USA > Connecticut > New Haven County > Guilford > A yankee post office : its history and its post masters > Part 8
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supposed to be a "compromise" candidate. This made six applicants for the Guilford office. The situation was a hard one to solve, but Congressman Sperry considered the matter soberly as was his custom. During this fracas when the town was heartily agog over the im- pending appointment Miss Griswold was quietly work- ing away in the Post Office sorting the mail, and selling postage stamps. There were no visible signs in her demeanor that she was deeply interested, except to do her work and to do it well. While her male opponents were lustily fighting over that job, a petition for her appointment was started among her friends, mostly women. When this petition was completed it contained, it was said at the period, the names of most of the able- bodied women of the town, as well as some men. It was a revolutionary thing to do, for Woman's Suffrage was not then looked upon with much favour by the rank and file of Guilford women.
In the meantime, when Congressman Sperry was deluged with various petitions he "went into a huddle," to use a modern phrase for the act, and consulted with the male candidates of Guilford who were anxious for the appointment. As he could not appoint but one of them he endeavored to get action on their part to solve the puzzle by agreeing on one candidate. This they would not do. He consulted Senator Joseph R. Hawley and Senator Orville H. Platt, great figures in the Congress, then as they had been for many years. As it was impossible to get the male applicants to change their tactics the Congressman then recommended to President Mckinley the appointment of Miss Griswold as a Civil Service reward for the much sought for office.
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MARY BISHOP GRISWOLD-MARY B. G. BULLARD
Within a short period, President Mckinley appointed the first and thus far only woman Postmaster of Guil- ford. The incident was closed; but it left serious scars among the politicians for some years.
Closed it was, so far as Governmental action was con- cerned, but it was far from "closed" in the minds of some men of the town. There was deep and pronounced dissatisfaction among the friends of those who had made such strenuous efforts to secure the job. The sentiment reached such a pitch that a letter was forwarded to Congressman Sperry bearing the names of all but two of the members, it is said, of the Republican Town Com- mittee. These two who did not sign were residents of North Guilford and were not interested particularly over the Guilford Post Office. This letter set forth the sentiment that "We, the undersigned Republican Town committee, as well as the republicans in general in Guil- ford, do hereby express our contempt and indignation in the appointment of a woman as Postmaster of the town of Guilford."
This naturally caused something of a stir. It reminds one now of the "passages at arms" that took place during the era of Woman's Suffrage campaigns almost a score of years later.
Various citizens wrote letters to the local as well as to the outside press. Those letters were not delicately worded, but usually struck out direct in a rather savage attack. The outside press generally, irrespective of politics, favored the appointment of Miss Griswold, and one editorial in a New Haven paper observed that Miss Griswold's opponents in Guilford must be bachelors or woman haters. Another newspaper stated that poli-
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ticians of the town prevailed on the Republican Town Committee "to issue a card insulting Congressman Sperry and such a card : neither grammatical, logical or truthful."
During this unusual episode, the oldest Republican newspaper in New Haven, long since defunct, declared editorially, "It is gratifying to learn that the appoint- ment of a woman as Postmistress was confirmed in spite of this brave show of unreasonable and unmanly con- tempt and indignation."
It is also interesting to observe that almost a quarter of a century later, on November 6, 1920, the Hartford Courant, the state's oldest newspaper, commented edi- torially on the Guilford Post Office fight of 1897. That famous paper then declared, "Long before 1912 Mary Griswold, now Mrs. H. M. Bullard of New Haven, was appointed Postmaster of the office at Guilford in this state to the complete satisfaction of the critical residents of that town and with the approval of the late Congress- man Sperry, who knew a good deal about postal affairs in his day."
Mrs. Bullard lived for many years in New Haven, held a prominent place in the cultural, artistic and serious life of the city, and was generally looked upon as one of its able and highly qualified women.
She is now a summer resident of her native town, thoroughly esteemed by her many friends, and she still holds the distinction of being the only woman who ever held the office of Postmaster of Guilford.
