. Nothing is more fitting, and indeed more important, than that we should familiarize ourselves with their work and personality; for it is they who have lifted us up to the lofty positions from which we are working out our separate careers. "Lest we forget," it is important that we gather up the fleeting memories of the past and give them permanent record in well-chosen words of biography, and in such repro- duction of the long lost faces as modern science makes possible.
SAMUEL HART.
CITY HALL, FORMER STATE HOUSE, HARTFORD.
NEW
LIBRARY
DR. LESCY
1
THE
TILLEN
MEMORIAL ARCH AND STATE HOUSE.
PUBLISHERS' NOTE
T HE historic spirit, faithful to the record, the discerning judgment, unmoved by prejudice and uncolored by undue enthusiasm, are as essential in giving the life of the individual person as in writing the history of a people. The world to-day is what the leading men of the last generation have made it. From the past has come the legacy of the present. Art, science, statesmanship, government, as well as advanced industrial and commercial prosperity, are accumulations. They constitute an inheritance upon which the present generation has entered, and the advantages secured from so vast a bequeathment depend entirely upon the fidelity with which is conducted the study of the lives of those who have transmitted the legacy.
In every community there have been found men who were leaders in thought and action, and who have marked the passing years with large and worthy achieve- ment. They have left definite impress in public, professional, industrial, commer- cial, and other lines of endeavor that touch the general welfare. They have wrought well and have left a valuable heritage to posterity.
The men and women who are making history to-day are also entitled to specific mention in a work whose province is to perpetuate for later generations the record of the present. History is constantly making, and that of yesterday and to-day is as important in its place as that of centuries past.
The State of Connecticut affords a peculiarly interesting field for such research. Her soil has been the scene of events of importance and the home of some of the most illustrious men of the nation. Her sons have shed luster upon her name in every profession, and wherever they have dispersed they have been a power for ideal citizenship and good government. The province of the present publication is that of according due recognition to these leading and representative citizens, both living and dead, who have thus honored their State or community. Its preparation has enlisted the active interest and earnest effort of some of the most capable men of the State-clerics, educators, litterateurs-familiar with the history of the Common- wealth, and intimately familiar with its people. Among these are two of lofty character and high attainments who passed away, their labors upon this work prac- tically completed, but who did not live to see the results in the perfected form pre- sented in these volumes-the Rev. Samuel Hart, D. D., D. C. L., Dean of the Berkeley Divinity School, and President of the Connecticut Historical Society; and Lewis Eliot Stanton, A. B., of Hartford, accomplished scholar and lawyer. Others
who have given valuable assistance are: Thomas Snell Weaver, journalist and edu- cator, of Hartford; Rev. Joseph Anderson, D. D., clergyman and author, of Water- bury; Dr. Walter Ralph Steiner, of Hartford, of high standing in the medical pro- fession; Hadlai Austin Hull, of New London, lawyer and Spanish-American War veteran; Rev. Storrs Ozias Seymour, D. D., clergyman and litterateur, of Litch- field; Rev. John Gaylord Davenport, D. D., of Waterbury, clergyman, member of various historical societies; George Curtis Waldo, A. M., Litt. D., of Bridgeport, journalist and author; Frederick Bostwick, historian, member of various historical societies, of New Haven; Guilford Smith, of Windham, member of leading patri- otic and historical bodies.
It is believed that the present work will prove a real addition to the mass of annals concerning the historic families of Connecticut, and that, without it, much valuable information would be inaccessible to the general reader, or irretrievably lost, owing to the passing away of custodians of family records, and the consequent disappearance of material in their possession.
THE AMERICAN HISTORICAL SOCIETY.
1
BIOGRAPHICAL
Israel Dutram
:
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF BIOGRAPHY
PUTNAM, General Israel,
Distinguished Revolutionary Officer.
General Israel Putnam, who excelled both in war and peace, will ever live in the history of this nation, and his memory is especially dear to the people of Con- necticut, where his active life was passed. From a multitude of New England ances- tors he inherited those qualities which made him preeminent, qualities which have made the New Englander preëmi- nent in the settlement and development of the United States, qualities which have established everywhere the school, the church and the printing press, the leading instruments in the progress of civiliza- tion.
