History of Bridgeport and vicinity, Part 1

Author: Waldo, George Curtis, Jr., ed
Publication date: 1917
Publisher: New York, Chicago, S. J. Clarke Publishing
Number of Pages: 872

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Gc 974.602 B76W v.2 1169595

SENEALCCY COLLECTION

ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 01068 5276

HISTORY OF BRIDGEPORT AND VICINITY

5 1

-. C. Waldo

ILLUSTRATED

VOLUME II

NEW YORK-CHICAGO THE S. J. CLARKE PUBLISHING COMPANY 1917

1169595

DR. ROBERT HUBBARD

BIOGRAPHICAL

ROBERT HUBBARD, M. D.

Dr. Robert Hubbard, of Bridgeport, was born April 27, 1826, in Upper Middletown, now the town of Cromwell, in Middlesex county, Connecticut. He was a descendant of a prominent pioneer family, the first American Hubbard having come from England to the Connecticut colony about 1660. His father. Jeremiah Hubbard, was also a native of Upper Middletown and for many years sailed a vessel in the West Indies trade and also engaged in farming in this state. He married Elizabeth Roberts, a native of Middletown and a daughter of Winkham Roberts, who was a farmer. To this marriage were born eight sons and two daughters.

Robert Hubbard was the eldest of the family and in his boyhood attended the district schools but spent most of his time in work on the farm, his services being badly needed in the cultivation of the fields, so that his educational opportunities were therefore some- what limited. Finally, however, he entered the academy and worked his way through that institution. In 1846, at the age of twenty years, he had finished his preparatory course and was then admitted to Yale College. At the close of his freshman year he accepted the position of principal in the academy at Durham, Connecticut, and a year later he was induced to take up the study of medicine. After two years as principal of the academy he entered the office of Dr. Benjamin F. Fowler, who directed his reading for about a year, when be became a student under Dr. Nathan B. Ives, of New Haven. During the two years spent under Dr. Ives he also attended the Yale Medical School and in 1851 was graduated with the M. D. degree, winning the valedictorian honors of his class.

In February, 1851, Dr. Hubbard removed to Bridgeport and opened an office on Wall street. He was without capital and in fact had incurred an indebtedness of two thousand dollars in meeting his expenses while pursuing his education. With resolute energy, however, he set to work and soon won a good practice, early demonstrating his ability to successfully cope with the complex and intricate problems that continually confront the physician. In . May, 1854, he entered into partnership with David H. Nash and that relationship was main- tained for seventeen years. In 1861 Dr. Hubbard was appointed by Governor Buckingham a member of the board of medical examiners to examine every applicant for surgical work in connection with the Connecticut regiments and in 1862 he went to the field as a surgeon of the Seventeenth Regiment of Connecticut Infantry. Later he was promoted to the position of brigade surgeon in General Sigel's Corps and following the battle of Chancellorsville was made division surgeon in General Devin's command. He was next given the rank of medical inspector on the staff of General Howard and at Gettysburg he served as medical director in chief of the Eleventh Corps, which he also accompanied to Lookout Mountain, where he was staff surgeon to General Hooker. He participated in the battles of Lookout Mountain, Missionary Ridge and Ringgold and won high professional honors through his splendid service there. On account of ill health he resigned from the army and returned

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to Bridgeport, where he resumed practice, but suffered greatly from sciatica and in search of relief he took three trips abroad, incidentally studying in Europe. Something of his standing among his professional colleagues is indicated by the fact that in 1979 he was elected to the presidency of the Connecticut State Medical Society.

This, however, was but one phase of his activity. His powers of leadership were recog- nized in other directions and in 1874 he was elected from Bridgeport to the state legislature. The following year he was nominated for congress but was defeated by William H. Barnum. In 1876 he was again sent to the legislature and in the following year was again nominated for congress but was defeated by Levi Warner.

