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 3
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New York, September 13th, 1789.
SIR :
It is with pleasure I am able to inform you, that you have been appointed Auditor in the Department of the Treasury. The salary of this office is $1500. Your friends having expressed a doubt of your acceptance, I cannot forbear saying that I shall be happy to find the doubt has been ill-founded, as from the character I have received of you, I am persuaded you will be an acquisition to the Department I need scarcely add that your presence here as soon as possible is essential to the progress of business.
I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
ALEXANDER HAMILTON, Secretary of the Treasury.
Mr. Wolcott, after some hesitation, accepted the appoint- ment, and forthwith took up his residence in New York, the then seat of Government. Mr. Eveleigh, the Comptroller of the Treasury, died in the spring of 1791; soon after which 1 Colonel Hamilton addressed a letter to the President, warmly recommending the appointment of Mr. Wolcott to the vacant post. In that letter he says-
" This gentleman's conduct in the station he now fills, has been that of an excellent officer. It has not only been good, but distinguished. It combines all the requisites which can be desired-moderation with firmness, liberality with exactness, indefatigable industry with an ac- curate and sound discernment ; a thorough knowledge of business, and a remarkable spirit of order and arrangement. Indeed I ought to say, that I owe very much of whatever success may have attended the merely executive operations of the department to Mr. Wolcott ; and I do not fear to commit myself, when I add, that he possesses in an eminent degree all the qualifications desirable in a Comptroller of the Treasury-that it is scarcely possible to find a man in the United
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States more competent to the duties of that station than himself-few who could be equally so."
It is hardly necessary to add, that Wolcott received the ap- pointment of Comptroller.
The U. S. Bank, created during the late session, was organi- zed in the summer of 1791. Wolcott wasoffered the Presiden- cy of the Bank, with an ample salary, which he declined ; "preferring the public service, and believing that such a station would be deemed unsuitable for a young man without property."
At this time. and during the whole of Wolcott's residence in Philadelphia, which had now become the seat of Government, his situation, though involving laborious duties, was in a high degree delightful. A society at that time existed there, mark- ed by every characteristic which could recommend it to one of a cultivated mind and social disposition, embracing much of the genius, the worth, and no little of the wit and the beauty of the county, and cemented by mutual confidence and congeniality of opinions and pursuits. Of this society, two members of Wolcott's family, his younger sister and his wife, were them- selves no inconsipuous ornaments. The former, married to the Hon. Chauncey Goodrich, was distinguished for her per- sonal beauty and brilliant conversation ; Mrs. Wolcott, with less beauty, had still a countenance of much loveliness, and manners graceful and dignified. To the most femenine gen- tleness of disposition, she added sound sense, and that kind of cultivation which is acquired in intercourse with thinkers .--- Both belonged to a class of women of whom Connecticut could then boast many, whose minds were formed, and habits of re- flection we directed by men ; and without coming within the category of female politicians, they had been almost from child- hood familiar with questions of public and general interest. An anecdote of General Tracy .* whose sarcasms were of old dreaded alike in the Senate chamber and in the drawing-room,
* Hon. URIAH TRACY, of Litchfield, then in the U. S. Senate.
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has been preserved, commemorative at once of Mrs. Wolcott's attraction and his own peculiar wit. Mr. Liston, who suc- ceeded Mr. Hammond as British Minister at Philadelphia, and who was thoroughly English in his ideas, on some occasion re- - marked to him, "Your countrywoman, Mrs. Wolcott, would be admired even at St. James.'" "Sir," retorted the Senator from Connecticut, "she is admired even on Litchfield Hill !"
On the last day of January, 1795, Col. Hamilton resigned the office of Secretary of the Treasury, and Mr. Wolcott was commissioned as his successor on the 2d of February following. The Cabinet now consisted of Edmund Randolph, Secretary of State ; Oliver Wolcott, Jr., of the Treasury ; Timothy Pick- ering, of War ; and William Bradford, Attorney General.
