USA > Connecticut > New Haven County > New Haven > A modern history of New Haven and eastern New Haven County, Vol. II > Part 3
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A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN
nent man there. The mother of Rev. Denison is a representative of the Webster family of New Hampshire, to which Daniel Webster belonged.
Born and reared in St. Louis, Rev. Robert C. Denison prepared for college in Smith Academy of his native city and afterward entered Amherst College, where he took his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1889. He then became a student in the Andover (Mass.) Theolo- gical Seminary and was graduated with the class of 1892. For nearly two years he engaged in settlement work at Andover House in Boston. In 1896 he was ordained to the ministry and for about three years occupied a pastorate in Little Rock, Arkansas. Later he spent over ten years as pastor of a church at Janesville, Wisconsin, and in September, 1909. came to New Haven as pastor of the United church (Congregational), which is the second oldest church in this city, it having been formed by a group who withdrew for the purpose from Center church in 1742. For eight years Rev. Denison has continued as pastor of this church and his labors have been attended with excellent results in the upbuilding of the membership, in the extension of the work and in the deepening of spiritual significance to its representatives. For many years he has been one of the directors of the Young Men's Christian Association and a most active worker in behalf of that organization, realizing fully how strong a safeguard it throws around the youth of the present day. Rev. Denison is also a member of the executive committee of the Red Cross, a member of the Boy Scouts Council, chairman of the Civie Federation Council on industrial and social conditions and otherwise connected with the work which is looking to the uplift of the individual and the betterment of the community at large.
On the 31st of October, 1894. in Alton, Illinois, Rev. Denison was married to Miss Martha Kendrick, a daughter of A. A. Kendriek, president of Shurtleff College of Alton. They have two children, George and Lucia. Rev. Denison belongs to the Graduates Club of New Haven and is also a member of the Chi Psi fraternity. He has confined his activities to the churches with which he has been connected and to community interests and his efforts have been of constantly broadening effect. Ilis words of wisdom have borne fruit in the lives of many who have come under his instruction. He is an earnest speaker, un- tiring in zeal. strong in purpose and with a ready sympathy that enables him to under- stand the frailties of men but also to believe in their possibilities. To reduce to a minimum the former and to develop to the maximum the latter has been his life work and he has not been denied the full harvest of his labors.
JOHN BROWN.
John Brown. president and treasurer of John Brown, Inc., has built up an extensive business in leather goods and is recognized as a factor of importance in the commercial development of New Haven. A native of Scotland, he was born in St. Andrews, April 15, 1545, and is a son of Robert and Ann (Greive) Brown, the former a native of Fifeshire. The father was a farmer and also engaged in jobbing farm products, especially potatoes. lle was quite a prominent Mason and was a loyal and active member of the Presbyterian church.
John Brown attended the schools of Cupar and Glasgow, Seotland, but when sixteen years old began learning the harness maker's trade in Glasgow. After serving a six years' apprenticeship he followed that trade in Scotland until 1870, when he came to America. Hle at once opened a shop on George street in New Haven and during the past forty-seven years has engaged in business there. Ilis trade has grown and he has been very success- ful in adapting his work to changing conditions and now has a fine store extending from No. 153 to 157 George street. Ile not only makes and sells harness but also carries a large and well selected line of trunks, bags, suit eases, automobile supplies and fine leather novelties. He is also a stockholder in the West Haven Ice Company and although engaged in business in New Haven maintains his residence in West Haven.
Mr. Brown was united in marriage to Miss Jennie Stevenson, who died, leaving a daughter. Mattie B., now the wife of L. S. Richards, of Brooklyn, by whom she has two children. Lee Sumner, Jr., and Jean Harriet.
