USA > Connecticut > Tolland County > Vernon > A century of Vernon, Connecticut, 1808-1908 > Part 10
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Another event, signalling the growing wealth and ambi- tion of the community, was the building by the church in Vernon of a new meeting house. This new house of wor- ship was dedicated on April 4, 1827, and is the present edi- fice in which we are gathered. Regularly on the Sabbath the people of the Rock District attended the services of this First Church of Christ. In fact, "the most notice- able sight of the day was the large team wagon of the Rock Company with four horses, driven by John Chapman, Jr., full loaded with girls from the Rock Factory." The spirit in which this building, as well as many others, was raised, shows us how remarkably universal was the license of the early part of the century. Honorable men could see no evil in drink, even the pastors indulged themselves freely on festive occasions. The prevailing idea seemed to be that liquor was always a benefit, indeed, it became a panacea for every ill. We must remember that these were
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times of great hardihod and self-sacrifice. The logic was simple. Here were the crops, close by were the distilleries. If comfort were so easily forthcoming, why should they not have it? Yet, out of that age of well-meaning license, there arose a company of men, remarkable in temperance and wonderful in virtue.
Colonel McLean was continually interested in some new enterprise. Following the old Rock, he built the Frank Factory, close to the site now occupied by the James J. Regan Manufacturing Company, then an oil mill at the New England bridge, and at length a paper mill near the present Belding privilege. He likewise did considerable surveying, particularly in the laying out of new roads. These varied undertakings became so pressing that in 1831, Colonel McLean closed his relations with the old Rock. George Kellogg naturally succeeded as the head of the company.
In contrast to the marvelous achievement of Colonel McLean as an engineer, Mr. Kellogg presented an equally remarkable power. He was an aggressor and a sustainer, in truth-an enduring force. As founder of the New England Mill in company with Captain Allen Hammond, he shared, when one considers those troublesome times of '37, a confi- dence truly unique. A mind of rare discrimination, a sublime morality, a constant energy, we today do honor to the char- acter of George Kellogg, consecrated in truth, "To the weal of man and the glory of God." In that same year, 1837, a committee of nine was appointed to procure a site and affix a stake for the Second Church in Vernon. This action was taken because the population had steadily increased, and was now more than sixty families, or three hundred persons. The cost of this new meeting house was met by voluntary subscription, and was necessarily borne by a few individ- uals. We know that George Kellogg was one of the first deacons of this church, we know also that he possessed the crowning virtue of all noble characters-true generosity. We may, therefore, rightly and in more senses than one, call him the "Father of the First Church in Rockville."
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Mention has already been made of Captain Allen Ham- mond and his connection with the New England Mills. Mr. Hammond belonged to that group of sterling citizens, who, in recalling with honor today, we but exalt and honor our- selves. Of an unassuming nature, persistent in principle, he became a guiding spirit of every honest impulse, a vital force ever pointing upward. In addition to his associa- tion with the New England Company, Mr. Hammond was for a time agent of the Rock Company, also an organizer and first president of the Rockville National Bank, as well as treasurer of the savings bank. Through this relationship to the last-named institutions, the character of Mr. Ham- mond is revealed in its truest and most perfect light. To distinguished probity there was added that charm of real greatness-unaffected modesty.
All the manufacturing companies, except during the gen- eral depression of 1837-'38, had an excellent record. Among the small, one-set mills, the Springville Company was espe- cially notable for continuously handsome dividends. The directors of this company were unusually practical men- Alonzo Bailey, agent; Chauncey Winchell, wheelwright; Christopher Burdick, machinist, and Phineas Talcott, later founder of the American Mill. Up to the year 1840, the several districts were recognized by the names of the va- rious mill companies. In 1841 the first post office was estab- lished and the name Rockville adopted. Samuel P. Rose, agent for the Rock Manufacturing Company, became the first postmaster. The New York and Boston stage (we must remember these were still the days of stage coaches), now made its regular trip through Rockville. At length, after twenty years of earnest struggle, nature had yielded her supremacy, farmers had graduated to manufacturers, a settlement had given place to an ordained village.
