USA > Connecticut > New London County > A modern history of New London County, Connecticut, Volume I > Part 13
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The mistress had her own curious methods of punishment; and I dimly remember how an obstreperous boy was once shut under the lid of the big writing-desk-not for very long, I suspect. But the recollection of it, and of his sharp wail of protest. gave a very lively emphasis to my reading, years after, of Roger's story of the Italian bride Ginevra who closed the lid of a Venetian chest upon herself in some remote loft where her skeleton, and her yellowed laces, were found years afterwards by accident.
Another of the mistress's methods of subduing masculine revolt was in tying a girl's bonnet upon a boy's head. I have a lingering sense now of some such early chastisement, and of the wearisome pasteboard stiffness, and odors of the bonnet!
Of associates on those school benches, I remember with most distinctness a tallish boy, my senior by two years or so, who befriended me in many skirmishes, decoyed me often into his leafy dooryard, half-way to my home, where luscious cherries grew, and by a hundred kindly offices during many succeeding years cemented a friendship of which I have been always proud. A photograph of his emaciated, but noble face, as he lay upon his death- bed in Paris, is before me as I write.
Another first school which I knew as privileged pupil-not esteeming the privilege largely-was in the old town of Wethersfield, where I went on visits to my grandfather. I remember his great shock of snowy white hair, and how he was bowed with age. He wore most times long gray hose, with knee buckles, and a huge coat like those in Franklin pictures, whose pockets were often bulged out with a biscuit or an ear of corn. With these he loved to pamper his white pony, or other favorite beast.
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The school to which the old gentleman introduced me solemnly was near by, and of the Lancastrian order. Mr. Joseph Lancaster had come over from England not many years before to indoctrinate America.
There was great drill of limbs and voices ; but what specially impressed me was a long tray or trough of moistened sand, where we were taught to print letters. I think I came there to a trick of making printed letters which was never lost.
There was a quiet dignity about Wethersfield streets in that day. There were great quiet houses before which mighty trees grew-houses of the Welles, of the Chesters, of the Webbs-in some of which Washington had lodged in his comings or goings.
It was through that quiet Wethersfield street, and by way of the "Stage" office at Slocomb's Hotel in Hartford, that I must have traveled first to Judge Hall's Ellington school. There for six ensuing years, off and on, I wrestled with arithmetic and declamation, and Latin and Greek. It was a huge build- ing-every vestige gone now-upon a gentle eminence overlooking a peace- ful valley town. I am sure some glimpses of the life there must have found their way into some little books which I have had the temerity to publish.
The principal, a kindly, dignified old gentleman, lived apart, in a house amongst gardens and orchards; but the superintendent, the English master, the matron and the monitors, were all housed with us, and looked sharply after discipline.
When I hear boys of near kith complaining of the hardships they endure, I love to set before them a picture of the cold chambers opening upon the corridors in that huge building.
We dressed there by the dim light coming through ventilators over the doors, from lamps swinging in the hall. After this it was needful to take a swift rush out of doors, in all weathers, for a plunge into the washroom door. where we made our ablutions. Another outside rush followed for the doors opening upon the dining-hall, where morning prayers were said. Then an hour of study in a room reeking with the fumes of whale-oil lamps went before the summons to breakfast.
There were two schoolrooms. The larger was always presided over by a teacher who was nothing if not watchful. The smaller was allotted to a higher range of boys, and here the superintendent appeared at intervals to hear recititations.
I shall never forget the pride and joy with which I heard the superin- tendent-I think it was Judge Taft, thereafter Attorney General, and Minister to Russia-announce, once upon a time, my promotion to the south school- room. Frank Blair, the general of Chickamauga, was a bench-mate with me there. Once upon a "composition" day we were pitted against each other ; but who won the better marks I really cannot say.
Teacher Taft was an athlete. He could whip with enormous vigor (some boys said). but I have only the kindest recollections of him. I used to look on with amazed gratification as he lifted six "fifty-sixes," strung upon a pole, in the little grocery shop past which we walked on our way to swim in Snipsic Lake.
What a beautiful sheet of water it was in those days! Its old shores are now all submerged and blotted out by manufacturers' dams. What a joyous, rollicking progress we made homeward, of a Saturday afternoon, with the cupola and the great bulk of building lifting in our front against the west- ern sky !
