USA > Connecticut > New London County > A modern history of New London County, Connecticut, Volume II > Part 42
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"No culogistic expression can completely portray his character, which had 'for its broad foundation truth, honor and integrity, and all those character- istics which marked the moral, the social, the re- ligious and the business life of an upright man.
"He was in touch with and his force was felt in business enterprises to a greater extent than is the choice or possibility with few men only. He yielded his personal comfort and pleasure at the solicita- tion of friends, who leaned upon him in association for advice and assistance. In business his was notably the strong arm.
"In church and school, and in the broader walks of life, he was an intelligent, sympathetic and strong leader, the supporter of all that is good and true.
"In charities the kindest sympathies and the gen- crous impulses of a Christian philanthropist took expression in the deeds done, the number of which none can know.
"Joining in the universal expression of sorrow, and in sympathy and love for a true friend, this board desires to record their appreciation of the man, and their pleasure in having so long enjoyed his friendship and association, as well as his valu- able advice and co-operation in its affairs.
"It is further ordered that the bank be closed on the afternoon of Thursday, 26th, and that the directors attend the funeral services.
"F. S. JEROME, Cashier."
Following is the editorial which appeared in the paper mentioned, and in which the foregoing no- tices appeared :
"In the death of Hon. Hugh H. Osgood, Norwich, as a community, suffers an almost irreparable loss, that is universally recognized and sincerely felt. The many large business interests with which he was so long and closely identified are deprived of a wise counsellor, and hundreds of individuals mourn the departure of a personal friend whose substantial aid has time and again been unostentatiously ten- dered them.
"Colonel Osgood was a self-made man, who achieved the highest measure of usefulness and in- fluence in both public and private life. He was suc- cessful not only in promoting business enterprises, but also in winning by honest and able effort the hearty esteem of his fellow-citizens. Firm in his own con- victions, he was yet tolerant of opposing opinions, and his advice for years had been sought by men of affairs in all walks of life. His going out creates vacancies many and varied. He will be sadly missed, yet the genuine public sorrow that marks his pas-
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sage from the scenes of his life work is mellowed by the realization that his years of activity were pro- longed nearly a decade beyond the allotted life of man. His work is done, and the memory of it will long be gratefully cherished by his appreciative townsmen."
MOSES PIERCE, whose death, August 18, 1900, removed from Norwich one of her most useful and progressive citizens, was born in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, then known as North Providence, July 3. 1808, eldest of the cight children-five boys and three girls-of Benjamin B. and Susan (Walker) Pierce, the former a native of East Greenwich, Rhode Isl- and, and a tanner by trade, but later in life a cotton manufacturer.
Moses Pierce received his literary training in the district schools of his native State, between the ages of four and twelve, at the latter age beginning work as a chore boy in a factory store, at the munificent wages of seventy-five cents per week. At the age of fourteen years he became the book- keeper, and from that time until he was twenty he was engaged in that and other capacities in the cotton mill business, thereby gaining a thorough knowledge of cotton manufacturing. In 1828 he located in Willimantic, Connecticut, and as super- intendent took charge of a small cotton mill, one of the first in that now thriving manufacturing cen- ter. The bleaching business had begun to attract attention, and at the solicitation of men of capital Mr. Pierce became the junior member of an enter- prising firm, and built, started and superintended mills in Rhode Island and Massachusetts.
In October, 1839, on the invitation of the late Jedeiah Leavens, Mr. Pierce came to Norwich to consider the outlook for the bleaching business. The following May, having concluded his other engagements, he secured a lease of water from the Water Power Company, and the ground was broken for the first mill on the site of what was, until recent years, the Norwich Bleaching & Calender- ing Company. On September 10, 1840, the machin- ery started, and the history of that great company was begun. From 1840 to 1888 Mr. Pierce was the real head of, first, the company, and afterward, the corporation.
In 1863 Mr. Pierce, with about twenty others, chiefly of Norwich, united to form the Occum Com- pany, to acquire lands and flowage rights which should enable them to control the Shetucket river from the tail race of the Baltic mill to the upper end of the Greeneville Pond. Three years later Taft- ville began its career. Associated with Mr. Pierce in this enterprise were E. P and Cyrus Taft, of Providence, and James L. Arnold, of Plainfield. A charter was obtained from the Legislature, though violently opposed because of the large amount of money involved, permitting a capital of $1,500,000. The stock was marketed, and when the company was organized, Mr. Pierce became a director, hold-
ing this place until 1887, when, by a sale of certain stock, the management passed into other hands.