From this time on there was in every direction a rapid expansion. In 1843, on land offered by the Rock Company, Samuel P. Rose and Hubbard Kellogg built the first hotel. Before this time there had been no suitable meeting place
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for the development of the general social side of life. So great was the satisfaction, therefore, on the completion of this first public house, that a great festive gathering was held, and our fathers and mothers regaled themselves in a way, judging from the records, easily equal to any idea of gaiety that we may pride ourselves on today-not so sci- entific, perhaps, but fully as robust. In that same year, 1843, the New England Company, in a new mill, began the manufacture of cassimeres, the first departure from the time-honored satinet. Rockville began to assume the form in which we see it today. One store established in 1833, was no longer sufficient. Houses multiplied and there was heralded the first real boom in real estate.
The year 1847 witnessed the building of the American Mill by Phineas Talcott. Mr. Talcott was distinctly a man of affairs. As agent of the Rock, president of the railroad company and of the savings bank, he was another example of the powerful virtues of our fathers. In the realm of politics, his temperament, eminently judicial, carried him to the principal offices, and made him always a factor of very great influence. Shortly after, in 1850, the firm of White and Corbin was organized. Cyrus White possessed a re- markable energy, and was largely interested in the develop- ment of the Brooklyn side of the Hockanum. As a supporter of the Methodist denomination, his firmness of principle and truth of heart was continuously manifest.
The first Irishman came to Vernon as early as 1845, and the German a few years later. So large has been their in- crease and so prominent their work in the township, that we are glad to do honor today to the Irish and German immigrant, through whose thrift and integrity Vernon truly has builded well.
During those years of darkness from 1861-'64, when times were troubled, and days and hours were racking to the soul ; in that great war of the Rebellion, Vernon cheerfully yielded her portion to the service of the nation.
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Of modern Vernon and the noble lives that have been lived, men whose memories are still fresh in our minds, and whose passing calls back again regrets still lingering, of these, today, how shall we speak with proper honor or with sufficient thankfulness? Editors, merchants, farmers, the professions, artisans, manufacturers-think, for a mo- ment, of the long roll of honor! Permit me to make mention of three whose names stand forth with peculiar luster: Dwight Loomis, Christian statesman, impartial judge; George Maxwell, master of finance, leader of men; George Sykes, manufacuring genius, captain of industry. These men and many more fought great battles of faith. As we turn our eyes toward the future, let me suggest a simple watchword united to the fair name of our town, and to bring these lines of reflection to a close with the words: "Forward ! Vernon !"
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REMINISCENCES BY CHARLES W. BURPEE.
The following reminiscences were by Charles W. Burpee of Hartford, a former Rockville boy:
There were missionaries in those days. To help some of them, we bought chestnuts, each nut in a cute little phial, corked in. I came across one of those chestnuts a while ago, in my mother's attic. The chestnut was just as good as it was when I gave five of my precious pennies for it, and denied myself cornballs and soap bubbles for a week. Then the bottled chestnuts were photographed and we gave a few pennies more-or the price of a bag of precious peanuts-for the "carte de visite."
Thus we paid for those actual chestnuts and so helped a worthy cause. Other "chestnuts" were given to us and, true to the law of human nature, I don't think we appre- ciated them half as much. They were given to us from the pulpit of a Sunday-I should say, from recollection, about once in two weeks, but in reality I presume it was not oftener than once a month. Those were called "missionary Sundays"; they were not bulletined or advertised in ad- vance ; they took us as they found us, and thereby, perhaps, they found a good many more of us than they otherwise might have done. We knew it was missionary Sunday in my church when a certain tall, white-headed, sepulchre- voiced minister from another town took a seat on the pul- pit platform with our regularly employed minister. I see him yet, I hear his voice ; but I've forgotten what he said, if I ever heard.
Nature abhors a void. When that missionary-Sunday man ceased coming there may have been no one to fill his place ; I do not know for I was not in Rockville then. But the thought comes to me that you and nature are trying to train me to fill his place-if not as a pleader for mis- sions, at least as a dispenser of "chestnuts." And, from the way the training has gone on the past year or two I wonder if half a century from now some one will not rise up and say of my gray beard and "chestnuts" all that I say-and even all that I think-of my early predecessor.
