USA > Connecticut > Biographical encyclopaedia of Connecticut and Rhode Island of the nineteenth century > Part 28
USA > Rhode Island > Biographical encyclopaedia of Connecticut and Rhode Island of the nineteenth century > Part 28
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In the spring of 1855 he began the practice of his profession in the city of New Haven, and has been actively occupied therein from that to the present time. In 1858 he received the degree of M.A. from the corporation of Yale College, and, in 1863 accepted the offer of the Professorship of Anatomy and Physiology in the School of Medicine affiliated with that celebrated school of liberal culture. He still retains that offiee, and also officiates-as he has done for many years-as Lee- turer in Physiology and Hygiene to the Academieal and Theologieal Departments of the University.
Dr. Sanford enjoys an extensive loeal practice, which he carries on simulta- neously with his professional duties. He is also an oeeasional contributor to eurrent medical periodieals, is a member of the New Haven Medieal Society, of the Con- neetieut State Medieal Society, of the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Seienees, and is also a permanent member of the American Medical Association.
On the 11th of April, 1866, he was married to Annie M., daughter of the Jate William Cutler, a merchant of New Haven. Three children-two daughters and one son-of whom the latter is the eldest, are the issue of his marriage.
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YNCHON, THOMAS RUGGLES, D.D., LL.D., President of Trinity Col- lege, Hartford, Conn. Born in New Haven, January 19th, 1823. He is a lineal descendant of William Pynchon, of the family of Pynchons, of Writtle, Essex, England; one of the original patentees of the Massachu- setts Bay Company, who in connection with Governor Winthrop and others brought the charter to New England in 1630; and who was the founder of Roxbury, near Boston, now incorporated with that city. In 1636 he removed to Springfield, on the Connecticut River (of which place he was the founder), and was the pioneer in the settlement of the valley through which it flows, from Warehouse Point to Deerfield. In 1650 he returned to England, and settled at Wyrardisbury, or Wraysbury, Buck- inghamshire, on the Thames, near Windsor, opposite Runnymede and Magna Charta Island; and died there in 1662, leaving his vast property in this country to his son, John Pynchon.
John Pynchon married Amy, daughter of Governor Wyllys, of Hartford. He was one of the assistants under the old Massachusetts charter, a member of Sir Edmund Andross's Council for New England, and one of the original councillors under the charter of William and Mary. A great-grandson of this John Pynchon, named Joseph Pynchon, graduated at Yale College in 1756, and spent his life chiefly at Guilford, near New Haven, where he married Sarah, only child of the Rev. Thomas Ruggles ; he died in 1794. Through this marriage the name and property of the Ruggles family passed to his son, Thomas Ruggles Pynchon, who was born in 1760, and died in 1795. Both father and son were stanch loyalists, and strongly opposed to the dismemberment of the British Empire; but at the elose of the Revolutionary war they gave in their adhesion to the new Republican Government, and returned to Guilford.
William Henry Ruggles Pynchon, son of Thomas Ruggles Pynchon, became a resident of New Haven, and married Mary, the daughter of James Murdock, Esq., of Schenectady, N. Y., a Scottish gentleman, and a graduate of the University of Glasgow, who came to this country soon after the Revolution. By her he had six children, of whom the second is now the President of Trinity College.
Dr. Pynchon's father died in the year 1831. His academic education was re- ceived in the Latin School at Boston, Mass., whence he repaired to Trinity College, matriculated there in 1837, and graduated in 1841. Two years afterward, in 1843, he was appointed lecturer in chemistry, and served the college in that capacity, and also in the office of tutor until 1847. Responsive to the call of the Great Head of the Church, and to his own profound convictions of individual duty, he then de- termined to enter the Christian ministry, and was ordained to the office of deacon in June, 1848, by Bishop Brownell, at St. Paul's Church, New Haven, during the
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meeting of the Diocesan Convention. In June, 1849, he was ordained a priest by Bishop Eastburn, in Trinity Church, Boston; and from that year until 1854 officiated as Rector of the churches in Stockbridge and Lenox, Berkshire County, Mass. In 1854 he resigned these parishes to enter upon the duties of Scovill Professor of Chemistry and the Natural Sciences in Trinity College, and held that position until called to the Presidency in 1874.