On the 15th of April, 1855, Dr. Hubbard was married to Miss Cornelia Boardman, a daughter of Sherman and Sophia (Hartwell) Boardman, of Bridgeport. She passed away in 1871, leaving a son and two daughters. Sherman Hartwell, a Yale graduate, who engaged in the practice of law, died in 1891. He had married Comete Ludeling and they had one son, John T. Ludeling Hubbard. Sophia Todd Hubbard became the wife of Charles M. Everett, of Rochester, New York. Cornelia E. Hubbard became the wife of Courtlandt H. Trowbridge, a ship owner and trader of New Haven.

Dr. Robert Hubbard on the 18th of July, 1897, while ascending his office steps fell to the sidewalk, fracturing his skull, and passed away the next morning at the home of his daughter-in-law, Mrs. C. F. Stead, of Bridgeport.

PHINEAS TAYLOR BARNUM.

Bridgeport probably had no more distinguished citizen than Phineas Taylor Barnum, whose eventful life was closed at his home in this city on the 7th of April, 1891. He was one of the most public-spirited citizens of the community, always taking a keen and help- ful interest in Bridgeport's progress. Anything, no matter how large or small, that per- tained to or involved the city in any way was of great interest to him. He was a lineal descendant in the sixth generation from Thomas Barnum, who was one of the first eight settlers of the town of Danbury, Connecticut, they purchasing the land from the Indians in 1684, and making their residence there in the spring of 1685.

Ephraim Barnum II, grandson of Thomas Il, born in 1733, married in 1753, Keziah Covell. by whom he had ten children. He married (second) in 1776, Mrs. Rachel Starr Beebe, daughter of Jonathan and Rachel (Taylor) Starr, and widow of Jonathan Becbe, of Dan- bury. They had five children, among them being Philo, born in 1778, married Polly Fairchild, of Newtown, Connecticut, who died in 1808, leaving five children. He then married Irene Taylor, daughter of Phineas and Mollie (Sherwood) Taylor, of Bethel, and among the five children of this marriage was Phineas Taylor, born July 5, 1810, at Bethel, in Fairfield county.

The grandfather of our subject was a captain in the Revolutionary war. His father was a tailor, farmer and sometimes hotel-keeper, and Phineas drove cows to pasture, weeded garden, plowed fields, made hay, and, when possible, went to school. Later on he became clerk in a country store established by his father. The latter dying in 1825, leaving the family in comparatively indigent circumstances, young Phineas then started into the world, securing employment for a time with a mercantile firm at Grassy Plains, his remuneration being six dollars per month. In 1826 he went to the city of Brooklyn as clerk in the store of Oliver Taylor, and for a time in the following year he was in busi- ness in New York. In 1829 he had a fruit and confectionery store in his grandfather's carriage house in Bethel, and also had on hand "lottery business." and was auctioneer in the book trade. In 1831. in company with his uncle, Alanson Taylor, he opened a country store in Bethel. Several months later the nephew bought out the uncle's interest, and

PHINEAS T. BARNUM

BRIDGEPORT AND VICINITY

also the same year, on October 19th, he issued the first copy of the Herald of Freedom. Unfortunately he lacked the experience which indicates caution and was soon plunged into litigation, being finally sentenced to pay on one suit a fine of one hundred dollars and be imprisoned in the jail for sixty days. He had a good room, lived well and had con- tinued visits from friends, edited his paper as usual, and received large accessions to the subscription lists. At the expiration of his imprisonment he received an ovation, and after a sumptuous dinner, with toasts, speeches and ode and oration, in a coach drawn by six horses, accompanied by a band of music, forty horseman, sixty carriages of citizens and the marshal of oration of the day, amid roar of cannons and cheers of a multitude Mr. Barnum rode to his home in Bethel, where the band played "Home Sweet Home," and the procession then returned to Danbury. His editor's career was one of continual contest, but he persevered in the publication of the Herald of Freedom until the spring of 1835. He then removed to New York, and after being engaged as a drummer for several firms opened a private boarding house, at the same time purchasing an interest in a grocery store.

