USA > Connecticut > Biographical encyclopaedia of Connecticut and Rhode Island of the nineteenth century > Part 17
USA > Rhode Island > Biographical encyclopaedia of Connecticut and Rhode Island of the nineteenth century > Part 17
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41
In 1860 the superintendent of the company, B. T. Henry, patented improvements
O. F. There haster-
145
BIOGRAPHICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA.
which proved successful, and the company honored him by giving to the new improved arm his name. The Henry Rifle achieved a world-wide reputation during the Civil War, and provcd a very valuable adjunct in the suppression of the Rebellion, and received high praise from distinguished officers for its serviceable qualities.
The manufacture of this gun was abandoned in 1865, and the New Haven Arms Company was dissolved, and merged into the present company, organized as the Winchester Repeating Arms Company, who commenced the manufacture of new and greatly improved arms, know as the Winchester Repeaters.
Meanwhile Mr. Winchester sold out his interest in the firm of Winchester & Davies, and thenceforward devoted himself to the interests of the company which bears his name.
The arms bearing his name can be found in every country of the world, and their reputation is so wide that it is needless here to make any extended remarks relative to them, suffice to say that . for beauty of finish, case of manipulation, accuracy and rapidity of fire, they have no equal.
In addition to the manufacture of the arms bearing the name of Winchester they are also extensively engaged in the manufacture of the Hotchkiss repeater, which, as altered and improved by them, has been adopted by the Ordnance Department for use by the United States Army. The Navy Department have also adopted this arm for its war ships. The exclusive right to this specific manufacture is by purchase in the hands of the company. The Hotchkiss repeater is a simple, strong weapon, and permits the use of the heaviest charges of powder and bullet used in any ordinary brecch-loading arm. The Hotchkiss differs from the Winchester in this respect-while the Winchester is operated by a lever on the under side of the breech mechanism and has the magazine parallel with the barrel on the under side, the Hotchkiss is operated by a bolt on the top, said bolt being one of the chief component parts of the lock mechanism, and has the magazine in the butt stock.
The company is also extensively engaged in the manufacture of metallic ammu- nition, and with their extensive plant of patented machinery are capable of producing one and a half millions of cartridges of every variety in a day, and four to five hundred guns.
In the science and art of political philosophy and also of political economy Oliver F. Winchester is a solid and indispensable factor. His fearfully destructive inventions and fabrications, as all history and experience attest, circumscribe the ravages of war, and shorten the period of its terrors by reducing it to the absurd- ities of comparative suicide. Devotion to business pursuits has not extinguished, but rather intensified, practical interest in public affairs. The Commonwealth of
10
146
BIOGRAPHICAL ENCYCLOPAEDIA.
Connecticut consulted its own interests in 1866, in his election to the office of Lieutenant Governor. Looking under the surface of social movements to those forces which inspire the love of learning and the progress of industrial and fine art, he has also been and continues to be a generous patron of religious and benev- olent institutions, an ardent admirer of horticultural pursuits, as his ample grounds fully testify, and a generous and devoted patron of pomology.
Not alone will his name be perpetuated on account of the war materials of his manufacture, but his adopted city will ever remember him in his connection with the astronomical department of Yale College, which, in view of his generous endowment, has honored him by naming its observatory the Winchester Observatory.
Mr. Winchester was married in the year 1834, in Boston, to Miss Hope of that city. Of his four children but two are living, a son and daughter.
OSTER, LA FAYETTE S., of Norwich, ex-Senator of the United States from Connecticut, ex-President pro tempore of the Senate, and ex-Acting Vice-Pres- ident of the United States from 1865 to 1867. He was born in Franklin, Connecticut, in 1806, and was the son of Captain Daniel Foster, a Revo- lutionary soldier, who shared in the glory of the victory at Saratoga in 1777. His paternal grandmother was Hannah Standish, a descendant of the renowned Plymouth captain, Miles Standish. The blood of other eminent Puritans flowed in his veins and gave cool reason, wise decision, and resolute persistence to his character. He began life, as multitudes of eminent New Englanders have done, in penury and comparative friendlessness. By his own energy and good sense he acquired the blessings of a good education. Graduating from Brown University, Providence, R. I., with the highest honors in 1828, he immediately began the study of law in Norwich.
