USA > Connecticut > Litchfield County > A biographical history of the county of Litchfield, Connecticut: comprising biographical sketches of distinguished natives and residents of the county; together with complete lists of the judges of the county court, justices of the quorum, county commissioners, judges of probate, sheriffs, senators, &c. from the organization of the county to the present time > Part 25
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This entire community, which is deeply impressed by the sad prov- idence which has convened us this afternoon, miglit, by the dead, be thus
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admonished, could his voice once more be heard : Boast not your- selves of to-morrow, for ye know not what a day may bring forth ; for what is your life ? it is even a vapor which appeareth for a little while, and then vanisheth away. The end of all things is at hand ; in such an hour as ye think not, the Son of Man cometh ; be therefore sober, and watch unto prayer, that your loins may be girt about, your souls may be prepared for death, and yourselves waiting and ready for the advent of your .Judge.
Ah! desolate parents, chastened relatives, gentlemen of the law, soldiers, christian brethren, citizens: the departed and lamented one will not speak to us again! but, till the voice of the archangel and the trump of God, announcing the final judgment, and the descent from heaven of the Son of Man, shall awake the slumbering dead, he shall lie in silence, sealed and deep, which no lapse of years, no revolution of ages can ever break ! To his long rest in the dust of the earth we then lay him down, with the assured hope, that if he died in the Lord, he is sleeping in Jesus, who by the sudden and calamitous bereave- ment we have all sustained, as well as by his living word and striving Spirit, is calling to every one of us, who is still reposing in his sins : Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and I will give thee light: hear, and your soul shall live !"
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CHARLES G. FINNEY.
REV. CHARLES G. FINNEY, the celebrated Revivalist, was born in Warren, on the 29th of August, 1792. The following interesting facts respecting his early life, conversion, &c. are con- tained in communication to the New York Evangelist, in May, 1850, written from Adams, Jefferson County, N. Y.
" His father was a plain farmer. On reaching manhood, he left the paternal estate, and commenced the study of law in this village. He also led the choir of the Presbyterian church. His clear intel- lect and independence of character, gave him a commanding influ- ence over the youth of the place. He was intellectually orthodox on the great doctrines of revelation, but impenitent and careless. His views of Christian duty were so vivid, that he poured contempt on the apathy of the church. A fellow-student, (now Judge W-,) remarked to me recently, that Finney asked him one evening to attend a prayer-meeting. They went, and upon their return, Mr. F. said with an oath, that it made him indignant to hear Christians pray after that fashion-"they didn't know what they wanted." He often told professors of religion and clergymen, that they were not sincere-that it was not possible to believe that he and others were on the verge of hell, and yet be so indifferent in regard to the terrific fact-and assured them, if he ever served God, it would be in earnest-he would "pull men out of the fire." This fearless manner gave him tremendous power, and one minister remarked that the young people would not be converted while
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Finney was here. But during the great revival of 1821, he was reached by the truth of God-in an agony of conviction, he retired to a grove alone, and yielded to the Spirit. Returning to his office, he invited Dea. B. to come in; and with tears and smiles of rapture, told him what had transpired. When it was known in the place, many seemed to feel like the disciples when Saul was converted-they were in doubt. When he arose in the crowded sanctuary soon after, his first expression was, "My God! is it I?" He acted immediately on his former assurance. No modern Christian ever more literally exemplified Paul's experience, who warned men day and night with tears. This has ever been his manner of life, from that time of consecration to the Lord. His way of conducting meetings was always solemn ; he never appealed to the animal feelings ; his dependence was prayer, and a pungent presentation of God's law and man's ruin, without hope but in the arms of a Mediator. Mr. F. doubtless, had faults - some eccen- tricities, but they were those of a man who was thoroughly pene- trated with a sense of eternal realities. Heaven and hell were words full of meaning to him. We find everywhere noble monu- ments of his labors in the gospel - the pillars in many a Zion, will call him blessed at the last day. And doubtless a rank of pro- fessed disciples, and among them not a few ministers, who have ignorantly or malignantly reproached him, will gaze there upon his radiant crown with wonder, while their own will be set with com- paratively a few stars of rejoicing."