The strong point of the teaching at Ellington was, I think, Latin. I am certain that before half my time there was up, I could repeat all the rules in Adams'Latin Grammar verbatim, backward or forward.
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As for longs and shorts and results and quantities and the makeup of a proper hexameter, these were driven into my brain and riveted. Even now I am dimly conscious on uneasy nights, of the Quadrupedante putrem sonitu making its way through my dreams with the old schoolboy gallop.
I could stretch this screed farther, but the types forbid. The home, with a glimpse of which I began the paper, had been broken up a long time before the high school experience came to an end. Later, in the spring of 1837, the shattered, invalid remnant of its flock was sailing homeward from a winter in Santa Cruz. In July of the same year I set off from Ellington, by the "Hartford, Ware and Keene Dispatch Line" of stages, seated beside the driver, with twenty dollars in my pocket and my trunk on the roof of the coach, to enter Yale College.
The military history of the county will be given elsewhere. The great "war governor," William A. Buckingham, was a resident of Norwich, born at I.ebanon.
Since Civil War days, the county has grown in population to over 155,000 in 1920. The remarkable feature in the growth of population of the country for the past fifty years has been the influx of foreign born. This county, like the rest of New England, has been engaged in absorbing a mixed foreign population into the institutions with which they are unfamiliar. The great instrument for doing this has been the public school system, which will be treated of in a special chapter on education.
The county history is very rich in biography. Sketches of the lives of many famous individuals are inserted hereinafter. The list is by no means exhaustive, for it is safe to say that no equal area and population in our country is richer in ties of relationship with the makers of American history.
Alexander Von Humboldt once wrote that, "judged by the number of centenarians," a semicircular region with New London as its center and a radius of fifteen miles was "the most healthful spot on the globe."
The first railroad tunnel in America was made in this county.
From New London county have come ancestors of at least six Presidents : Fillmore, Grant, Garfield, Hayes, Cleveland, and Harding.
The father of Oliver Perry, of Lake Erie fame, and of Matthew Perry, who made the historic voyage opening up Japan to western civilization, kept a store in Norwich.
The two largest vessels ever built in America, the "Minnesota" and "Dakota," said to be each of 3,300 tons burden, were built at Groton.
Dartmouth College was founded in what was then Lebanon, now the town of Columbia, in Windham county.
The oldest burial ground in the county is in New London, dating from 1653.
Wolves were once so abundant in the county that the early settlers paid a bounty of twenty shillings for each one killed.
The commerce of New London was at one time excelled by only two ports in the country-Boston and New York.
The Shaw mansion in New London was constructed by Acadians driven
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from home at the time described by Longfellow in "Evangeline."
The first Naval Expedition sent out by the Continental Congress left New London in January, 1776.
The "Savannah," officered by the Rogers Brothers of New London, was the first vessel to "steam" across the Atlantic.
Silas Deane, who was appointed one of the Peace Commission at the end of the Revolutionary War, came from Preston.
In early days in this county, as elsewhere, churches were often founded by lotteries, and the expenses of installing clergymen frequently included a considerable item for "liquor."
Stephen Whitney, one of the promoters of the Great Pacific railway, came from this county, as did President Tuttle, of the Boston & Maine rail- road.
Andrew Jackson visited Norwich at the dedication of the Uncas Monu- ment. He pronounced the parade one of the longest he had seen in a place of the size (the boys circled around behind him and rejoined the procession in a well nigh endless chain).
The two leading men of the colony of Connecticut, John Winthrop, the younger, and John Mason, were long residents of this county.
This county contains two of the five oldest cities in the State, and is one of the four original counties in Connecticut.
In 1799 New London was almost depopulated by yellow fever.
Three citizens of Norwich have given to Yale College the largest dona- tions which, at each successive time, its treasury had received from any indi- vidual. These men were Major James Fitch, Dr. Daniel Lathrop, and Dr. Alfred E. Perkins.
Norwich has an unpleasant distinction in one instance in being the birthplace of Benedict Arnold. There is nothing to be added.
Avery Waitstill, a native of Groton, removed to North Carolina, where in 1775 he became a member of the Mecklenburg Convention, and as such was one of the signers of the famous Mecklenburg Declaration of Indepen- dence.
