USA > Connecticut > New London County > A modern history of New London County, Connecticut, Volume I > Part 27
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When five (the requisite legal number out of the twelve) were found ready to administer the oath, Trumbull refused to be present to witness its administration, and taking his hat hastened from the chamber, leading the six other assistants who, with him, had stood firm. This, with other clear and courageous conduct, showed him to the colonists as fitted to be their first magistrate, and to have their interest in his hands, and he was chosen gov- ernor in 1769. He already had large experience in public affairs. He had fourteen times represented his town as deputy to the General Assembly and had three times filled the office of speaker; had been chosen assistant for twenty-two years; had been for one year side judge, and for seventeen years chief judge of the County Court of Windham county; had been for nineteen years judge of probate for the Windham district; had been once elected an assistant judge, and four times chief justice of the Superior Court of the colony ; and for four years had been deputy governor. He held the office of governor fourteen years, and till within two years of his death.
William Williams was more impulsive and ardent, and fitted to inspire others with enthusiasm. With tongue and pen and estate he gave himself to the cause of the colonies. During the gloomy winter of 1777 he sent beef, cattle, and gold to Valley Forge, saying, "If independence should be estab- lished he should get his pay; if not, the loss would be of no account to him." With such men active here, we are prepared to find on the town records resolutions like the following: At a town-meeting held 7th December, 1767, a letter received from the selectmen of Boston, as to the oppressive and ruinous duties laid on various articles, and calling for union in some common measures of relief: "Jonathan Trumbull, the selectmen, and others were appointed a committee by themselves, or in concert with committees from neighboring towns, to consider and devise such measures and means as may more effectually tend to promote and encourage industry, economy, and manufactures." Under these oppressions, bearing heavily on it as a port,
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Boston appealed to Lebanon, and this town came into full sympathy and concert with it.
The number of men whom this town sent into the War of the Revolution it is now impossible to determine, so many of the rolls of companies are wanting. Some who have given most attention to the papers existing and to all the evidence, estimate that there were periods when as many as five hundred were serving in the army at the same time. Some served for short terms-three months, six months; some were minute-men, called out when the towns along the coast, New London and New Haven, were menaced or attacked. This would be one to about every eight of the inhabitants at that time. The quota of this town for the Civil War, from 1861 to 1865, was 206; and the population in 1860 being 2,174, this would be one to about every ten of the inhabitants. About one hundred actually went from this town, one to every twenty-one of the inhabitants.
The town records furnish abundant evidence of the resolute effort made to meet the demands for men-which came year after year as the war went on, and tasked the resources and endurance of the colonies-and to provide for the families of those absent in the army. In the later stages of the war, when a given number of men was called for, the number capable of bearing arms had been reduced, and the enthusiasm, which in the beginning had prompted men to enlist, had subsided, the able-bodied men of the town be- tween the ages of fifteen and fifty-five were divided into classes of the same number, ten, and each class was required to furnish a man.
After the religious services on the Sabbaths, and on Thanksgiving and fast-days, especially in 1777, contributions for the suffering soldiers were received in the meeting-houses, when jewelry and every article of clothing and provisions were presented, and the ladies, as individuals and in concert, with the discreet and earnest Madame Trumbull encouraging them and set- ting them an example, bore their part in these contributions.
How impossible it is for us in quiet Lebanon, as it now is, to picture what Lebanon was and what transpired here during the years of the war, the governor of the State residing here, the counselor and friend and efficient helper of Washington; the Council of Safety, which aided the governor and wielded extensive powers in the conduct of the war in this State and in this part of the country, holding here nearly all of its more than twelve hundred sessions held during the war ; messengers from the army and from Washing- ton arriving at and leaving the War Office, bringing and carrying away dispatches ; the governor, with the agencies he employed, engaged in pro- curing and forwarding provisions, clothing, and military supplies, and these streets often crowded with activity of this sort; for seven months at one period the Duke of Lauzun's legion of French cavalry here, some of them in barracks in a lot on the right of the Colchester road, called "Barracks lot," others of them on the Common, a little north of where we are assembled, where still can be seen remains of their ovens and camp utensils ; the soldiers now and then stealing wood, and a sheep, a pig, and convicted and punished; a deserter shot; the duke and higher officers having quarters in the house (on the corner), in its original form, now occupied by Asher P. Smith, and some of the officers at Alden's tavern, these gentlemanly officers in their leisure flirting with the fair maidens of the place; gay festivities, at which distinguished guests from abroad were present, frequently occurring; reviews of troops ; Washington repeatedly here to consult with the Governor; Lafay- ette here, according to Stuart in his "Life of Trumbull"; General Knox, Dr. Franklin, Samuel Adams, John Adams, John Jay, Thomas Jefferson, and others. Lebanon was certainly then a center of dignity and influence, and was the military headquarters of this part of the country.