Mr. Finney commenced his labors in the ministry in 1824, at the age of thirty-two. His preaching, from the first, seems to have had a startling effect upon his auditors, and powerful revivals followed his labors wherever he went. He determined not to enter the pastoral office, but to continue his labors as an evange- list, which he did, with wonderful success, until 1835, when he accepted a Professorship in Oberlin College, Ohio. He, however, continued to preach in the City of New York during certain por- tions of each year, for some time after his removal to Ohio.
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In 1848, Prof. Finney visited England, where he was received with high consideration by the Christian public. In that country he continued for about three years, returning to New York just in time to participate in the "Anniversary Exercises," in May, 1851. Of his labors abroad, something may be inferred from the following significant paragraph from the London Morning Chronicle : " Dr. Finney, the celebrated American revivalist, leaves England for his native country by the next Steamer. Though he came here for purposes of health and relaxation, he has not been idle. His fer- vid eloquence has created a powerful and we hope a permanent effect wherever he preached. Perhaps no man since the days of George Whitfield, has succeeded in producing a more wonderful sensation."
The following are some of Prof. Finney's published works, viz : " Sermons on Important Subjects," 277 pp. Svo ; three editions of which had been published in this country, in 1836, and several editions abroad ; " Lectures on Revivals," pp. 437, 12mo; six edi- tions of which had been published in 1835 ; " On Sanctification," pp. 150, 16mo, 1840; "Systematic Theology," 2 vol. pp. 600 and 583, 8vo, 1847; "Guide to the Saviour," 204 pp. 16mo ; and several other smaller works. An edition of " Systematic The- ology" was published in London in 1851, in one volume of 1016 pages, with a preface by the Rev. Dr. Redford, of Worcester, who says that " when a student he would gladly have bartered half the books in his library to have gained a single perusal of this volume."
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GEORGE B. HOLT.
THIS gentleman was born in Norfolk, in the year 1790, and is now in the 60th year of his age. With fine talents, more of a practical than of a showy kind, he has been enabled to leave his mark, broad and deep, on the early Legislation of Ohio, and the future historian, in giving to the public that desideratum, a history of that State, (for it has yet to be written,) must give the name of Mr. Holt a place among the patriotic and the far-seeing statesmen of the commonwealth, who, a quarter of a century ago, planted the seed which has made Ohio the third, if not the second in rank among the states of the Union.
The parents of Mr. Holt, early designed him for the legal pro- fession, and his inclinations being nothing averse to the course marked out, he entered the Law School of Judges Reeve & Gould, in Litchfield, and in 1812, underwent an examination, and being found qualified, was licensed to practice law.
Ohio, at that time, was in the " far west," and the hardy emi- grants who had sought its wilds, after the close of the war, were loud in their praises of its vast fertility, and of the magnificent wildness of its scenery. The ambition of young Holt was fired- he wished to see the country,-to become a part and parcel of it, and to share the privations of its settlers, and in 1819, we find him a citizen of the then small village of Dayton, and the following year, he raised his shingle as an Attorney at Law.
The profession of law, at that time, was no sinecure. The cir- cuits extended over many counties, in most of which roads were
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but bridle paths, and houses of entertainment few and far between. Bridges, there were none in the country, and when the streams were swollen into angry floods by the spring freshets, the members of the bar had to brave the torrent, and trust to a frail canoe, after driving their horses across, or else to plunge in, and trust to their horses to carry them safe across, and then, wet, chilled and weary, to traverse the woods for miles before they could espy the blue smoke of the log cabin, by whose hospitable hearth they could dry their clothes. The history of the early bar of that state, would be among the most readable of books, for many were the mishaps and adventures of these disciples of Blackstone and Chitty, which still live in memory, and are cherished by the younger members of the profession, as the child cherishes the legends in which his father bore a part.
During the Administration of Mr. Monroe, party politics meas- urably died away, nevertheless there were times, places and occa- sions in which the spirit of party was temporarily aroused. Such was the fact in Dayton, in the year 1822, when Mr. Holt estab- lished, and for three years conducted the " Miami Republican," a newspaper, devoted to news, agriculture, and the dissemination of Democratic doctrines.
