USA > Connecticut > Biographical encyclopaedia of Connecticut and Rhode Island of the nineteenth century > Part 25
USA > Rhode Island > Biographical encyclopaedia of Connecticut and Rhode Island of the nineteenth century > Part 25
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" That it was due to no adventitious circumstance that Mr. Jenckes, on entering his profession, so early took a position in the front rank.
" While possessing uncommon natural gifts, among them great powers of percep- tion and a most retentive memory, he nevertheless had laid broad and deep the foundations of his knowledge by the severest study of metaphysical and the exact sciences, of history, and the literature of ancient and modern times.
" With a mind thus disciplined and enriched, with habits of thought thus formed, he was enabled to enter immediately upon those intellectual contests with the leading members of the bar in this and other portions of the country, in which he displayed a degrec of self-possession, a wealth of learning, adroitness, and logical power, that commanded universal admiration. During the whole of his professional life, covering a third of a century, even through the months of his last painful illness, he continued that deep and thorough study of the law which marked the preparation for his profession; thus illustrating, by his own example, his faith in the adage often quoted by him, that 'there is no royal road to learning.'"
The domestic life of Mr. Jenckes was touchingly beautiful. His family affections were remarkably strong. His were the filial attentions to a mother's comfort and wishes that the poet Dana calls "the native courtesies of a feeling mind, showing themselves, amid stern virtues and masculine energies, like gleams of light on points of rocks." To his young daughters he was the ideal of nobleness and excellence. " The book or poem which he praised was read or committed to memory ; a word of approbation from him called up a blush of pleasure. His return after an absence was the signal for rejoicing, and his wish when it could be ascertained was law, and the law was delight, as it was to the Psalmist." When his beautiful and beloved daughter, Ida, was taken away from him by death, he said :
" To mc the loss is greater than it can be to all others. She was an emana-
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tion from myself, where all that was rude became beautiful; all that was hard, tender ; all that was harsh and severe, gentle; and all that was stern and rough became sweetness and elegance. She had so interfused herself with my life, and she was so healthy and pure, that I never thought of existing without her. I could resign her to become the joy, the light, the comfort of some brave man's home ; but I had never thought of having her torn from me - thus. Oh, how much light has departed from my house !"
Greatness, and unusual worldly suecess, did not guarantee him any more than millions of obseure men from the keenest sufferings incident to human life. Together with exhausting physical and intellectual toils, they undermined a constitution of great natural vigor, and assisted the painful and complicated disease under which he labored, to bring his brilliant and useful life to a somewhat premature elose. He died at his residence in Cumberland, on the 4th of November, 1875, universally admired and regretted.
EWIS, HENRY G., of New Haven, Conn., was born in the town of Corn- wall, in Litchfield County, Conn., on the 9th day of September, 1820. He was the youngest of five sons and two daughters -children of the late William Lewis and his wife, Sarah A. Calhoun, for many years .prominent residents of Cornwall, as afterward of the city of New Haven.
In 1826 his parents removed from Cornwall to the town of Newington, in Hartford County, where they resided for about two years. They then went to. Meriden, in New Haven County, where they remained until 1832, at which time they came to New Haven with a view to making this city their permanent place of residence. Here the father and most of the elder sons established themselves in business, and soon became actively and prominently identified with the material interests and prosperity of the city.
At this time young Lewis, who had previously attended the common or public schools only, became a pupil of the celebrated Lancasterian, now the public High School of New Haven, which he attended ,for some four or five years under the veteran teacher of that institution, making such progress in his studies as to render the higher instruction of the private schools of the city thereafter a necessity.
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In 1841 he entered the Yale Law School, at that time under an able corps of instructors, with the late Judges Daggett and Hitchcock at its head. He gradu- ated in due course from this department of Yale College in 1841, receiving the degree of Bachelor of Laws. While connected with the Law School he prosecuted his studies in the law-office of the late Judge E. K. Foster, whose memory is as gratefully cherished by the public as by the bar of New Haven County.
Immediately after his admission to the bar he was elected the acting grand juror or prosecuting attorney for the town of New Haven, which office he continued to hold until he was appointed to the more important and responsible position of clerk of the County and Superior Courts, and of the Supreme Court of Errors, in 1847. This position he held for three years and upward, at the same time acting as clerk of the City Court, as well as the Court of Probate during the incum- bency of the Hon. E. K. Foster as judge. And the writer deems it not improper to state, in this connection, as evidence of the superior qualifications of Mr. Lewis for the position he then held, that during his clerkship, especially in the higher courts, many important and desirable improvements were suggested and made by him in the matter of making up and keeping the records and files of the courts, such as the judges and bar readily acquiesced in, thereby causing greater uniformity and much saving of time in the examination of records and the transaction of business before the courts. He was- the first to cause the records of all cases taken to the Supreme Court of Errors to be made up in printed form; and so palpable were the advantages of this method over the old one of interminable manuscript copies as immediately to cause an order of the court that thereafter they would hear no cases, in any county of the State, unless presented in a like convenient form.