In 1835 Mr. Barnum began the business which has made his name a household word in all civilized nations. His start as a showman began by the purchase and exhibition of Joyce Heath, a colored woman, said to have been the nurse of General George Washington, and one hundred and sixty-one years of age. His next venture was the exhibition of "Signor Antonio" and a "Mr. Roberts." In 1836 he connected himself with Aaron Turner's traveling circus, going south. In the following year he organized a new company and went west, reaching the Missouri river, where he purchased a steamer and sailed down the river for New Orleans. There he traded the steamer for sugar and molasses and returned north, arriving at New York, June 4, 1838. In 1841 he bought the American Museum in that city and commenced a series of improvements by way of attractive exhibitions. He introduced the lecture room, a reform of the stage or theatre. He was constantly searching for and obtaining something new, amusing and wonderful, and all the exhibitions he made were instructive to the people, moral and elevating. His methods of bringing his institution constantly before the minds of the people and the success thereby secured first impressed the American mind with the advantages of advertising. In 1842 he secured General Tom Thumb for exhibition; in 1844 he took him, in company with his parents, across the ocean. They went to London and soon to the presence of the queen at Buckingham Palace. From London the party went to Paris, where the General received great attention. He was invited to the presence of the king and queen and the royal family. For the first day's exhibition to the general public in Paris, Mr. Barnum received fifty-five hundred francs. From Paris the party traveled through France and Belgium and baek to England, where the profitable exhibition continued until the return to New York in 1847. The General's father, on arriving from England with a handsome fortune, placed a portion of it at interest for the General, more for himself, and with thirty thousand dollars of it built a substantial dwelling on the corner of North avenue and Main street, Bridgeport.

After returning to America, Mr. Barnum made a tour with his little general through the United States and Cuba. It was during this tour in 1847-48 that he had his beau- tiful dwelling built in Bridgeport, which he called "Iranistan," the word signifying "Ori- ental Villa," and on November 14, 1848, nearly one thousand guests were present at an old-fashioned "house warming." It stood a little back from the northeast corner of the present Fairfield and Iranistan avenues, and some years after it accidentally took fire and was consumed. This beautiful and very remarkable structure, built in oriental style, was the first great boom for the celebrity of Bridgeport. The picture of it went over the country in the illustrated papers as "a thing of beauty," a marvel of wonder and an honor to all America.

The Jenny Lind enterprise was the next great undertaking of Mr. Barnum. It was

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conceived by him in October, 1849, the engagement made with the great singer January 9, 1850, by which one hundred and eighty-seven thousand, five hundred dollars was to be deposited by Mr. Barnum in advance of all proceedings, and which was done. Miss Lind arrived in New York, September 1, 1850, and the first concert occurred September 11th following, the proceeds of which amounted to seventeen thousand, eight hundred and sixty-four dollars and five cents. Ninety-three concerts were given under Mr. Barnum's contract, terminating in May, 1851, the receipts for which amounted to one hundred and twelve thousand, one hundred and sixty-one dollars and thirty-four cents. It was the greatest project of the kind ever introduced into Amer- ica up to that day and probably to the present, unless it be "Barnum's Greatest Show on Earth." and was successfully, and even grandly, carried through. During this time the American Museum was running successfully with Tom Thumb in attendance, besides many other entertainments added every year. About this time he fitted out his "Great Asiatic Caravan, Museum and Menagerie" at an expense of upward of one hundred thousand dollars and exhibited it for four years.