In 1855 he was granted leave of absence from professional duties, and spent the ensuing eighteen months in Europe, chicfly in France, Italy, and Sicily. For some years after his return he was actively occupied with the functions legitimate to his chair, and also in the discharge of clerical duty as Chaplain of the college, an office he had been called upon to fill. In 1867 he again visited Europe, and after his return published, in 1869, a Treatise on the Chemical Forces, a book designed espe- cially for the instruction of his own students.
When the scheme of selling the old college campus to the city of Hartford as a site for the new Capitol was broached in 1872, Dr. Pynchon was one of the most active opponents of the measure. But the sale having been consummated and further opposition having become useless, he bent all his energies to saving the college from the destruction that seemed to threaten it; and as president it fell to his lot to be the principal agent in erecting the new buildings and in trans- fering the college to its new location. The difficulties of the undertaking were enormous and demanded an extraordinary degree of creative and executive skill. New plans had to be prepared, adopted and carried into effect. But all obstacles were triumphantly surmounted, and the new college edifices occupied contempora- neously with the destruction of the old buildings in September, 1878.
The eminent abilities and high culture of the president had already received due recognition first, in 1865, in the conferring of the degree of D.D. by St. Stephen's College, Annandale, N. Y., and second, in 1877, in the bestowal of the degree of LL.D., by Columbia College, in the city of New York; but his fame in the future will largely rest in the efficient and successful manner in which he has managed and supervised the affairs of Trinity College, at what has been, pcr- haps, the most critical epoch in its history.
Trinity College was the second college established in Connecticut; the first having been Yale College, founded in 1701. This great event was the result of a struggle carried on for forty years, and was not accomplished until a political rev- olution had established the present State Constitution. One of the first acts under the new regime was granting a charter for a second college. This was passed May 16th, 1823. The new institution was first known as Washington College ; Hartford liberally contributed toward the erection of suitable buildings and for the
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general endowment ; and a tract of land embracing fourteen acres, and possessed of many natural advantages, having been selected in that city for the site of the college, the work of construction was begun in the month of June, 1824. In the fall of 1825 the college was formally opened, and instruction commenced. Two halls had been put up, of which Jarvis Hall was designed for the accommodation of students, while Seabury Hall contained the chapel, library, cabinet, and other public apartments. In 1845 an additional dormitory, named Brownell Hall, was raised, and the name of the institution was changed from Washington to Trinity College. In 1872 the old campus was sold to the city of Hartford for the sum of $600,000; the college reserving the right of occupancy for five years. Early in the following year the Trustees negotiated for the purchase of a tract of land containing eighty acres whercon to place the new building. Considerable time was spent in 1872 and 1873 in consultation with architects, and the plans and sketches which were prepared and sent over by William Burges, of London, having mct with the general approval of the Trustees, an architect was sent from this country in December, 1873, for the purpose of preparing working drawings in the office of Mr. Burgess in London, and several months were spent in the execution of this work. On their arrival in America, in October, 1874, the plans were found to be impracticable, and having been rejected by the Trustces, the duty of preparing a suitable plan was intrusted to Dr. Pynchon on his election to the presidency in November of that year. By the next spring the outlines of the new plan were agreed upon by the trustees, and by July the details so far perfected as to admit of the ceremony of breaking ground on the evening of Commencement Day. The new plan differs essentially from the one originally proposed in many important respects, and especially in this, that there are but three quadrangles instead of four, and of these the central one is of great extent and double the size of those on the north and south. The ercction of the buildings commenced in August of the same year, and the work went on without intermission until January, 1879. The college property was transferred in the summer of 1878, and the college opened in the new buildings in September of that year. The new site stands upon the summit of a cliff overlooking the surrounding country, and is the centre of a land- scape as beautiful as any in the far-famed Connecticut Valley. It commands a view from north to south of seventy miles, and proves in every respect an admirable situation for the college pile. When completed the buildings will not only be perfect in themselves, but also collectively possess merit of design, and form an harmonious and symmetrical whole. The entire frontage of the north and south line is over 1 300 fect, consisting chictly of dormitory and lecture-room blocks, with connecting gateways. The north side of the great quadrangle will contain the dining-hall and
