USA > Connecticut > New Haven County > New Haven > A modern history of New Haven and eastern New Haven County, Vol. I > Part 46
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He had visited New York, which in 1808, though a city of only 90,000, was nevertheless the largest in the country. when he was eighteen. Apparently he caught the fever. He made friends in that brief stay, as we ean easily un- derstand from what we know of the friendships of his later life. We can easily imagine that he exerted on them a fascination similar to the effect, ten years earlier, on the dear lady who had so openly succumbed to his childish beauty. They made it easy, possibly, for the apt youth with six years' experience in single and double entry bookkeeping, and six years of practical business, to come to New York and secure a place in the counting house of the young Quaker banker Jacob Barker. That was the position he got, and with that same banker he remained. in steadily improving positions, for twenty years. When he left, it was to go to no less a service than that of John Jacob Astor, then the greatest of New York and American merchants. His standing there is well summed up in the fact that he received from the great merchant. after a service of sixteen years, a retirement annuity of two hundred dollars a year. It might not have been much in New York; it was, at that time, a fortune for Guilford, and to Guilford he wisely retired for the remainder of his life.
Fifty-eight seems to us in our time a youthful age for retirement. But Halleck had lived well and faithfully, and by competent standards, his busi- Vol. 1-25
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ness service had been long. At all events, he had earned retirement, and he had received his dne. So in that early time he set the wise example of retiring to the country as soon as one could leave the city. It was a great and strenuous period in the country's history-those years from 1848 to 1857 in Guilford. But he had found a quiet haven in the town of his birth and love, and "along the cool, sequestered vale of life" he seems to have "kept the even tenor of his way." He visited New York once a year, renewing and keeping fresh the old acquaintances. He wrote little. He seems to have been content to rest upon his laurels-for by that time the veil of anonymity behind which he had earlier concealed himself had been effectively snatched away. He seems to have deemed it better to rest content with what he had written than to spoil the effect by later poems which he felt must be inferior. Apparently "Young America," published in 1844, only three years before his death, was the most important writing of those years of retirement-all, in fact, except a few trans- lations from the French, German and Italian.
The recollections of those who knew the poet, and anything like a earefnl study of his writings, unite in testimony that humor was a strong element in his makeup. It was one of his pet jokes to refer friends who became inquisitive as to his origin to Joshua XI:17 and XII:7, both verses making mention of "Mount Halak." He asserted that Dr. Robinson, the distinguished traveler, had often visited this "old homestead," and reported that it still bore the old name, or something to the same effect. The "Croaker" papers, which he wrote while in New York in conjunction with Joseph Rodman Drake, were of course the best examples of his humor, but lost something through their anonymous publication. His "Fanny" was the keenest sort of a satire. His character- istie "Nutmegger"
"Would shake hands with a king upon his throne, . And think it kindness to his majesty."
Humor and modesty, and honest common sense as well, combined in his answer to the admirer who wrote to him the year before his death for a view of his "country seat." to be reproduced in a privately printed edition of "Fanny." He was grateful for the compliment, but he must decline. "For although born here in Connecticut, where, as Lord Byron says of England, 'men are proud to be,' I shall never cease to 'hail,' as the sailors say, from your good eity of New York, of which a residence of more than fifty years made me a citizen. There I always considered myself at home, and elsewhere but a visitor. If, therefore, you wish to embellish my poem with a view of my country seat (it was literally mine every summer Sunday for years), let it be taken from the top of Weehawk Hill, overlooking New York, to whose scenes and associations the poem is almost exclusively devoted."
His friendships were among the finest of our age, and to that he has left the rarest testimony. Whether he was David or Jonathan, that was the nature of
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his friendship for Joseph Rodman Drake, for whom his love surpassed the love of woman. No man and no friendship have a nobler comment than
"Green be the turf above thee, Friend of my better days! None knew thee but to love thee, None named thee but to praise."
