USA > Connecticut > Biographical encyclopaedia of Connecticut and Rhode Island of the nineteenth century > Part 10
USA > Rhode Island > Biographical encyclopaedia of Connecticut and Rhode Island of the nineteenth century > Part 10
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Soon afterward he added manufacturing to his mercantile pursuits, and in 1848 abandoned the latter altogether in order to devote his entire means and energies to the former in new and more expanded methods. In the mean time he had married and built up a cultivated, refined, and Christian home. Prosperity abundantly rewarded his labors. The circle of his personal influence expanded as the knowledge of his character and abilities was spread abroad.
Prior to 1856, Mr. Buckingham had held no public station, except that of Mayor of Norwich; but "no man ever lived who more truly, unaffectedly, and constantly regarded all his possessions, whether of time, talents, property, or influence, as a stewardship for God and humanity." " No opportunity to do good, great or small, escaped him. He taught little children in the Sunday-school. As deacon of the church, he was its almoner to the poor, and, the distributor of the sacred emblems to the membership of its communion, and to the stranger within its gates. He helped to found academies, build up public libraries, provide for feeble churches, promote temperance reform, endow colleges, and to send the light of Christian civilization to the remotest corners of the globe. And all this so quietly, so naturally as it were, that, proceeding from him, it seemed nothing extraordinary. Moreover, there were ever flowing from him streams of hidden beneficence, gladdening many hearts, and drying the tears in many eyes, whose story never will be told till the secrets of all hearts shall be revealed."
Mr. Buckingham's conscientious convictions led him to pour out his personal influence into the great tidal wave of popular opposition to the further progress of human slavery that disintegrated old ' political parties, and prepared the material for
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new ones. He had always been a Whig. The repeal of the Missouri Compromise shocked cvery sensibility of his intellectual and moral nature. He became an ardent, intelligent, forceful Republican, as a matter of course. At the Presidential election of 1856, when the new party for the first time entered the field as a national political organization, his name was placed on the Republican electoral ticket, and greatly contributed to its success. Brought thus prominently before the people, and better appreciated by being better known, he was nominated and elected Governor of Connecticut in the spring of 1858. For eight years, by consecutive annual elections, he held that exalted and influential position. Those years cover the most eventful portion of American history since the war of independence. In the third year of his administration the election of Mr. Lincoln became the signal for the bursting of the storm that had been gathering so long. Two diametrically opposed systems of society, coeval with the foundation of the Republic, came into violent and sanguinary collision. Slavery and freedom were arrayed against each other, and one of the twain must perish. The rectitude of slavery was as clear to its adherents as its moral turpitude was to its opponents. The election of Mr. Lincoln put a final stop to its extension, and brought the hostile forces to a final issue. If, for the preservation of slavery, the experiment of secession was inevitable; to Governor Buckingham, " secession was rebellion, and an ordinance of secession was a declaration of war." In the winter of 1860-61 he began to prepare for the conflict. The assault on Fort Sumter justified his preparations, and from the fall of that Federal fortress he devoted himself "mind and body and estate, to bring that conflict to a successful issue." The Military and Civil History of Connecticut During the War of 1861-65 is largely a history of his administration. His personal history is not only a prominent part of the history of Connecticut, but also of the United States of America. Unprepared as the State was for the dread issue forced upon it, " the Governor anticipated the enact- ment of laws, assumed responsibility, and pledged his private credit in the purchase of supplies and munitions of war for the troops which from all parts of the State were filling up the rolls of the volunteers. When the Legislature assembled it passed acts of indemnity, and litterally placed the whole resources of the State at his. dispo- sal. And thus it continued substantially during the entire war. Never was a trust more faithfully executed. As call after call for troops proceeded from Washington, the Governor was indefatigable in securing the promptest response." His time, energies, and personal resources were given to the completeness of their equipment and the promotion of their comfort. Nothing was omitted : neither Bibles, nor books, nor chapel-tents, nor aught else, moral or material, that could contribute to their welfare and effectiveness. He made it a matter of duty to visit every regi- ment and address to its officers words of counsel. To a citizen of the State
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whose duties kept him almost constantly at the front, Governor Buckingham said : " You will see a good many battles and much suffering ; don't let any Connecticut man suffer for want of anything that can be done for him; if it costs money, draw on me for it." The same person telegraphed to him from the field of Gettys- burg while yet the grounds werc strewn with the dead and wounded, and quick as the wires could bear it came back the response: " Take good care of the Con- neetieut men."