In the fall of 1824, Mr. Holt was a candidate for, and elected to, the Legislature of the State, and deeply participated in the passage of the laws which made that session the most important ever held in Ohio. The lands of the State were then divided into first, second and third classes, and taxed accordingly -the improved farms as high as the wild lands of the same class. The injustice of the system and the gross inequality of the classification, by which the sterile hills of eastern Ohio, in many cases, were taxed as high as the rich alluvian of the Miami and Sciota valleys, called loudly for amendment, yet it was not until the session of 1824-'25 that the evil was abated by the adoption of the ad valorem system, which from that time, became the settled policy of the State.
New York, under the auspices of De Witt Clinton, had commenced
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her canal policy, by which the waters of the Hudson were united with those of Lake Erie, so as to have a direct water communica- tion between the inland seas of the Northwest and those of the Atlantic. The necessity of similar communications between the Lakes and the Ohio river, sweeping through Ohio, had excited public attention, and with it, an oppositton of a bitter kind. Judge Holt stood forward as a prominent advocate of the work, and employed the columns of his paper to favor the measure, and this fact brought him forward more prominently as the man for the crisis. He was elected to the Legislature, and during the session which followed, the first canal law was passed, and under which the Ohio and the Miami canals were commenced, and the policy of the State in favor of internal improvements, from that moment was considered settled.
Ohio, at that time, had no school system. Parents in the thinly settled portions of the State, were forced to rely on chance for teachers, who were themselves better fitted to be taught than to be the instructors of embryo men, and who mainly relied upon the birch and ferule, to beat learning into the head of their pupils. Money at the time was scarce-but little produce was exported, and many men who had a farm they could call their own, were yet in circumstances too straitened to allow them to give their children that schooling so much needed, to make them useful citizens of community. To remedy this evil-to give all, the rich, the poor, the high and the low, the same benefits of a common school edu- cation, was a matter which excited much attention. Fortunately for the State, the Legislature of 1824-'25 was composed of men of more enlarged philanthropy than any which preceded it. Mr. Holt was appointed a member of the committee to whom the sub- ject was referred, and that committee reported a bill which passed into a law, and which established the common school system of Ohio.
To us, at this day, it seems a matter of astonishment, that such a system should meet with opposition ; yet such was the fact. It
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was deemed as a daring infringement on the rights of property- as a tyrannical and unjust law, which drew money from the pockets of the wealthy, to educate the children of other men. The poor were appealed to, and were told by those who opposed the law, that their children were to be educated at pauper schools, and their pride was thus aroused to resistance ; and, at the next elec- tion, the clamor became so great that many of the friends of the school system were sent into retirement. The colleague of Mr. Holt went down in the contest, and the Judge was reelected, chiefly from the fact that his services in securing the passage of the law for the construction of the Miami canal, in which his con- stituents felt a deep interest, gained him a popularity which ill- founded clamor could not shake. He was reëlected to the Legis- lature at the next session.
In 1827, during the palmy days of the militia system, Mr. Holt was elected Brigadier General, and for some years commanded one of the finest Brigades in the State.
At the annual election in 1828, Mr. Holt was elected to the State Senate, and served during the sessions of 1828-'29 and 1829-'30. He was Chairman of the Committee on Internal Improvements, then one of the most important in the body.
During the last session of which Mr. Holt was a member of the Legislature, he was elected President Judge of the Circuit Court, in which he had practiced law, and served during the constitu- tional term of seven years. At the commencement of his term of service on the Bench, the circuit was composed of the counties of Montgomery, Clark, Champaign, Logan, Miami, Darke, Shelby and Mercer. The counties of Allen and Putnam were subsequently attached to the first circuit, over which Judge Holt presided, in lieu of Clark, Champaign and Logan, which were transferred to the seventh circuit.
At the end of his service as President Judge, Judge Holt par- tially resumed the practice of law, and, during which time, under appointment of the Court, he served one year as Prosecuting
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Attorney of Montgomery county, one year in the same office in Mercer, and two terms in the same station in the county of Van Wert.
At the session of the Legislature of 1842-'43, Judge Holt was again called to the Bench, by a reëlection to the office of President Judge of the same circuit, and served out his constitutional term.