But finding the position of clerk of the courts and the routine duties of the law- office more irksome in their confinement than he had expected, and convinced that a life of business activity would prove more congenial to his habits as well as tastes, he determined on a change of vocation as early as IS53. At this time the New Haven Wheel Company, an organization formed under the laws of the State, had been in operation some six or seven years, and such was the prejudice against machine-made wheels that little progress had been made in the business, while it had changed hands several times. A few of the leading business men connected with the company, however, had become satisfied that machine-made wheels were superior to any that could be made by hand. and at once cast about them for a competent and thorough business manager of the concern. They were not long in finding their man for the place. The position was tendered to Mr. Lewis, and he at once accepted it. He was elected secretary and treasurer of the company, and
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entered upon the duties of these positions, taking the chief management and super- vision of the works into his own hands. Such was the enthusiasm and vigor he brought into the eoneern that its business was rapidly inereased, and handsome dividends commeneed to acerue to the owners.
The unexpected panic of 1859, however, so soon followed by the late civil war, produced a sudden revulsion in their business, and the war itself subjected them to cnormous losses, especially in the ease of their Southern customers, with whom they were largely dealing at the time, while nothing but the certainty that the war must ultimately terminate encouraged them to go forward in their undertaking. Their business was accordingly continucd, in a more or less languishing condition, until peace was declared in the spring of 1865, when important changes were made in the ownership of the company. Most of the old stockholders were bought out by Messrs. Henry G. Lewis and Edward E. Bradley. Mr. Lewis was elected president, and Edward E. Bradley scerctary and treasurer. The company now entered upon a new lease of life, and with a new career of prosperity. From manufacturing twenty-five scts of wheels a week before the war, the number had inercased to fifty sets, and from that rapidly rosc to two hundred, besides quantitics of parts furnished to the carriage-makers, among whom a demand had sprung up for this class of work.
This increase of business steadily continucd down to September, 1874, when at least two thirds of their extensive works was destroyed by fire, entailing a loss upon the company of about $200,000, and seriously interrupting their opcrations for the time being. But such was the energy and recuperative foree of the company under its new organization and management, that within eighty days from the date of the fire, the present large and extensive buildings were erected in plaec of the old ones, and were ready to receive their ncw Harris-Corliss engine, of two hundred horse power, and the other machinery of this mammoth establishment.
With the new and increased facilitics which they now enjoyed, and the wide reputation they had achieved for superior work, they at once commeneed turning out four hundred sets of wheels a week, besides furnishing a much larger variety of parts to the carriage-makers of the country. New markets sprang up and old ones were extended, so that now their goods are sold in every section of the United States, besides finding their way to all parts of Europe, to Australia, South America, Mexico, the West Indies, Canada, and several other forcign countrics. No other concern of its kind in the world is so widely and favorably known, or has the reputation of manufacturing a superior class of work. The force employed is full two hundred hands, each part having to pass through many processes before appear- ing in the finished wheel.
To Mr. Lewis the company is largely indebted for the wide reputation it
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enjoys throughout this country as well as abroad. It was through his influence and active exertions that the largest space was allotted to his company, and much the most valuable exhibit in the wheel line made by them, at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, in 1876, at which time they received the highest award in their department of the exhibition ; while at the Paris Exposition, in 1878, their display was so meritorious as to gain for them a silver medal and diploma. Mr. Lewis is still the president of the company, although actively engaged in other manufacturing enterprises.
In 1866-7 he was elected a member of the Court of Common Council of New Haven, and not only took an active and leading part in the debates of that body, but a deep and zealous interest in all matters pertaining to the growth, prosperity, and general welfare of the city. His duties as a member of the Common Council were fearlessly discharged, no measure receiving his support which did not first commend itself to his judgment. He has manifested, however, little ambition for political place and preferment, evidently caring more for success in business enter- prises than in the arena of politics. He had frequently been requested by his many friends in New Haven to allow his name to be used as a candidate to represent both the town and Senatorial District in the General Assembly of the State, but with one exception invariably refused his assent. In 1868, however, when it came desirable for New Haven and the several towns along the Air Line and Shore Line Railroads to obtain an act of the Legislature authorizing these roads to construct iron bridges across the Connecticut River at Middletown and Say- brook, he yielded to the persuasion of his fellow-townsmen, became a candidate for Representative, and was elected. He had hardly entered the House before the great struggle that had already become memorable in the history of the State was precipi- tated upon that body. For nearly twenty years Hartford had fought the project of bridging that river, or otherwise obstructing its open channel to the sea, and had unifornily borne away the palm of victory. But she was now to meet one armed with facts, figures, and precedents, and eager to enter the lists against the pretentious claims of navigable streams to the exclusive right of commercial highway in an age of diversified transport, with thousands of persons and millions of tons of freight traversing the continent by rail to a tithe of that number by ordinary river con- veyance. Mr. Lewis bore a conspicuous and leading part in the debates that fol- lowed, and with a few determined followers and influential friends, all catching more or less of his enthusiasm and indomitable pluck in a hand-to-hand encounter, "the an- cient and imprescriptible rights" of Hartford to river navigation dropped out of the category of annual legislative contests in this State. As the smoke of battle cleared away, it was found that the two bridges in question had been chartered by nearly a two thirds majority in both houses of the Legislature.