Admitted to practice at the bar, he established himself at Norwich, and soon rose to the higher plane of professional practitioners, and also to prominence in local affairs. His political career began in 1839, when he was elected as a Whig to the State General Assembly. He represented Norwich in that body for six years, and was thrice elected Speaker. For two years he was mayor of Norwich, and at the second election received every vote cast. In 1850 he was the candidate of the
147
BIOGRAPHICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA.
Whig party for the gubernatorial chair, but was rejected by the majority of the citizens at the polls. In 1854 the public so far appreciated his sterling talents and unbending integrity as to applaud his election to the Senate of the United States. He joined the Republican party in 1855, and was re-elected to his emi- nently honorable post in 1860. From the 4th of March, 1855, to the 4th of March, 1867, he occupied his seat in the most august and dignified body of American legislators. This period of service covered the exciting and critical interval before the rebellion, and also the no less exciting and critical interval between its close and the adoption of reconstructionary constitutional amendments by the several States more immediately interested. His sympathies and convictions were naturally and intelligently on the side of the enslaved colored people, and of the indissolu- bility of the American Union.
Senator Foster's educated provision saw distinctly the black portentous clouds of civil war through the confusion, doubt, and anxiety that prevailed in the winter of 1860-1. He believed that the Secessionists were sincere, and meant to adhere literally to their professions. It is related, on good authority, that on January Ist, 1861, Mr. Seward, of whom Senator Foster was a great friend, gave a dinner party from which the latter was necessarily absent, but which was attended by his wife. Preston King, of New York, sat next to that lady at table, and entered into con- versation with her on the existing political complications. She ventured to express the opinion that the country was drifting into civil war, and was so piqued by his slighting reply that she fortified her own opinion by saying that it was shared by her husband. Mr. King thereupon inquired if Senator Foster really entertained such an idea, and when assured that he did, leaned back in his chair, and laughed long and heartily, if not rudely. The future was veiled to his eyes, as to those of many other statesmen accustomed to deal only with the surface currents that agitate human society. The Connecticut Senator's sounding-lead had gone much deeper, and obliged him to draw the inferences which were so soon and terribly justified by events.
Mr. Foster was quite willing. at the time, to make large sacrifices in order to avert an open rupture ; but when the hand of unprovoked treason had been vio- lently raised against the life of the nation, he advocated the prosecution of the war for its suppression with the utmost vigor, and to the bitter end. He had no confidence in the wisdom and expediency of the peace movement in 1864, nor with the schemes of honest and humane, but unmilitary and impulsive Horace Greeley. When the war was ended he did favor the speedy restoration of the Southern States to their constitutional relations with the Federal Government, and to the largest degree of self-government consistent with the Constitution. He could
148
BIOGRAPHICAL ENCYCLOPÆDIA.
not accompany the Radical section of the Republican party to extreme lengths in the prosccution of their policy, and therefore, in all probability, failed to obtain a third election to the National Senate. Nor could he approve the impeachment of President Andrew Johnson, which took place after his term of service had expired in the Senate. During the last two years of his membership in that body, he occupied the Vice-President's chair, to which he was chosen on Johnson's accession to the Presidency at the death of Lincoln, and which he yielded to Senator Wade, of Ohio, in 1867.
In 1870, without having performed previous service on the bench of the Superior Court, Senator Foster was elected to the justiciary of the Supreme Court of Connecticut, and discharged the duties of his post until the fall of 1876, when the constitutional limit of age was reached, and he retired to less public lifc. As a judge, he was notable for his aversion to technicalities and verbosity, for his keenness and promptitude in seizing the essential merits of a question, and for his strong instinct of justice. These characteristics were particularly apparent in his performance of Superior Court duty ; and reminded literary observers of Haroun al Raschid, the famous old Caliph of Bagdad, who went about in disguise among his people, that he might acquaint himself with evils which otherwise would not have come under his notice. In criminal cases he was sternly just, and led many to wish that he might continuously exercise judicial functions, for that very reason. In 1869 he was appointed Professor of Law in the Law School associated with Yale College.