Mr. Brown is one of the most prominent citizens of West Haven, of which he served
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as burgess from 1900 to 1905, during which period many of the present day improvements were instituted, including the erection of an engine house, the laying of sidewalks, curbs and paving. For the past twenty-one years he has been a member of the board of educa - tion of the Union district and is now chairman of the purchasing board. In 1907 and again in 1915 he represented the town of Orange in the state legislature and proved as discriminating and public-spirited in considering questions concerning the entire state as he has in dealing with matters affecting only his community. He is a leading member of the village improvement association of West Haven and also belongs to the Chamber of Commerce. His political allegiance is given to the republican party and he has done effective work in bringing about its success at the polls. Fraternally he belongs to the Masons and the Odd Fellows, and he is also identified with the Caledonian Club and Clan McLeod, of both of which he is a charter member. His religious faith is indicated by his membership in the Congregational church and he is prominent in the work of the Men's Club.
WILSON H. LEE.
Wilson H. Lee is actively identified with printing and publishing interests in New Haven, in which channel he has directed his labors since his initial step in the business world was made on attaining his majority. This constitutes but one phase of his very active and purposeful life, however, for he figures prominently as well in financial circles and stands as a leading representative of modern scientific agriculture. He was born in Hardwick, Massachusetts, May 3, 1852, a son of Joseph and Sarah Adele Lee. The ancestral history of the family can be traced back to John Lee, who settled at Ipswich, Massachusetts, in 1634. His public school education acquired at Athol, Massachussetts, Wilson H. Lee entered upon a term's study in the New Salem Academy and when twenty-one years of age became an employe of a Boston company engaged in the publication of directories. His identifi- cation with the publishing business as a proprietor dates from 1876 and with the printing business from 1884, and that he has largely concentrated his attention upon this branch of industrial activity is indicated in the fact that he is now president and treasurer of the Price & Lee Company, directory publishers of Connecticut, Massachusetts and New Jersey, and also president and treasurer of the book and joh printing and bindery business con- ducted under the name of the Wilson H. Lee Company. However, other activities have furnished a field for the expansion of his business powers and such is his force of char- acter and persistency of purpose that he carries forward to successful completion whatever be undertakes. In 1902 he turned his attention to the dairy business as proprietor of the Fairlea Farm at Orange, Connecticut, and he is also the secretary and treasurer of the Connecticut Hassam Paving Company, while in financial circles he is widely known as a director of the Yale National Bank and as a trustee of the Connecticut Savings Bank and the Orange Bank & Trust Company. He is likewise a director of the New Haven Morris Plan Company. His keen discrimination enables him to readily understand the possibili- ties of a business and to correctly balance its opportunities for success against its chances of failure. While there has been nothing spectacular in his career, it has been equally free from those erractie movements which frequently result in unwarranted risks. In a word, bis has been the steady progression of one sure of himself and stable in his purposes.
On the 1st of February, 1875, Mr. Lee was married to Miss Orrianna L. Lewis, of Athol, Massachusetts, and they bave a daughter, Prudence Adele, the wife of John R. Demarest of New Haven. Mr. Lee is identified with many organized interests formed for the benefit of business conditions, for the advancement of the public welfare or for the enjoyment of the social amenities of life. In 1917 he was appointed chairman of the New Haven County Auxiliary of the Connecticut State Council of Defense and discharges his important duties in this connection with the utmost faithfulness and fidelity. In club elreles his name appears on the membership rolls of the Union League and the Quinnipiac Clubs of New Haven, the Pequoig Chib of Athol, Massachusetts, and the Essex Club of Newark, New Jersey. He is an exemplary representative of the Masonic fraternity and is prominent in the Sons of the American Revolution, having been chosen president of
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A MODERN HISTORY OF NEW HAVEN
the state organization of Connecticut for the year 1913-14. He belongs to the American Directory Publishers Association, of which he was president from 1905 until 1908, and he is connected with the United Typothetæ of America, of which he was president in 1910 and 1911 and a member and chairman of its executive committee for many years. He like- wise has membership in the Connecticut Typothetæ, of which he was president from 1899 until 1908. He has also been president of the Worcester Northwestern Agricultural Society and in 1909 and 1910 was president of the Connecticut Dairymen's Association and for three years was vice president of the Connecticut state board of agriculture. In 1916 and 1917 he was also president of the Certified Milk Producers' Association of America. He has been honored with the presidency of the New Haven County Improvement League and with the vice presidency of the Civic Association of New Haven. He was president of the New Haven Chamber of Commerce in 1903-04 and was police commissioner of New Haven for four years. Hia co-operation ean be secured along all those lines which result in usefulness and progress. Advancement has ever been his watchword and the passing years have marked improvement in every line of business or every organization in which he has been an active worker.