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As chairman, on the part of the House, of the Committee on Fisheries, during the same session of the Legislature, Mr. Lewis took an active and prominent part in the question of fish culture, strongly advocating the laws then passed for stocking the Connectieut River with shad and salmon, and the numerous lakes and streams of the State with fish adapted to their respective waters. The several reports of the fish commissioners of the State, sinee made, fully attest the advantages and bene- ficial effeet of this legislation.
Mr. Lewis was first elected Mayor of New Haven in 1870, at the time the new eity charter, extending the office from one to two years, went into operation. His eminent fitness for the position would have seeured his nomination the year previously, but his pressing business engagements led him peremptorily to deeline the proffered honor. The next year, however, the demand for his nomination beeame more urgent and pressing, owing to the contemplated changes in the eity govern- ment and the need of a thorough and competent business man in the position to earry the new and somewhat complicated working machinery of the charter into effective operation. Yielding to strong personal appeals, he accepted the nomination, and was elected. Under the charter, his first term of office was to extend from the first day of June, 1870, to the first day of January, 1873, in order that the official year might thereafter commence in January instead of June, as had previously been the ease under the old charter. He was twiee re-elected for terms of two years each, thereby holding the office from June, 1870, to January, 1877-a longer period than any predecessor ever elected to that office.
The first charter of the city was granted in 1784, and it is not saying too much that during Mayor Lewis's ineumbeney of the office a greater number of per- manent city improvements were inaugurated and carried forward on a systematie plan -- one having reference to the future necessities and demands of the eity-than were ever projected or undertaken by any ten predecessors of his in the office.
During his first term of two years and seven months, he not only discharged his official duties as Mayor and president of the Board of Aldermen, but aeted as president of the boards of Road, Police, and Fire Commissioners, thus coming in contaet with, and making his influence felt in, every department of the eity gov- ernment. The result was no doubt greatly beneficial at the time, as it was impossible for the city officials in these several departments to come in contaet with him without sharing in the enthusiasm with which he entered upon the publie improvements he had projceted as the distinctive work of his administration.
Ilis greatest work, and that which most sharply emphasizes the strength and sagaeity of his eharaeter as an administrative officer, was the establishment of a complete and perfeet system of sewerage for the entire corporate limits of the city.
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This was, in his judgment, the one imperative need of New Haven at the time he entered upon the duties of his office. The previous sewerage of the city was utterly without plan or system, and was as imperfect as notoriously inadequate. Malarial discases were steadily, yet stealthily, making their way from the unsewered districts into the very heart of the city, and all agreed that something should be donc to lessen the annual death-rate among our people. In this emergency, Mayor Lewis was fortunate in securing the services of Mr. E. S. Chesbrough, the eminent sewerage engineer of Chicago, under whose supervisional direction the entire city was surveyed and mapped out into sewerage districts by a competent corps of engineers, with a view to providing a system of perfect and rapid drainage, extending throngh every existing and prospective street and avenue within the territorial limits of New Haven.
The final report of Engineer Chesbrough, made to the Mayor, December 30th, 1872, detailing the system established for New Haven, is considered by experts, and those best conpetent to judge, the ablest paper on district sewcrage yet given to the public ; and distinguished sanitarians who have examined the system, pronounce it the best in this country. And the improved sanitary condition of our city since its adoption, and the vigorous prosecution of the work under it, fully justify the conclusion reached by Mayor Lewis in his first inaugural address to the Court of Common Council, delivered on the Ist day of June, 1870. In the last annual report of Dr. C. W. Chamberlain, secretary of the State Board of Health, that officer, speaking of the improved sanitary condition of our city, says: "New Haven now, with its almost perfect sanitary organization, has the lowest death-rate of any seaport town of its size in the world." How largely our people are indebted to Mayor Lewis for this official announcement and the material prosperity it is certain to bring us, the present generation may not fully determine, but the future student of our city annals will most assuredly do so.