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Reminiscence must always be personal even if it is not respectful. It implies old age looking back upon youth. Every generation since Nestor has had men who would indulge in it. Now, the vision of youth is somewhat dis- torted. The world appears to us as children to be divided into giants, clowns and pigmies. The giants are all the self- respecting adults whom our parents know, or who get hon- orable mention on the street or in the baseball stand-a considerable class; the clowns are those who for one rea- son or another cannot win the respect of children; the pig- mies are those around us as other children. The giants will remain giants in our memories forever, even though some of them were pretty "small potatoes"; the pigmies, many of them, we watch grow or find they have developed into giants after we have been away from home a few years. To illustrate: Men who always have been giants to me- and most properly so-are men like Judge Loomis, Judge Talcott, George Maxwell, Charles Harris (who somehow I always picture with a fireman's red shirt and trumpet), Gardner Grant, the Talcottville Talcotts, Congressman Henry, George Brown, Mr. Ogden, Mr. Parker, Mr. Symonds -and with them every man who wore the blue. The one or two who seemed to grow backwards into "small pota- toes" as I grew older and gained a better vision, I cannot now recall-I believe none are living. Of contemporaneous little chaps who have become giants-why, I need only call the roll from my various teachers' old record books! And for the development of the one who first stood before us as a regulation law student, I have only to point to Hon. Charles Phelps. For the development of the boys who were the first to receive diplomas at the High School, the "Goodell boys," I have only to refer to him who reads the ode today. I never could have aspired to step so jauntily to their level as I have on this occasion, and I must not forget that it was simply as dispenser of chestnuts that the committee boosted me here.
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We boys of the sixties and seventies were on the thres- hold of a new era-a few were already over it. I heard a learned educator the other evening analyzing a Massachu- setts state report and lamenting the present educational con- ditions that surround our youth. He said with sorrow that the present course of studies in our schools did not attract our boys and girls after they had reached the legal age limit of fourteen, and they were glad to abandon their studies. If my recollection of my boyhood days is trustworthy, it is not in that particular that today differs from yesterday. But he went on to say that in this generation the child is de- prived of the home education he or she formerly received, meaning the work about the house and grounds which made girls good housekeepers and boys good jacks at about all ordinary trades. What with bread made by machinery, clothes and dishes washed by machinery, sewing done by machinery and houses cleaned by hose and suction, what is left for a girl but to go to dancing school? And with our kindling wood bought in bundles and bags over the grocer's counter, what is there for the boy but to play baseball ?
My learned friend treated the subject more seriously than my paraphrase might indicate-as one of the great national problems of the day; and considering the mass of children, by and large, we ought all to watch the experiments in voca- tion schools. I want to acknowledge right now my indebted- ness to my parents for bringing me into the world before the labor-saving devices for children had been invented. Many of you are even better off in this respect than I am. As I say, my boyhood was on the threshold of this new era ; a few years and I wouldn't have known what it was to split and pile wood and do like chores before I could go, skating or play ball.
And now, the last vestige of joking aside, what were we village boys learning that can't be learned from any text- books? What were we having instilled into us that would : : worth more in getting on in life than tearing Milton's "Paradise Lost" into prepositions and adverbs? We were
GEORGE FORSTER, Member of Committees on Reception and Invitations, Sports, Public Safety.
FRANCIS B. SKINNER, Member of the Committees on Sports, Transportation.
JOHN H. ZIMMERMANN, Member Committee on Decoration.
PAUL BRACHE, Member of the Committee on Trans- portation.
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learning to use our hands and eyes and bodies; and we were learning to perform heavy tasks for the general family good before we went out for selfish amusement. Some- times, when the fishing was good or the circus unusually well advertised, the parental hand may have seemed relent- less if not cruel, but by holding us to the tasks that some one must perform, we learned to subordinate personal de- sires and we gained also a power of steadfast application which was to help us in our future studies and in earning our daily bread. We know that the youth of today have their annoyances; we know that the football arena and the tennis court can test their mettle, but if advancing civiliza- tion has reduced the number of practical ways in which their mettle may be tested until it has become a matter of grave national concern, we must grieve as loyal citizens but, in this moment of reminiscence, we may rejoice that we were born when we were.