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CHAPTER XXII
Joel Tuttle Wildman January 16, 1902, to May 6, 1903
President: Theodore Roosevelt.
Postmaster General: Henry C. Payne, Wisconsin.
The record of Joel Tuttle Wildman as Postmaster of Guilford shows him to have been the only son of a former Postmaster to ever hold the office. His father, Albert Boardman Wildman, was first appointed in 1841 which makes a period of over two generations from the time the father started his work in the postal service and the son's appointment sixty-one years later. It is an unusual record, probably not equaled in few if any of the offices in this state.
Mr. Wildman had been one of the candidates for the office in 1897, but the "tangle" existing at that time as described in the preceding chapter, prevented him from holding office earlier. He made one of the excel- lent Postmasters of the town and his administration though brief was satisfactory in every respect. He was the last Postmaster to occupy the building on Boston Street, the location of which did not apparently seem to be entirely satisfactory to the townspeople. Early in the year 1903 the Post Office was moved from Boston Street to its present quarters in Monroe's building at the southwest corner of the Green.
Mr. Wildman was born in Guilford, March 28, 1841, and was the son, as has been stated, of Albert Boardman
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Wildman. As a young man he attended the Guilford Institute, then a recently organized institution, and of which the people of the town felt exceedingly proud. In those days boys who went to Yale College, or other standard colleges, did so direct from their preparation at the Guilford Institute. Good examples of this may be seen in the careers of William Henry Harrison Murray, Henry P. Robinson, Bernard Christian Steiner, Justice John Wallace Banks of the Connecticut Supreme Court, Mr. Wildman and others.
Mr. Wildman was a studious young man and early evidenced the traits that later made him one of the best informed and most cultured citizens of this or of any other coastal town. Entering Yale College in a class which contained several Guilford boys, in the Fall of 1859, he pursued the four years' academical course and was graduated with the degree of Master of Arts in the Spring of 1863 at the age of twenty-one years. He made an excellent record during his college course, espe- cially in English and the purely academical studies, and distinguished himself among the members of his class which, by the way, contained a large number of bril- liant students. In that class graduating with him were Henry Pynchon Robinson, Walter G. Smith, Rev. George Wallace Banks, Uriah Nelson Parmelee, and Charles Carroll Blatchley, all from Guilford and vicin- ity. Another young man in that class who later became one of the wealthiest men in the United States and Secretary of the United States Navy under President Cleveland, was William C. Whitney of New York City. During Mr. Wildman's college career he had the repu- tation of being one of the best students of his class and
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attracted attention in a company of unusually intelligent young men.
The young man's father, a leading merchant, had long been a close personal friend of the most important busi- ness man in Guilford, Judge Joel Tuttle, who lived in the old house next .west of Mr. Robert Spencer's home in Broad Street. Mr. Tuttle died in May, 1855, but his name was to be carried on for a great many years there- after because Albert B. Wildman honored his friend by naming his son after the Guilford merchant. Therefore, the name of Joel Tuttle did not disappear until the death of Mr. Wildman forty-eight years after the death of the man for whom he was named.
The Civil War was being fiercely waged at the time of his graduation from Yale and he immediately entered the conflict. In a short time, probably on account of his high standing at Yale, he was appointed an assist- ant to the acting paymaster general of the United States Navy. Immediately entering upon his duties in this important position he was assigned to the Portsmouth, N. H., Navy Yard. Later on he was assigned to the old man-of-war Merrimac and served on that ship at the time of her being wrecked in the Gulf of Mexico. When the war was terminated he entered the service of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company where he served in various executive departments with success as he did in all his positions. Returning to Guilford when this railroad work was completed, Mr. Wildman was offered an office position with the then important and recently arrived quarry owner of this section, Mr. John Beattie of Leete's Island. This business had not been long established when Mr. Wildman became Mr. Beattie's
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accountant in his office at Leete's Island. He continued in this important place with much satisfaction for many years. During the period Mr. Wildman was connected with the financial end of Mr. Beattie's organization some of the most important granite work in the East was completed. This included thirteen bridges on the old Harlem Railroad, a beacon at Wickford, R. I., a break- water at Block Island, one at Westport, Conn .; and he furnished all of the granite work in the "cut" and the tunnel in New York City from Harlem River to the old Grand Central Depot.
