USA > Connecticut > New London County > A modern history of New London County, Connecticut, Volume I > Part 12
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cither have sheathed, dropped, or changed it to his left hand, in order to receive Ledyard's with the right; and this hardly seems possible. We must therefore suppose that he received it in his left hand; and if so, does it not appear as most unreasonable that, having a sword in either hand, he would have used that in his left with which to make the thrust? Yet he must have done so if it was by his own sword that Ledyard met his death. Neither does it appear possible that in the heat and excitement of the engagement, coolly calculating the chances, he would have passed around to the left of his victim for the purpose of making the wound more surely fatal-the only reason for which we can suppose it to have been done.
We have seen from the position occupied by the parties that the wound, if inflicted instantly on the surrender of the sword, must have been given in front ; the marks in the vest conclusively prove it to have been given in the left side. We have seen the awkward position of the officer with his own sword in his right and Ledyard's in his left hand-a situation almost pre- cluding the idea of his making the stab with the latter. We have also seen that no person who witnessed it left any testimony regarding the affair, and that all the commonly received version of it is based upon is really but the surmises of a people wrought almost to desperation by their losses and wrongs, who in the first moments of exasperation would naturally attribute an act of such enormity to the commander as the representative of the enemy. Now, after considering all these facts and probabilities, is it not a more rational conclusion that the wound was given by a by-standing officer-a subaltern or aid, perhaps-than that it was inflicted by the officer to whom Ledyard offered his sword? It certainly so appears to us. But in case that, despite all these reasons for believing that officer innocent of the crime, he was really guilty of the two to whom it has been charged, against but one is there any evidence to sustain the charge, and this is purely circumstantial. Captain Beckwith acted as aid to Lieutenant-Colonel Ayres on the day of the battle, and was the officer sent to demand the surrender of the fort. He, with Lord Dalrymple, was sent by Arnold as bearer of despatches to Sir Henry Clinton, and in all probability furnished the account of the battle for Riving- ton's Gazette, which appeared in that paper before the remainder of the expedition had reached New York. In this account, in which the details of the conference regarding the surrender are given with a minuteness with which only an eye-witness could give them, personal malice toward Colonel Ledyard is a salient feature, which the most unobservant reader cannot fail to notice. The writer appears to have considered the flag and the officers bearing it insulted in the conference; and in his reference to the garrison, and to Colonel Ledyard in particular, he expresses himself in the most con- temptuous and bitter terms.
If he was the officer to whom the surrender was made, it is possible that on beholding the man who he fancied had insulted him he allowed his rage to supplant his manhood, and, forgetting his military honor, plunged his sword into his vanquished enemy. From Miss Caulkins' "History of New London" we learn that he afterward passed through New York on his way to Barbadoes. While there he was charged by the newspapers of that city with the murder, which he indignantly denied. A correspondence was opened between him and a relative of Colonel Ledyard in reference to the question, when he produced documents which exculpated him. In view of this, how- ever, as between him and Major Bromfield, circumstantial evidence is strongly in favor of the latter, who doubtless could have furnished as full documentary proof of his innocence, had he been called upon for it .- H.
AN ERA OF UNREST
The population of New London county had grown by 1800 to about 40,000, Stonington at that time being its largest town. Commerce was carried on extensively with the West Indies and with South America and Europe. The war between England and France was at that time a source of much profit to New England, but with the Embargo Act of 1807 the shipping interests of the county were hard hit. It is small wonder that the Federalists opposed Jefferson's policy.
One wonders, of course, why New England, in spite of impressment of our seamen by the Mother Country and her renunciation of a well settled shipping rule, was so luke-warm in its animosity against her and so hostile to France. The reasons are three: In the first place, the French privateers of the West Indies and their depredations on New England commerce; sec- ondly, Jefferson was at the same time a French adherent, and author of a commercial policy the stupidest conceivable from our standpoint. He had called a halt in navy making and had forced on the country the embargo and non-intercourse acts. But the third reason was by far the most important, viz .: The feeling in every real New England man that Great Britain was fighting the battle of Christendom against Bonaparte. "Suppose England has changed her maritime rules," our fathers said, "let us in at the game, no matter what rule she makes. Give us seaway, and give us a port ahead-we will find our way in. Never mind the cruising frigates or the blockade, actual or on paper. If we are caught, ours the loss."