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chapel, the south side the library and museum. The north line of the upper quad- rangle will be composed of the theatre for commencement and other exercises, and the observatory. The southern line of the lower quadrangle will consist of the president's house, and a block containing residences for the professors. When fully completed it will architecturally be a singularly attractive collegiate structure. The style is early Freneh Gothic, and is devoid of excessive ornamentation, depending for its effects upon simplieity and boldness of detail, and the harmonious grouping of windows and other prominent features. Every possible arrangement for the health, comfort, and convenience of the students has been called into requisition. The bronze statue of Bishop Brownell, modelled by Powers at Florence and cast at Munich, representing that prelate in the aet of pronouneing the benedietion, will be placed in front of the principal entranee. The bishop was the founder of the college, and it is highly appropriate that his name should be perpetuated by this noble memorial.
While the external appearance of the new college is thus singularly attractive, the internal organization is not less well designed and harmonious. The instruction in every department is severe and thorough, and an unusually large amount of personal attention is given by the professors to each individual student, thus repro- dueing the pleasant social relations between instructors and students which render residence at Oxford and Cambridge so profitable and delightful. The course of study is prescribed for all, and is based upon the experience that has been gained by the great intelleets that have been engaged in the work. of training the human mind through many hundred years, and in this respect it differs essentially from the rash theoretical educational experiments that are in vogue elsewhere. The disei- pline is firm but kind. The administration aims, as has wisely been remarked, “ at exercising as mueh watehfulness and as much control as necessary, and nothing more, to form a character which will stand when the scaffoldings are taken down." Since the removal to the new buildings, very great advancement has been made in equipment, in instruction, and in discipline, showing that a healthy and vigorous life is active in every part of the organization. Above all, the important subject of religion is treated as an objective reality. The great facts in the complete reception of which Christian faith consists are taught as possessed of absolute certainty, far exceeding that of the postulates of the most firmly established seienee, and free from vagueness. This is the rock on which the college is founded.
Trinity College has made important contributions to the beneh and to the bar, to the civil service and to aetive business life, to legislative bodies, to the army and navy, and to the church at home and abroad, and, with augmented resources and more highly disciplined power, will doubtless exeel both past and present in the future under the governance of its present head.
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URR, ALFRED E., of Hartford, Conn. Born in Hartford, March 27th, 1815. His father, James Burr, belonged to the old line of Burrs, so honorably and prominently associated with the colonial settlement of the present capital of the State. James Burr was a local merchant, but was also, at one time, engaged in trade with the West Indies. The mother of Alfred E. Burr, née Lucretia Olcott, was the daughter of Joseph Olcott, and thus a member of another of the old State families.
The facilities afforded to him for the acquisition of a thorough practical education were wisely and earnestly utilized by young Burr. He learned how to seize passing opportunities, and to make the most profitable use of them. Educated in the schools of Hartford, he afterward learned the printer's trade. In January, 1839, he purchased one half of the proprietary interest in the Hartford Times, with which he has since been identified. His tastes, abilities, and habits being eminently journalistie, and his professional successes commensurate with his qualifications, he is entitled to rank with such born editors as Samuel Bowles and Horace Greeley. Not less within its own sphere has the Hartford Times been influential than the Springfield Republican and the New York Tribune in theirs.
The political principles of the Hartford Times have been fixed and unvarying. They embody the conclusions of much careful thought and study, and command the respeet due to eonseientious and deliberate conviction. Conscience and moral princi- ple have been incorporated with its issues sinec the hour of Alfred E. Burr's connection with it, and indeed from its very foundation on January Ist, 1817.