It appears that Washington had Wolcott in view among the persons upon whom the office of Secretary of State might be conferred. Mr. Jefferson says, " He asked me what sort of a man Mr. Wolcott was. I told him I knew nothing of him my- self. I had heard him characterized as a cunning man." -- Judging from his subsequent appointment to a more responsi- ble office, this hear-say slander had not much weight with Washington. Nothing could in fact be more unjust. The last quality of Wolcott's mind was 'cunning.'
Wolcott had at this time but just completed his thirty-fifth year ; but though thus young, he possessed in an eminent de- gree the requisites of a minister of finance. He had not, it is true, the brilliant qualities of genius ; but he had a comprehen- sive and well regulated mind, a judgment matured and reliable, strong practical good sense and native shrewdness. President Washington placed the fullest confidence in his intelliger ce and patriotism, and frequently consulted him on matters of great public importance. On the 25th of March, 1796, the President addressed him the following queries-
" SIR :
The Resolution moved in the House of Representatives for the pa- pers relative to the negociation of the Treaty with Great Britain, hav- ing passed in the affirmative, I request your opinion-
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Whether that branch of Congress hath or hath not a right by the Constitution, to call for these papers ? Whether, if it does possess the right, it would be expedient, under the circumstances of this par- ticular case, to furnish them ? And in either case, what terms would be more proper, to comply with, or refuse the request of the House ?
These opinions in writing, and your attendance, will be expected at 12 o'clock to-morrow. GEORGE WASHINGTON."
With the Fourth Congress, (1797,) the administration of Washington closed: Was it strange that there were few smiles on his last reception day, or that tears fell from eyes unused to them upon the hand that many pressed for the last time ? The relation in which the Secretaries had stood with the President, had been one of respectful but affectionate intimacy. Eamil- iarity with him was a thing impossible, but the most cordial and unreserved friendship was extended to all whom he trusted and esteemed. Wolcott, among others, had enjoyed much of the domestic society of the President's house, His gentle and graceful wife had been regarded with maternal solicitude by Mrs. Washington, and was the friend and correspondent of her eldest daughter. His child had been used to climb, con- fident of welcome, the knees of the chief ; and, though so ma- ny years his junior, while Wolcott's character and judgment had been held in respect by the President, his personal and social qualities had drawn towards him a warm degree of in- terest.
On leaving the seat of Government, Washington presented, it is believed, all his chief officers, with some token of regard. To Wolcott he gave a piece of plate. Mrs. Washington gave his wife, when visiting her for the last time, a relic still more interesting. Asking her if she did not wish a memorial of the General, Mrs. Wolcott replied, "Yes, I would like a lock of his hair." Mrs. Washington, 'smiling, took her scissors and cut off for her a large lock her husband's, and one of her own. These, with the originals of the President's letters, Wolcott pre- served with careful veneration, and divided between his survi- ving children.
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" On the retirement of General Washington," says Wolcott, " being desirous that my personal interests should not embar- rass his successor, and supposing that some other person might be preferred to myself, I tendered my resignation to Mr. Ad- ams before his inauguration. The tender was declined, and I retained office under my former commission."
On the 8th of November, 1800, Mr. Wolcott sent the Pres- ident his peremptory resignation of the office of Secretary of the Treasury-which was accepted by Mr. Adams. At Mr. Wolcott's request, a Committee was appointed by Congress to examine into the condition of the Department which he had vacated. The Committee consisted of Messrs. Otis, Nich- olas, Griswold, Nicholson, Waln, Stone, and Craik ; who, af- ter a thorough investigation, unanimously reported that "the financial concerns of the country have been left by the late Secretary in a state of good order and prosperity."