James Cook Ayer, the father of the "patent medicine" business, was born in Groton. He established a medicine factory in Lowell, and accumulated a fortune estimated at $20,000,000. For years he published and distributed free five million copies of "Ayer's Almanac," largely devoted to advertising his goods. For some years before his death, he was confined in an asylum, his brain having become affected.
Isaac Backus, a Baptist minister, was born in Norwich, 1724. He led in the "Separatist" movement, for years held to open communion, but at length abandoned it. He was a voluminous writer on historical as well as religious subjects. For thirty-four years he was a trustee of Rhode Island College, now Brown University.
Anna Warner Bailey, born in Groton, 1758, and died there in 1850, wife of Captain Elijah Bailey, of that place, witnessed the massacre by the British
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at Fort Griswold, September 6, 1781. The next day she visited the spot, searching for an uncle, whom she found fatally wounded, and to whom she brought his wife and child. When the British were threatening New London in July, 1813, "Mother Bailey," as she was known, aided the patriots by tearing up garments for cartridge making.
Edward Sheffield Bartholomew, born in Colchester, 1822, died in Italy, 1858, a sculptor of great ability, performed his work in Rome during his later years. Many of his productions are in the Wadsworth Gallery, Hartford.
Dr. Timothy Dwight, twelfth president of Yale College, was a native of Norwich, son of James Dwight, and grandson of Timothy Dwight, the third president of the institution. It was under the presidency of him whose name heads this paragraph, that the college received the legal title of Uni- versity. President Dwight was highly successful in extending the curriculum of the institution, and in advancing its material interests. He was a member of the American committee for the revision of the English version of the Bible from 1872 to its completion in 1885. He was the author of several volumes, notably one on "The True Ideal of an American University," which appeared serially in 1871-72 in "The New Englander," of which he was then editor, and which had much to do in effecting the transition of Yale from a collegiate to a university status.
Daniel Coit Gilman, first president of Johns Hopkins University, was born in Norwich, July 6, 1831.
Frederick Stuart Church, famous as a painter and etcher, was a resi- dent here.
Jedidiah Huntington, soldier of the Revolution and one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, was born in Norwich, August 4, 1743, and died in New London, September 25, 1818. Jabez Huntington, his father, was a wealthy merchant and a patriot leader; he served three years in the Revo- lutionary army, and only leaving it on account of failing health. The son, a Harvard graduate, entered the army as a captain in April, 1775, two years later was made a brigadier-general, and served in New York and Pennsylvania until the close of the war, and was breveted major-general. He was a mem- ber of two courts-martial-that which tried General Charles Lee, and that which convicted Major Andre. He was sheriff of New London county, State treasurer of Connecticut, and collector of customs at New London. He was one of the founders of the Society of the Cincinnati, and a man of deep piety and charitable disposition.
The famous explorer, John Ledyard, was a native of Groton, born in 175I, son of John and Mary (Hempstead) Ledyard, his father a ship captain. Young Ledyard was a mere child when his father died, and he was brought up in the home of his grandfather. At the age of eighteen, his benefactor having died, Ledyard entered Dartmouth College as a divinity student, with a desire to fit himself for missionary work among the Indians, to whom he was so drawn that he soon abandoned his studies and made his abode among them. This was the beginning of his venturesome career. Making a canoe
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voyage down the Connecticut river to Hartford, he went on to New London, where he shipped as a common sailor in a vessel bound for Gibraltar. There he enlisted in the British army, and after his discharge therefrom voyaged to the West Indies and thence to New York and London. In the latter place he fell in company with Captain Cook, who was preparing for his third and what was destined to be his last great voyage. The two were mutually pleased with each other, and the younger man became the commander's most trusted lieutenant, and was by his side when Captain Cook was killed on one of the Hawaiian Islands, February 14, 1779. Returning with the expedi- tion to England by way of Kamtchatka, the British authorities in accordance with its naval rules took from Ledyard his notes of the expedition. For two years Ledyard remained in the British navy, leaving it at the outbreak of the Revolution rather than do battle against his countrymen. In 1784 he con- ceived an idea of fitting out an expedition to explore the northwestern Amer- ican coast, and visited Spain and France in hopes of securing necessary means, but without success. Finally, at London, he found friendly scientists who furthered his purpose, and he voyaged to Finland and thence to St. Peters- burg, where he started for Siberia, but under suspicion of being a spy was harried out of Russia into Poland. Returning to London, an expedition was outfitted for him to explore the interior of Africa, and he sailed in June, 1788, but at Cairo sickened and died, January 17, 1789. His notes of travel were of value, and to this day his narrative of Captain Cook's voyage is famed for its vividness and brilliance. He was a nephew of William Ledyard, who was brutally murdered by the Tory Major Bromfield, at Fort Griswold, Groton Heights, Connecticut, after its surrender, in 1781.