After his retirement from the Senate in 1867, Mr. Foster declined active partici- pation in politics. Dissatisfied with what he felt to be the abuses of President Grant's administration, he identified himself with the Liberal movement in 1872, although Horace Greeley was not his choice for the chief magistracy. In the spring of 1875 he reluctantly accepted nomination for Congress from the Democrats and Liberals of the Third Connecticut District, but still held the same sentiments that led him into the Liberal movement in 1872. When Rutherford B. Hayes received nomination for the Presidency in 1876, he hailed it as the promise of pure administration and of milder policy toward the South, and again avowed his allegiance to the Republican party. His old political friends and associates were as glad of his return to their ranks as he was to find himself once more in their company, and tendered a local legislative nomination, which, if accepted, would have resulted in his clection, selection as Speaker, and probably as United States Senator also. The honor, however, was declined.
After his retirement from judicial duty, Senator Foster devoted himself to the practice of his profession, and his services in difficult cases were in constant demand. In the proposal for the establishment of an international code he felt the deepest
149
BIOGRAPHICAL ENCYCLOPAEDIA.
interest, and was invited to take part in the meeting held in Belgium in 1877 to mature the scheme. For this service he was particularly adapted by his close study of foreign affairs, his singular acquaintance with the diplomatic history of Europe, and the individual knowledge acquired by extensive travel in its several countries. Some years ago he was honored by election to membership in the Cobden Club, the famous English free-trade organization, with whose doctrines he held a qualified sympathy, but of which he was not a zealous propagandist. His theories rather expressed the golden mean between free trade and prohibitory tariffs, to which the sentiments of the general public seem now to be converging.
In the winter of 1879 Mr. Foster's name was frequently mentioned as that of a most fitting man for appointment as United States Minister to Great Britain; but the eventual choice fell upon another. " Aside from general scholarship," wrote an appreciative critic, "his eminence in jurisprudence, and his long practical experience in public affairs, he had the additional and important qualification for the post of polished manners, thorough familiarity with the requirements of its social code, and delightful conversational powers. Well read, apt at quotation, quick at repartee, brimful of genial humor, kindly in spirit, and possessed of a rare wife, he understood the art of hospitality to perfection. He acquired, during the long years of his honest industry, a handsome competence." warmest sympathies were enlisted. In all local affairs, educational and otherwise, his His physical vigor was as remarkable as his intellectual force. Both were compelled to succumb, in the brief space of a single week, to the deadly power of malarial fever. Dr. Fordyce Barker, of New York, and other skilful physicians, attempted in vain to prolong his life. That soon passed beyond the reach of human help, and the eloquent orator, learned jurist, and Christian statesman had exchanged the activities of this terrestrial for those of a celestial life, before it was generally known that he was ill. His wife survives him. His three children, by a former wife, died while young.
The Rev. Leonard Woolsey Bacon, pastor of the Park Congregational Church in Norwich, in a communication to the New York Independent, pertinent to the discussion initiated by that paper, of the expediency of so amending the national Constitution as to make ex-Presidents of the United States members of the national Senate for life, says of Senator Foster, that he was one of the most beloved and venerated members of his flock. Mr. Bacon's sketch of the deceased statesman is worthy of permanent place in his biography. Mr. Bacon says of him that he was "for the twelve most momentous years of American history a Senator · of the United States, and for a part of that time was President of the Senate, and, after the death of President Lincoln and the accesssion of Mr. Johnson to the Presidency, succeeded to the chair of Vice-President. Until the expiration of
150
BIOGRAPHICAL ENCYCLOPÆDIA.
his senatorial term he fulfilled the duties of this high position with a dignity, a fine courtesy, and a commanding ability which I have often heard spoken of by publie mcn, but never spoken of except with admiration. The greatness of his public services during those memorable years is not at all to be measured by his official station, or his publie acts. Few men werc more resorted to for private personal counsel by Abraham Lincoln-as, one after another, or many at a time, the awful questions of the war cmerged-than the upright, clear-headed, learned Senator from Connecticut ; and in the hardly less stormy days of reconstruction, when great measures were pending, there was no place where men whose single anxiety was to do the best thing for the whole country were more apt to find each other in private conferenec than at Senator Foster's apartment.