With its other important contributions to the War of Independence, this
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town contributed in Jonathan Trumbull a laborious and efficient War Gov- ernor, at the beginning the only loyal governor to whom Washington gave distinguished confidence, on whom he relied in the most trying emergencies, a man discreet, far-seeing, inflexible in following his convictions, eminently God-fearing, and a true patriot ; in William Williams, a member of the Con- tinental Congress in 1776-77 and again in 1783-84, a signer of the Declara- tion of Independence, ardent, self-sacrificing, passionate in his devotion to his country, who one hundred years ago today represented this State, repre- sented this town in that great proceeding in Independence Hall, Philadelphia ; in Joseph Trumbull, a commissary-general and the first commissary-general of the national army, whose brilliant career was cut short by an early death, hastened by his strenuous devotion to his difficult duties in organizing this department of the army; in John Trumbull, an aide-de-camp to Washington, an adjutant-general to General Gage, and a painter who acquired a distin- guished reputation from his delineation of national scenes and from his por- traits of distinguished men of the Revolutionary period; in Jonathan Trum- bull, Jr., a paymaster to the northern department of the army. a first aide-de- camp and private secretary to Washington, a member of his family, and enjoying his high esteem. Capt. James Clark commanded a company in the battle of Bunker Hill, and was in the battles of Harlem Heights and White Plains. Lieut. Andrew Fitch was in the battle of Bunker Hill, and in the service to the close of the war. John Wheelock, son of President Wheelock, of Dartmouth College, afterwards himself president, served as lieutenant- colonel in the Continental army, and was a member of the staff of General Gage.
Lebanon has done well in the men whom in different periods it has furnished -- six governors of States, five of them of this State, who held the office thirty-seven years, and one of them (William A. Buckingham) a second War Governor, and a worthy successor of the first; resolute, indefatigable, large-hearted, vigorous, and upright in administration, and of a character to command universal esteem and affection ; Trumbull and Buckingham ! names that honor the town. honor the State, honor the nation. In all the list of honored men from the beginnings have there been abler, better governors than the Trumbulls, Bissel, and Buckinghams? Four senators in Congress ; seven representatives in Congress, and one of them. Jonathan Trumbull, Jr., speaker of the Second Congress; five judges of higher courts, and two chief justices ; a colored man in Prince Saunders, connected for a time with Dart- mouth College, who was minister from Hayti to Great Britain, and attorney- general of that government ; and a large number of ministers of the gospel and other professional men.
At the dedication of the War Office in 1891, several noteworthy addresses were inade that bear on the history of the town. The account of the celebra- tion, edited by Mr. Jonathan Trumbull of Norwich, contains several inter- esting manuscripts discovered shortly before that date. We quote from the speech of Hon. N. B. Williams, made in presenting the War Office:
Although Lebanon appears to have been exceeded in population by thirteen of the seventy-six towns enumerated in the census of 1774, the excess was in most cases slight, and the population, 3,060, is by no means an adequate measure of the importance of the town in the days of the Revolution. In the grand list of 1776, but ten towns showed a higher valuation of taxable property. But most significant of all is the fact that in the awards for services in the Lexington Alarm, but two towns in the State, Windham and Woodstock, were granted larger sums of money as their compensation.