The thought that, after all, Old England might not win hung like a cloud over every New England hamlet. Open the limp sheets of those old Con- necticut journals. Even in our actual fighting days from 1812 to 1815, clip- pings from the English papers that slipped in via Halifax were what people wanted most to read-not news of Chippewa and Lundy's Lane. Wellington and Napoleon were the real figures on the world's stage. And our grand- fathers judged rightly.
Such were the feelings that gave birth to the Hartford Convention. Have we in Connecticut anything to apologize for in that gathering? If so, it doesn't appear in its journal-and Theodore Dwight was an honest man. Do we wish it had never met? If that page were taken from New England history, we should always miss something-a rare sample of her sober courage, her four-square view of things as they are. If other events-the treaty, and Jackson at New Orleans-had not come near at the time of its adjournment, its name would never have been spoken with a sneer or written with nullifica- tion in the context.
But with the end of the war of 1812 came the dying out of the Federalist party and a new era for industrial New England. The New England of commercial prosperity soon took up manufacturing on a large scale. New London and Stonington still had their thriving fleets of merchantmen and whalers, concerning which we quote from an article by Miss Charlotte M. Holloway, in the "Connecticut Quarterly":
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The first ship fitted out from New London was the "Rising Sun," Squire, captain, 1784; but the voyage was not a long nor eventful one, and to the ship "Commerce," rather, which cleared from New London February 6, 1794, is due the honor of having been the pioneer of the New London whaling fishery, and the first to make for southern latitudes, and after a cruise of fifteen months it returned July 6, 1798, with a full cargo of oil. It would have been inter- esting to know more than the meagre record of the name of the captain, Ransom, but the "Commerce" after another voyage was put into the West Indian trade, and was lost off Cape Henry, December 25, 1799. Gen. William Williams, of the Williams family noted for benefactions to the city, had also sent out the "Criterion," which was successful, but for some reason, though endeavor was made to form a company in New London to prosecute whaling, the published call in "Green's Gazette" met with insufficient response, and the project languished till 1805, when Dr. Samuel H. P. Lee purchased the "Dauphin," built by Joseph Barber, at Pawkatuck Bridge, especially for whal- ing. Dr. Lee organized a whaling company, but it is not alone through service to her commerce that New London is debtor to this noble man, for in the terrible yellow fever epidemic of 1798 which decimated the population, he remained at his post working day and night to save life and stimulating others to heroism and endurance. Soon three ships were in commission-the "Daphne," "Leonidas" and "Lydia"-and their catches were sufficient to war- rant the company in continuing; but there came the deterrents of the Em- bargo and the War of 1812. So that the real birth of the whale fishing in New London can be dated from 1819, when Thomas W. Williams fitted out the "Mary" (Captain Davis), Daniel Deshon and others the "Carrier," Doug- las, and the "Mary Ann," Inglis; in 1820, the "Pizarro," Elias Coit; 1821, the brig "Thames" and the ships "Commodore Perry" and "Stonington," the latter so large that it was made a stock enterprise, divided into shares of one thirty-second each. Both ships sailed the same year around the Horn, and after an absence of twenty-eight months brought back, the "Carrier" 2,100 and the "Stonington" 1,550 barrels. By 1827 there were six ships fitted out by T. W. Williams, and N. and W. W. Billings had three-the "Commodore Perry." which was the first copper-bottomed whaler sent from this port, and the "Superior" and the "Phoenix." The "Commodore Perry" made seventeen voyages and the "Stonington" thirteen before they were broken up in 1848. The "Neptune," which T. W. Williams bought in 1824, was built in 1808, and had returned from an unsuccessful voyage when it was purchased from its New Bedford owner for $1,650. After its addition to the New London fleet it made more than twenty voyages. It was in the "Neptune," 1829, that Capt. Samuel Green, the oldest living whaling captain in New London, made his first voyage. His last was in the "Trident," in 1871, and so frightful was his experience that he determined, should he escape, never again to risk his life in the fatal trap which had caught so many good men and ships. In Sep- tember the fleet of 34 vessels was gathered in a narrow strip from two hund- red yards to half a mile in width, from Point Belcher to two or three miles south of Wainright Inlet. The whaling had been fairly good, and despite the warnings of the Esquimaux, who told them the ice was closing in, they remained until the wind changed and the ice floes were driven upon them; the vessels were crushed, the crews abandoned them, glad to save their lives, and after untold hardships, from the 29th of August to the 14th of September, when they abandoned the vessels, the devoted masters and crews started to reach the "Arctic" and another vessel which was free of the ice.