The subject of this notice had now, and as he supposed for- ever, retired from public life. The necessities of his family required that he should at once enter upon some active em- ployment for their maintenance-his whole property consisting at this time of a small farm in Connecticut, and a few hundred dollars in cash. He had the satisfaction of going out of office poorer than when, at the first establishment of the Government, he entered upon the duties of the auditorship. Men had not in those days acquired the art of becoming rich in the public service-though even then our officers were not exempt from the charge of peculation and fraud. It was a period character- ized by unprecedented bitterness of party spirit. The ste- reotyped charge of defalcation, made by the organ of the Jef- fersonian party, the Aurora, and other kindred prints, received a momentary impulse from two events of the winter of 1800- 1801. Fires successively occurred in the buildings occupied by the War and Treasury Departments. Furious attacks were at once made upon the federal officers, of which Wolcott re-
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ceived his full proportion. The fires, as a matter of course, were attributed to design, and party malignity vented itself in accusations of the most attrocious kind. The fact that the persons under whose charge the Departments had so long been, had resigned, and that the federal party itself was on the eve of going out of power-that predictions .of such occurrences had been among the thousand calumnies of hack editors-gave a tempory but only a temporary coloring to those falsehoods. A Committee of the House was appointed on the 10th of Feb- ruary, to examine into the cause of these occurrences -- a ma- jority of whom were members of the opposition. The Com- mittee reported that in regard to the fire in the War Depart- ment there was " no evidence whatever on which to ground a suspicion of its originating in negligence or design ;" that concerning the fire in the Treasury Department, "they had obtained no evidence which enables them to form a conjecture satisfactory." -- and therefore " choose to report in the words of the witnesses themselves." The published testimony of those witnesses, (though unsatisfactory to a party committee,) fully exhonorated Mr. Wolcott from all blame in the eye of the public.
Mr. W. now left Washington and repaired to Middletown, Connecticut, where his family had for some time resided: His resources but little exceeded what was necessary to satis- fy his family expenses for a few months. Most unexpectedly to him, he was nominated by President Adams as Judge of the United States Circuit Court for the second district, embra- cing the States of Connecticut, Vermont, and New York -- which nomination was unanimously confirmed by the Senate. This was a proud day for Wolcott-a day which forever silen- ced the calumnies of his political and personal enemies, both in and out of Congress. Partizan libelers no longer dared to throw out their base insinuations relative to the burning of the Treasury building, for the object of their vengeance was shield-
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ed by the unanimous vote of the American Senate, a large pro- portion of whose members were his political opponents.
On the 3d of March, 1801, the ascendency of the federal party in the United States ended, Mr. Jefferson succeeding Mr. Adams in the Presidential chair.
In 1802, the Judiciary Act under which Mr. Wolcott had been appointed to the Judgeship, was repealed. He then took up his residence in the city of New York, where he engaged in mercantile business, in company with nine other gentlemen, with a capital of $100,000. During the succeeding year, the Merchants' Bank, a joint stock corporation, was created, and he was elected its President The hostility of De Witt Clinton and Governor Lewis, however, shortly after destroyed it by effecting the passage of the act known as the 'restraining act.' It was subsequently re-incorporated, and flourished for many years under the Presidency of the late Lynde Catlin, Esq., also a native of Litchfield.
On the expiration of the charter of the first Bank of the United States, Mr. Wolcott employed nearly all his capital in establishing the Bank of America. It was incorporated in 1812, and he was chosen its first President, which office he held until 1814, when, in consequence of political differences between himself and the directors of the institution, he resign- ed. About this time, (in connection with his brother, the late Hon. Frederick Wolcott,) he commenced the extensive man- ufacturing establishments at Wolcottville, near Litchfield.
In 1815, he returned to his native town, and in the follow- ing year was placed in nomination by the democratic party as their candidate for Governor of the State of Connecticut, but was defeated. In 1817, he was elected Governor; and the same year he was chosen a member of the Convention which formed our present State Constitution, and was called to pre- side over the deliberations of that distinguished body. Hc was annually re-elected Governor for ten successive years.
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Governor Wolcott subsequently returned to New York, and died there on the 2d of June, 1833. He was the last survivor of Washington's Cabinet. The departure of few men from the world, ever produced a more deep and general feeling of sorrow. All felt that a most important link in the chain that united the present generation with the era of the Father. of his Country, was broken.
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JOHN TRUMBULL.
The family of Trumbull was among the early settlers of New England. Their ancestor came from England, and in 1645 fixed his residence at Ipswich in Massachusetts. His son, John, removed to Suffield, in this State. He had three sons, John, Joseph,' and Benoni. The Rev. Benjamin Trumbull. D. D., the historian of Connecticut, was a grandson of Benoni ; Joseph settled at Lebanon, and at his death left one son, Jon- athan Trumbull, who was Governor of the State during the whole of the revolutionary war, and whose patriotic exertions are amply recorded in history. Two of his sons were Jona- than Trumbull, afterwards Governor of the State, and John Trumbull, the celebrated painter, whose merits have long been distinguished both in Europe and America.