Among other ventures in which Mr. Pierce played a conspicuous part was the Ashland Cotton Com- pany at Jewett City, of which he was president for thirty-five years. Another was the Aspinhook Com- pany of the same village. From 1873 the water power at Jewett City, easily made serviccable by a dam across the Quinebang, was a pet project of Mr. Pierce. Twenty years later he saw his dream realized by the erection of a printing, bleaching and calendering plant on the plateau south of the falls, and of this company he was president up to the time of his death. In all the various concerns with which Mr. Pierce was prominently connected, about 2,000 persons are constantly employed, and the annual payroll cannot be less than a million of dollars.
In the political world Mr. Pierce was, from 1831, a strict advocate of temperance principles, giving of his time and money to further the cause. He was an Abolitionist until the close of the war, and after- ward voted with the Republican party. In 1854 he represented his district in the State Legislature. Although positive in his own opinions he was tol- erant toward the views of others. While residing at Fall River, in 1834, Mr. Pierce united with the Congregational church, for many years was a mem- ber of the church at Norwich town, and remained connected with that denomination for the remainder of his days, later transferring his membership to the Park Church, in Norwich.
Mr. Pierce's charities were legion. From the be- ginning of his career he gave in proportion to his means. In 1878 he gave to the United Workers the large house at Norwich town, now known as the Rock Nook Children's Home. One of the build- ings connected with the training school for negroes and Indians at Hampton, Virginia, made famous by its founder, General Armstrong, costing way up into the thousands, was built with Mr. Pierce's money. His practical consideration has assisted many an object whose end was the good of hu- manity. Until a few years before his death his constitution was robust, a fact which he attributed to his temperance in all things. He was able to ride out up to within ten days of his death. Mr. Pierce was a very methodical man, and possessed of a great deal of energy, his native energy being far superior to his strength in his old age, and he was always in danger of overtaxing himself. He loved to be doing something, and always did as much as his strength would allow. He retained every faculty until the last.
Wholly without any solicitation on his part Mr. Pierce was called to many public positions. In Fall River, at the age of twenty-two, he was cap- tain of a fire company of eighty-six men. In 1858 he was elected director of the Norwich & Worcester Railroad. He was president of the Norwich & New York Steamboat Company for eleven years, and
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was for years a member of the board of directors of the Second National Bank and the Chelsea Sav- ings Bank. In the forties he was vice-president of an Association of Inventors, holding their meetings in the Franklin Institute, Philadelphia. He was trustee of the Hampton school, which he often visited. At the time of his death he was a member of the Metropolitan Museum, of New York; a fel- low of the American Geographical Society in New York, and of a library association in Boston; and a member of the Cotton Manufacturers' Association, and of the Home Market Club of that city.
Mr. Pierce had traveled extensively, crossing the Atlantic eight times for business and rest. His faith in the future of his own country made him venture much, and amply was he repaid. In his business affairs he was ever found honest and pro- gressive, faithful to duty, and considerate of his employes. His life, showing what one man can accomplish by industry, honesty and perseverance, suggests possibilities and gives courage to those aspiring youths who are obliged to hew their own way. In this age when the worker-the doer-is the man most honored, the career of Moses Pierce cannot fail to give a lofty conception of right and purposeful living. His remains rest in Yantic ceme- tery at Norwich.
TRUMBULL-Seven generations of the Trum- bull family have resided in what is now New Lon- don county. The first of the name residing within these limits was Joseph Trumbull, who was a grand- son of John, the emigrant ancestor of his line, a cooper, who came to New England from Newcastle- on-Tyne, and settled in 1640 at Rowley, Massachu- setts, where he held the position of town clerk and schoolmaster. He brought with him his wife, Elli- nor, whose maiden name was Chandler, and a son John. The family line runs as follows:
(II) Children of John and Ellinor (Chandler) Trumbull, who were married in 1635: Beriah, born in 1637, died in infancy; John, born in 1639, mar- ried Deborah Jackson, and died in 1690.
(III) Children of John and Deborah (Jackson) Trumbull: John, born in 1670, died in 1751, mar- ried Elizabeth Winchell (removed to Suffield, Con- necticut) : Hannah. born 1673: Mary, born 1675, mar- ried Captain Job Ellsworth; Joseph, born 1678, died June 16, 1755 (removed to Lebanon, Connecticut), married Hannah Higley, August 31, 1704. who was born at Windsor, April 22, 1683, and died November 8, 1768; Ammi, born 1681 (removed to East Wind- sor), married Ann Burnham; Benoni, born 1684 (re- moved to Hebron).