All through the direful struggle his courage and convictions never faltcred. No compromise with citizens in arms against the National Government was possible. The very word negotiation implied national dcath. "Whatever of trial, suffering, or privation may be in store for us," he said, " or however long may be the controversy, firm in the faith that our nation will be preserved in its integrity, lct us in adver- sity as well as in prosperity, in darkness as well as in light, give the administration our counsel, our confidenee, our support." Such a man as he was a tower of strength to the nation in its supreme erisis. The spirit of the old Hebrew warriors, and of the grim but godly Ironsides who conquered at Naseby and at Marston Moor, dwelt in his bosom.
The exigencies of the war frequently took him to Washington during its whole continuance. There he won the respcet of all by his capacity, firmness, and devotion to the common cause. He was especially endcared to President Lineoln, who appreciated him at his eminent worth, and who impressively said to a gentle- man from Connectieut : " From Connectieut? Do you know what a good Governor you have got?" So thoroughly did the citizens of Connecticut know that they had one of the best of chief magistrates, they would not allow him to leave his post while the rebellion continued. Not until it had wholly collapsed, not until the national vietory was complete, not until the authority of the Republie was permanently re-establishcd, would they permit him to seek much-needed repose. Nor even then could they eonsent to dispense with his services, but called him to oeeupy the highest legislative position it was in their power alone to confer. In May, 1866, his last term of office as Governor expired. In May, 1868, they elceted him a Senator of the United States. Thereafter, for nearly six years, he went in and out with that august body of men who constitute the National Senate. All regarded him with loving reverence and unalloyed respeet as a humble Christian, a purc statesmen, a sineere patriot, a perfect gentleman, in all a model to all of his pcers. "Ever assiduous in business, doing his work in committee and in the Senate with the laborious industry of his earlier prime and the matured wisdom of his ripening years, he was the faithful representative of his State and the constant guardian of his country's interests."
When the session of 1874-5 began, it was manifest that his aetive and event
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ful career was about to close. His mind remained clear and unperturbed, while the bodily powers were failing. Near the end of life, he sank into unconsciousness and fell asleep. Great dignitaries eame to take one last look into the face of the departed. Senators, representatives, governors, and judges of the land were there: young and old, rich and poor, men and women, the wise, the brilliant, and the beautiful came to pay a last tribute of respect to his sterling worth and manifold virtues. " Among them all was observed a humble negro couple, advanced in years. With bowed faees they paused at the coffin, gazed upon the calm features with tears streaming down their dusky cheeks, and passed on, bursting into irrepressible sobs as they moved from the apartment. No one knew the story of those tears; but from what I know 'of the dead I am sure that there was a story in them, and I call to mind the words of Him who said, 'Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.'" The eloquent words with which the fellow-Senator of the deceased elosed a most impressive sketch of his life will command the unqualified assent of all who had the privilege of know- ing William A. Buckingham: "The history of such a man is the best delineation of his character. Posterity will affirm of him that his own age was the better for his life, and his example the best legacy that he could leave to succeeding genera- tions."
Possessed of great aptness and readiness for his duties, and making no elaim to oratory, he had a fund of useful information, a practical knowledge of business, and a ready ability to express his views clearly and forcibly that always commanded the most respectful and undivided attention. Systematic, industrious, and remarkably faithful, " as a member of the Senate Committee on Commerce he mastered most fully the important questions that were there presented for discussion and action. As chairman of the Committee on Indian Affairs he stood resolutely for justice for this stricken race, who so sadly need friends. His voice and his vote were always given with the most conscientious regard for the public interest and the nation's honor."