Prior to his ownership of peeuniary interest in the Times, Mr. Burr had been employed in the printing-rooms of the old Federal and Whig organ, the Connecticut Courant-a prosperous daily sheet. George Goodwin & Sons, the proprietors, wishing to retire from its active management, offered the whole establishment to their energetie employé, on easy and favorable terms. Two conditions, coupled with the offer, would not allow him to become the publisher and proprietor of the Courant. The first of these was that he should attend divine worship in a certain church for which he had no special affinities; the second was that he should vote and support the Whig ticket-a thing impossible to one whose politieal principles and preferences were diametrically antagonistie to those of the Whig party. The offer was therefore declined, and his fortunes cast in with those of the Hartford Times, which was then a weekly publication. In January, 1841, Mr. Burr purchased the remaining portion of the stock or interest, and thus became sole editor and proprietor.
For sixty-three years the paper has been distinguished by consistent continuity of doctrine in all matters pertinent to political philosophy and political economy.
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Its first publisher was F. D. Bolles, and its first editor the late John M. Niles. From its foundation, it has expounded and upheld the teaching of the Jeffersonian school of Democracy ; and that with such elearness, foree, and aptitude as to compel recognition as one of the leading (if not the leading) organs of the Democratic party in the State, and, indeed, in all the New England States. Its especial historie renown lies in its championship of needed reforms; in having caught and strength- ened the spirit of the times; and in leading on progressive lovers of liberty to eventual vietory. Its first campaign was against the old Connecticut system of Church and State. The old royal charter, under which the people lived, was not adapted to their wants. A loud demand for a new and purely republican one arose, and continually waxed louder. The Federal party refused to concede it. They were powerful, aristoeratie, and intolerant. Their leaders were regarded as haughty and exclusive oligarchs. All the citizens were taxed for the maintenance of "the standing order," the Congregational churches. The reformers acquired the title of "TOLERA- TIONISTS," and sought to break down the old rule, and to make religion free of legal patronage and control.
The elections held in the year 1817 resulted in the downfall of the dominant Federals, and in calling a convention which framed the present constitution in 1818. Godly and learned ministers, like Dr. Lyman Beecher, strove in vain to avert the inevitable. They really believed that everything would go to destruction in case of any material departure from the old order of civil and churchly affairs. The Hartford Times was in the van of the Tolerationists, who succeeded in incorporating with the constitution in 1818 the three following sections, which were intended for the protection of religious freedom :
I. " No preference shall be given by law to any Christian sect or mode of wor- ship."-Art. 1, Sec. 4.
2. " No person shall by law be compelled to join or support, nor be classed with, or associate to, any congregation, church or religious association."-Art. 6, Sec. I.
3. " If any person shall choose to separate himself from the society or denomina- tion of Christians to which he may belong, and shall leave a written notice thereof with the clerk of such society, he shall thereupon be no longer liable for any future expenses which may be incurred by said society."-Art. 6, Sce. 2.
Episcopalians, Baptists, Methodists, and non-sectarians followed the lead of the Times in the effort to seeure these provisions. The Federal organization survived its overthrow for about ten years. The stately leaders still received the respectful homage of the common people. But the substance of power had been wrested from their grasp. The organization itself fell into the anti-Masonic party of Thur- low Weed and his associates, and then was absorbed by that of the Whigs. The
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remembrance of that exciting contest has almost faded out of the mind of the Com- monwealth. The very aged alone recollect it. The evils apprehended have not been suffered ; but, on the contrary, true religion and morality have made cheering advances.
In 1833 the Hartford Times was again most vigorous and aggressive in its demand for the repeal of an obnoxious and illiberal statute which denied to every believer in the universal salvation of the human family the right to testify in a court of justice. Gideon Welles proved to be an invaluable ally in the agitation. Five sessions of the Legislature were held before the offensive law was stricken out of the State code in 1833. Other enactments of essentially similar character were successively the objects of the Times' hostility, and ultimately suffered like oblitera- tion. The law which prohibited the exhibition of a theatre or circus in Connecticut, and the statute which prohibited, with fines and penalties, all servile labor on fast and thanksgiving days, were of this nature.