(IV) Children of Joseph and Hannah (Higley) Trumbull: Joseph, born March 27, 1705, died 1732, married Sarah Bulkley, November 20, 1727. Jona- than, born October 12, 1710, died August 17, 1785, married December 9, 1735, Faith Robinson. Mary was born August 21, 1713. Hannah, born 1715, died young. Hannah (2) was born September 18, 1717. N.L .- 2-6
Abigail was born March 6, 1719. David, born Sep- tember 8, 1723, died July 9, 1740.
(V) Children of Jonathan and Faith (Robinson) Trumbull: Joseph, born March II, 1737, died July 23, 1778, married March, 1777, Amelia Dyer. Jona- than, born March 26, 1767, Eunice Backus. Faith, born January 25, 1743, died November 24, 1775, mar- ried Colonel (afterward General) Jedeiah Hunting- ton. Mary, born July 16, 1745, died February 9. 1831, married February 14, 1771, William Williams, signer of the Declaration of Independence. David, born February 5, 1751-52, died January 17, 1822, married December 6, 1778, Sarah Buckus, who was born February 7, 1760, died June 2, 1846. John, born June 6, 1756, died November 10, 1843, mar- ried in London.
(VI) Children of Jonathan and Eunice (Backus) Trumbull: Jonathan, born December 24, 1767, died young. Faith, born February 1, 1769, married Dan- iel Wadsworth, of Hartford. Mary, born Decem- ber 27, 1777, died young. Harriet, born September 2, 1783, married Professor Benjamin Silliman, of Yale College, September 17, 1809, Maria, born February 14, 1785, married Henry Hudson, of Hart- ford.
(VI) Children of David and Sarah (Backus) Trumbull: Sarah, born September 6, 1779, died October 3, 1839, married William T. Williams; Abi- gail, born January 2, 1781, married Peter Lannan; Joseph, born December 7, 1782, died August 4, 1861, removed to Hartford; John, or John M., born Sep- tember 19, 1784, married (first) Ann H. Gibbons, of Savannah, Georgia, March 15, 1810; (second) Han- nah W. Tunis, of Elizabeth, New Jersey, January 17, 1819; (third) Eliza Bruen, of Belleville, New Jersey, January 11, 1825; Jonathan George Wash- ington, born October 31, 1787, died September 5, 1853, married Jane Eliza Lathrop, who was born July 26, 1795, died October 21, 1843.
(VII) Children of John M. and Ann H. (Gib- bons) Trumbull: Thomas Gibbons, born January 30, 1811, at Norwich: John Heyward, born Febru- ary 24, 1812, at New York; Ann Heyward, born De- cember 8, 1813, at Hartford; Sarah Backus, born June 25, 1815, at Elizabethtown; Joseph, born May 20, 1817, at Elizabethtown, died young.
Children of John M. and Hannah W. (Tunis) Trumbull: David, born November 1, 1819, at Eliza- bethtown; Susan Landis, born March 21, 1821 (died young); Julia Gorham, born March 5, 1823 (died young).
Children of John M. and Eliza (Bruen) Trumbull: Caroline Ward, born February 4, 1826; James Hed- den, born January 16, 1828; Jane Lathrop, born June 6, 1830; Joseph, born November 24, 1832 (died young); Harriet Silliman, born March 13, 1835.
(VII) Children of Jonathan George Washington and Jane E. (Lathrop) Trumbull: Daniel Lathrop, born August 21, 1816, died March 31, 1873, married November 16, 1841, Alexandrine Navarre Wilson; Lydia Lathrop, born October 13, 1818, died October
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8, 1822; Joseph, born June 11, 1821, died January 23, 1826; William Williams, born March 28, 1825, died October 19, 1830.
(VIII) Children of Daniel Lathrop and Alexan- drine Navarre (Wilson) Trumbull: Jane Lathrop, born September 9, 1842, died March, 1869, married Lieutenant (afterward Colonel) Robert Watkinson Huntington, United States Marines; Jonathan, born January 23, 1844, married Dee. 17, 1868, Harriet Roosevelt Richards, of Poughkeepsie, New York.
(IX) Children of Jonathan and Harriet Roosevelt (Richards) Trumbull: Jonathan, born November 19, 1869 (died September 26, 1871); Harriet Roose- velt, born March 19, 1871; Alexandrine Navarre, born February 25, 1873; Thomas Brinekerhoff, born June 1, 1877; Elizabeth Maria, born July 13, 1882.
