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HARTFORD
Connecticut State Library 3 0231 00370 0510
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Famauch Farb
ENCYCLOPEDIA
OF
CONNECTICUT BIOGRAPHY
GENEALOGICAL-MEMORIAL
REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS
Compiled with assistance of the following
Ex, 19
V. 4 ccp +
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 CHICAGO
1917
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.
BIOGRAPHICAL
=
J.F. Toutellotte
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF BIOGRAPHY
TOURTELLOTTE, Jacob Francis, Physician, Financier, Philanthropist.
To the oppression of the Huguenots in France our Nation is indebted for the presence in our country from pioneer days of the family of Tourtellotte, as well as other notable Huguenot families. The history of the world discloses no nation upon the face of the earth which has known within its national boundaries so remarkable a confluence of original set- tlers as these United States; pioneers who surrendered voluntarily, perhaps for life, every hope of comfort, and every worldly advantage of wealth, station and influence, daring wilderness and savage, for the preservation of their ideals, polit- ical and religious. The governments of the Old World, when, by oppression and intolerance, driving from their shores so many among those finest in character and principle among their inhabitants, con- ferred a great, though unconscious, bene- fit upon America ; so great, that upon the splendid roots here planted the colonies were firmly laid and energetically built up, the wilderness reclaimed, civilization enthroned in a savage land, and a liberty- loving, firm, true race established, whose splendid heroism in defense of their liber- ties and ideals was later to astound and electrify the world. From England, from France, from almost all the great nations of Europe, came the pioneers of the thir- teen states, who preferred to forego every hope of political preferment in their native land, their property, their rela- tives, their friends, and the land of their ancestors, rather than submit to a re- ligious domination in which they no
longer believed. And to these mighty pioneers of our country, that culmina- tion of a long train of disastrous events, the Revolution, was indeed directly traceable; from them their heroic and patriotic descendants obtained that fiery spirit of determination which enabled them to dare and endure that last resort, the dread arbitrament of war, for those principles of liberty and right conduct dearer to them than life itself.
From France came the Huguenots, the very flower of the land and its great com- mercial force, whose violent exodus in great numbers, accompanied with loss, suffering and privation, has been declared by historians as depriving France by thousands of its most energetic and en- terprising inhabitants and as turning backward the wheel of progress in that Nation for a lengthy span of years.
The persecution of the Huguenots in France had been long continued; rising on occasion to a frenzied violence, the bravery of the Huguenots and of their great leaders, and their unwavering steadfastness to their faith, won for them some cessation of political interference and a certain defined status under the protection of particular laws enacted for their benefit. In 1555, the term "Hugue- nots" was first applied to the adherents of the Protestant faith in France. The ter- rible massacres of 1572 were followed, as time passed, by more rigorous and severe measures against the unfortunate Hugue- nots, deprived of a political voice since the fall of Rochelle and the entrance of Richelieu into power; their persecution, revived strenuously under Louis XIV., at last culminated, following a gradual
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ENCYCLOPEDIA OF BIOGRAPHY
deprivation of civil rights, in the revo- cation of the Edict of Nantes, to procure the original promulgation of which per- haps no body or nation ever fought harder or more stubbornly than did the Hugue- nots. With many of their places of wor- ship demolished (according to Anquetil seven hundred between 1657 and 1685), thousands of French refugee Protestants, of lineages illustrious in the great and heroic deeds of world history, escaped to Switzerland, the Netherlands, England and Germany.
(1) Among them was the refugee, Abraham Tourtellotte, the founder an- cestor of the Tourtellotte family in Amer- ica here treated of; a resident of Bor- deaux, France, a prosperous merchant, a man of education, an expert shipmaster, and one whose exemplary conduct, high moral character and distinguished worth and excellence would, but for short- sighted and ill-calculated religious perse- cution, have rendered him a citizen de- sired of, and desirable to, his native land ; an honor to the city of his birth, and benefiting and assisting it in its onward march of progress to a degree fully com- mensurate with the advantages it opened to and afforded for him ..