N.L .- 1-13
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The reasons for a service so largely in excess of any quota which Lebanon might have been called upon to furnish at this time seem evident. Here were the residence and home office of the only colonial governor who asserted the rights of his country as opposed to the oppressive measures of his king, which very fact must have given to that all-potent assemblage of the day, the town meeting, an inspiration and force which it might otherwise have lacked. Owing to the location of the town and the fact that the governor resided there, Lebanon must have been the place where the news from Boston was usually received in the exciting times which led up to the Revolution.
Another point necessary in maintaining our independence was concert of action, and the War Office was the great center of attraction from which such an influence arose, and its associations in this respect are calculated to touch the heart of every patriot. It was in that building that George Wash- ington often met his bosom friend, our first War Governor, and the only one in thirteen colonies in whom he could place implicit confidence. In that office they matured plans for future action. It was there that important war measures originated, dispatches were sent to the army, reports returned, and the war council held over one thousand sessions. During some of the dark days of the Revolution, so dark as to be depressing to ordinary minds, it was the inspiring words that went forth from this council-who believed their cause was the cause of God-that gave hope and cheer to the army and renewed courage to trust in Him who overrules all events, to "keep their powder dry" and "fight on, to victory or to death."
It was military headquarters for this part of the country, and its floors have been trodden by Washington, Trumbull, Adams (Samuel and John), Jefferson, Putnam, Franklin, Knox, and many others of note, both of this country and France. The War Office was the center of influence to keep the fires of the Revolution burning, and this vast assembly shows that it will take more than another century to kill out the fire that burned in the bosoms of the patriots of '76.
I rejoice that there is a society called the "Sons of the American Revo- lution," formed for the purpose of perpetuating the memory of their fathers and preserving as memorials those relics that are connecting links with the Revolution, and it affords me great pleasure, in behalf of Mrs. Wattles, the donor of the War Office, to present to the Society, through their president, Mr. Trumbull, the key of said office. I do not ask you to keep it in a state of preservation, for what you have already done, and the fact that the blood of the Revolutionary fathers flows in your veins, is sufficient guarantee for the future.
Also a poem composed for the occasion by Mr. Thomas S. Collier:
What is the soul of a nation? Lo, is it not deeds well done? Red blood poured out as libation ? Hard toil till the end is won? Swift blows, when the smoke goes drifting From the cannon, hot with flame? And work, when the war clouds, lifting, Show the blazoning of fame? These hold that affluence golden, Bright fire of sword and pen, Which from the ages olden Has thrilled the hearts of men.
Not where the trumpets bluster, And answering bugles sound, As marcial legions muster,
Are all the heroes found; But where the orchards blooming Foams white the hills along, And bees, with lazy booming, Wake the brown sparrow's song, By quiet hearths are beating The hearts that watch and wait, With thought each act completing, That conquers Time and Fate; Rounding with patient labor The work of those who died, Where sabre clashed with sabre Above war's sanguine tide.
Here was no field of battle, These hills no echoes gave
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Of that fierce rush and rattle Whose harvest is the grave ; Yet where the drums were calling, And where the fight was hot, And men were swiftly falling Before the whistling shot, No soul with hope was stronger Than that which blossomed here- No voice, as days grew longer, Was louder with its cheer.
Ah, souls were bent and shaken As days grew into years, And saw no bright hope waken To gleam amid the tears- Heard no call, triumph sounding, From mountain side and gorge, Only the low graves rounding -- The gloom of Valley Forge; Yet here a strength unbroken Met all the storm-filled days, Rising sublime, a token Of faith, in weary ways.
What built the power, unfolding Such glorious purpose, when War's carnival was holding High feast with homes and men? When grew the thought, whose glory Burned like a sun supreme, Above the fields, all gory With battle's crimson stream? Where bloomed the manhood, keeping Such steadfast step and strong, When the red sword was reaping The harvesting of wrong?
Here in the peace, and tender Warm light of heart and hearth, Was born that virile splendor Which filled the waiting earth,- That flame of Freedom, rising In broadening waves of light, The souls of men surprising, And lifting them from night : Here, and in kindred places, The fire that all could see Shone from determined faces, And taught men to be free.