From this firm and New London the first steam whaler was sent to the whaling grounds, and the first steam sealer. In the whaler "Pioneer," Capt.
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Ebenezer Morgan, better known as "Rattler" Morgan, was made the best whaling voyage on record; sailing June 4, 1864, for Hudson's Bay, she returned September 18, 1865, with 1,391 barrels of whale oil, and 22,650 pounds of whalebone, a cargo worth $150,000, while the outlay for vessel and fitting was but $35,800. This was the best whaling voyage ever made. The principle on which whaling was conducted was co-operative, the owners furnishing ship, outfit, and providing for the honoring of the captain's drafts ; the captain was quite often a part or whole owner. Capital had two-thirds of the gain and the other third was divided proportionately among the officers and men. There being no wages settled, every incentive was furnished for diligence, and somtimes a bonus was offered to the first man who sighted a whale. There were very many daring and successful whalers from New London ; indeed, the solid comfort and foundation of many of her homes came from the splendid fortitude and perseverance of these heroes of the sea. There were no more brave and successful captains than the three brothers Smith- Capt. Robert Smith, who was killed on his sixth voyage, in 1828, while captur- ing a whale; Capt. Frank Smith, in seven successive voyages, in 1831-37, brought home 17,301 barrels of oil; and Capt. James Smith, the third brother, made fame and fortune, but left whaling for commander of a packet between Honolulu and San Francisco. Capt. "Jim" Smith, of the "Manhansett," who is really known wherever a college boy goes for his skill and urbanity, is the youngest ex-whaler in New London. The names of Morgan, Smith, Blyden- burgh, Davis, Chapell, Green, Ward, Tinker, Buddington, Hempstead, Baker, Brown, Allyn, Spicer, Fuller, Rice, Benjamin, Tyson, Pendleton, Fish, and others are sure to be thought of when whaling is mentioned. Today there is very little done, save for the obtaining of whalebone, and whaling is practically a past industry as far as New London is concerned.
The water power of the county soon began to turn the wheels of cotton mills. The race of merchants still continued to thrive, but the cotton industry added to population more rapidly. In 1840 Norwich was the largest town of the county. During the early part of the nineteenth century many a man left the county to engage in foreign trade and return with his "pile."
In the interesting life of Daniel Wadsworth Coit, edited by his nephew. Mr. William C. Gilman, may be found a very interesting proof that the Pil- grim blood still ran in the veins of their descendants. The indenture, signed and sealed by all the parties to it, bound his employers to teach him "the trade, art, and mystery of a merchant"; he on his part, and his father for him, agreeing that "he shall of his own free will and accord his master faithfully serve, his secrets keep, and his lawful commands everywhere readily obey; shall not contract matrimony ; shall refrain from vice, and from business on his own account; and in all things shall behave himself as a faithful apprentice ought to do during his term of service." His only compensation was to be his board and washing. The theory was that the employer stood in the place of a parent to the apprentice, was interested in his welfare, gave him special opportunities for advancement and improvement, with a commercial educa- tion that was a full equivalent for his services. By this system, now almost obsolete, except as it may be suggested by the youthful experience of Admiral Sir Joseph Porter in "Pinafore," he received a training that was invaluable in the important and complicated transactions in which he was concerned in
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later years. The art of writing a faultless business letter, acquired early in life, was an accomplishment not to be despised, in which he excelled.
The particular duties of the youngest clerk, as he describes them, were "to open the store at an early hour, to sweep and dust the floors, to make fires throughout the winter, and not infrequently to roll empty hogsheads and barrels through the streets for packing, and to shoulder and carry goods from one part of the city to another." If the hours were no more than sixty minutes long there were more working hours in twenty-four than there are now, and that work was often carried well into the night, appears by letters to his parents, written when he was "so sleepy he could hardly keep his eyes open." His career is embodied to some degree in the "Notes of Daniel Wadsworth Coit," as follows :
1787-November 29. Born, Norwich, Conn.