In 1851 Mr. Barnum purchased of William H. Noble, of Bridgeport, the undivided half of his late father's estate, consisting of fifty acres of land lying on the east side of the river, opposite the city of Bridgeport. They intended this as the nucleus of a new city, which they concluded could soon be built in consequence of the many natural advantages it possessed. In view of securing this end, a clock company, in which Mr. Barnum was a stockholder, was prevailed upon to transfer its establishment from the town of Litch- field to the new city. In addition to this it was proposed to transfer the entire business of the Jerome Clock Company of New Haven to East Bridgeport, and for this purpose Mr. Barnum lent that company money and notes to the amount of one hundred and ten thousand dollars, with the positive assurance this would be the extent of the company's call on him; but by peculiar management on the part of the company they soou had Mr. Barnum involved to the amount of over half a million dollars. Then they failed, and after absorbing all of Mr. Barnum's fortune they paid but from twelve to fifteen per cent of the company's obligations, while, in the end, they never removed to East Bridgeport. Mr. Barnum's extrication of himself from this gulf of obligation by paying such a percentage on the whole as could not be met by the sale of all his property at the time, was a finan- cial feat of the highest genius, energy and honor.

Early in 1857 Mr. Barnum again went to Europe, taking with him General Tom Thumb and also little Cordelia Howard and her parents, and traveled through England, Germany and Holland, experiencing with the little folks a most cordial and enthusiastic greeting all the way. It was soon after his return from this European tour that the beau- tiful "Iranistan" was destroyed by fire. Early in 1858 Mr. Barnum returned to England. taking Tom Thumb, and with some help to manage the exhibition through Scotland and Wales, as well as elsewhere, he devoted himself to the "lecture field," taking for his theme, "The Art of Making Money." and by it he made money, hand over hand, and sent it home to apply on the clock enterprise. In 1859 he returned to the United States and, pushing on his museum, found himself in 1860 within twenty thousand dollars of extin- guishing the last claim from the old clock business. This he provided for and resumed the full control of his old museum. In 1860 he built a new house in Bridgeport, on Fairfield avenne. about one hundred rods west of the site of "Iranistan," which was named "Lindencroft." in honor of Jenny Lind. and gave his attention anew to the building of his pet city, East Bridgeport. This had already made great progress. In 1856 the Wheeler & Wilson Sewing Machine Company had purchased the old clock shop, greatly enlarged it. and were employing something like a thousand hands. Churches, dwellings and other manufactories, including that of the Howe Sewing Machine Company, had been built and the place had become quite a city. From 1860 to the time of his death Mr. Barnum, although engaged with the New York Museum for years and afterward with his great

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show. did not cease to give much attention and energetic effort to the building, prosperity and success of the city of Bridgeport.

In 1861 Mr. Barnum introduced into his Museum Commodore Nut, and in 1862 he secured another dwarf in the person of Lavinia Warren. In 1865 the American Museum in New York was burned with great loss, but Mr. Barnum at once built another, which was also burned with great loss in 1868. By these two catastrophes about a million dollars worth of Mr. Barnum's property in one dwelling and two museums had been destroyed by fire. In 1867 he sold his home, "Lindencroft," and removed to the locality where he resided for years, commencing the erection of that residence in 1868. This he named "Waldemere," the word meaning "Woods-by-the-Sea." When he purchased this land it lay adjoining the west end of Seaside Park, being a portion of an old farm, and extended from Atlantic street to the shore of the Sound. Believing as he did then that Seaside Park would be a very great advantage to the people of the city, he gave seven acres lying in front of his residence to the city for enlargement of the park. In 1884 he gave thirty acres more, extending the park westward toward Black Rock Harbor.