This Beattie contract is said to have involved the great sum of $400,000. During those years the firm con- structed twelve beacons, the foundation for the New Haven Lighthouse, the abutments for the Brooklyn Bridge; and every stone, it is said, in the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty on Bedloe's Island in New York was furnished by the Leete's Island concern. Good authori- ties assert the profit to Beattie accruing from this con- tract amounted to over $75,000-an enormous figure for those more or less unsophisticated days.
After leaving the service of Mr. Beattie, he accepted a position in the executive auditing department of the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad Company at New Haven. In this place he remained for some years, or until he became the Postmaster of Guilford. His administration of the Guilford Post Office, neces- sarily brief because of his death, was entirely satisfac- tory and in keeping with the high standard established in the sixties by Charles Griswold and carried on by his successors.
On a brilliantly moonlit April night during the Spring
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of Postmaster Wildman's first year in the office, an exciting event took place which furnished conversation for the townspeople for some days at least. Night Watchman Charles Jillson was busy on his rounds on the night in question when he started to "cover" his beat down Whitfield Street. While walking between the late George Meigs' house and what was formerly the Post Office, he looked east, as was his custom, across the back yards of the intervening houses. With the aid of the bright moon he observed two men at work in the rear of the Post Office building. He quickly returned to Boston Street, and rushed through a narrow passage between the William Elliott house and the so-called Landon house next to the Post Office. Upon emerging he found two men at work trying to pry the rear door of the building from its hinges. Quickly he fired at them and apparently hit one of the robbers.
The men rushed to the front of the building. Mr. Jillson followed suit. The two men first seen in the rear were then joined by three more who had been on watch in front. They took one of their number, apparently injured, in their arms and ran east very rapidly on Boston Street. Many shots were fired, but it was never learned how seriously one of the potential robbers was injured. Mr. Jillson was highly praised for his timely prowess which followed along the same lines as an adven- ture of his father's, also a previous night watchman, who frustrated a similar attempted robbery in the rear of the Post Office in Park Street when George N. Bradley was Postmaster in the early nineties.
Mr. Wildman's health, never robust, began to fail in November of his first year in office. He was ailing all
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of that winter and on several occasions his condition was considered more or less critical. He died on the morning of March 12, 1903, in the sixty-first year of his age.
He had many friends, was a man of unusual ability, and was considered as such among his fellow-men of the community where he spent most of his life.
Highly cultured, a man of extremely rare intelligence, educated as well as anyone could be at that period, an outstanding student at Yale, he was looked upon by citizens as not only a scholar and a gentleman, but illustrating in many ways the standard of cultural achievement attained by a gentleman under George the Fourth in England or of Thomas Jefferson in the United States.
He married on August 12, 1886, Miss Cathalena Fiske, daughter of Dr. H. Ingersoll Fiske, long a prominent physician of Guilford. She was a woman of uncommon character and great charm, deeply beloved by her many friends. She died on November 23, 1933.
Postmaster Wildman left a son, Frederick James Wildman, who has long been a government employee at Washington, and four daughters, three of whom are now living. They are Miss Katherine Wildman, Miss Alberta Wildman, and Mrs. Burton Landon, all of Guilford.
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CHAPTER XXIII
Levi Odell Chittenden May 6, 1903, to January 5, 1916
Presidents : Theodore Roosevelt, William H. Taft, Woodrow Wilson.
Postmaster Generals: Henry C. Payne, Wisconsin; Robert J. Wynne, Pennsylvania; George B. Cortelyou, New York; George von L. Meyer, Massachusetts; Frank H. Hitchcock, Massachusetts; Albert S. Burleson, Texas.