During the interval between his first and second term as pre- siding Judge of the Common Pleas Court of his circuit, Judge Holt divided his time between his practice and agriculture and stock growing, of which latter he was always passionately fond, and spent large sums in improving the breed of cattle-he having introduced into the counties of Miami, Mercer and Montgomery, the first thorough bred short-horned Durham cattle -part of which time he filled the honorable station of President of the Agricultural Society of Montgomery county.
At the breaking out of the Cholera in Dayton, during the summer of 1849, it became an object of much concern, to have an able and energetic Board of Health, that the fell ravages of the disease might be stayed. Judge Holt, having been among the earliest and constant volunteers to visit and minister to the relief of the sufferers, was made President of the Board, in which capacity his services were constant, efficient, and highly valued by the citizens.
During the spring of 1850, in casting around for a man, at once available for his personal worth and popularity, and with an enlarged mind, to be the candidate of the Democratic party, in a county where the tide of popular favor runs in a contrary direc- tion, Judge Holt was found to possess all the requisites, and he received the nomination and was elected to the important station of Delegate to revise, amend or change the Constitution of the State. On his arrival in Columbus, to attend to the responsible duties of his station, he met Jacob Blickensderfer, of Tuscarawas, who had participated as a member from the county he represents, in the House of Representatives, during the important session of 1824-'25. From the adjournment of that Legislature, Judge
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Holt and Mr. Blickensderfer had never met, until they came together as Delegates to form a new Constitution for the State, for which they they had aided, a quarter of a century since, in giving a canal policy and a school system, which have stood the test of time, and have aided much in bringing Ohio to its present proud position.
As President Judge of the first Judicial circuit, Judge Holt gained an enviable reputution. He ranked, before his election to the Bench, as a sound lawyer, and to that he soon added the highest reputation of an able and impartial Judge. During a service of fourteen years in the service of the State, as presiding Judge of a circuit distinguished for the legal talent of its bar, it is a high compliment to say, that he gave entire satisfaction, and that, popular as he ever has been as a man, his popularity as a Judge exceeded it.
For thirty-five years past, Judge Holt has been a member of the Presbyterian Church, and although far from being a bigot in his religion, has ever been recognized as a sincere Christian. While on the Bench, he saw, in its worst form, the evils of intem- perance, and he was among the early, as he has ever been the steady friend of the temperance cause.
The mind of Judge Holt, as we before intimated, is less showy than solid. The distinguishing traits are a subjection of all ques- tions to a philosophic test, industry in investigation, and a perseve- ring pursuit of and rigid adherence to the just and true. In his domestic attachments, ardent and constant; ready and reliable in his friendships; and an active philanthropist. In politics he is a Democrat, with a strong tendency to radicalism. In the Conven- tion he was at the head of the committee on Jurisprudence, and, though a silent member, yet, if we mistake not, his impress for influence and utility, in the result of its deliberations, will be found deep and enduring.
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EBENEZER PORTER MASON
WAS born in Washington, December 7th, 1819. His father, the Rev. Stephen Mason, a native of Litchfield, was pastor of the Congregational Church in Washington, at the time of the birth of the subject of this notice. Young Mason, though he died in his 21st year, attained so distinguished a rank as a scholar, as to excite the wonder and admiration of the great men with whom circum- stances brought him in contact. At the same time, his amiable deportment and strict regard for Christian principle, won for him the affection of all.
Ebenezer pursued his preparatory studies at the celebrated school at Ellington, and entered Yale College in the autumn of 1835. Professor Olmsted says-"I well remember his appear- ance at that time, and the impression he made on me. He was now in his seventeenth year, but his figure, complexion and whole air, were those of a child of fourteen-being slender in person, complexion hale, voice soft, and his whole appearance very juve- nile. I was immediately struck with the superiority of his math- ematical powers and attainments, from the full and luminous expla- nations he gave of the principles of arithmetical rules, and from the ready and correct solutions he furnished of problems. I was uncommonly impressed with his adroitness in extracting roots, and in explaining the reason for each step of the process. Even in extracting the cube root, he required no figuring; but, soon after a case was proposed, he gave the answer by a process purely men- tal. I remember mentioning to a gentleman associated with me
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in the examination, that that boy was or would make a first rate mathematician. The first notice I had of his taste for astronomy, was one evening, when a small party of students of the senior class went, under my direction, to look for Halley's Comet, with a small telescope. It had already been seen in the large col- lege telescope, (which had afforded to Professor Loomis and myself the first view that was obtained of that remarkable body, on this side of the Atlantic;) but the object was now to find it by the aid of a small refractor. Mason obtained permission to be present, and excited much notice by his familiarity with the stars."