The ancestry of the American family of Putnam has been traced to a very remote period in England, the first being Simon de Puttenham, who lived in 1199 and was probably a lineal descendant of Roger, who held the manor of Puttenham under the Bishop of Baieux. The parish of Put- tenham is in Hertfordshire, close to the border of Bedfordshire and Buckingham- shire. The first American ancestor. John Putnam, of the seventeenth generation was baptized at Wingrove, County Bucks, England, January 17, 1579. He was an early settler at Salem, Massachusetts, and in that vicinity the family has been conspicuous down to the present day. His son, Lieutenant Thomas Putnam, baptized in England, 1615, resided in Salem Village, now Danvers, and was father of Joseph Putnam, born there. The sound sense of the latter is indicated by his opposition to the witchcraft trials of Salem. This was a source of peril to him, and for six months one of his fleetest
horses was kept saddled, ready at a moment's notice to bear him from the wrath of his contemporaries. He married Elizabeth Porter, and Israel Putnam was their fourth son, born January 7, 1718, in Danvers. He died after an illness of two days in Brooklyn, Connecticut, May 29, 1790. The house in which he was born was built by his grandfather, and is still standing.
Israel Putnam had a rather meagre education in the common schools of his native town, and he was very early ac- customed to the arduous labors of the farm. When he attained his majority, a portion of the paternal farm was set off to him, and on it he built a small house, but soon after removed to Pomfret, Con- necticut, where, in association with his brother-in-law, John Pope, he purchased a tract of five hundred acres of land. He became sole owner of this in 1741, and there he built as his second residence a large frame house, which is still stand- ing, and one of the points of interest to all tourists and patriotic Americans. This was in the district known as Mortlake Manor, which was incorporated as the town of Brooklyn in 1786. He cleared his farm of the native forest and planted fine orchards; the great shade trees of Brooklyn were planted largely through his initiative and influence. He was not only a thrifty and prosperous farmer, but from first to last an earnest and helpful friend of the town and colony in which he lived. The story of his killing of the wolf which had annoyed the neighbor- hood is well known to every schoolboy, and the cave into which he crawled on his hands and knees to shoot the wolf is sought by many visitors.
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ENCYCLOPEDIA OF BIOGRAPHY
His military career began in the French and Indian War. He was commissioned captain in Colonel Lyman's regiment of General Johnson's command, and partici- pated in the engagements at Fort Edward and Lake George in 1755. In the cam- paign of the following year he again served with distinction in the same regi- ment. At Fort Edward, in 1757, he was commissioned major, and in the following year he and Major Rogers, the famous ranger, were taken prisoners. He was tied to a tree and a fire lighted at his feet, but before it had inflicted any serious in- jury upon the intended victim, he was released by the timely arrival of a chief of the tribe whom he had previously treated with kindness while a prisoner. The wounds inflicted upon him during the torture before the burning left scars that time never erased. He was taken to Montreal, suffering further indignities and torture on the way, and was relieved through the intercession of General Peter Schuyler, who was also a prisioner. Major Putnam was promoted to lieuten- ant-colonel in 1759, and served that year under General Amherst at Ticonderoga and Crown Point, and in the following year in the expedition against Montreal, which capitulated without resistance. He commanded a regiment in the West Indies afterward, and in 1764 under Colo- nel Bradstreet marched against the In- dians with a Connecticut regiment to Detroit. Before the close of that year he returned to the farm, and for a period of years following this, his spacious dwelling served as an inn. He was honored with various civil offices of trust and responsi- bility, served on important committees, and was often moderator; was thrice selectman of Pomfret, and served as deputy to the General Assembly. In the winter of 1772-73, he went with General Lyman and others to examine a tract of
land on the Mississippi river, near Nat- chez, given by the British government to the soldiers who fought in the West Indies. A diary kept by him on this trip, during which he visited Jamaica and the harbor of Pensacola, has been preserved.