Seldom indeed are the eulogies pronounced on deceased statesmen by members of the United States Senate and House of Representatives so truthful, so sincere, so heart-felt as those that were uttered in connection with the death of William A. Buckingham. Connecticut has been prolific of statesmen, of soldiers, of patriots, of great men in the different walks of modern life; but among them all there is not one of whom she may more justly be proud than of him. "Rich in saving common- sense," and rich in all the elements and characteristics of symmetrical Christian man- hood, he has left a precious memory to his children and family, to his business associates, to the patriot soldiers for whom he so wisely and generously cared, to the church of which he was an adornment, and to the State of which he was one of the
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strongest and truest leaders. His death recalled to the minds of many survivors what the English poet-laureate said in speaking of one of England's good and great men :
"O good gray head which all men knew; O steady nerve to all occasions true ;
O fall'n at length that tower of strength Which stood four-square to all the winds that blew."
Governor Buckingham was married on the 27th of September, 1830, to Elisa Ripley, daughter of Dr. Dwight Ripley of Norwich Conn., a wealthy and prominent eitizen known and respected throughout the whole eastern section of the State.
EWELL, MARSHALL, of Hartford, ex-Governor of Connecticut, and ex- Postmaster-General of the United States. Born in Winehester, New Hamp- shire, October 20th, 1825. His parents, Pliny and Emily (Alexander) Jewell, were natives of the same State.
The Jewell Register, containing a list of the descendants of Thomas Jewell of Braintree, near Boston, Mass., states that that gentleman was probably born in Eng- land, not far from the year 1600; and that sundry considerations lead to the eon- jecture that he was of the same stoek as Bishop John Jewell, a learned writer, and one of the fathers of the English Protestant Episcopal Church, who was born in Devon, A.D. 1522, and died A.D. 1571. Thomas Jewell appears in the Boston Record, of February 24th, 1639, as the recipient of a conditional grant of twelve aeres of land. He married Grisell FLETCHER by whom he had several sons and daughters, and died in 1654.
His son Joseph, born April 24th, 1642, first lived in Charlestown, and kept the ferry between that place and Boston ; then, about the age of fifty, removed to Stow, where he owned a grist-mill, and where he died at an unrecorded date. He married Martha , about 1670; and afterward Isabel -, who lived to be over 103. His son Joseph, born June, 1673; died at Dudley, Mass., in 1766, aged 93. He was married to Mary Morris, in Boston, by the Rev. Cotton Mather, on the 14th of September, 1704; and had six children; of whom the fifth, Archibald, was born April 8th, 1716, at Plainfield, Conn., and died of small-pox, December 26th, 1777, at Dudley, Mass. Archibald Jewell married Rebecca Leonard, January 6th, 1741 ; and
Atarshall Forts
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had eleven children, of whom the second, Asahel, born August 2d, 1744; died at Winchester, N. H., April 30th, 1790. Asahel married Hannah Wright, November 5th, 1767, and had ten children, of whom the fourth, Asahel, was born May 16th, 1776, and died at Winchester, N. H., August 29th, 1834. Ashael Jewell, Jr., married Hephzibah Chamberlain, February 21st, 1797; and had six children, of whom Pliny, the eldest, was born September 27th, 1797. He married Emily Alexander, Sep- tember 9th, 1819, and had ten children, of whom Governor Marshall Jewell is the fourth.
Pliny Jewell carried on business as a tanner in New Hampshire for many years. He was also an active member of the Congregationalist Church, and was politically identified with the old Whig party, by which he was returned at several different times to the State Legislature. In 1845 he removed to Hartford, Conn., continuing the tanner's trade, and also adding the manufacture of leather belting. He died at Hartford in the year 1865.
Marshall Jewell's early scholastic education was received in the district schools. Business education began in his eighteenth year, when he went to Boston as the apprentiee of John Cummings & Son, of Woburn. The son of John C., a tanner and currier, is now president of the Shawmut National Bank in that city. With him the youth thoroughly learned his trade, and afterward pursued it at various places in Massachusetts until 1847. He then, because of the dullness of his own business, turned his attention to telegraphy, and mastered the details of that art in Rochester, N. Y. There he became acquainted with the Hon. Alonzo B. Cornell, the present Governor of New York, who was engaged in the same occupation, and has kept up the acquaintance until the present hour. From Rochester he went to Akron, Ohio, took charge of an office in that place, and then went South, where he engaged in the construction of telegraph lines and the opening of offices-under the supervision of Henry O'Reilly-between Louisville and New Orleans.