"The true man never wishes to be a child again." Ah, but those were halcyon days in the little village. We cannot say that they began and ended then, for our fathers and mothers believe that the real halcyon days were when they were young. But there was then no shriek of whistle on or around "Snip," the Vernon reservoir hadn's been fished dry, arbutus hadn't been uprooted, a boy could consume a whole day in getting to West Street and back, Exchange Building was a skyscraper, Talcott Park was a ball ground, we could coast on almost any street and the girls were al- ways ready to play copenhagen! For tight ropes to per- form on we had the cables in "Father" Lewis's quarry right back of the school grounds; for "run, sheep, run" we had the full sweep from "Snip" down to the Saxony Mill and no trolley in the way. Our chief evening entertainment is re- called by the outdoor vaudeville performance this week. It was given on identically the same spot, near "the hotel," the blazing torches gathering us street Arabs from far and near. There was only one principal performer and he was selling patent medicine or cleanser. Oh, the excitement of
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it when he got one of us up under his light to illustrate the virtues of his bottled stuff-to pull a tooth, bathe a bruise or clean a spot off our coats! I can see those smoky torches and smell that stuff now, and almost can hear the swear words of some of the village elders when we stepped on their toes. For everybody attended these performances.
That village didn't need much law-to our minds. When there was an infraction and a consequent enforcement by Sheriff Paulk or the constables, the whole town knew about it and assembled. The hideous violator was dragged into the damp dungeon hole under a market near Market Street bridge. Of beverages we saw little effect except in the innocent joyousness of our German citizens at the celebra- tions of the Turners in Doane's Grove. Yet there must have been evil within the knowledge of the authorities, for I recall vividly the scene (after no-license had been voted) when great casks were opened near the present Park Place and their amber contents were allowed to flow down the gutters to the canal. And when there was a fire, what ter- ror was struck into our young breasts by those booming factory bells the length of the valley and the shouts of the men running with the machine!
Every town has its precious landmarks, and buildings particularly dear to old inhabitants and former residents. Hartford has its Charter Oak Site, but Hartford never had a Talcott's Grove or a Doane's Grove. New Haven has its Hyperion Theater, but New Haven never had a White's Opera House. Waterbury has its Roaring Brook and its Naugatuck, but it never had a Hockanum. Bridgeport has its harbor, but it never had a Paper Mill Pond. All those towns are pleasant to live in-for a time; I know by experi- ence; but for boys and girls they can't compare with the Rockville we boys and girls knew.
"Rockville hasn't changed much," so some of the present dwellers say. We old-timers, returning every chance we get, love it all the more on that account. It has changed and just now it is changing so rapidly that we fear most
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of the old familiar places and things will be obliterated. Then shall we have to center our affections upon this beau- tiful Vernon Center which verily changeth not, and in its loveliness cannot be changed except to harm.
I know the committee never intended that I should get up here and speak "the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth," as youthful Senator Noone would phrase it. The whole of it would take the rest of the week. Every one of us has his or her particular memories, cherished and ever with us wherever we may wander. What I was to do, then, was to appear as the representative of the old boys and girls, and to say something which should voice the home sentiment of all of them. The giants of my day may have been the pigmies of the days of some of you, and the pigmies of my day the giants to others of you. Some of us may have different pictures than others of us have of "Father" Lewis' quarry, Putnam's sawmill, the Saxony, the Leeds Mill, the American, the Warp Mill, Paper Mill Pond, Snipsic Lake and even White's Opera House, but we have one thing in common-our fondness for getting back here. Perhaps some of us thought the told town was rather slow when we turned our backs and hurried down the valley to Vernon Depot where we waited only for the next train east or west; but I know that no one will dispute me when I say that those of us who went farthest east or west envy those of us who stopped nearer by because we can the more readily and the more frequently get back here to the old scenes.