In the trying days before the Revolu- tion, Colonel Putnam was among the most active in resisting the obnoxious measures of the home government. In 1774 an exaggerated rumor concerning depredations of the British in the neigh- borhood of Boston came to the ears of Putnam, and he immediately addressed the citizens of his State and aroused a determination to avenge the imposi- tions. Thousands were recruited and immediately started for Massachusetts, but it was learned that the rumor had little foundation and they returned. The news of the battle of Lexington reached Pomfret April 20, 1775, the day succeed- ing the engagement. With his sixteen- year-old son, Daniel, Putnam was en- gaged in plowing when the news arrived. The son afterward wrote: "He loitered not, but left me, the driver of his team, to unyoke it in the furrow, and not many days after to follow him to camp." On the afternoon of April 20, Putnam was on his way on horseback, and arrived in Cambridge on the following morning. On that day he wrote at Concord a report of the situation to Colonel Ebenezer Wil- liams, calling for six thousand troops from his State, and he soon returned to recruit and organize this force. The provincial congress of Connecticut ap- pointed him brigadier-general, and in one week he was again on his way to the scene of action. During the temporary absence of General Ward, he served some time as commander-in-chief, and on an- other occasion led a force of twenty-two hundred men from Massachusetts and New Hampshire on a reconnoissance to
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ENCYCLOPEDIA OF BIOGRAPHY
Charlestown. He commanded a party of provincials sent to Chelsea on May 27, 1775, and captured a British schooner, which attacked his force, with American loss of one killed and four wounded, while of the British force twenty were killed and fifty wounded. With Dr. Joseph Warren, Putnam represented the Americans in an exchange of prisoners on June 6, and on the 19th of that month, the Continental Congress raised him to the rank of major-general. This was two days after the battle of Bunker Hill, but the news had not yet reached the Congress. General Putnam was the officer in com- mand at the battle of Bunker Hill, whose story is so well known to every patriotic American. General Putnam's commis- sion was brought by Washington, when he came to Cambridge to take command, and by him Putnam was given command of the centre at Cambridge. When Bos- ton was evacuated, Putnam's command was sent to New York, and he took part in the battle of Long Island After the retreat, Washington assigned Putnam to the command of the city of New York north of Fifteenth street, and he partici- pated in the battles of Harlem Heights and White Plains, taking a prominent part. In 1777 he commanded at Philadel- phia, and was later stationed on the Hud- son river. In 1778 he was at West Point, and in the following winter was posted at Danbury, Connecticut, with three bri- gades. In this region he made his famous dash on horseback down a precipice to escape capture by a superior force of the British under General Tryon. In the campaign of 1779, General Putnam was active and superintended the completion of the defences at West Point. During the following winter he visited his family. and on his return to the front he suffered a stroke of paralysis, which closed his military career. Though he lived ten years afterward, and witnessed the birth
of the new nation, he was never able to return to the army.
He was buried with military and Ma- sonic honors, and his epitaph written by Rev. Dr. Timothy Dwight, president of Yale College, says: "He dared to lead where any dared to follow," and "his generosity was singular and his honesty was proverbial. * He raised him- * self to universal esteem and offices of eminent distinction by personal worth and a useful life." He is described in person as of middle height, "very erect, muscular and firm in body. His coun- tenance was open, strong and animated; the features of his face large, well-propor- tioned to each other and to his whole frame; his teeth fair and sound till death. His hearing was quick, his sight strong and of long range. Though facetious and dispassionate in private, when animated in the heat of battle his countenance was fierce and terrible, and his voice like thunder. His whole manner was admir- ably adapted to inspire his soldiers with courage and confidence, and his enemies with terror. The faculties of his mind were not inferior to those of his body; his penetration was acute; decision rapid, yet remarkably correct; and the more desperate the situation the more col- lected and undaunted. With the cour- age of a lion, he had a heart that melted at the sight of distress; he could never witness suffering in any human being without becoming a sufferer himself. Martial music roused him to the highest pitch, while solemn, sacred music rent him into tears. In his disposition he was open and generous almost to a fault, and in his social relations he was never ex- celled."
He married (first) at Danvers, July 19, 1739, Hannah Pope, who died September 6, 1765, and (second) June 3, 1767, Mrs. Deborah (Lothrop) Gardner, daughter of Samuel Lothrop, of Norwich. She died
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ENCYCLOPEDIA OF BIOGRAPHY
at his headquarters on the Hudson in 1777. The first wife was the mother of ten children. He died May 29, 1790.
SHERMAN, Roger,
Signer of Declaration of Independence.
Roger Sherman was born in Newton, Massachusetts, April 19, 1721, son of Wil- liam and Mehetabel (Wellington) Sher- man, grandson of Joseph and Elizabeth (Winship) Sherman and of Benjamin and Elizabeth Wellington, and great-grand- son of Captain John and Martha (Pal- mer) Sherman (or Shearman), who emi- grated from Dedham, Essex county, Eng- land, and settled in Watertown, Massa- chusetts, about 1634.
The parents of Roger Sherman re- moved to Stoughton (now Canton), Mas- sachusetts, in 1723, and he worked on the farm and learned the shoemaker's trade under his father. He gained a fair knowl- edge in various branches of science by studying while at work, doubtless being assisted by the Rev. Samuel Dunbar, pastor of the church at Stoughton. His father died in 1741, leaving him the sole support of his mother and the younger children, and in 1743 they removed to New Milford, Connecticut, where he fol- lowed his trade and conducted a store with his brothers. The General Assem- bly appointed him surveyor of lands for the County of New Haven in 1745, and of Litchfield county in 1752, and was also employed in surveying land for private individuals in New Milford. In 1752, when the New England colonies were flooded with irredeemable currency, he wrote and issued a pamphlet in which he pointed out the dangers attending this issue of paper money, and subsequently, when a member of the Constitutional Convention, he introduced and moved the adoption of the clause that "no State can make anything but gold and silver a legal
tender." He became one of the largest investors in real estate in his town, filled various town offices, and was admitted to the Litchfield county bar in February, 1754. He represented New Milford in the General Assembly in 1755 and 1758- 61, was justice of the peace, 1755-59, and a justice of the quorum and of the Court of Common Pleas, 1759-61.