Why are we gathered together? The land is full of peace, And high in the halcyon weather The songs of labor increase. What makes the drums beat, ringing Their challenge to the hills? Why are the bugles flinging Swift calls to marts and mills? Because these walls have cherished A memory bright and high; No name they knew has perished, For deeds can never die;
And here, when hearts were beating, Half hoping, half in fear, Strong souls, in council meeting, Spoke firm, and loud, and clear.
There was no weak denying, There was no backward glance, But where the flags were flying, And red shone sword and lance, Their words rang swift and cheerful, And skies grew bright again, For those whose hearts were fearful, For these were master men ; And one led, who unknowing Linked to the land his name, By earnest manhood showing How near we live to fame.
Ours is the sunlit morning- Ours is the noontide's gold- And the radiant light adorning The paths once dark and cold ; But the savor of our treasure Was the salt of toil, and tears, And want, that filled the measure Of long and bitter years ; We drink the wine of gladness, We reap the harvest sheaves, Whose seed was sown in sadness, And the drift of yellow leaves; With faith, and not with grieving, Was huilt the mighty past; What good gift are we leaving To those who follow fast? What thought, what deed, what glory Shall inark this epoch ours, And leave our names and story High set where grandeur towers?
What thing shall make men cherish The memory of today? Ah, actions will not perish Though monuments decay. We see, spread out before us, The fairest land of earth,
Loud with the ringing chorus That only here has birth : Ours is the holy duty To build, with firmer hand, This heritage of beauty, That it may ever stand;
Our deeds should make more lasting The freedom that has grown From toil, and tears, and fasting, And strength of blood and bone. Then like the blossoms vernal That with the spring combine, Our age will shine eternal, To all mankind a sign; A star serene, yet showing Near kindred to the sun, Whereon these names are glowing- Trumbull and Washington.
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We quote also from an address by Rev. Leonard W. Bacon:
But a contrast as startling and intense as the canvas of history has ever exhibited was that which was exhibited here on Lebanon green when the French regiments lay cantoned here in winter quarters. Where, in American history at least, could such subjects be found for romance, or for the pencil of historical painter? These representatives of the gayest, most brilliant, most corrupt and vicious court in Europe, what kind of figure did they make in the midst of the severe simplicity of old Lebanon? We are not without some record of their impressions in the journal of the Count de Rochambeauf and the travels of the Marquis de Chastellux. But the contrast between the foremost personage among the Frenchmen here, the gay Duke de Lauzun, who made his headquarters at the house of David Trumbull, and the serious, precise figure of the governor is drawn already to our hand by the graceful pencil of Donald Mitchell.
And what a contrast it is-this gay nobleman, carved out, as it were, from the dissolute age of Louis XV., who had sauntered under the colonnades of the Trianon, and had kissed the hand of the Pompadour, now strutting among the staid dames of Norwich and Lebanon! How they must have looked at him and his fine troopers from under their knitted hoods! You know, I suppose, his after history-how he went back to Paris, and among the wits there was wont to mimic the way in which the stiff old Connecticut governor had said grace at his table. Ah! he did not know that in Governor Trumbull, and all such men, is the material to found an enduring state; and in himself, and all such men, only the inflammable material to burn one down. There is a life written of Governor Trumbull, and there is a life writ- ten of the Marquis (Duke) of Lauzun. The first is full of deeds of quiet heroism, ending with a tranquil and triumphant death ; the other is full of the rankest gallantries, and ends with a little spurt of blood under the knife of the guillotine upon the gay Place de la Concorde.