" From the second position in the Republic Mr. Foster returned, in the ripe strength of his manhood, to his home in Norwich, and to the absolute level of private eitizenship. He came back to his fellow-eitizens, as he went from among them, with 'elean hands and a pure heart,' and resumed practice as a lawyer. Something had been lost, no doubt, by the long disuse of his profession -something of facility in praetiee, something of the 'run of business.' But more had been gained in solidity of mind, in breath of character, in a reputation wide as the continent; so that, if there were what would have been difficulty in his taking at once just the place he had left, there was no difficulty at all in his taking a place higher and morc honorable.
" Those that best knew Mr. Foster and the needs of the public service grudged that his large and unselfish wisdom, ripened by an experience so long and exeep- tional, should be lost to the national councils. He thought it no dishonor, either to himself or to the station he had filled, to serve as a member of the lower house of the Connecticut Legislature, and to aeeept thc Speaker's chair of that unimposing body. For a few years, until retired by law, at the age of seventy, he was judge of the Superior Court of Connecticut, but returned at once from the beneh to the bar, of which he was the ornament and pride.
" It was in thesc later years only that I have known him well. That eourtly, but most genial gentleman, the reeollections of whose life were a thrilling chapter of unwritten history, the wit and wisdom of whose table-talk gave addcd charms to his generous hospitality, was, in point of eivil station, only a diligent and hon- orable attorney-at-law. One other offiec he held He was teacher of a Bible-
class in the Sunday-school of the Park Church. . There are few figures in my memory that I recall with more of reverence than that vigorous form, searcely beginning to droop under the burden of years, and that 'good gray head that all men knew,' standing before his class in animated discourse on a chapter of the
151
BIOGRAPHICAL ENCYCLOPAEDIA.
Word of God, or in words of singular grace and reverent beauty leading the prayers of our Thursday evening meeting.
" I have only one letter of Senator Foster's, and I am not sure that it will seem to the public of sufficient importance to transcribe; but it is a cherished possession with me. It reads thus :
"' SUNDAY NOON, Oct. 27, 1878. "' REV. AND DEAR SIR :
"' I put in my pocket this morning what seemed to me sufficient for my contribution to the cause of foreign missions; but, after hearing your sermon, I felt ashamed it was so small. I dropped it into the basket, but a sense of shame at its meagreness haunts me still. It's a feeling I can't harbor, and by way of relief I send you the enclosed. Should it please God that the gift be a blessing to others, I hope to be duly grateful. I have the delightful consciousness that it is, at least, a blessing to me.
"' With much re pect and regard, "' Your friend and parishioner, "'L. F. S. FOSTER.'
" I have been in the habit, these two years that I have been neighbor to Mr. Foster, of looking upon his diligent, fruitful, and honorable old age as presenting the very type and ideal of a worthy close to the career of a great statesman and public official in a republic such as ours. I have been glad that such an example should be before the eyes of my sons; and, when visitors from the Old World have come to see me, I have taken pride in pointing to the late acting Vice- President of the United States, taking his modest place and work on an equality with all the rest of us, as a noble and characteristic example of what is best in American Republicanism."
152
BIOGRAPHICAL ENCYCLOPÆDIA.
AGGETT, DAVID LEWIS, M.D., of New Haven, Conn. Born in New
Haven, June 24th, 1820. His father, Leonard Augustus Daggett, was a merchant in New Haven, and a native of the same eity. His grandfather, Judge David Daggett, was formerly Mayor of New Haven, one of the most eloquent and powerful advocates that adorned the legal profession, an eminent Sena- tor of the United States, a learned professor of law in Yale College, and an able Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Connecticut, who adorned all the exalted stations he filled with singular ability, integrity, and honor.
The Daggett family is of the Puritan stoek of New England Pilgrims. Dr. Daggett is the seventh in line of direct descent from John Daggett, who came over from England with Winthrop's company in 1630, and settled in Watertown, in the colony of Massachusetts. The mother of Dr. Daggett was Jennett, youngest daughter of Timothy and Susan Atwater, of New Haven. The Atwaters are an old and numerous English family ; but the genealogy of the American braneh "has not been- traced backward beyond the two brothers who came from London with Davenport and Eaton, and settled in New Haven, in 1638. They were probably parishioners of Davenport when he was Reetor of St. Stephen's in Coleman Street." Vide Genea- logical Register of the Atwater Family. The names of the two immigrant brothers were Joshua and David. The family of Joshua, in the male line, soon became extinet. David Atwater was one of the first planters of New Haven, and in the division of lands among the settlers a farm was assigned to him in the "Neck," as the traet of land between the Mill and Quinnipiac Rivers was ealled. His eleventh child, Ebenezer, was born January 13th, 1666; married Abigail Heaton, December 9th, 1691, and became the father of four children, of whom James was the third. James was born March 15th, 1698; married Dinah Sherman, July 12th, 1722, and Elizabeth Alling, March 4th, 1740. He was the father of eleven children, of whom Timothy, the tenth, and the father of Mrs. Leonard A. Daggett, was born November 2d, 1749.