Of the first of the Trumbulls of New London county, Joseph, who was of the third generation of his line in America, we find that he removed from Suffield, then in Massachusetts, now in Connecticut, to Simsbury, Connecticut, in 1703, where in 1704, he married Hannah Higley, removing to Lebanon in the following year. At this time the town had been organized by act of the General Assembly for about four years, but the boundaries of the proprietors and of the township were not definitely established until 1705, when Lebanon sent her first delegates to the General Assembly, and commenced her career as a part of Windham county.
Joseph Trumbull established himself as a mer- chant and farmer in Lebanon, buying the home- stead of Rev. Joseph Parsons, the first minister of the town, and mortgaging it for f340 at the time of purchase. He appears to have been enterprising and probably prosperous, as we find him later send- ing ships to foreign ports and sending his son to Harvard College. During his residence in Lebanon he was a lieutenant, and later a captain, in the troops of the county.
Joseph, his eldest son, was, during his short career, his father's right-hand man. In June, 1732, while on a voyage to London, in the interests of his father's growing business, he was lost at sea, thus ending a promising career at the age of twenty- seven.
Jonathan, the second son of the first Joseph, was destined to an important career, especially through the eventful period of the Revolution. His long, eventful life can only be sketched in outline in this connection. In 1727, at the age of seventeen, he graduated from Harvard College, with a good rec- ord for proficiency in the studies of the day, in which the dead languages, including Hebrew, were prominent. He commenced the study of divinity under Rev. Solomon Williams, of Lebanon, and in dne time became a licensed elergyman. At the time of the death of his brother Joseph he had under consideration a call to become pastor of the church in Colchester. The loss of this brother, however, changed the current of his life, for his father needed the assistance of his son to take the place of the
lost brother. Duty, perhaps, rather than inelina- tion, called the son Jonathan to fill this place. His business career and his public career commenced within the following year. In 1733 he was elected a delegate to the General Assembly, which position he again held continuously from 1736 to 1739, in which year, at the age of twenty-nine, he was made Speaker of the House of Representatives. In 1740 he was elected assistant, which position made him a member of the Council of the Colony. He occu- pied this position for twenty-two years. At the same time he occupied several judgeships. In 1766 he was elected deputy governor of Connecticut and in 1769 was elected Governor, to fill the unexpired term of Governor Pitkin, who died in office. From that time until 1783 he was annually re-elected, declining re-election at the close of the Revolution, thus completing a period of public service covering exactly fifty years. His mercantile career extended over a large portion of this time, proving a failure in 1766, but resumed until the outbreak of the Revo- lution, from which time to the close of his public career he devoted himself exclusively to the cause of his country.
From the beginning of the oppressive measures of Great Britain which finally resulted in our inde- pendence, Jonathan Trumbull was a firm and stead- fast supporter of the rights of the Colonies. When Governor Fitch, in 1765, insisted on taking the re- quired oath to enforce the Stamp Act, Trumbull, with six of his associates, withdrew from the coun- cil, refusing to sanction this hateful ceremony by their presence. And when, in March and April, 1768, application was made to him as Chief Justice of the Superior Court to issue writs of assistance to customs officers of the Crown, he refused the application; and with this refusal the General As- sembly when appealed to, declined to interfere. From the outbreak of the Revolution to its close he was in constant correspondence with Washing- ton, who continually applied to him for men, money and materials, and never applied in vain. Of all the governors of the thirteen Colonies at the begin- ning of the war he was the only one who was not a Loyalist or Tory, as they were then called. The relations between Washington and Trumbull were of so confidential a nature that a cherished tradition of Connecticut tells us that when supplies or coun- sel were needed in the darkest days of the war a favorite remark of Washington's was: "We must consult Brother Jonathan." From this, it is said, originated the popular name of the American people.
The War Office at Lebanon, now preserved and owned by the Connectient Society of Sons of the American Revolution, was during the Revolution the enstomary place of meeting of the Council of Safety-a council appointed to assist the Governor when the General Assembly was not in session. Within the walls of this little building more than eleven hundred meetings of this council were held during the war.
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The wife of Governor Trumbull, Faith Robinson, was a daughter of Rev. John Robinson, of Dux- bury, Massachusetts. It is stated by Stuart that she was a lineal descendant of John Robinson, of Leyden, the Puritan leader, but this statement lacks proof, though much research has been made to es- tablish it. She was, however, a lineal descendant of John Alden, the pilgrim; and such memorials as are left of her show that she was a patriotic and devoted wife and mother, and was held in the high- est esteem in the community.