During the Presidential canvass of 1848 he was in charge of the telegraph office at Columbia, Tenn., and, although a young man, took an active part in the defenec of Whig principles and the election of General Taylor. In the spring of 1849 he opened an office in Jackson, Miss., but remained in charge for a brief spaee only, being thoroughly opposed to the pro-slavery sentiments of Jefferson Davis and asso- ciates, to whose politieal harangues he had the opportunity of listening. Patriotism and humanity, both, inspired him to write numerous anti-slavery letters to his own friends in the land of the Puritans.
The South was not congenial to him, and he wisely determined to quit its pre- cinets. J. D. Reid, Esq., president of a company owning a telegraphic line between Boston and New York, offered him the post of superintendent, which was accepted
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for a little while. The manufacture of leather belting was then in its infancy, but had been studied in all its relations and prospects by his father, with whom he decided to enter upon that, business. The firm of P. Jewell & Son was formed on the Ist of January, 1850, and has continued to the present, with only a simple change in the title to P. Jewell & Sons. The present members arc Marshall Jewell and three of his brothers.
From 1852 to 1857 Mr. Jewell spent most of his timc in the West, extending the business of his firm, and powerfully aiding to placc it in the position it now occupics, in the front rank of its class, both in respect of magnitude of operation and excellence of production. The reputation of its leather and belting enjoys the commercial rating of A I. Throughout his entire public carecr he has retained his connection with the paternal firm; and has also, since 1860, bccn a special part- ner in the house of Charles Root & Co., a large and successful dry-goods jobbing house in Detroit, Mich. With different monetary and other incorporated institu- tions he has been and is closely identified. Of the board of directors of the Phoenix Fire Insurance Company of Hartford, he was one of the original members, and still holds the same relation to it. Of the Travelers Insurance Company of Hart- ford, hc was also a charter member. Since 1855 he has been a director of the Hartford Bank, one of the oldest and most stable of the financial establishments in New England. Under its noted president, the late Henry A. Perkins, he laid the foundation of that reputation for fiscal ability which he has built up by long years of successful private and public enterprise. In 1859 and 1860 he was occupied with the extension of business to Europe.
When the great rebellion against the United States Government broke out, Mr. Jewell efficiently assisted to raise troops for the national defence, and subsequently became an active participant in the kindly beneficence of the Sanitary and Christian Commissions. In 1865 and 1866 he revisited Europe, extended his tour into Africa, and after visiting the celebrated Nilc, repaired to Syria and other countries in Asiatic and European Turkcy. In 1867 hc attended the French Exposition at Paris, and there met with many of the leading tanners in the two hemispheres. Various im- portant topics relevant to their common art were discussed, and particularly the most desirable length of time to be consumed in tanning leather. The subject had been one of agitation and experiment; and the decision, so far as the majority is regarded, was in favor of adherence to old methods.
After his return to Connecticut, in 1867, Mr. Jewell bore an active part in the contest over the governorship in aid of General Hawley, then incumbent and also a candidate for re-election. Hc was chairman of the local Republican Committee, and also the nomince of his party for the State Senate from his own, the First,
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district. Mr. Jewell ran ahead of his ticket in the election, but nevertheless shared with his compatriots in defeat at the polls. The tact and vigor revealed on that occasion recommended him favorably to the suffrages of the commonwealth, and in the ensuing year he was himself a competitor with Governor English, the successful contestant of the previous year, for the chief magisterial chair, but was again unsuccessful. Nothing daunted, he tried the issue a second time, in 1869, with the same gentleman, and came off victorious. Parties in Connecticut are almost evenly balanced, and light matters may depress either scale. Weighed in the popu- lar balance against cach other in 1870, Mr. English was chosen, and rejected once more in 1871, in favor of Mr. Jewell. The former then retired from the field, and Richard D. Hubbard, conccded to be the ablest man of his party, took his place as candidate before the people. The canvass in behalf of himself and also of Governor Jewell was exceedingly active and exhaustive, and resulted in the choice of Mr. Jewell by only twenty-eight majority.