If Halleek had any but male love affairs, his biographers and his neighbors alike have singularly overlooked them. His love for woman seems to have wholly satisfied itself on his sister Maria, his relation with whom has been com- pared to that of Charles and Mary Lamb. She was his faithful correspondent during his years in New York, his eonstant companion during the years of his retirement in Guilford, and survived him by only three years. Of his published poems, perhaps "Magdalen," in the 1827 edition, comes nearest to expressing the love sentiment which so rapt an admirer of Burns might be expected to reflect. And of that he disposes in a characteristic note: "These lines were written for a love-strieken young officer on his way to Greece. The reader will have the kindness to presume that he died there."
When, somewhere about 1822, he wrote it, "Marco Bozzaris" was his great- est poem. Ileard against the battle din of today, it rings as true. The last words of the Greek hero, as Halleck quotes them in an explanatory note, "To die for liberty is a pleasure and not a pain," express an eternal principle. That same element in Burns was what appealed to Halleck, and to it he paid peer- less tribute in his brief elegy. And every son of Connecticut should know by heart the immortal tribute which Connectieut's greatest poet paid to his state. New York, city of fortune and fame, place where he had found life's richest experience and life's sweetest friends, had won him, so that henceforth he was but a visitor elsewhere. Of those scenes and friends he could write in his closing year :
"I hope thou wilt not banish hence These few and fading flowers of mine, But let their theme be their defense, The joy, the love, the frankincense And fragrance o' Lang Syne."
But of Connecticut he wrote, albeit at an earlier time:
"And there their hospitable fires burn elear, And there the lowliest farmhouse hearth is graced With manly hearts, in piety sincere, Faithful in love, in honor stern and chaste, In friendship warm and true, in danger brave, Beloved in life, and sainted in the grave."
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To the Guilford and vicinity of this time, Halleck seems but a distant vision. It was difficult even to the schoolboy of a generation ago to realize that a poet worthy "to have his pieces spoken in school" trod these familiar paths and sat within these wonted walls. True, the compilers of the school readers used in Guilford and the towns around at that time had done fairly well. Few of them, as early as that, had presumed to omit "Marco Bozzaris" from their con- tents. They builded, thereby, better than they knew.
"Strike-for the green graves of your sires; God-and your native land."
was a stronger recruiting appeal than the most stirring poster ever printed, a better incentive to patriotism than all the speeches of all the "four minute" men. The Guilford schoolboy of that time knew little about the friendship between Ilalleck and Joseph Rodman Drake, but he did know
"When Freedom from her mountain height Unfurled her standard to the air,"
and somehow saw the connection. It was little enough that Halleck wrote, and less that his neighbors of those days had the opportunity to see of it, but Guilford never failed while Halleck lived of the consciousness that a prophet was in its midst, and should not be permitted to lose it now.
Guilford might have realized it in a sight it saw and words it heard three years after all that was mortal of the poet was laid in Alderbrook cemetery. It was the eightieth anniversary of his birth, and JJune erowned with summer warmth and glory an assemblage such as Guilford perhaps had never seen be- fore, and may not see again. Bryant, Longfellow and Whittier were among the galaxy of poets and literary men who came to dedicate the granite obelisk over Halleck's grave. Bayard Taylor made an eloquent and appreciative address. A lyrie tribute to Halleck by Oliver Wendell HIohnes was read. It was a thrill- ing revelation of the place which the modest poet, who has been worthily called the greatest of the first quarter of the nineteenth century in America, held in the esteem of his discerning contemporaries. It was and is meet that the town of his birth should be reminded, as Whittier reminded the nation seven years later, when the President of the United States and his staff joined the great literary men of the country in unveiling a statue to Halleek in Central Park at New York, that
"New hands the wires of song may sweep, New voices challenge fame ; But let no moss of years o'erereep The lines of Halleck's name."
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11
When genius climbs the heights to the temple of success, the world strews in its path the palm branches of extravagant adulation. When genius goes down to the depths of seeming failure, the same world has only disparagement, or the worse damnation of faint praise, to offer, and over the grave of former successes the only epitaph it has to write is "failure," withont qualification.