Governor Trumbull lived but two years after retiring from public life. These two years were passed in study, and in carrying out the intention expressed in liis farewell address, where he says: * * "that at the evening of my days, I may sweeten their decline, by devoting myself with less avocation, and more attention to the duties of re- ligion, the service of my God, and preparation for a future happier state of existence."
The children of Governor Trumbull were, as might be expected, all ardent patriots. Joseph, the eldest son, was destined to a career which, if less distinguished than that of his father and two of his brothers, was no less important. A Harvard graduate, like his father, he also in close imitation of his father's early career engaged in business, be- coming a partner in his father's firm at the age of twenty-seven, and losing his all in the subsequent failure of the firmn. From 1767 he was for six years a deputy from Lebanon in the General Assembly, and during this time was a captain in the First Company of the Twelfth Regiment of Connecticut militia. He was a member of the "Committee of Correspondence and Enquiry" in 1773, and in 1774 was appointed as an additional or substitute dele- gate to the Continental Congress. It does not ap- pear, however, that he was a member of this Con- gress. In April, 1775, he was appointed by the General Assembly Commissary-General of Connec- tient. This position sent him at once to the seat of war. On the arrival of Washington at Cam- bridge, in July, 1775, to assume command of the army, he commends especially, in a letter to Con- gress, the commissariat of Connecticut, and recom- mends the appointment of Joseph Trumbull as Com- missary-General of the Continental Army. This appointment was immediately made. The duties of this newly created office were of a most perplexing and exacting kind. The lack of inoney, the diffi- culties of transportation and the dissatisfaction oc- casioned by jealousies between men of different Colonies, were some of the burdens of the situation. The conflict of authority with commissaries ap- pointed by their own Colonies and by Congress formed still another burden. At last, in June, 1777, the Continental Congress, which had already ham- pered the department by orders and commissions which constantly interfered with its usefulness, undertook a complete reorganization of the com- missary department, which rendered the position of
Commissary-General so ineffective that Joseph Trumbull at once resigned his office. This crimin- ally foolish piece of legislation resulted in the ter- rible winter at Valley Forge, and with this lesson before it Congress practically reinstated the former organization of the commissary department.
On the 27th of November following his resigna- tion, Joseph Trumbull was elected a member of the Board of War, but failing health prevented him from active service in this capacity, and he was obliged, for this reason, to resign in the following April. From this time his health continued to fail until his death, on the 23d of July, 1778. The inces- sant care and overwhelming difficulties of the posi- tion in which he was placed undermined his natur- ally vigorous constitution, and brought him to a comparatively early grave. His services were fre- quently commended by Washington. A portion of the inscription on his tombstone at Lebanon, reads as follows:
"Sacred to the memory of Joseph Trumbull, eld- est son of Governor Trumbull, and first Commis- sary-General of the United States of America, a service to whose perpetual cares and fatigues he fell a sacrifice, A. D. 1778, aetat 42."
Jonathan Trumbull, Jr., the second son of Gov- ernor Trumbull, was more distinguished in his pub- lic services and offices than any of his brothers. Like his father and elder brother, he was a graduate of Harvard College, in which institution he com- pleted his course with honor in 1759. The opening of the Revolution finds him a deputy from Lebanon to the General Assembly of Connecticut. In 1775 he was appointed Deputy Paymaster-General for the Northern Department of the army, a position which he held until the close of the northern campaign of 1778. Upon the death of his brother Joseph, it was necessary that his accounts should be settled, and this duty devolved upon his brother Jonathan, necessitating his retirement from the army, for the time being. During this interval he was re-elected as a deputy to the General Assembly. During the presentation of his brother's accounts to the Con- tinental Congress at Philadelphia he became ac- quainted with the leading members of this Congress, who recognized his financial abilities in such a way that in November, 1778, he was appointed Comp- troller of the Treasury, under Roger Sherman's plan of organization, being the first holder of this important office, a position which, as Roger Sher- man wrote his father, placed him at the head of the Treasury Department. During the following year this department was reorganized by placing it in control of a board of five commissioners, of whom lie was made one. The salary of each of these com- missioners was fourteen thousand dollars in Con- tinental money; but it must be remembered that this was a very uncertain value, and that before the close of this year a dollar in "hard money," or specie, was worth forty-five Continental dollars. In the following year, 1780, he was appointed secre-
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