HON. JAMES EDWARD ENGLISH.
lon. James Edward Engliab, member of congresa, governor of Connecticut, and United States aenator, whose death occurred at his home in New Haven, March 2, 1890, full of years and honors, was preeminently a self-made man; more ao than any other of New Haven'a citizens unlesa it be the late Hon. Roger Sherman.
Mr. English was born March 13, 1812, in New Haven, aon of James and Nancy (Griswold) English, the father a citizen highly respected for his personal worth, who intelligently dia- charged several public trusts with fidelity. The mother was a woman of aingular sagacity; she was descended from a family greatly distinguished in the history of Connecticut, hav- ing given to it two governors. Our subject's paternal grandfather was the commander of vessels engaged in the West India trade and his great-grandfather fell pierced by a bayonet in the hands of a British soldier, at the time of the invasion of New Haven during the War of the Revolution. James E. English was a descendant in the sixth generation from Clem- ent English, of Salem, Massachusetts, his line being through three successive Benjamina to James English, his father. The first Benjamin English, son of Clement, born in 1676, married Rebecca Brown, in 1699, and in 1700 settled in New Haven, where for two hundred years his descendants have been identified with the town.
James E. English in boyhood exhibited singular self-reliance, a trait of character that ever remained with him. At the age of sixteen he was apprenticed to the trade of a car- penter, and began his first work June 27, 1827, on the old Lancastrian achool house. His apprenticeship closed on his twenty-first birthday. He never worked as a journeyman at his trade but at once became a contractor, and followed this occupation until twenty-three years of age, by which time he became the possessor of a moderate capital. Having natural architectural taates, he designed and erected in this short experience a number of creditable buildings in New Haven; and for the next twenty years he was engaged in the lumber business, covering a period when commercial enterprisea of every kind were subject to great fluctuations-a period of general financial embarrassment, when many men found it difficult and often impossible to avoid commercial disaster. Far-seeing and always looking beyond the present, he avoided speculation, never being aanguine nor despondent. He branched out in his lumber business, buying and building vessels, engaged in ahipping clocka to Philadelphia, and returning with coal and general merchandise to New Haven and other porte, and in this way was successful. Next he became identified with the manufacture of clocka, having auccessfully reorganized the former Chauncey Jerome worka under the name of the New Haven Clock Company. In this enterprise he was associated with Harmanus M. Welch, afterward president of the First National Bank, and for several years a partner with him in the lumber business; also with Hiram Camp, these three purchasing the clock plant. In a few years they made this company not only a success, but one of the largest clock manufacturing concerns in existence. Mr. English, about this time, became prominently
HON. JAMES E. ENGLISH
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identified with the First National Bank of New Haven, and alao with the Connecticut Sav. ings Bank, having been at the head of the latter institution from its organization in 1857. He was largely interested in various manufacturing and commercial industriee in this and other states, being also associated with the management of the Adame Express Company. Eminently successful in accumulating property, by judicious investmenta in real estate he finally became the owner of probably more business buildings than any other individual in New Haven. He was a man of the stricteat integrity, taking no advantagea of the great opportunities that aroae during the war by changea in the financial policy of the govern- ment, which greatly affected commercial values, of which some men of high station availed themselves. Not a dollar of hia large fortune came from speculation. His business aagacity made it all. "If I have been successful as a business man, it is because I have been con- tent with reasonable profits, for I know that enormous gains soon invite ruinous competition."
Politically Mr. English was reared a democrat and "ever remained faithful to the con- viction of a lifetime, that only by adherance to the principles and policy of genuine Jeffer- sonian Democracy could the state reach the full proportions of a free prosperous commun- ity." He held many public trusts, covering a period of forty-one years-1836-1877. He was selectman of his town from 1836 to 1848; a member of the common council in 1848-49; representative in the state legislature in 1855-56; state senator from 1856 to 1859; mem- ber of congress from 1861 to 1865; governor of Connecticut from 1867 to 1869, and again in 1870; and United States senator by appointment from 1875 to 1877. "The municipal trusta of his early manhood were those imposed upon him by the general conviction of his fellow citizena, irrespective of party, that their interests might be safely confided to his recognized integrity, capacity and public spirit."