There is another line of pedigree, too, down which the influence of the great names and examples of the Lebanon heroes has descended. It is a line not always as easy to be traced as that of natural genealogy, but it is some- times clear enough. There is the story, for instance, of the country boy who grew up in this old town some fourscore years ago, where, in the vast ampli- tude of the town street, he marked the traces of the old French camp, and where every house was inhabited with heroic memories and traditions. I love to imagine the handsome little fellow wandering thoughtfully among the gravestones in the old burying-ground, that tell of holy ministers, and brave soldiers, and upright citizens, and pausing to read the four inscriptions on the Trumbull monument, recording the career of one who, by the force and dignity of his character, rose from private station to be the foremost man in all the commonwealth, and, next to Washington himself, the chief pro- moter of his country's liberty. I love to imagine how that shining example of a Christian patriot dwelt in the young man's mind when he had removed from ancestral Lebanon to Norwich for the beginning of his fair career ; and how, in the midst of daily duties in counting-room and church and municipal business, the lineaments of that heroic Puritan character uncon- sciously reproduced themselves in his mind; and as great events went on, and lifted him as by a rising tide into the highest station in the State, history for once consented to repeat itself, and to complete that impressive parallel on which later historians of Connecticut will delight to dwell, between the great War Governor of the War for Independence, and the great War Gov- ernor of the War for the Union and the Constitution.
The following is an extract from a speech of Rev. Dr. Samuel Bucking- ham, a brother of the War Governor of Civil War time:
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Such were some of the people who had the early guidance of affairs and the shaping of public sentiment in this New England town. And such were some of the moulding influences which made the State what it was, and shaped our general government; and wherever they have been carried by emigration, must have been a blessing, as they have been here.
When I was a boy, emigration from this town was going on to " 'hio" -Ohio-"Genesee county," in and about Rochester, New York, and "up coun- try," which meant Vermont. Dartmouth College, under President Wheelock, then "Moore's Charity School" for the education of Indian youth, had been taken up almost bodily and transported from Columbia, then a part of this town, to Hanover, New Hampshire, just across the river. And so many of the settlers went with it from this vicinity that twenty or more of the neigh- boring towns in Vermont bear the names of Connecticut towns from which the settlers came. Indeed, the State had so much of this sentiment in it that it was named "New Connecticut," and the name was only changed because there were other settlements of similar origin taking the same name-like the "New Connecticut" in the Susquehanna Valley, and the "New Connec- ticut" of Northern Ohio, both of which distinctly show the characteristics of their origin. The springs where mountain streams take their rise, and flow down through fertile plains, and alongside of wealthy cities, to enrich the commerce of the world, and bless its countless inhabitants, are interesting spots to visit, and suggestive of what smaller towns may have done for the world and are likely to do in the future.
The list of Governors which this town has furnished to the State is certainly remarkable, both in number and character, especially considering its population and business. Entirely an agricultural town, with never more than three thousand inhabitants, it has filled the chair of State with such men as these, and for such terms of office: Jonathan Trumbull, Sr., 1769 to 1784; Jonathan Trumbull, Jr., 1798 to 1809; Clark Bissell, 1847 to 1849; Joseph Trumbull, 1849 to 1850; William A. Buckingham, 1858 to 1866. Here are five governors from the same town, holding the office by annual election for one-third of a century, and filling the office with becoming dignity and distinguished usefulness. We do not wonder at the pleasant boast of the people of the town :- "We supply Norwich with butter and cheese, and the State with governors, especially when they want good ones."
The proclamation of Governor Jonathan Trumbull, dated June 18, 1776, is worthy of permanent record :
The Race of Mankind was made in a State of Innocence and Freedom, subjected only to the Laws of God the Creator, and through his rich Goodness designed for virtuous liberty and Happiness, here and forever; and when moral Evil was introduced into the World, and Man had corrupted his Ways before God, Vice and Iniquity came in like a Flood and Mankind became exposed, and a prey to the Violence, Injustice and Oppression of one another. God in great Mercy inclined his People to form themselves into Society, and to set up and establish civil Government for the protection and security of their Lives and Properties from the Invasion of wicked men. But through Pride and ambition, the Kings and Princes of the World appointed by the People the Guardians of their lives and liberties, early and almost universally degenerated into Tyrants, and by Fraud or Force betrayed and wrested out of their hands the very Rights asd Properties they were appointed to protect and defend. But a small part of the Human Race maintained and enjoyed any tolerable Degree of Freedom. Among those happy few, the nation of Great Britain was distinguished by a Constitution of Government wisely framed and modelled to support the Dignity and Power of the Prince, for the
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