During the week following his retirement from office in May, 1873, Gov. Jewell was a gucst with President Grant at the house of Hon. Henry Farnum of New Ha- ven. Soon afterward Gov. Jewell went out to Detroit to direct the construction of a tannery, and while there, ascertained through the medium of the press that his name had been sent in by the President to the Scnate for confirmation as United States minister to St. Petersburg. The compliment was wholly unsolicited and therefore wholly unexpected by the recipient. It was none the less appropriate and gracc- ful. The fitness of the appointment soon became strikingly manifest. In June, 1873, he received his credentials, and, on the 2d of July, accompanied by his family, sailed for Europe. American industrial art is not frequently honored by such distinc- tions, but when it is-as in the persons of Franklin and Jewell-it has never failed to reflect greater honor on the wisdom of the appointing power. On his route to Russia, Minister Jewell visited the Vienna Exposition of Art and Industry, and held a conference with leading American manufacturers there. The superior advantages of the country to which he was accredited in the manufacture of iron and leather, and particularly in the production of that peculiar lustre in the iron, and odor in the leather, were points thoroughly discussed. Jackson S. Schultz, of New York, and other prominent Americans urged him to obtain such information as would enable American manufacturers to produce an article similar to Russia leather. This he did while resident at St. Petersburg. Having obtained permission to visit the several manufactories in Russia, he instituted a series of close investi- gations, in which his practical experience proved to be of great service; obtained all the knowledge desired, purchased the necessary materials, and forwarded the same to Mr. Schultz, with instructions to make the information thus communicated the
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common property of the American trade. This was done, and enabled the late J. S. Rockwell and others to manufacture an article closely assimilated in all quali- ties to the Russian leather. While at the court of the Czar, Minister Jewell ably and successfully negotiated a trade-mark treaty with Russia. He had discovered that many articles of inferior quality were offered as American productions in its markets ; notably, sewing-machines, Fairbanks' scales, and Collins's axes, and after correspond- ence with a number of prominent manufacturers in the United States, initiated the measures which culminated in the arrangement desiderated.
In July, 1874, upon the retirement of Postmaster-General Creswell, his Cabinet portfolio was offered to, and accepted by, Minister Jewell, who paid his respects to the Autocrat of all the Russias at the palace of Tsarsko-Selo on the 18th of the same month, and at once started for Washington to assume the duties of his new office. En route, he paused at Berlin and also at Paris to investigate the postal systems of their respective countries. Next, he crossed the English Channel, and visited London for the same purpose. While in England he received many tokens of delicate and marked appreciation from the Postmaster-General, Lord John Man- ners. Postal telegraphy was another subject of simultaneous examination, in which his thorough knowledge of the telegraphic art was of great service. The benefits of the European system are apparent on the surface, and suggest the expediency of putting all American lines under control of the National Government. Post- master-General Creswell had already inaugurated measures looking to that end, and to the establishment of a system of postal telegraphy in this country. But there were evils to be apprehended from its adoption. The civil service of the nation would be increased, and that necessarily, by several thousand additional office-holders, and the difficulties growing out of the enormous official patronage of the General Government be thereby augmented. Conservatism forbade pursuance of the project, and it was suffered to fall to the ground.
As Postmaster-General, Governor Jewell's administration was characterized by the same energy, thoroughness, and judicious adaptation of means to ends which have distinguished him in all positions of honor and trust. Through his agency the evils of fraudulent contracts and " straw bids" were rooted out of the department, probably never to reappear, and an era of honesty and responsibility inaugurated. To him were also due the arrangements made with presidents Vanderbilt and Scott, of the New York Central and Pennsylvania Central Railroads, by which postal matter was conveyed in fast mail trains from New York to Chicago in twenty-six hours, and which continued in successful operation until the close of his eminently beneficent term of public service.
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