"His services in both branches of the legislature were generally marked by attention to the business rather than to the political aspects of the legislation in which he waa called to act. When, subsequently, he became governor of the state, the practical cast of his mind was conspicuously manifested in the emphasis which he gave in his messagea to the cause of free public school education, and in the advocacy of which he was ultimately auc- cessful.
"But that which specially and honorably marks Mr. English's public career is the course he pursued while a representative in congress. His term of service, extending from 1861 to 1865, covered that period in our history during which slavery ceased to disgrace the Nation, and the constitutional amendment prohibiting involuntary servitude became the supreme law of the land. Mr. English went to Washington a pronounced war democrat, be- lieving that the great national exigency demanded every sacrifice to prevent our great republic from being divided into perpetually contending and contemptible fragments.
"While as a democrat he fully recognized the constitutional right of the southern states to the possession of their slaves, he also felt that slavery was a monstrous injustice, and therefore had no regret when as a war measure, he found himself at liberty to record alike his abhorrence of slavery and his sense of justice toward the owners of slaves in the District of Columbia, by voting for the bill which united the emancipation of the slave with compensation to the master.
"Long before the close of the war it became evident to all thoughtful observers that the question of general emancipation must be met sooner or later, and Mr. English made up his mind to take the hazard and incur the odium of voting with his political opponents when- ever, in his view, it became a political necessity. More than a year before the final passage of the bill providing for the necessary constitutional amendment, the position of Mr. Eng- lish was well understood in Washington. When the bill was first introduced in the house by Mr. Ashley, of Ohio, he was assured of Mr. English's support in case it was needed. But when it was found that the administration party were not united on the measure, Mr. Ashley advised Mr. English not to vote in its favor, as it was sure not to pass. With a very prac- tical conviction of the folly of striking when there is a certainty that nothing will be hit, Mr. English acted upon this advice, but with the emphatic assurance to Mr. Ashley that whenever it was necessary he might rely upon his vote. When informed a year later that the bill would be put to vote the next day, Mr. English was in New Haven in attendance upon his sick wife. Traveling all night, he reached Washington in time to listen to a part of the exciting debate, and to hear his name called among the first of the ten war democrats who, as it was hoped, would vote for the bill. and whose votes were necessary for its passage. Vol. II-2
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When his ringing 'Yes' was heard in the crowded gathering there was general applause. To a New Haven friend who was in Washington a day or two afterward he said, 'I suppose l' am politically ruined, but that day was the happiest day of my life.'
"Mr. English's position at this time was a very exceptional one. The number of war democrats in congress was small, and most of them were very timid. But there was never any doubt from the first where Mr. English stood or how he would vote when the final crisis came.
"While thousands of men in our country have been examples of conspicuous success in business, in political life, and in generous benefactions, few have had the opportunity, and fewer still the sagacity and the courage, to appreciate a great political emergency, where duty calls for a sacrifice of the ties which ordinarily bind a man in public life to act in harmony with the party to which he is attached. It is sometimes a great thing to have the courage of one's convictions, and the favorable mention of his name at one time as & candidate for the presidency of the United States was an honorable recognition of the public appreciation of his vote, as having been dictated by conscience and a sense of duty."
Blessed with abundant means Mr. English gave liberally to many institutions and ob- jeets. Several years ago he gave ten thousand dollars to the Law School of Yale College to establish a library fund, and also twenty thousand dollars to the Sheffield Scientific School to found a chair in mathematics. He later contributed the sum of twenty-one thousand dollars to build the English Drive in East Rock Park, and also made numerous generous donations to the General Hospital and to various other charities. St. Paul's Episcopal church, where he regularly attended for over forty years, bears him in grateful remem- brance.