In 1853 Mr. Burr himself was called upon to participate in the legislation of the State by election to the House of Representatives, in which he served for one session. The circulation of the Weekly Times meanwhile was steadily increasing. With sound logic, keen sarcasm, and effective ridicule, it attacked the " hard cider and log cabin" methods of conducting electioneering canvasses ; and chose rather to deal with hard facts and unchanging principles. It attained a circulation of the first rank. The Daily Times also rose to the leadership of all its Connecticut contemporaries in point of circulation, and also of positive influence upon the politics of the State.
In 1854 Mr. Burr was an active and energetic protestor against the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. In this attitude he stood almost alone. The Democratic party, elated by its overwhelming triumph in 1852, was not in a mood to heed his admonitions. He warned them that if the plans of the ambitious Stephen A. Douglas were carried out, and the Missouri Compromise were repealed, the over- throw of the Democratic party would certainly follow; and that the resulting sectional organizations would probably involve the country in civil war. Ilis predic- tions were discredited, even by local statesmen. Subsequent events terribly justified them, and vindicated his wisdom and foresight. In 1860 the Times supported the Presidential candidacy of Breckenridge and Lane.
In 1854 the Times manifested determined opposition to the enactment of the Maine Law in Connecticut, as being inconsistent with the spirit of our institutions, illiberal, and calculated to increase rather than to suppress the evils of intemperance. Results, it is maintained, were in harmony with prophecy. Hundreds of private club-rooms were established. Liquors were introduced into many private families. Vast numbers of young men secretly addicted themselves to the use of alcoholic
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liquors who would have shunned consumption at public bars and in saloons. The Times made it a party question. The Republicans sustained the Maine Law: the Democrats opposed it. The editors of the Times, who were practically temperance men, were charged by professional opponents with being " rummies." Thorough trial was given to the law, and even its friends were satisfied that, as a reformatory meas- ure, it was at least a comparative failure.
While the Maine Law controversy was pending, the Times, under the editorial conduction of Mr. Burr, took decided ground against the Know-Nothing party, which held the reins of civil power in Connecticut in 1854-6. It declared that no set of men had the right to govern either the State or the country in secret. It procured and published the constitution and by-laws of the objectionable association. It sent reporters into all the lodges at Hartford, and gave their proceedings to the public. The names of members and applicants for admission were published. What was done in secret was thus proclaimed upon the house-tops. The anger of the Know- Nothing leaders was unbounded. Publicity proved fatal to their power, which waned and became extinct under repeated exposures.
The independence of thought and action which had characterized Mr. Burr in successive social and political agitations did not fail him when honest differences of opinion arose between himself and old esteemed co-laborers. John M. Niles, the first editor of the paper, and afterward Postmaster-General under President Van Buren-also United States Senator for two terms-continued to contribute editorially to its columns until the disagreement between himself and the proprietor about the tariff of 1846. Mr. Niles opposed the tariff, which, according to the official figures of the Treasury Department, yielded a revenue of about $62,000,000, or more than twice as much as he had contended it would. Niles gradually separated himself from the Democrats of the day, and on the formation of the Republican party was the first to move for the establishment of the Evening Press, a Republican paper that was afterward merged in the Courant.
From 1830 to 1846 the Hon. Gidcon Welles greatly enriched the columns of the Times by his trenchant and able pen. He and Mr. Burr were congenial yokefellows in party management. Welles was one of the earliest "Jackson" men in Connecticut. President Lincoln, with his usual shrewdness and knowledge of men, afterward made him Secretary of the Navy, in which position he demon- strated his wisdom and sagacity in many critical emergencies.
Before the great Civil War began, the patriotic dread of such a terrible calamity led Mr. Burr to exhaust all means of argument and persuasion to avert it. He abhorred the selfishness and greed which aimed to enrich themselves at the cost of national suffering and poverty. Like Horace Grecley he had no liking for "a
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