The subject of this sketch was the grandson of John Trum- bull, eldest son of him who first settled at Suffield. He was born on the 13th day of April, old style, in the year 1750, in the then parish of Westbury, but since formed into a separate town by the name of Watertown, in Litchfield county. The settlement of that village was begun a few years before his birth. His father, who was the first pastor of the Congrega- tional church in that place, was a good classical scholar, high- ly respected by his brethren, and for many years one of the Trustees or Fellows of Yale College. His mother was a daugh- ter of the Rev. Samuel Whitman, of Farmington, in Hartford, and grand-daughter of the Rev. Solomon Stoddard, D. D., of Northampton, Massachusetts.
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Being an only son, and of a very delicate and sickly consti- tution, he was of course the favorite of his mother. She had received an education superior to most of her sex, and not only instructed him in reading, from his earliest infancy, but find- ing him possessed of an extraordinary memory, taught him all the hymns, songs, and other verses, with which she was ac- quainted. The Spectator and Watts' Lyric Poems were the only works of merit in the belles-lettres, which he possessed. Young Trumbull not only committed to memory most of the rhymes and poetry they contained, but was seized with an un- accountable ambition of composing verses himself, in which he was encouraged by his parents. The country clergy at that time generally attempted to increase their income by keep- ing private schools for the education of youth. When he was about five years of age, his father took under his care a lad, seventeen years old, to instruct and qualify him for admission as a member of Yale College. Trumbull noticed the tasks first imposed-which were, to learn by heart the Latin Acci- dence and Lilly's Grammar, and to construe the Select Collo- loquies of Corderius, by the help of a literal translation. With- out the knowledge of any person, except his mother, he began the study of the Latin language. After a few weeks, his fath- er discovered his wishes, and finding that by the aid of a better memory, his son was able to outstrip his fellow-student, en- couraged him to proceed. At the Commencement in Sep- tember 1757, the two lads were presented at college, examined by the tutors, and admitted as members. Trumbull, however, in consequence of his extreme youth at that time, and his sub- sequent ill health, was not sent to reside at college until 1763. He spent these six years in a miscellaneous course of study. making himself master of the Greek and Latin authors usually taught in that institution, reading all the books he could meet with, and occasionally attempting to imitate, both in prose and verse, the style of the best English writers whose works he
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'could procure in his native village. These were of course few. Paradise Lost, Thompson's Seasons, with some of the poems of Dryden and Pope, were the principal. On commen- cing his collegiate life, he found little regard paid to English composition, or the acquirement of a correct style. The Greek and Latin authors, in the study of which, only, his class were employed, required but a small portion of his time. By the advice of his tutor, he turned his thoughts to Algebra, Geome- try, and astronomical calculations, which were then newly introduced and encouraged by the instructors. He chiefly pursued this course during the three first years. In his senior year he began to resume his former attention to English liter- ature. Having received the degree of Bachelor of Arts in 1767, he remained three years longer at college as a resident graduate. Being now master of his own time, he devoted himself chiefly to polite letters; reading all the Greek and Latin classics, especially the poets and orators, and studying the style and endeavoring to imitate the manner of the best English writers.
His acquaintance now commenced with Timothy Dwight, afterwards President of the University, who was then in his third year in college, and two years his junior in age. That young gentleman had translated two of the finest Odes of Horace, in a manner so elegant and poetical as would not have disgraced his more mature intellect. Happy in the discovery of a rising genius, Mr. Trumbull immediately sought his ac- quaintance, and began an intimacy which continued during their joint residence at New Haven, and a friendship which was terminated only by death.
At this period the learned languages, mathematics, logic, and scholastic theology, were alone deemed worthy of the at- tention of a scholar. They were dignified with the name of " solid learning." English poetry and the belles-lettres were called nonsense, and their study was deemed an idle waste of
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time. The two friends were obliged to stem the tide of gen= eral ridicule and censure. This situation called forth the sa- tirical talents of Trumbull, in occasional humorous poetical essays. Their party was soon increased by the accession of several young men of genius; and a material change was eventually effected in the taste and pursuits of the students.