On January 25, 1837, Mr. English was married to Caroline Augusta Fowler, of New Haven, and of their four children, the youngest, Henry F., survives. Mrs. English died October 23, 1874, at the age of sixty-two years, and on October 7, 1885, Mr. English was married to Miss Anna R. Morris, of New York, daughter of Lucius S. and Letitia C. Morris. Mr. English died Mareb 2, 1890.
CHARLES WELLS BLAKESLEE.
The name of Blakeslee has for years held an honored place in the business world of New Haven, and the family of that name have had prominent representative citizens in each generation since the early days of Connecticut. Those of whom we write are the son and grandsons of Matthew Gilbert and Rhoda (Dorman) Blakeslee. the former of New Haven and the latter of llamden.
Charles Wells Blakeslee, son of Matthew, was born in Westfield. Massachusetts. August 11, 1824. At the age of ten years he was brought to Connecticut and for a time resided in llamden with his brother, Matthew. He attended school during the winters and engaged in farm work in the summers for several seasons, but while yet a mere boy he began teaming and shortly after began taking small contracts in the city of New Haven. In 1844 he bought his home property of the English family. George street was then but a cow path, and most of the neighboring land was used for pasture, and Mr. Blakeslee engaged in farming on the land now occupied by Grace Hospital. In 1872 he began taking contracts for street paving and the building of street railways. This he continued to follow, and his business assumed mammoth proportions. His sons became asociated with him in the business under the firm name of C. W. Blakeslee & Sons and in later years took the greater part of the responsibility from the father's shoulders.
Mr. Blakeslee was married in New Haven to Miss Eliza Clark, a native of Milford, who died in New Haven, the mother of seven children, of whom two died in infancy, and one, Albert, died when three and a half years old. The others were Charles W., Jr .: Jeannette : Isabella and Mary. For his second wife, Mr. Blakeslee married Mrs. Martha Jane Blair, of New Haven. By her first marriage she had two children: William H. Blair, a superintendent with the Charles W. Blakeslee & Company; and lane, who became Mrs. Copley and died in 1900. By his second marriage Mr. Blakeslee became the father of six children: Dennis A : Dwight W .: Phebe: Clarence; Martha, who married Lyman Law; and Theodore R.
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In his political views in early life. Mr. Blakeslee was a whig, but from 1837 he was a firm supporter of republican principles. He was a Methodist in his religious belief and a member of the church of that denomination on George street in New Haven. Mr. Blakeslee passed away in January, 1916.
FRANK IVEN THOMPSON.
Frank Ives Thompson, deceased. who for many years was an active factor in business circles in New Haven, well known as senior member of the firm of Thompson & Belden, dealers in paints and oils, was born September 18, 1831. in New Haven, and was a repre- sentative of one of the best known families of this section of Connecticut. His father, Abraham Thompson, was born in East Haven, his natal year being 1815. He was a son of James and Lydia (Chidsey) Thompson and while spending his boyhood days in East Haven he attended school. supplementing his early training by attendance at the schools of Branford. When fifteen years of age he took up a seafaring life, which he followed for a number of years, sailing both on the Atlantic and Pacifie oceans as well as in South American and West Indian waters. After giving up the sea he took up his abode in Sacramento, California, where he became engaged in merchandising, continuing active in that field for many years and meeting with a fair degree of success. Coming again to Connecticut, he settled in New Haven, where he turned his attention to carriage making, following that business until 1860, when he retired with a substantial competence that had come to him as the reward of his persistent, earnest and intelligently directed labors. He spent his remaining days in New Haven. passing away in 1870.
On the 5th of September, 1844, Abraham Thompson had wedded Lydia Ives, who was born April 12, 1824. a daughter of Elihu and Lucy (Whittemore) Ives and a grand- daughter of Dr. Eli Ives, who was a prominent physician of New Haven at an early day. Mrs. Thompson died at the home of her son at 719 Orange street in New Haven, August 16, 1911. and her remains were interred in Evergreen cemetery. She was a member of St. Paul's Episcopal church and was much loved by all who knew her. By her marriage she became the mother of four children: James E., who makes his home in New Jersey : Frank Ives; Frederick A., who became a resident of Arizona: and Charles P., still living in New Haven.
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