1803-Apprenticed to merchants in New York.
1808-Began business on his own account.
1818-September 27. Sailed from New York for Peru. 1819-January 14. Arrived at Lima.
1820-April. Sailed from Guayaquil for Gibraltar.
1820-September 27. Arrived at Gibraltar.
1820-22-Traveled in Spain, France, and England.
1822-June. Sailed from London for South America.
1822-October. Arrived at Buenos Ayres.
1822-December. Crossed the Andes to Valparaiso.
1823-December. Arrived at Lima.
1828-June. Sailed from Lima for New York.
1829-May. Sailed from New York for England. 1829-32 -- Traveled in Europe.
1832-June. Returned to Norwich.
1833-October. Visited Grand Rapids.
1834-September I. Married Harriet Frances Coit.
1834-41-Lived in New York and New Rochelle.
1841-47-Lived in Norwich.
1848-January. To Mexico for Howland and Aspinwall.
1849-March. From Mexico to San Francisco.
1849-52-In business in San Francisco.
1852-June. Returned to his home in Norwich. 1876-July 18. Died, Norwich.
From the above it can be seen that he left home in 1818 to be gone ten years! That he left again in 1829 to be gone three years; traveled ; lived in Norwich, 1841-1847; left home for four years, and returned to remain twenty- four years, dying at the age of eighty-nine !
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CHAPTER IV LITTLE KNOWN FACTS ABOUT NEW LONDON COUNTY
The Beginnings of Railroads and Telegraphs-Old-Time School Reminiscences-Celeb- rities in All Walks of Life.
The history of New London County in education has been touched upon. Its history in banking, in the professions, in public improvements, in religious affairs, in industrial development, and in various other aspects of community life, will be discussed in special articles. It is fair to say that the county has been progressive in its activities.
As early as 1800 was built the turnpike between Norwich and New London, "the first turnpike built in the United States," states Dr. Dwight in his "Travels." Adams Express Company was started as an enterprise in Norwich and New London. Regular steamship connection with New York started as early as 1816. The tunnel on the Norwich & Worcester railroad, just outside of Norwich, is the first railroad tunnel constructed in the United States. The Norwich & Worcester railroad was one of the earliest in the country. As early as 1847 a telegraph company was started by citizens of New London and Norwch. The railroad from New London to New Haven (1849-52) completed the first railroad connection between Boston and New York. The New London, Willimantic & Springfield railroad was built by 1850. In whaling and seal fisheries the hardy navigators of New London and Stonington were pioneers in southern waters. The Rogers Brothers were captain and sailing master of the "Savannah," the first steamship to cross the ocean. The abundant water power of the county gave it an early start in manufacturing, especially in the paper and cotton industries. The two largest steamships ever built in America, "The Minnesota" and "The Dakota," each of 3,300 tons, were built in Groton.
In the Civil War the county was the home of the Connecticut War Gov- ernor, and sent far more men than its quota. In the period of reconstruction after the war, New London county throve in wealth and population. To recount the new enterprises started, the patents granted to men of the county, the public improvements made, would be beyond the scope of this outline history of the county. Suffice it to say that by 1910 the population had increased to 91,253.
The effects of steam transportation by land and sea were soon felt in the prosperity of the county. Before 1850, the Norwich & Worcester, the New London Northern, the New York, Providence & Boston railroad, the Shore Line, had been chartered, and regular steamboat service established with New York. The age of steam brought prosperity and increasing popu- lation. The census of 1860 shows a population of over 60,000 in the county. Schools had been built generally, college training had become not unusual, the press had developed, New London county still continued to furnish men
N.L .- 1-6
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of influence in the nation. Before 1850 the county had sent eight men to be governors of Connecticut, five men to be chief justices of the Supreme Court of the State, and three United States Senators, and twelve members of Con- gress. From the old home had gone forth men who made their mark in other parts of the Union.