Levi Odell Chittenden lived in Guilford for many years after he returned from the Civil War and was one of the town's staunchest and most honored citi- zens. He was a quiet man, unobtrusive, faithful and loyal to his friends; and they were legion. He did not seek public office, nor did he mingle much in the public affairs of the town, unless it was a paramount issue that called men of his type to the front. In his later years he served for a long period as one of the town's Postmasters, and he died honored, respected, and mourned as one of the substantial citizens of the era.
He was a member of one of the town's oldest fami- lies-a family that has furnished Guilford as well as other places with some of its outstanding citizens. Mr. Chittenden belonged to the North Guilford branch of the Chittenden family. They had lived there for gener- ations, and were leading citizens of the northern parish of the town. The son of Chauncey Chittenden, he was born September 28, 1844; and he died on April 4, 1928, having reached the age of eighty-four. He was the only son of a widowed mother.
Mr. Chittenden's early years were spent with relatives
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in North Haven, and in that town he attended the public schools and grew up with the boys of the section. When the Civil War burst upon the peaceful countryside he immediately became anxious to join the Northern forces, and at the age of seventeen years he enlisted as a private in Company I of the famous old Fourteenth Regiment, Connecticut Volunteers. He went at once to the front and participated in all the engagements in which that organization took part. His record was of the highest type, and although he did not become an officer he did his part in a painstaking manner which earned him the respect of his comrades. At the close of the war, at the age of twenty-one years, the young man returned to Guilford and went to his old home in North Guilford where he bridged the years from the close of the war until he learned the carpenter's trade in Guilford. He followed this work for a long period of time and with success. For several years he was deeply interested in the work of the Guilford Light Battery and soon became its first lieutenant. He was present that tragic morning on July 4, 1876, when the late Clarence Hawley, later a well-known Guilford merchant, lost a portion of an arm while the sunrise salute was being fired near the Soldiers' Monument. Mr. Chittenden was the first lieu- tenant of the Battery from 1872 to 1876, and previous to that he had been the clerk of the borough of Guilford from 1870 to 1872.
Following his trade from year to year Mr. Chittenden decided in the late eighties to go to Kearney, Nebraska, where he remained working at his trade for two years. Early in 1890 he returned to his native town, and he made it his home for the remainder of his life.
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He finally abandoned his work as a carpenter, and entered the service of I. S. Spencer's Sons where, later, and for a long term of years, he was the efficient engineer of the plant. He occupied this position with eminent success. Always an enthusiastic republican it was natural that early in the last century the suggestion was made to him that he become a candidate for Postmaster of the town. He did not enter the lists for the position at the time with any seriousness until the untimely death of Postmaster Wildman. The republicans of the town as a rule looked upon him as an ideal candidate for the place, so they threw their influence behind his applica- tion. He easily won the place and served first as the acting Postmaster, dating from May 6, to November 1, 1903; and then he served regular terms for a total space of thirteen years-a long record. Postmaster Chittenden made an official who won the general approval of the community. For a long period he was assisted in the Post Office by his wife, who now survives him; and the service given the public was always of the highest order. Postmaster Chittenden was actually the first Postmaster to occupy the present site. There had for some time been a desire on the part of the general public to move the location of the office in Boston Street to the new building erected a few years previous by J. Harrison Monroe. The removal of the office took place during the very late administration of Postmaster Joel Tuttle Wild- man, but the first Postmaster to actually administer the work of the office in that building was Postmaster Chittenden. This proved to be a very satisfactory site, and has continued so with unabated success since 1903, a period of over thirty-one years. There are many at
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the present time, however, who favor a regular Post Office building for this town. It seems to these persons that Guilford ought to be entitled to one as well as the neighboring town of Branford where a fine government building has been opened in a central location within the recent past. The present office is well situated but that it could be materially and substantially improved upon for the modern handling of the mails of a Second Class Post Office such as Guilford, is an indisputable fact.
It is, therefore, within the realms of possibility that within a few years Guilford will probably have a modern Post Office building. There is, however, at the present time (September, 1934) a newly executed ten years' lease for the present quarters.