Roger Sherman removed to New Haven, Connecticut, in June, 1761, from whence he was a representative in the Legislature, 1764-66, a member of the Senate, 1766-85, justice of the peace and of the quorum, and judge of the Superior Court, 1766-89. His activity as a patriot began with the efforts of the crown to enforce the Stamp Act. He was a mem- ber of the committee to consider the claims of the settlers near the Susque- hanna river in 1774. He was a delegate from Connecticut to the Continental Con- gress, 1774-81, and 1783-84, serving on the most important committees, including that of June 11, 1776, to draft the Declara- tion of Independence, of which he was a signer ; that of June 12, 1776, to prepare the Articles of Confederation ; that of the Connecticut Council of Safety, 1777-79 and 1782, and that of the convention of 1787 that reported the Connecticut Com- promise. In the controversy that arose in the Continental Congress regarding the rights of States to vote irrespective of population, Mr. Sherman proposed that the vote should be taken once in propor- tion to population, and once by States, and that every measure should have a ma- jority. This principle, eleven years after- ward, Mr. Sherman, then a member of the Constitutional Convention, presented to that body, and it was framed into the Federal Constitution, and was known as the Connecticut Compromise. It was not until he had made several speeches in its favor that he gained any attention, when a long and bitter debate followed, and it
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ENCYCLOPEDIA OF BIOGRAPHY
was finally referred to a committee of which he was made a member. After the adoption of the compromise, he moved the provision that no amendment be made that would deprive any State of its equal vote without its consent. It is agreed by all historians that this compromise, for which Mr. Sherman is solely responsible, saved the Constitutional Convention from breaking up without accomplishing any- thing, and made possible a union of the States and a national government. Roger Sherman was the only delegate in the Continental Congress who signed all four of the great State papers which were signed by all the delegates of all the colo- nies, namely : The Declaration of 1774, the Articles of Confederation, the Declara- tion of Independence, and the Federal Constitution. He revised the statute laws of Connecticut with Judge Richard Law in 1783. He was chosen the first mayor of New Haven in 1784, to prevent a Tory from being chosen, and the Legislature then provided that the mayor should hold his office during the pleasure of the Gen- eral Assembly, and under this act Mr. Sherman remained mayor until his death. He was a delegate from Connecticut to the Constitutional Convention at Phila- delphia in May, 1787. He was also active in the State Convention in procuring the ratification of the constitution, and wrote a series of papers on that subject which materially influenced the public mind in its favor, signed "A Citizen of New Haven." He was a representative in the First Congress, 1789-91, where he favored an address introduced by the Quakers against the slave trade. He was elected to the United States Senate to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of Wil- liam S. Johnson and served from October 24, 1791, until his death. He was treas- urer of Yale College, 1765-76, and re- ceived the honorary degree of Master of
Arts from that college in 1768. He fur- nished the astronomical calculations for a series of almanacs, published in New York and New England, which bore his name.
He was married, November 17, 1749, to Elizabeth, daughter of Deacon Joseph Hartwell, of Stoughton, and (second) May 12, 1763, at Danvers, to Rebecca, daughter of Benjamin Prescott, of Salem, Massachusetts. He died in New Haven, Connecticut, July 23, 1793.
HUNTINGTON, Samuel,
Signer of Declaration of Independence.
Samuel Huntington was born in Wind- ham, Scotland county, Connecticut, July 3, 1731, son of Nathaniel and Mehetabel (Thurston) Huntington, grandson of Deacon Joseph and Rebecca (Adgate) Huntington, great-grandson of Deacon Simon and Sarah (Clark) Huntington, and great-great-grandson of Simon and Margaret (Baret) Huntington, who left Norwich, England, for Massachusetts Bay, in 1633, with their sons, William, Thomas, Christopher and Simon, and the father dying of smallpox at sea, the mother settled in Roxborough, Massa- chusetts Bay Colony, and married Thomas Stoughton, of Dorchester, in 1735-36.
His father being a farmer in moderate circumstances, Samuel Huntington had but a limited education, his youthful years being principally occupied with farm work and learning the trade of cooper. He did not begin serious study until he was twenty-two years old, when he learned to read the Latin language and also studied law. He settled as a lawyer in Norwich, Connecticut, about 1758. He represented the town of Norwich in the General Assembly in 1764. where he op- posed the Stamp Act. He was, however, appointed king's attorney in 1765, and
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