This implies that the atmosphere of the old town was the same for us all. We realize this fact down deep in our hearts ; I see it reflected in the faces of those before me, and it finds expression in the moments when we drop the cele- bration spirit and each communes with himself or herself. It was a Godly town; it was a town in which the young were carefully guided into the right path. It was a demo- cratic town where the children of the rich and the poor were on the same level, and caste unknown was unknown. It
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was a town of neighbors, for the most part hard-working and thrifty, innocent in their amusements, modest and hum- ble in their disposition, developing the man fiber and the woman fiber which the world stamps as New England. As such a community must be, it was patriotic. There are those of us here whose most vivid recollection still is of the days when men abandoned the loom and the plow to answer the nation's call; and thank God! there still are some of those men with us who can hear us proclaim our pride in the record of the town in the Civil War.
We have much, then, in common memory to be thank- ful for-in the hallowed memories as well as in the rem- iniscence of frolic and fun. Most naturally, therefore, we all of us wish to renew our youth; we all of us wish to recall and refresh the ideals of our days of worthiest ambi- tion; we all of us like to pay tribute to the high thinking (if lowly living) of the times past, to the atmosphere cre- ated by such noble men as Winslow and Fisk and Hyde and Kelsey and Bingham and Kellogg and Maxwell and Loomis and Spaulding and Risley and Dickinson-we all of us like to grasp the hands and look into the eyes of those who shared our early joys and sorrows, and of those who blessed us as we went forth. And we all of us commend those who have remained here and those who have come upon the scene since our day, to maintain the old-time standard for the unpretentious, conservative yet ever pro- gressive town of Vernon.
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PROF. THOMAS D. GOODELL'S COMMEMORATIVE POEM.
The commemorative poem, written by Prof. Thomas D. Goodell of New Haven, a member of the faculty of Yale University and a former Rockville boy, was read by him.
It follows in full :
Τροφεία πατρίδι σήμερον φέρω τάδε.
As the Greek youth brought to his nurse a gift, So bring I this thank-offering to our town.
I.
"More room !" said the folk of the river towns, Hartford and Windsor and Wethersfield. "There's good land east fair crops will yield. Let the Old World fight for outworn crowns, We've better to do, building a state Godly and free-and rich, maybe;
And if stepmotherly England frowns,
She's a long way off!" So they spread o'er the plain Homes and billows of ripening grain, And on the hilltop consecrate
The house where God's word shall be strictly taught. Wheat, rye, and the red gold of Indian corn, Wool and flax, which the women wrought With distaff and spinning-wheel and loom- This was their wealth; and children were born, Many and sturdy, and still there was room. If dwellings were plain and winters were long, They woke in June to the robin's song, In the high elm orioles hung their nest, The bobolink's rapture gladden'd the morn,
And the whippoorwills charm'd their rest.
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II.
So in these upland fields At the valley's eastern bound Time her slow fruitage yields.
Priest Kellogg, servant of God and man, long crown'd With love and honor, in yon God's acre sleeps.
The colonies are states, united, strong
In hope and promise that to youth belong. From Snipsic still the river leaps Unhinder'd, pure, down the cool forest glen.
Said men of Vernon, "Now why
Need the hurrying waters rush idly by? Let them learn our Yankee rule: 'tis when
We have done our stent we are free to play. Let our wild Hockanum do as we!"
They yoked him to mill-wheels, made the spring flood stay To help in August drought.
He ground their flour, saw'd the forest away ; Then to finer tasks they put him to school, With cotton and paper, silk and wool; And he toil'd for all in season and out,
Till more helpers were needed, and helpers camc
From the crowded lands of ancient fame, From Europe over the sea.
And the village along the busy stream Throve and grew, and began to dream Of larger things to be.
III.
Ah, brethren of the Southland, Whose fathers, with our own, 'Stablisht the dear Republic, How keen hath our quarrel grown ! Again with childish wondering eyes I see the throng'd street on that July day, The waiting coaches, music and banners gay,
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And women weeping, while hoarse cheers arise. Now they are gone, first comers to the call, "Three hundred thousand more!" From all War ever takes the best. Cheerly they fare On toward Potomac's war-swept banks- Young fathers, from the last kiss of wife and child, And boys too young to know love's wild Deep ecstacy and woe, whose foreheads wear The mother's chrism of farewell prayer. Tho' stern forced march, Antietam's field,
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