As president of the Board of Road Commissioners, Mayor Lewis was untiring in his efforts to improve the principal streets and thoroughfares of the city, causing them to be widened, straightened, and extended, as well as graded and paved, wherever the public health and business necessities demanded. Sidewalks were repaired and relaid, and new ones constructed and curbed, in all directions, imparting a thrifty and cleanly appearance to the principal streets and avenues of the city.
For the better protection of life and property, the police and fire departments were constant sources of anxiety and watchfulness on his part, and whenever, in his judgment, an increased force was required to meet these ends, he was prompt to recommend it. And the saine was true as to the enlargement of old buildings and the erection of new ones, for both the police and fire departments, the chief
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conditions imposed by him being that the enlargements made and the new build- ings erected should be adequate to the requirements of the force, and at the same time creditable, in plan and architectural design, to the city. And certainly these conditions were rigidly complied with in the erection of our new Police Building, one of the finest structures of its kind in the country.
During his mayorship, and mainly through his recommendation and efforts, the first regular Board of Health in the State was established in 1872, the Legislature of that year passing an act in amendment of the city charter providing for such a board, with ample powers and exclusive jurisdiction over the health and sanitary condition of the entire town and harbor of New Haven. This measure was an important and most timely one, and our city Board of Health is pronounced one of the most efficient in the country.
It was also on the recommendation of Mayor Lewis that a joint standing committee was appointed by the Court of Common Council on Harbor Improve- ments, in 1872. The object of recommending this committec, of which he was made chairman, was to obtain an act from the Legislature that year for the organization of a board of harbor commissioners, with ample powers for the protec- tion and improvement of our harbor. This committec was also especially instructed to confer with the Coast Survey authorities in Washington, with a view to obtain- ing a rcsurvey of the harbor. An application was accordingly made to the Superin- tendent of the Coast Survey by this committee, the same heard . and granted, and the necessary arrangements made for the commencement of the work: Assistant Superintendent R. M. Bache was assigned to superintend the survey, the same to be donc at the joint expense of the city and the Federal Government. This survcy was most minute and accurate in its details, and comprised not only the harbor but the adjacent shores and navigable streams, as shown upon a series of thirteen elegantly executed maps furnished by the corps of engineers in charge of the work. The same committec, in furtherance of the, objects of their appointment, made applica- tion to Congress for an appropriation to widen and deepen the channels of the harbor, and also construct a proper breakwater ncar its entrance, the Chamber of Commerce and many prominent citizens actively co-operating with them for the attainment of these ends. The result was that a handsome appropriation was obtaincd and judiciously cxpended in furtherance of the harbor improvements sought to bc ultimately obtaincd.
In addition to the several improvements we have herein enumerated, Mayor Lewis was indefatigable in his efforts to carry out others of more or less impor- tance to the city, such as the construction of a first-class iron bridge over the Quinnipiac River; a new 'survey of the city, showing every street, strcet line, and
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gradc; the location of every sewer, its manholes and connections; every fire hydrant and reservoir; every gas and water main, and the exact sizc, ground plan, and location of every building and structure in the city up to July 4th, 1876, besides many other improvements we have not the spacc to cnumcrate. During his several terms of office, not less than twenty-four miles of sewers were laid, in accordance with the new system of drainage adopted, while some nine miles of streets were paved on the Telford plan. Indced, there has been no public enterprise of any magnitude or importance entered upon in this city for the last thirty-five years which does not owc its origin in part to his efforts.
He was among the foremost of our citizens to advocate and assist in organi- zation and construction of the gas and water companies of the city, in both of which he was for many years a director. IIe strongly favored, and by his efforts largely aided, in the successful construction of the Shore Line Railroad to New London ; the Air Line road to Willimantic, and the New Haven and Derby Rail- road. None of thesc enterprises were effected without the most persistent efforts on the part of their friends and projectors-the two former having provoked, in the Legislature of the State, a most determined, and bitter struggle for years between the two rival citics of Connecticut.
To secure the success of thesc several enterprises, so important to the trade, commerce, and material growth and welfare of New Haven, no man labored more zealously than Mr. Lewis. He also advocated, and, with his associates, was successful in procuring the charter of the New England and Eric Railroad in Connecticut, and the Highland Suspension Bridge over the Hudson River in New York, and was a corporator and director in each company, the object being to connect New Haven, by the Derby Railroad, with the coal-fields of Pennsylvania and the railroads of the West -- a work yet to be consummated.
While Mayor, the hospitalitics of thic city were extended to many distinguished visitors, including the President and Vice-President of the United States; the General, Licutenant-General, and other noted army officers; the Governors of the New England and adjoining States; Kalakaua, King of the Hawaiian Islands, and his suite, and other personages of more or less notc. On these occasions the hospitality and dignity of the city were fitly represented by his presence, and the courtesies shown. In his public receptions to these distinguished guests, he was uniformly felicitious and happy in the remarks made by him, as well as in the attentions bestowed.
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