The extremes of this experience had come to William Henry Ilarrison Murray when on March 3, 1904, he closed at old Guilford a remarkable career. lle was born on April 26, 1840, in a little farmhouse back in the woods of Guilford-born with a love of learning and of nature. In thirty years he had risen by the regular steps to be pastor of one of the leading churches in New England, with an income of $15,000 a year, with thousands crowding eaeh Sunday to hear his eloquence, with a reputation as a pulpit orator almost ap- proaching that of Beecher, known and admired by thousands more through his books-his praise in the mouths of all who knew him. Thirteen years later he was running a small restaurant in Montreal, himself acting as cook, poor, dis- credited, nearly forgotten by the thousands who praised him in his fame. And twenty-one years after that he died in the Guilford house where he was born, having spent there in obseurity, though in peace and comparative happiness, the last eleven years of his strange life.
The section of Guilford in which the Murray home stands is over three miles from the shore, and is a part of a school district in Madison. It was much with Madison, therefore, that Murray's .early life was associated. There were his boyhood associates, and some of his later manhood friendships. In the rural surroundings of his early life his deep love of nature, the grandest feature of his character. was developed. To the northward from his home stretched miles of then practically unbroken woods. Westward and eastward the land sloped to valleys through which ran dashing brooks, ealled rivers by the custom of the neighborhood. Sonthward, from some high portions of his father's farm, he could view broad stretches of the waters of the Sound, almost four miles away, shimmering in the summer sun or stirred by the storms of winter. His love for nature, thus born, moved him to explore all the lovely spots of his boyhood environment, and when later he had the opportunity it led him forth, seeking new worlds of beauty to conquer, to the discovery of the Adirondaeks. And his discovery of the Adirondaeks led to the best of those writings which are his riel legacy to the world.
On his father's farm, also, Murray formed that keen love for "the perfect horse" which was another side of his nature-was at once his uplift and his downfall. The zest for learning was born in the man. At fourteen he had devoured all the reading within his reach-there were no Carnegie libraries in those days-and had determined to go to college. It was his ambition to be a great public speaker, to hold audienees spellbound by his eloquence, to give to eager listeners the message of nature and of nature's God which burned
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within him. Ilis associates in school remember him as a brilliant. restless lad, who soared where others plodded, a dreamer of visions they did not understand.
Ten years, and his ambition was on the eve of realization. At twenty-two he received his A. B. from Yale. At twenty-four he was graduated from Yale Theological School, full of promise for a brilliant career in the ministry. His fame as a speaker had already begun to spread, and he at once received a call to the Congregational Church in Greenwich, Connectient. He served there two years, then went to the First Church of Meriden. But by this time he was too well known to long remain in even a church of that size. Presently Park Street Church of Boston called him to eminent position and a salary of $8,000 a year ; his ambition heard the call. Ile was hardly twenty-eight then. but at the height of his ability as a pulpit orator. Ilis masterly eloquence was undeniable, his delivery was superb and his voice like the musie of deep toned bells. He was a man of more than average height, with a knightly erectness of bearing that came of conscious power, and a personality that charmed all who came near him. Thus he was fitted to be a popular idol, and such he presently was. The membership of Park Street Church sprang to more than 1,200, its audiences grew beyond its seating capacity. Wherever he spoke the people came in multi- tudes to hear him. He numbered legions of friends in Boston, and added to their number wherever he went.
The friends and neighbors of his boyhood knew and rejoiced in his success. Nor did he forget them. He loved to keep in touch with his early surroundings. His last appearance in the pulpit of the church which he as a boy had often at- tended in Madison is well remembered by the people of the town. This was the pulpit which, a little more than ten years before, Rev. Samuel Fiske, delightful "Dunne Browne." as he was widely known by his writings, had left to serve and die in defense of the Union. This was Mr. Murray's first appearance there since he had reached the crest of his fame, and great was the rush to hear him. The fine old church was crowded to its doors, and many in the multitude, be it known, were less than regular attendants. They heard a sermon clothed in words of power and charm, and went away as under a spell.