In 1870 Mr. Barnum commenced preparations for a great show and enterprise, com- prising a museum, menagerie, caravan, hippodrome and circus, and to this show from that time on he devoted a great portion of his untiring energy. This he styled "The Greatest Show on Earth." This show opened for a few weeks in the spring every year in the large Madison Square Garden in New York, and during each summer it visited the prin- cipal cities in the United States and Canada, from Quebec and Montreal on the east, to Omaha, Nebraska, on the west, exhibiting under immense tents, in one of which could be seated twenty thousand persons. It consisted of a large menagerie of rare wild beasts, a museum of human phenomena and living specimens of savage and strange tribes and nations, including, without regard to cost, everything rare and marvelous which his wealth, energy and perseverance, and experience as a public manager could gather. The "Ethno- logical Congress" of this show contained the greatest collection of different types of strange and savage tribes gathered from the remotest corners of the earth ever seen together. The great elephant Jumbo, purchased by Mr. Barnum from the Royal Zoological Gardens, London, being the largest land animal seen for centuries, and forty other Ameri- can and Indian elephants, including two baby elephants-these and scores of other trained animals transported on nearly a hundred railway cars belonging to Mr. Barnum, created an expense of five thousand to six thousand dollars each day and brought over a million dollars in a single season. In the latter years of his life Mr. Barnum took several experi- enced partners, the contract of copartnership extending for years, and arrangements were made for its continuance after that time by their successors. The winter headquarters of the show, which still bears Mr. Barnum's name, is located at Bridgeport, and the build- ings and grounds are annually inspected by thousands.

In 1875 Mr. Barnum was elected mayor of Bridgeport, and as he always had its best interests at heart, it is needless to say that his administration was eminently successful. The improvement in the Park City during the past decade can easily be traced back to the pioneer hand of this generous gentleman. He secured to the city the beautiful Moun- tain Grove cemetery. He laid out many streets and planted hundreds of trees in Bridge- port proper, built blocks of houses, many of which he sold to mechanics on the installment plan. thus providing a home for the thrifty with as little cost as would be the payment of rent. Bridgeport, with its many handsome gifts, notably the Barnum Institute of Science and History, from this generous and eminent man, will revere his name for generations to come; and in all cities, towns and hamlets of this, or any country, the people will remem- ber P. T. Barnum and his "Greatest Show on Earth" when all else is forgotten.

Mr. Barnum also gave to Tufts College, Massachusetts, one hundred thousand dollars, with which was erected and stocked the Barnum Museum of Natural History. Politically Mr. Barnum was a democrat previous to the breaking out of the Civil war, but after that

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period up to the time of his death he was a republican. In 1865 he was elected a representa- tive to the general assembly of Connecticut from the town of Fairfield, and from Bridgeport in 1877.

In 1876 Mr. Barnum wrote a book of fiction founded on fact, entitled. "The Adven- ture of Lion Jack, or How Managers are Made," which was dedicated to the boys of America. In 1881 Mr. Barnum presented to Bethel, his birthplace, a bronze fountain, which was made in Germany. From an impromptu speech made on the occasion the fol- lowing is an extract: "My friends: Among all the varied scenes of an active and event- ful life, crowded with strange incidents of struggle and excitement, of joy and sorrow, taking me often through foreign lands and bringing me face to face with the king in his palace and the peasant in his turf-covered hut, I have invariably cherished-with the most affectionate remembrance of the place of my birth-the old village meeting house, with- ont steeple or bell, where in the square family pew I sweltered in summer and shivered through my Sunday school lessons in winter, and the old school house, where the ferrule, the birchen rod and rattan did active duty, of which I deserved and received a liberal share."

On November 8, 1829, Mr. Barnum was married to Charity Hallett, a native of Bethel, who bore him children as follows: Caroline C., Helen M., Frances I. and Pauline T. The mother of these, who was born October 28, 1808, died November 19, 1873. On September 16, 1874. the father married Miss Naney Fish, of Southport, Lancashire, England. In 1889 "Waldemere" was removed to make room for "Marina," the later residence of the family at Bridgeport.

WORDIN FAMILY.