An important event in Postmaster Chittenden's ad- ministration was the introduction into Guilford of the then recently organized "parcel post" addition to the general Post Office work. This measure had been debated in Congress for a long time, and the so-called Parcel Post Delivery Act was finally passed in January, 1912. It did not, however, go into effect until January 1, 1913, so the last three years of Mr. Chittenden's administration saw the actual introduction of this mod- ern postal service into this community. It is interesting to observe in this connection that during the first six months of its operation in the United States as a whole, over 300,000,000 parcels were handled. It was an imme- diate success in Guilford as well as elsewhere, and has always remained an extremely popular addition to the service.
Another improvement was inaugurated during his term. This was the so-called "C.O.D." innovation, or,
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more properly called, the Collect on Delivery Service. The Act covering this service was passed January 1, 1913, but it did not become effective until July 1 of that year. Therefore, it was under the administration of Postmaster Chittenden that this new law became a part of the regular Post Office work. Under this Act goods of certain kinds could be sent, and upon delivery the price of the goods, as well as a fee for the transmission of the same, was collected from the consignee. This has now been in operation for twenty-one years and has proved most successful in all ways.
It is therefore seen that during the administration of Postmaster Chittenden two of the most important mod- ern postal improvements of recent times were brought about, and it was through his agency that they were first put into operation in this town at least. They have both been proved entirely successful and valuable addi- tions to the postal service.
His last years were marked by more or less ill health, and he suffered from a heart ailment that finally ended his life.
Mr. Chittenden married twice, his last wife being Miss Elizabeth Burr who has been a resident of Guilford for many years and survives him in the Chittenden home.
The career of Mr. Chittenden was one that will be remembered as having illustrated the quiet, capable, loyal, New England spirit that has made this as well as other New England towns a byword for good citizenship and probity.
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CHAPTER XXIV
Edward B. Sullivan January 5, 1916, to July 1, 1924
President: Woodrow Wilson.
Postmaster Generals: Will H. Hays, Indiana; Albert S. Burleson, Texas; Hubert Work, California; Harry S. New, Indiana.
Edward B. Sullivan, who has for a long time been one of the well-known residents of the town, was one of the three men who were graduated from the malle- able iron foundry of I. S. Spencer's Sons to become Postmaster of the town. The other two were Levi Odell Chittenden, who preceded him, and George A. Sullivan, who followed within a few years.
Mr. Sullivan was also the first of the well-known Irish families who settled in Guilford to be thus signally honored. They had commenced to settle in Guilford immediately after 1855, and the descendants of these men and women are now among our best citizens. The descendants of those frugal, hard-working and hardy men and women have always been a source of pride for the citizens of Guilford, as well as many other places in the country.
Edward B. Sullivan was born in this town in 1884, the son of Daniel and Johanna Moran Sullivan. Both his parents were members of well-known Irish families and of sterling character. Mr. Sullivan's early years were passed in attending the village schools where he secured the usual amount of what was then considered
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the appropriate educational stimulant to carry the aver- age Guilford boy, under normal conditions, through life. Then he followed the usual procedure of the Guilford youth for many generations-and found a job.
His youthful years were spent working in the great factory of Yale & Towne Company at Stamford, whose products are found in every civilized country of the world. In that city he lived and worked for some years and then he returned to Guilford, as Guilford boys and men as well have been doing with more or less regularity for the past two hundred years. No matter how much they may have prospered in the outside world, or how much they may have traveled in foreign lands, there are few who are born here but who do not retain the devo- tion for the town that gave them birth and to which many return. These quondam residents or natives are never found lacking when the occasion arises to prove their inherent affection for the town of their birth.
Mr. Sullivan entered the service of I. S. Spencer's Sons upon his return and remained with that well-known company until he became Postmaster of the town. His ability and his popularity were recognized in various ways. In the year 1913, at the age of twenty-nine years, he was the choice of the democratic party for represen- tative in the General Assembly at Hartford and served with success for one term. It is impossible now to state whether or not he was the youngest man selected up to that period to represent the town in the General Assem- bly. But it is perfectly safe and sane to say that he was one of the youngest, and the fact is he could not have been much younger and hold the position. In the Session he took an active part and his record was of a satisfactory type.
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