Murray's discovery of the Adirondacks dates back to his pastorate at Green- wich. A year or two later he wrote his book " Adventures in the Wilderness." which brought both the Adirondacks and the man to national attention. The hundreds who could afford expensive vacations began to seek the wilderness for their summer recreation, and the thousands who couldn't did the next best thing-they read the books. This first book. "Adirondack Tales," which soon followed, and others of his early works had a great sale, and brought a eon- siderable income to the writer. At once he became known as "Adirondack Murray." The name cling to him all his life and stands for his memorial. lle never was otherwise than proud of it, and he never had reason for disclaim- ing it. The inspiration of his highest ideals came from these virgin forests, in some of which his was the first white man's foot to tread.
Murray's income from various sources in the later years of his pastorate
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at Boston has been estimated at $15,000 a year. It is unlikely that anyone knows exactly what it was, least of all Murray himself, who had a very dim idea of amount and value of money. But he thought he had enough to carry out one of his early ambitions, establish a farm for the breeding of superior horses. The old place at Guilford was in his possession, and there he worked out his plans. He put up two great barns, one of them an equine palace, for some of the choicest of his pedigreed pets, the other a large, well lighted and comfortably appointed stable capable of accommodating twenty or more horses. Ile erected a windmill to bring running water to the barns. He had his own blacksmith shop and wagon repair establishment. He laid ont a trotting course near his great barn, and spent hundreds of dollars on it, though it was never completed. Incidentally, he built a deer park, and stocked it with Adirondack beauties. At these barns he had at one time from ten to twenty of the finest horses to be found in New England, with pedigrees running back to Dexter or Hambleton or even Messenger. Among them were such well known stars as Live Oak, Brandywine, Adirondack and Lady Messenger, all with the bluest blood and fine trotting records. They had fancy values, too, at least in the Murray inventory. He claimed to have refused an offer of $20,000 for Adiron- dack, and he was said to have paid nearly half of that for some of the other prize stallions on his list. It is needless to say that forty years ago these were high prices for horses. Nor is it necessary to point out that this stock farm, with its heavy outgo and very slight income, with its outfit of trainers, stable- men, blacksmiths and farm helpers, was an inevitably fatal drain on a man without an independent fortune. Murray lacked the business acumen to see where it was sure to land him. Had his salary been twice what it was, he could not long have stood the demands made upon it. But while it lasted, this stoek farm did good things for the farmers of the vicinity, in scattering through the section scores of young horses. bred from the Murray farm and the Murray stock, of really superior blood.
But the collapse of the Murray farm and the Murray fame came near together. Forty-five years ago "liberality" of any sort in a New England Congregational minister was far less tolerated than it is today. The deacons of Murray's Boston church did not so much mind the reputation their pastor had as an explorer in the wilderness, they could stand the soubriquet "Adiron- dack," but when he came to be more widely known as a horseman than he had been as a preacher, they began to squirm. He wrote a book on horse training, "The Perfect Horse"-and it's a sensible work of its kind, too-while he was pastor at Park Street. IIe beeame a frequenter of race meets, an associate of racing men. Ile appeared on the streets of Boston, not in froek coat and tall hat and white tie, but with a short coat, his trousers tneked in the tops of his boots and a soft felt hat. He drove four-in-hand. he raced horses with the sports, some of them not too immaculate of reputation, on the "mill dam." All this might have been horne, however, for Murray was really beloved by the people of his church, but the elimax that could not be tolerated came when the
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strictly orthodox noted signs of "liberality" in the preacher's doctrine. It has never been shown that Mr. Murray preached anything more radical than is accepted without a murmur from scores of the leading preachers of today, but those times were different, and he was ahead of his times. There began to be criticism from the conservative. Ever sensitive and independent, he revolted at the first breath of fault, and resigned from Park Street church in 1874. Doetrinal differences, however, were overlooked in the separation. His friends and admirers in Boston felt and knew that the real reason he left the pulpit was his love for the horse. They might lose him from Park Street Church, but they would not let him leave Boston. By thousands they rallied to him with promises of sup- port if he would establish an independent church. Ile never formally did this, but for three years longer he preached at Music Hall, across the street from his former pulpit, to larger audiences than he had ever known.