Isaac H. Bromley, whom Chauncey M. Depew spoke of as "a most con- scientious journalist, and with whom no personal relations interfered with what he felt was a public duty," was born at Norwich, March 6, 1833, and died there, August 11, 1898; his parents were Isaac and Mary (Hill) Bromley. He was also married in Norwich, to Adelaide, daughter of Jabez and Clarissa T. Roath. He was admitted to the bar, but journalism claimed the greater part of his life work. During the Civil War he was a captain in the 18th Connecticut Regiment. In 1858 he established the Norwich "Morning Bulle- tin," and conducted it until 1868, when he left it to become editor and part owner of the Hartford "Evening Post." After leaving the paper last named he served in turn on the editorial staff of the New York "Sun" and "Tribune," and after ten years on the latter paper became editor of the "Commercial Advertiser," a position which he relinquished to accept appointment as a government director of the Union Pacific railroad, serving as such until 1884, when he took the editorial management of the Rochester "Post-Express." In October, 1891, he returned to the New York "Tribune," with which he was associated until a few months before his death. He was one of the organizing members of Sedgwick Post, G. A. R., of Norwich.
Charles Harold Davis, one of America's foremost landscape painters, a native of Massachusetts, following ten years' professional studies in France
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and other art centers, for five years resided continually at Mystic, winter as well as summer, painting directly from nature. His fame is world-wide.
Samson Occum is a name famous in association with what became Dart- mouth College. He was a Mohegan Indian living in New London county, who was converted and educated by Eleazer Wheelock, the founder of the above named institution. Occum came to fame as a preacher, and was a valuable aid to his instructor in his educational work and in laying the founda- tions of schools and academies. In 1766 Occum and Rev. Nathaniel Whitaker, of Norwich, visited Great Britain and raised nearly £12,000 (a large sum in those days) for these purposes.
Rev. Lyman Abbott, famous as divine and author, and especially as an exponent of the so-called liberal theology, born in Roxbury, Massachusetts, was fitted for college in Norwich.
Bela Lyon Pratt, the well-known sculptor, was a native of Norwich, a son of George and Sarah Victoria (Whittlesey) Pratt, his father one of the most accomplished lawyers in Connecticut. Young Pratt began drawing and modeling at home while but a child, and received his technical training in the School of Fine Arts of Yale University, in the Art Students' League of New York City under St. Gaudens, and in Paris under Chapin and Falguiere, finally entering the Ecole des Beaux Arts at the head of his class and winning three medals and two prizes. He was soon afterward made instructor in modeling in the Muesum of Fine Arts, Boston. Among his many fine works are some of great local interest-the Avery bust, "the Puritan," at Groton, and the bronze statue of John Winthrop at New London.
Christopher R. Perry, who served with credit in both the American army and navy during the Revolution, was for a time a resident of Norwich, where he conducted a store. Two of his sons are among the most conspicuous figures of their day-Oliver Hazard Perry, the "Don't give up the ship" hero of Lake Erie during the war with Great Britain in 1812-14; and Matthew Galbraith Perry, who crowned a notable naval career with the opening up of Japan to the commerce of the world.
The brilliant Commodore Stephen Decatur, of Tripoli fame, and captor of the British frigate "Macedonian," was for a long period during the war of 1812-14 an enforced sojourner in the Thames river, the mouth of which was blockaded by a squadron of the enemy. His fall in the duel with Commodore Barron is one of the pitiful tragedies of our naval history.
Henry Ward Beecher was a frequent visitor to our county, and scenes and reminiscences of Norwich figure throughout his famous "Star Papers."
Lebanon was the home of the famous Trumbull family, which had as one of its most distinguished representatives Colonel John Trumbull, of Revolutionary fame, but more famous as the historical painter of that stupen- dous period, most of which are in the Art Gallery at Yale University.