Monsieur Tourtellotte was allied through marriage to the notable French family of Bernon, his father-in-law being Gabriel Bernon, of LaRochelle, a Hugue- not of most unbending austerity ; a wealthy merchant, with ships plying the seas. warehouses filled with costly merchan- dise and his ramified affairs receiving at his hands most capable administration.
Thus the promulgation of that climax of injustice-the violation of the national individuality of the Huguenot and breach of trust and faith-on the part of Louis XIV. and his government, the memorable and world-shaking revocation of the Edict of Nantes. found the Messieurs
Tourtellotte and Bernon in the midst of their active and prosperous undertakings ; found them conserving with prudent foresight their present patrimony, and energetically and wisely pursuing their avocations to garner up and preserve for the future of themselves and of their families a well gained and sufficient heri- tage, the appropriate compensation and natural fruit of lives of sterling integrity, honorable dealing and of labor well directed and applied; to them came, as to the many thousand others of their co- religionists, on this memorable occasion, a most heart-rending choice ; between, on the one hand, the known, the loved, and the accustomed days of their lives, sur- rounded with the lifelong interests and many material comforts of personal cir- cumstance and family station, between a land dear as the home of their ancestors and, however ill its misguided rulers formed their policies to them, yet still "their own, their native land:" and, on the other hand, a surrender of all these advantages, a departure to nations speak- ing a foreign tongue, already overcrowded with population, and with customs and habits, strange and even perhaps inimic- able to their attempts at successful effort ; where they must be "aliens :" and where they would perhaps find but little of that spirit of liberality and tolerance in pres- ent times accorded the stranger within our midst ; yet they knew no hesitation. for counter-balancing every temporal ad- vantage was the preservation and main- tenance of their spiritual freedom, the independent and unconcealed expression of the convictions of their conscience.
Monsieur Bernon left his affairs in charge of his brother-in-law, just prior to his departure drawing up with great pre- cision a balance sheet, which showed a very considerable sum in his favor. and but a fraction of which he ultimately con-
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ENCYCLOPEDIA OF BIOGRAPHY
veyed to his bankers in Amsterdam. Tak- ing refuge in Quebec, Canada, religious difficulties caused his removal to New England about 1686. Abraham Tourtel- lotte was driven from France to Amster- dam about the beginning of the summer of 1686, and it is believed that he suc- ceeded in conveying almost nothing of his fortune out of his native land. Some indication is afforded, perhaps, of the amount he may have been successful in preserving and taking with him by the facts relating to his brother Benjamin who accompanied him on his flight and who died on the subsequent voyage to America ; Benjamin's estate amounted to something over six hundred pounds, and it is probable that Abraham himself suc- ceeded in conveying as much, or perhaps more, of his own means out of France. It is believed that Abraham Tourtellotte was a widower prior to his marriage to Marie Bernon, the daughter of Gabriel Bernon, by his wife, Esther (Le Roy) Bernon, and that he had three children: Jacques Thomas; Jacques Moise, and Jean ; this is corroborated in some meas- ure by the Letters Patent of Denization of July, 1688, recorded in Boston, where, in Latin, appear the names of "Abra- ham," "Johanni," "Mosi," and "Jacobe" Tourtellotte. Marie Bernon, whom Ab- raham Tourtellotte married for his second wife, was the daughter, as hereinbefore stated, of Gabriel and Esther (Le Roy) Bernon, and a French lady who had en- joyed all the advantages given women of fortune at that period, and it is from the children of this marriage that the several notable branches of the line of Tourtel- lotte spring in this country.
From Holland the refugees proceeded to England, where many of their fellow- sufferers and countrymen already were, and where the subject of settlement in the new country across the seas was be-
ing actively agitated. A determination to embark for the New World was finally made, and in 1687 the travelers, includ- ing Abraham Tourtellotte, arrived at Boston in the ship "Friendship," John Ware, master, from London, Benjamin Tourtellotte, as previously stated, having died on September 25th on the voyage over, and administration on his estate being granted to his brother Abraham, February 23, 1688.