The carly education of Dr. Daggett was received . in the celebrated Hopkins Grammar School of New Haven. From thence he passed to the Sophomore class of Yale College in 1836, and graduated as A.B. in 1839. Immediately after his collegiate career he removed to Virginia, and there taught sehool for a brief period. Resolving to exchange the educational for the medical profession, he returned to New Haven, entered the office of Drs. Eli and N. B. Ives, and also attended the regular course of leetures in the Medical Department of the University. Receiving his diploma of M.D. in 1843, he began the practice of medicine in New Haven, and has since prosecuted it on an extensive seale with remarkable activity and success. He has filled the position of Assistant Surgeon, and subsequently of Surgeon,
153
BIOGRAPHICAL ENCYCLOPÆDIA.
to the Knight Hospital in New Haven ; has served as President of the New Haven Medical Association, and has also been President of the County Medical Society. With the State Medical Society he has also been identified as member since his graduation from the Yale School of Medicine. At the Connecticut State Hospital he was Attending Surgeon for a number of years, and subsequently officiated as Consulting Surgeon to the same institution.
Dr. Daggett was married in 1848 to Margaret, daughter of Dr. William Gib- bons, of Wilmington, Del. Mrs. Daggett died in 1865, leaving three sons-the issue of her marriage-behind her.
ISK, WILBUR, D.D., of Middletown, Conn., first President of the Wesleyan University. Born in Brattleboro, Vermont, August 31st, 1792. His parents were of the massive, unbending type of the heroic Puritan stock-simple godly souls who feared the Lord and wrought righteousness; and who, in the working, laid broad and deep the foundations of all liberty, civil and religious. By them he was diligently trained to walk in the old paths of religion and moral virtue. To his mother he was especially indebted. Her wise, firm, and gentle love did much to prepare him for future eminent usefulness and honor. In 1809 he entered the Grammar School at Peacham, and in 1812 matriculated at the University of Vermont, from whence he repaired to Brown University, where he graduated with the diploma of A.B. in 1815. He then began the study of law, but was compelled to desist by the failure of his health.
Called of God to the work of the Christian ministry, he entered that of the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1818, and soon became distinguished for piety, ability, and unusual success in the prosecution of his labors. His pulpit talents were extraor- dinary, and have rarely been surpassed by those of any American divine. The edge of the sword, however, was too keen for the resistance of the scabbard, and his unwearied labors in the itineracy proved too much for his strength. His feeble health failed under the continuous strain, and necessarily circumscribed the sphere of his usefulness. In 1823 he was appointed presiding elder of the Vermont District, and in 1824 was chosen delegate from the Vermont Annual Conference to the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church. The honor conferred by this election has rarely fallen upon so young a man, and indicated the confidence of his clerical
I54
BIOGRAPHICAL ENCYCLOPÆDIA.
brethren in the maturity of his powers and the soundness of his judgment. From that time onward, his energies were specially consecrated to the promotion of Chris- tian education in his own branch of the Church. When he entered the ministry in 1818 "there was not a single literary institution of any note under the patronage of the Church. A few years later, in 1824, he was appointed agent to collect funds for one which had been established in Newmarket, N. H., but he declined the ser- vice because, as he said, it was not established on a permanent basis. Still he was anxious that one should be established, and through his efforts, with others, the academy at Wilbraham was commenced, and he was appointed its principal in 1826. The spirit which was thus aroused soon demanded an institution of a higher grade. The Northern and Eastern Conferences united to found the Wesleyan University at Middletown." The buildings of the Military Institute, which had been erected under the auspices of Captain Alden Partridge, a former Superintendent of the United States Military Academy at West Point, together with ample space for a college campus, were purchased, and "Dr. Fisk, naturally and without a rival, was elected its first President in 1830."
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.