But rumor had chosen him for a shining mark. It hinted social scandal. His prestige waned a little; so did his income. But his expenses kept steadily increasing. Then creditors began to fear. and to press for settlements. The combination was too ninch for his sensitive spirit. He was by no means a bankrupt. He was the possessor of a great deal of valuable property. Ile had hosts of friends who would have helped him with advice, with intervention with his creditors, even with financial assistance. Ile stopped to think of none of these things. Taking counsel only with his pride, he left everything and dis- appeared. The possessions he left behind disappeared almost as suddenly. Real and alleged creditors seized movable property at their will. There was some sort of a settlement, but it was in every way against the owner. When years later he returned to the old place, only the buildings and a part of the farm were left.
For some time after that Murray's friends lost sight of him. Then he was found at San Antonio, Texas, running a sawmill, it was said. About 1882 he went to Montreal and established the "Snow Shoe" restaurant, of which he was proprietor and cook. His friends thought then he had reached the foot of the ladder. So he had, and soon after he began to climb toward his former position. He took up writing again, and some of his best books were produced in these later years. In 1886 he went to England to study finance. On his return he traveled through New England and the South and West lecturing and reading from his books. About 1892 he made a satisfactory settlement with his creditors and recovered his old place in Guilford, where he retired and spent the remainder of his life.
The Murray of this retirement was a disappointment to some who bad known him in former days. Convinced that he was wholly misunderstood, he had soured on the world, and he developed what seemed like strange eccentricities. His old neighbors still tell tales about the way he neglected the old homestead, so different from his former sedulous care for it. He was letting nature be his decorator in those days. But for all that. those who came closest to him in his sunset years testify that he retained that same courtliness, that same warmth
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of hospitality and of friendship which made him so loved in the days when fortune smiled and the world worshipped at his feet. Ilere in his old home, with the wife and children of his love he spent his elosing years, writing little, doing little, simply resting amid the surroundings of his youth's aspirations and his heart's desire. IIere, after his experience with the world's storms, he found a haven of peace.
As Murray's addresses and writings are rich in anecdotes, so he was a fruit- ful source of tales illustrative of his personality. One which a former driver for him tells well pictures the dare-deviltry of the man. While he was pastor at Boston and ran the stock farm at Guilford he spent much of his weeks at the latter place. It was his custom to take what was called the midnight express for Boston at Guilford on Sunday mornings (the through expresses stopped at Guilford for water in those days). One Sunday morning when the sky was black as ink and the air was thick with coming rain Murray left his farm for the four-mile drive to the station. It was late, and they were nearly a mile from the station when the whistle of the approaching train sounded through the night. One of his swiftest horses was in front of them, and the driver was already setting the fastest pace he dared in the darkness, but when Murray heard that whistle he said: "Let me take the reins.'
"But, Mr. Murray," remonstrated the driver, "we are going faster than is safe now. You can't see a thing, and you'll upset us and break both our necks."
"Can't help it," was the laconie reply. "I must be in Boston at 10:30 this morning, dead or alive."
And while the shuddering driver gripped the seat and remembered his sins, the man who was used to shooting withont a tremor the rapids of Adirondack streams in a birch bark canoe put his blooded steed into a pace better than 2:30, and started on a race with the approaching train. Through the muddy streets of the unlighted village they dashed, grazing trees at the roadside, skipping around corners on two wheels, and pulled up at the station just in time to allow the preacher to cateh on the rear step of the departing train. The congregation at Boston never knew how near they came to being disappointed that day.
Another story which Murray was wont to tell as a joke on himself, is sug- gestive of the environment in which he raced horses on the "mill dam" at Boston, as well as of the democracy of the man. Any man with a horse capable of giving him a "brush" was a good enough companion for Murray when he was on the speedway. One whom he met there often was a well known Boston sport of none too good private eharaeter. But he owned a fine horse, and so many contests did the two have that they became well acquainted, as horsemen go, though neither knew the other's name. Least of all did the sport know that the man who drove such fine trotters was one of the leading dominies of Boston. One day the two met under different circumstances. It was on one of the prom- inent streets of the city, and the sport, arrayed in the most correet of afternoon dress, was walking with a lady. Murray, alone, was in short coat, top boots and soft hat, as was his eustom. As they passed, Murray raised his hat and made a
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