What life was at that time may be seen by a letter sent to Norwich by Donald G. Mitchell, "Ik Marvel," called "Looking Back at Boyhood":
I pity those young folks who pass their early years without having any home knowledge of gardens or orchards. City schools and city pavements are all very well; but I think if my childish feet had not known of every-day trampings through garden alleys or on wood walks, and of climbings in hay-lofts or among apple boughs when fruit began to turn, half of the joys of boyhood, as I look back at them, would be plucked away.
So it happens, that when I am asked for some reminiscences of those early days, gone for sixty years or more, the great trees that sheltered my first home stir their branches again. Again I see the showers of dancing petals from the May bloom of apple or peach trees strewing the grass, or the brown garden mold, with a little of that old exultation of feeling which is almost as good as a prayer-in way of thanksgiving.
I think I could find my way now through all the involvements of new buildings and new plantings on ground that I have not visited for fifty years, to the spot where the blood peach grew, and where the mulberry stood and the greengage loaded with fruit in its harvest time, and the delightful white- blooming crab, lifting its odors into the near window of the "boys' room."
Then there was a curiously misshapen apple tree in the far orchard, with trunk almost prone upon the ground, as if Providence had designed it for children to clamber upon. What a tree it was to climb! There many a time we toddlers used to sit, pondering on our future, when the young robins in the nest overhead would be fully fledged, catching glimpses, too, before yet leaves were fully out, of the brown hermitage or study upon the near wooded hillside, where my father, who was a clergyman, wrought at his sermons.
It is only a dim image of him that I can conjure up as he strode at noontime down the hill. Catching up the youngest of us with a joyous, proud laugh, he led the toddling party-the nurse bringing up the rear-in a rollicking procession homeward.
A more distinct yet less home-like image of this clergyman I have in mind as he leaned over the pulpit of a Sunday, with a solemnity of manner that put one in awe, and with an earnestness of speech that made the Bible stories he expounded seem very real.
But the sermons of those days were very long for children. It must have been, usually, before the middle of the discourse that I went foraging about the square pew, visiting an aunt who almost always had peppermints in her bag, or in lack of this diversion I could toy with the foot-stove under my mother's gown, or build fortifications with the hymn-books.
The "lesser" Westminster Catechism also, with which we had wrestlings, was somewhat heavy and intellectually remote. But it was pleasantly tem- pered by the play of the parlor fire, or the benignly approving smiles when answerings were prompt. In summer weather the song of a cat-bird or brown-thrasher in the near tulip-tree chased away all the tedium of the West- minster divines, or perhaps lifted it into a celestial atmosphere.
The Bible stories, though, as they tripped from my mother's tongue, were
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always delightful. I thought then, and still think-at sixty-nine !- that her ways of religious teaching were by many odds better than that of the West- minster divines. And there were some of her readings from the hymn-book that tingle in my ears today.
That compulsory Bible-reading, chapter after chapter, and day by day, so common in well-regulated families of those times, has for me a good many ungrateful memories. Wrathful, unwholesome burnings were kindled by this enforced rote reading of a book wherefrom gladsome and hopeful splendors ought to shine.
Of other earliest reading I remember with distinctness that great budget of travel and adventure, good for week-days or Sunday, called "The Pilgrim's Progress." Mercy, and Great-heart, and Christian, and Giant Despair, too, were of our family. Nor can I cease to call to mind gratefully the good woman (Maria Edgeworth) who in the earliest days of our listening to stories made us acquainted with the "Basket-maker's" children who scotched the carriage wheels, and with "Lazy Lawrence" and "Eton Montem."
At what precise age I went to my first school I cannot say. It may have been five or six. A roundabout blue jacket with bell buttons I know I had, and a proud tramp past the neighbors' houses.
The mistress was an excellent woman, everybody said, with a red ruler and discipline, and spectacles. A tap from her spectacle-case was a sum- mons every morning to listen to her reading, in quiet monotone, of a chapter in the Bible; after which, in the same murmurous way, she said a prayer.
She taught arithmetic out of Colburn, I think, and Woodbridge's Geog- raphy to the older ones ; but her prime force was lavished upon spelling. We had field-days in that, for which we were marshalled by companies, toeing a crack in the oaken floor. What an admiring gaze I lifted up upon the tall fellows who went with a wondrous glibness through the intricacies of such words as "im-prac-ti-ca-bil-i-ty"!
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