Dr. William Thompson Lusk, one of the world's greatest physicians, and a distinguished professional instructor and author, was born in Norwich, May 23, 1838, and died June 12, 1897, son of Sylvester Graham and Elizabeth
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Freeman (Adams) Lusk. His father was a well-known merchant, senior member of the Norwich firm of Lusk, Lathrop & Co. The son received his elementary education in the city of his birth, but on account of an eye affection was obliged to leave college in his freshman year. Going to Switzer- land for treatment, and experiencing benefit, he studied medicine in Heidel- berg and Berlin. Returning home he entered the army shortly after the outbreak of the Civil War, and served about two years, rising to a captaincy. At Bull Run, under fire, he carried his wounded captain from the field. He completed his professional studies at Bellevue Medical College, New York City, and graduated valedictorian of his class. He then pursued post-graduate studies in Edinburgh, Paris, Vienna and Prague. On his return home he engaged in practice in Bridgeport, Connecticut, later locating in New York City, where he held first rank as an operator and instructor. He was the first in America to successfully perform the Caesarian section, which he re- peated on several occasions with a very small percentage of mortality. He was a prolific professional writer, and one of his principal works, "Science and Art of Midwifery," was translated into French, Italian, Spanish, Arabic and other languages.
The village of Lyme was the birthplace of the distinguished lawyer and jurist, Morrison R. Waite, who succeeded Salmon P. Chase as Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, appointed by President Grant.
Governor William Alfred Buckingham, famous as one of the "War Gov- ernors" of the Civil War period, and one of the most trusted of President Lincoln's supporters, was born May 28, 1804, in Lebanon, New London county. He was educated in the local schools and at Bacon Academy, Col- chester. He taught school for a time, afterward serving as clerk in a store in Norwich. After similar service for a short time in New York City, he returned to Norwich, and established a drygoods business, afterward becom- ing a large and successful manufacturer of ingrain carpets, and then of rubber shoes. He was mayor of the city for four terms; and in 1858 was elected governor, to which office he was returned for eight consecutive terms. At the opening if the Civil War, he was the first governor to send to the front a completely equipped regiment, pledging his personal credit to cover the expense until the legislature could be assembled. The successive quotas of troops were always more than filled, and under his leadership the State contributed to the army and navy almost one-half of her able-bodied popu- lation. President Lincoln and Secretary of War Stanton held him in the highest esteem. The war having ended, Governor Buckingham declined further service as such, and was elected to the United States Senate, in which he served with conspicuous ability until his death, February 5, 1875, a short time before the end of his senatorial term. He was one of the founders of the Broadway Congregational Church of Norwich and of the Norwich Free Academy, and was devoted to religious and charitable work. His home in Norwich was purchased by Sedgwick Post of the Grand Army of the Republic, and is known as the Buckingham Memorial.
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Donald Grant Mitchell, who as "Ik Marvel" gave untold delight to readers of a generation now well nigh passed away, with his "Dream Life" and "Reveries of a Bachelor," was a native of Norwich, born April 12, 1822, son of Pastor Mitchell, of the Second Congregational Church in Norwich, and grandson of the distinguished Judge Stephen M. Mitchell, of Western Re- serve fame. After graduating from Yale, finding his health somewhat im- paired, he passed three years on the farm of his grandfather, in Salem, where he undoubtedly received impressions of rural beauties and pleasures which he later pictured so beautifully in his writings. He traveled on foot in Eng- land for more than a year, and out of his observations wrote his "Fresh Gleanings ; a New Sheaf from Old Fields." Meantime he had taken up law studies, but unable to bear office confinement, made another voyage to Europe, and was in Paris during the revolution of 1848. Returning home, he engaged in literary work, as founder and editor of "The Lorgnette," a weekly; and then producing in turn the two volumes entitled above, and for which he is most famous. In 1854 President Pierce appointed him Consul to Venice, and where he collected material of which he made good use in volumes and magazine contributions written later. His earlier works were published under his nom de plume of "Ik Marvel," but when he came to "My Farm of Edge- wood" and "Rural Studies," and others, he assumed his proper name. All his writings were characterized by tender yet manly sentiment, and his descrip- tions of rural life were enlightening and inspiring.
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