On first arriving in America, Abraham Tourtellotte joined the Narragansett colony and was among those who were victimized by the unscrupulous Atherton Company; after untold sufferings, the French settlers were finally forced to re- linquish their holdings at Narragansett, where they were innocently occupying lands of which they supposed themselves the owners, but which had been, years before, granted by duly constituted gov- ernmental authority to other persons. The Huguenot families who had there settled had expended considerable of the moneys brought with them from France for barns, fences and buildings, and on relinquishment of their holdings lost everything they had invested in addition to their right to occupy the soil. Some removed to New Rochelle ; some to New York ; others again have been completely lost sight of ; Abraham Tourtellotte and his family were among seven of the colo- nists with families who removed to Bos- ton. The stay of the Tourtellotte family at Boston was not long, and thence they removed to Roxbury, Massachusetts, where Monsieur Tourtellotte's first two children were born: Gabriel, September 24, 1694, and Esther, June 12, 1696. The latter married, on January 19, 1716, Israel Harding, son of John Harding.
Before his arrival in America, Mon- sieur Bernon had become associated with Isaac Bertrand du Tuffeau in the project
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ENCYCLOPEDIA OF BIOGRAPHY
for establishing a township or planta- tion at Oxford, Worcester county, Mas- sachusetts Bay Colony, fifty miles out- side of Boston, and on his arrival began actively to press the plantation of his township, an enterprise on whose prog- ress only misfortune seemed to attend ; large amounts of his moneys brought from France were here swallowed up, but though disappointed and discouraged, he was not disheartened, nor did he aban- don his active life. Shortly after his arrival in America, he began the manu- facture of rosin and various other naval stores and was most successful in their exportation to Great Britain; in that country the attention of government was attracted by his very successful efforts, for England had long sought a supply station where materials for her great navy could be put forth : no less a person than the Earl of Portland was interested in his labors, and through him, Monsieur Bernon was induced in 1693 to voyage to England to obtain a patent for the manu- facture of stores for the navy and to afford to the government the benefit of his experience. A contract with the gov- ernment for a specified term of years was granted to Bernon; Lord Carmarthen. president of the Royal Council, most powerfully aiding in the fruition of Ber- non's plans, despite a strong political faction opposing, headed by Sir Henry Ashurst, which gazed with disapproba- tion upon any project to encourage eco- nomic independence, or a rivalry with English home manufacture, in the Amer- ican colonies. Monsieur Bernon stood high in the estimation of Governor Bello- mont, whose acquaintance he made on a second trip to England in 1696, when the Earl of Galway, and others influential in England, urged his appointment in super- intendence of the manufacture of naval stores in the colonies of the New World.
Again and again this matter was consid- ered by the Lords of Trade, but the jeal- ousy with which England always re- garded Colonial effort, and the opposition of English manufacturers prevented de- cisive action ; the policy of the mother country, indeed, even at that early date, being sufficiently defined to seek the dis- couragement of individual achievement among her over-seas subjects, and the shortsighted statecraft which fanned the flame of the Revolution being here al- ready foreshadowed.