For the larger part of two centuries the Wordin family has been established in or near the present city of Bridgeport and has been conspicuously and most influentially and honorably identified with the progress of the community. Its representative members have been active, prominent and successful in its religious, social, commercial and professional life. The family lineage is traced to Thomas Wordin, who was a resident of Stratford. Fairfield county, and married, in 1728, Jemima, daughter of David and Anne (Seeley) Beardsley. David Beardsley was a son of William Beardsley, who eame to America in 1635 and became one of the founders of Stratford, Connecticut, in 1638. Captain William Wordin, son of Thomas, before mentioned, was born in what is now Trumbull, Connecticut, then North Stratford, and in 1772 purchased land of Ezra Kirtland in what is now the city of Bridgeport and erected bis homestead at the corner of State street and Park avenue. He was a prominent citizen of the community, serving on the society's committee of the church and also on the school committee. During the Revolution he was captain of the Householders, a local militia company. He died in 1808. His wife was Anna Odell of Fairfield, Connecticut, daughter of Samuel and Judith Ann (Wheeler) Odell. Anna Odell was born in 1737 and died in 1805.

William Wordin (II), son of Captain William, was born in 1759 and died in Bridgeport, April 15, 1814. He married Dorcas Cooke, who died in 1854 at the age of ninety-one. She was a daughter of John and Martha (Booth) Cooke and a descendant of Thomas Cooke, who came to Quinnipiack, now New Haven, in 1630. In this direct line of aneestry was the Rev. Samuel Cooke, Yale 1705, rector of the Hopkins Grammar School, clerk of the Connecticut legislature, member of the Yale Corporation and second pastor of the Church of Christ of Stratfield, now the First Congregational church of Bridgeport, of which the present members of the family are attendants. Another line of ancestry is traced to Governor William Leete of the New Haven colony, 1661 to 1665, and of the Connecticut colony, 1678 to 1693.

Thomast. Herden .

Mig Horden

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Thomas Cooke Wordin, son of William Wordin (11), was born in 1787 in the Wordin homestead built by his grandfather on what is now the corner of State street and Park avenue, Bridgeport. In boyhood he became a clerk in the drug store of Samuel Darling at New Haven, and at the age of twenty-one he embarked in the same business for himself in Bridgeport. Throughout his active life he prosecuted this enterprise with marked success, his store being in a building erected by him about 1816 on State street, just west of the old postoffice. He was one of the representative merchants of his time and was known for the strictest integrity as well as for old fashioned New England ideas and principles. Acquiring by purchase the Norwalk flouring mills, he remodeled them for grinding spices, and the resulting product commanded a ready market. He offered two thousand dollars toward establishing a public square west of Courtland street, Bridgeport, but the offer was not acted upon. He died November 20, 1852. In 1812 he married Ann, daughter of Philemon and Hepsibah (Burr) Sherwood and a descendant of Thomas Sherwood, who came from Ipswich, England, on the ship Frances in 1634 and several years later settled at Fairfield. About the time of the close of the War of 1812, Thomas C. Wordin left his wife and infant son, Nathaniel S., for a trip to Boston on the sloop Othello. commanded by Captain Joel Thorp. They were captured by the British and Mr. Wordin had great difficulty in being released and returning home. While he was gone, his wife, becoming alarmed at the frequent reports that the British had landed to pillage Bridgeport, took her infant son before the morning dawn and walked to her father's house some three miles away. The children born to Mr. and Mrs. Wordin were: Nathaniel S .; Lney S., who married Edmund S. Hawley; Susan, who married Charles Kelsey; Thomas, who died in infancy; Ehner and a twin brother (unnamed), both of whom died in infancy; Mary; Ann B., who gave her hand in marriage to Deacon John W. Hincks; Caroline, who married W. W. Naramore; Thomas C., who married Betsey Ann Plumb, of Trumbull; and Elizabeth, who died in young womanhood.

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History of Bridgeport and vicinity, Part 1

Author: Waldo, George Curtis, Jr., ed Publication date: 1917 Publisher: New York, Chicago, S. J. Clarke Publishing Number of Pages: 872

Author: Waldo, George Curtis, Jr., ed
Publication date: 1917
Publisher: New York, Chicago, S. J. Clarke Publishing
Number of Pages: 872