In 1769, they began the publication of a series of essays in the manner of the Spectator, in a gazette printed in Boston, and continued it several months. They next commenced a course of similar essays in the New Haven papers, which in- creased to more than forty numbers.
In September, 1771, Messrs. Trumbull and Dwight were chosen tutors of Yale College. From this period, every effort was unanimously made to cultivate in that seminary a correct taste in style and elocution.
In 1772, Trumbull published the first part of a poem, which he entitled, The Progress of Dullness, designed to expose the absurd method of education which then prevailed ; he added a second and third part in the course of the next year. Dwight about the same time published a poem entitled, America, writ- ten in the manner of Pope's Windsor Forest. He had some time before begun his greatest poetical work, The Conquest of Canaan, and now completed his first sketch in five books. By the advice of Mr. Howe, a tutor in the same institution, he added the Vision of Futurity, which now makes the tenth book, and upon the suggestion of Mr, Trumbull, he inserted the night-scene of the battle, illuminated by the burning city of Ai. The whole was the work of Dwight-those gentlemen assisting him only by their criticism and advice. After their dispersion, he considerably altered and enlarged the poem, and published it in its present form, in eleven books.
During their residence at the university, several young gen- tlemen were associated in their literary and poetic society, particularly Messrs. David Humphreys and Joel Barlow.
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Trumbull, while he held the office of tutor, devoted as much attention as his other avocations would admit, to the study of law, which he had now selected as his future profession. In November, 1773, he was admitted as a practicing attorney at the bar in Connecticut, but immediately went to Boston, and entered as a student in the office of John Adams, Esq., after- wards President of the United States, taking lodgings with Tho- mas Cushing, Esq., then Speaker of the House of Representa- tives, but since a delegate to Congress and Lieutenant Gov- ernor of Massachusetts. He was now placed in the centre of American politics: The contest between Great Britain and the Colonies approached rapidly towards a crisis. The vio- lenco of party was extreme. 'The Governor, Council, Judges, and all the legal authority under the crown, employed their utmost efforts to establish the universal supremacy, and enforce the oppressive acts, of the English Parliament. In the con- test, Trumbull warmly espoused the cause of the people .- Though he prosecuted his studies with the utmost attention, he frequently employed his leisure hours in writing essays on political subjects, for the public gazettes-which had perhaps a greater effect from the novelty of his style, and the caution he used to prevent any discovery of the real author. Nor did he neglect occasionally to cultivate the muse ; and just before he left Boston, he anonymously published his Elegy on the Times, which is now known throughout the country. Even then verging towards hostility in Massachusetts, the sessions of the courts being suspended, and Mr. Adams absent at the Congress, in Philadelphia, Trumbull returned to New Haven, and successfully commenced practice at the bar, in November 1774. The following year was a period of terror and dismay. The war had. commenced by the battle at Lexington. Un- conditional submission, or a total rejection of the authority of England, presented the only alternative. Every exertion was made by the friends of American liberty, to inspire confidence
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in our cause, to crush the efforts of the "tory party," and to. prepare the public mind for the declaration of independence. With these views, at the solicitation of some of his friends in. Congress, Trumbull wrote the first part of the poem of " Mc- Fingal," which they immediately procured to be published at Philadelphia, where Congress was then assembled. He had also formed the general plan of the work, sketched some of the scenes of the third Canto and written the beginning of the fourth, with the commencement of the Vision, at which point, not being gifted with the prophetic powers of his hero, he left it unfinished.
In November 1776, he married Miss Sarah Hubbard, daugh- ter of Colonel Leverett Hubbard, of New Haven. That town being exposed to invasion, and all business rapidly declining, he returnedin the following May to his native place, where he remained during the four succeeding years. Too constant ap- plication to his studies, and the fatigue of attending courts at a distance in all seasons, especially during the severe winter of 1780, occasioned the loss of his health by a nervous decline. With the hope of recovery, by a change of situation to a place more advantageous to his professional business, and more agreeable by its literary society, he removed with his family to. Hartford in June 1781.
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