In 1697, Abraham Tourtellotte. with his family, and with his father-in-law, Gabriel Bernon, removed to Newport, where the third child of Monsieur Tour- tellotte, Abraham, was born. Since 1692 Gabriel Bernon had been associated in various enterprises with the noted Fa- neuils of Boston, and on June 1. 1699, there is record that Abraham Tourtel- lotte and wife and Gabriel Bernon and wife, with Andrew Faneuil. of Boston. representing his brother Benjamin, con- veyed their mansion and lands at Rox- bury to Prudence Thompson. The activi- ties of Abraham Tourtellotte were mainly confined to the commerce of the sea and of ships. a subject upon which he had gained expert knowledge in France : while Gabriel Bernon's activities led to his association from time to time with such historic figures as Louis Allaire and Charles de la Tour. In 1690, a quaint agreement was made by him with one Jean Barré, a Frenchman. to supply Jean. for military purposes, with "one firelock muskett of three pounds valeu. one pis- toll of twenty shillings price. one car- thuse Boxe-three shillings, one hatchet of two shillings" and other necessaries, besides three pounds in money "for his now intended voyage on Board the Good shipp called the Porkepine, Captain Cip- rian Southack, Commander, now bound
6
JANE TOUFTELLSITE
-
POLLY BALLORD TOURTELLOTTE
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF BIOGRAPHY
to sea in a warfareing voyage." He like- wise engaged in the manufacture of nails and the making of salt, the latter of which enterprises is referred to by Governor Bellomont in a letter to the Lords of Trade in November, 1700. He was, in- deed, a typical example of the indomit- able perseverance and unquenchable spirit and determination which at all times animated the Huguenots and earned them their heroic place in history.
The fate of the founder, Abraham Tourtellotte, and his eldest son, Gabriel, is shrouded in mystery; both are be- lieved to have sailed on a voyage out of Newport and to have lost their lives with their ship at sea. Gabriel, the son, left no descendants, never having married.
Marie (Bernon) Tourtellotte took up her residence with her son Abraham in Gloucester on the death of her husband. Abraham was married three times, and left many descendants. From them im- portant branches of the family became established throughout New England and in the West. All have been distin- guished in their various places of abode, performing with zeal and credit the duties of American citizenship, and fill- ing the various offices to which the voice of their fellow citizens has called them with honor both to themselves and to their office.
(II) Abraham (2) Tourtellotte, young- est of the three children of Abraham (I) and Marie (Bernon) Tourtellotte, and the only son to leave descendants, was born about 1697, at Newport, Rhode Island. He became a resident of Glou- cester, Massachusetts, where he lived for many years and whither his mother re- moved upon the tragic death of her hus- band and eldest son, making her home with Abraham. At Gloucester, also, Esther (Tourtellotte) Harding, sister of Abraham, had her home. She was buried
at Gloucester. He married (first) Ballard. He married (second)
He married (third)
Issue: Abraham, of whom be- low; Jonathan, Benjamin, Mary, Lydia and Esther, twins, and Sarah Tourtel- lotte.
(III) Abraham (3) Tourtellotte, son of Abraham (2) and - (Ballard) Tourtellotte, was born February 27, 1725. He removed to Thompson, Connecticut, and died in May, 1779. He married Phoebe Harris. She was born in 1730, and died in 1808. Issue: Fourteen chil- dren.
(IV) Isaac Tourtellotte, son of Abra- ham (3) and Phoebe (Harris) Tourtel- lotte, was born November 20, 1752, and died June 6, 1837. He married
, Issue: Several children.