He soon became distinguished for the solution of problems, and obtained therefor the first premium of the Freshmen class. Not content with this, he even went in advance; and, simply for his amusement, solved all the problems of the Sophomore class. Some of these problems were of the most difficult class, but they were solved with great elegance and apparent ease, and many of them by several different methods. In the above paragraph, Professor Olmsted alludes to the "taste for astronomy" which Mason early manifested. The Professor, speaking of him during his Freshmen year, remarks: "Instead of the transient and superficial views which most persons are satisfied to take, when they first have access to a large telescope, we see him exploring at once all the phenomena of Jupiter-his belts-his moons, with their eclipses and the shadows.they cast on their primaries. With great delicacy, he marks the exact position of each body observed; and, if it has motions, delineates the precise path it has among the stars. The more hidden objects of astronomy are immediately sought for, as the Asteroids, Double Stars and Nebula; and we find only a day or two intervening before his resolution served him to rise in a cold morning, before day, to enjoy the luxurious view of the sys- tem of Saturn. This was the beginning of a course of night- watchings which speedily terminated his earthly career." His enthusiasm in this department of science continually increased, and he resolved, during his Sophomore year, to devote his life to
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his favorite pursuit. By means of a telescope, and other instru- ments of his own construction, he commenced calculating eclipses. During his Senior collegiate year, in connection with a fellow- student, he made the largest telescope then ever constructed on this side of the Atlantic.
Mason graduated in August, 1839. After remaining in New Haven for a few months as a resident graduate, pursuing his favorite studies, and writing and stereotyping a "Practical Treatise on Astronomy," he was invited to a Tutorship in Western Reserve College, Ohio. In consequence of the continued decline of his health, his friends dissuaded him from accepting the appointment. In the summer of 1840, he was selected as one of the Assistants to the Commissioners for exploring and fixing the disputed bound- ary between Maine and Canada. Thinking that the more active duties connected with such an expedition might be a means of restoring his health, he joined the Commissioners, at Portland, about the 1st of September. For several weeks, he was busily engaged in making surveys and taking observations-traveling on foot, or being rowed up the wild rivers of that inhospitable region -encamping out nights-and, in short, enduring all the fatigues and privations and hardships of the more robust members of the expedition. About the 1st of November, he returned to New York, and soon after took up his residence in the family of Pro- fessor Olmsted, where he completed his work on Astronomy, which was soon after published.
His health continuing to decline, in December he started on a visit to some relatives in Richmond, Virginia, hoping that the balmy air of the South might prove beneficial to him. He died at the residence of his uncle, (Rev. J. H. Turner,) near Rich- mond, on the 24th of that month, aged twenty-one years and seventeen days. In 1842, his Memoirs were published by Pro- fessor Olmsted, in a volume of 252 pages, with the following title : " Life and Writings of Ebenezer Porter Mason; interspersed with Hints to Parents and Instructors, on the Training and Education of a Child of Genius."
BRIEF NOTES Of some of the more prominent Native's and Residents of Litchfield County, not sketched in the preceding pages.
ADAMS, Andrew, LL. D., a native of Stratford, and a graduate of Yale Col- lege, settled in Litchfield in 1774, where he spent the remainder of his days. He was a Representative, Assistant, member of the continental congress, and chief justice of the State. Died November 29, 1799, aged 63. His mother died in Litchfield in 1803 aged 105 years.
ALLEN, John, a native of Great Barrington, Mass., settled in Litchfield as a lawyer in 1785, and died there in 1812. He was a Representative, member of Congress, &c. : he was not only a man of great intellect, but of giant stature -measuring full six and a half feet in height and weighing about 300 lbs. He rece.ved the honorary degree of A. M. at Yale in 1791. His son, John W. Als len of Cleveland, Ohio, was lately in Congress.
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