(V) Jacob Tourtellotte, son of Isaac Tourtellotte, was born July 8, 1793, died October 26, 1878. He married, Septem- ber 20, 1819, Polly Ballord, born June 29, 1799, died August 9, 1875, daughter of Lynde and Polly Ballord, an account of which family follows: William Ballard, the founder of the family, came to Amer- ica in 1635 on the ship "James," landing at Boston. He brought with him his wife Elizabeth, and children Hester and Jo. He removed to Saugus (later Lynn), Massachusetts, where, in 1636, he became freeman and also a member of the Quar- terly Court. His son, Nathaniel Ballard, married Rebecca Miles. His son, Wil- liam Ballard, married twice, his second wife being Deborah Ivory. His son, Zac- cheus Ballard, who spelled his name Bal- lord, settled in Leicester, Massachusetts, then at Thompson, Connecticut. He married Elizabeth Valentine. His son, Lynde Ballord, was private in the town militia. He marched twice to the defense of New London in the War of 1812. He married Polly Bates. His daughter,
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ENCYCLOPEDIA OF BIOGRAPHY
Polly Ballord, married Jacob Tourtel- lotte, and their son was Jacob Francis Tourtellotte, who married Harriet A. Ar- nold. Children of Mr. and Mrs. Tourtel- lotte : 1. Augustus Valentine, born Sep- tember 20, 1820, died October 7, 1872. 2. Monroe Lynde (Lynus), born at Thomp- son, Connecticut, July 11, 1823, died at La Crosse, Wisconsin, April 12, 1894; married, April 21, 1852, at Thompson, Connecticut, Louisa Cady Mills. She was born at Thompson, Connecticut, March 9, 1831, died at La Crosse, Wis- consin, April 15, 1892. Issue : i. Mills, born at Holyoke, Massachusetts, August 31, 1853, married at East Somerville, Massachusetts, August 8, 1878, Lillie Clinton Woodbury, daughter of William W. and Lydia R. L. S. Woodbury. Issue : Lillie Woodbury, born at La Crosse, Wis- consin, June 4, 1879, married. August 22, 1903, George L. Bennett. Issue: Mills Tourtellotte, born October 6, 1908. Au- gustus Monroe, born March 26, 1881, at La Crosse, Wisconsin. Wallace Lincoln, born May 13, 1888, at La Crosse, Wis- consin. Nathaniel Mills, born December 26, 1889, at La Crosse, Wisconsin. ii. M. L. C., born at West Salem, Wisconsin, December 11, 1855. iii. John Francis, born at West Salem, Wisconsin, Febru- ary 3. 1858. iv. Lincoln Hamlin, born at West Salem, Wisconsin, April 11, 1860, died at Idaho Springs, Colorado, June II, 1884. 2. John Eaton, of whom below. 3. Jacob Francis, of whom below.
(VI) John Eaton Tourtellotte, son of Jacob and Polly (Ballord) Tourtellotte, was born in Thompson, Connecticut, July 3. 1833, died July 22, 1891. After an ex- cellent preparatory education he entered Brown University, and on graduating be- gan the study of law at the Albany (New York) Law School. After two years of study he was graduated and removed to Mankato, Minnesota, where he very suc-
cessfully prosecuted his profession. The call for volunteers for the Civil War caused him to abandon everything for the service of his country ; he received a commission, first as captain, and then as lieutenant-colonel of the Fourth Minne- sota Regiment. He saw much service, and at the battle of Altoona Pass, second in command, was desperately wounded. On recovering, he was able to join Sher- man in his famous march to the sea. In 1865 he was brevetted brigadier-general for bravery. After the war, he resumed his profession at Mankato, but in 1869, through General Sherman, reentered the United States army with the rank of captain, in the Seventh Cavalry; in 1873 he became major; and was colonel and aide-de-camp to General Sherman, being chief of staff from 1871 until Sherman's death in 1885. In 1885 he retired from the army and settled in La Crosse, Wis- consin. where he died in 1891. He is buried in the National Cemetery at Arl- ington. General Tourtellotte served at West Point as one of the board of three for revising army tactics. He was on other occasions one of the escorts of Lord Lorne, Governor-General of Canada when the latter, with the Princess Louise, paid their notable visit to this country. General Tourtellotte also was distin- guished for the service he rendered on several important courts martial.
On his death he bequeathed a large share of his fortune to his brother, Dr. Jacob Francis Tourtellotte.
(VI) Jacob Francis Tourtellotte, M. D., son of Jacob and Polly (Ballord) Tourtellotte, was born at Thompson, Windham county, Connecticut, Decem- ber 26, 1835. His birth was happily into surroundings of comfort, and an environ- ment the influences of which inculcated a high moral standard ; his boyhood years were passed amid the beautiful surround-
S
fit, Tountillotte
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF BIOGRAPHY
ings of his native village, while the com- mon schools of his State afforded him his first educational training, and there- after, he matriculated at an academy for higher education at Bridgewater, Massa- chusetts, where he followed a course of study in the collegiate branches of learn- ing.
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