USA > Connecticut > Biographical encyclopaedia of Connecticut and Rhode Island of the nineteenth century > Part 29
USA > Rhode Island > Biographical encyclopaedia of Connecticut and Rhode Island of the nineteenth century > Part 29
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republic whereof one half was pinned to the other half by bayonets." He opposed secession -- a proceeding which nothing could justify-and plainly told the South what it might expect if it should defiantly attempt to fight its own battle outside the Union. He approved Lincoln's proclamation of the necessity and duty of collect- ing the revenue and enforcing the laws within the seceded States. He fearlessly criticised men and measures during the season of radical ascendancy at Washington. He hailed every promise of peace to be effected by reason and negotiation instead of the sword. When the end of actual hostilities arrived, he unsparingly condemned the self-stultification of the Republicans, who declared certain States to be out of the Union in order to effect the adoption of war amendments to the national constitution. Exclusion and secession were alike repugnant to his opinions, and in his estimation were equally disunionist measures.
In the year 1866, A. E. Burr was again elected to the popular branch of the State Legislature, and served with efficiency, to the satisfaction of his constitu- ents. He has been often and urgently solicited to accept public honors, such as election to Congress, but has declined on the ground of individual preference for the pursuits of journalism. He is said to be the oldest active journalist in the State if not in the country. Forty years of uninterrupted professional practice have not only imparted unusual deftness and skill in the use of his vigorous pen, but have clothed him with a power akin to that which the king-making Earl of Warwick won by the sword. Though refusing official posts himself, he has made many men what against his opposition they would not have been, namely Congress- men, Governors, and incumbents of other positions.
The Hartford Times is as much Alfred E. Burr as the New York Times was Henry J. Raymond, or as the New York Evening Post was William Cullen Bryant. It is Alfred E. Burr speaking his deep-seated convictions on matters of importance to locality, State, and nation ; and that with a candor and ability that command universal respect. For thirty years his counsels have been potent with his political party in Connecticut, and have not infrequently been the means of its victories at the polls. In local affairs he has always exhibited the keenest interest. He is the advocate of progress, and the exponent of broad and wise plans of public usefulness. To him, more than to any other editor, and indeed in opposition to some, the establishment of the excellent High School at Hartford is due. He pleaded for, and pressed the construction of the city water-works, and the introduction of pure water from the mountain, six miles west of the city. The beautiful Bushnell Park is also largely indebted to him for existence. His, too, was the project of buying the thirteen acres of ground, together with the buildings, owned by the corporation of Trinity College. The Rev. Dr. Bushnell emphatically affirmed that the purchase was
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finally accomplished through the efforts of the Times and its senior editor, Alfred E. Burr. The price paid by the city to Trinity College was $600,000. The ground was then tendered to the State for the site of its new Capitol. Mr. Burr was appointed President of the Commission to whom the erection of the new building was entrusted. That beautiful edifice cost $2,500,000. The money was drawn from the Treasury, and disbursed by the president of the commission, under the law of the State, to the satisfaction of the citizens, and also of the Legislature, which passed resolutions of compliment to the commissioners.
In all local improvements, beneficent undertakings, and public-spirited measures that tend to the promotion of civil order and welfare, he has been conspicuous; and has infused the same spirit into his associates. Personal character and eminent ability have always commanded for him the profound respect of his fellow-citizens; while sterling honesty in all private and public relations has conducted him to gratifying and assured prosperity.
The Times enjoys the largest circulation of any periodical in Connecticut ; and will doubtless retain the proud pre-eminence while its reputation for enterprise, promptitude, and ability in collecting and discussing current news is maintained at its present altitude.
While Alfred E. Burr discharges the duties of senior editor of the Hartford Times, he receives the experienced assistance of his brother, F. L. Burr, and also of his son, W. O. Burr. J. G. Belden is assistant-editor, George P. Mahen, news editor, W. Leavy, reporter of court and city news, and Warren H. Burr of city news. Dr. Nathan Mayer is the musical and dramatic critic. Subordinate assistants are employed in various departments, and paid correspondents maintained in many Connecticut towns. Three correspondents in New York, and one-often two-in Washington, keep the readers of the Times thoroughly abreast of all national and metropolitan occurrences.
Mr. Burr was married in 1841 to Miss Sarah A. Booth, of Meriden, Conn.
GB. Hawley
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AWLEY, GEORGE BENJAMIN, M.D., of Hartford. Born in Bridgeport, Conn., February 13th, 1812. His father, Abram Hawley, was a native of the same town, and of the fifth generation in the line of direct descent from Joseph Hawley, the first American ancestor, who was born in Parwick, Derbyshire, England, in 1603, landed near Boston in 1629, and died at Stratford, Conn., in 1690. His mother, whose maiden name was Alice Burton, was also of Connecticut origin.
Dr. Hawley prepared for college at Goshen, Conn., entered Yale in 1829, and graduated with the class of 1833. Electing the practice of the healing art, he pursued the usual course of preliminary medical studies in the Yale Medical School, and graduated therefrom in 1836. He then became the assistant physician, under Dr. Silas Fuller, at the Connecticut Retreat for the Insane, and held that relation until 1840, in which year he settled in general professional practice at Hartford. For thirty-nine years he has uninterruptedly prosecuted his beneficent labors, and is now the senior active physician in that capital, and also one of the first class in point of reputation for accomplished ability and brilliant success. Gynaecology and obstetrics constitute his specialties, and in both he has a very extensive and successful practice.
While an ardent and persistent toiler in the ordinary departments of medical usefulness, Dr. Hawley has taken the deepest and most benefactive interest in the several cleemosynary institutions related to his profession. In 1854, he was one of the prime movers in the establishment and incorporation of the Hartford Hospital, of which the site was selected in 1855, and the cornerstone laid by the Governor of Connecticut, in presence of the legislature and many distinguished citizens, in 1857. The superstructure was crected in 1858, and the whole edifice dedicated in 1859. Dr. Hawley's name appears in the list of donors to the institution, also as a member of the Executive Committee, and of the Board of Consulting Physicians. He still sustains the latter important relation to the hospital, and is actively identified with its management. At the dedication, he was one of the principal speakers, and in his address revealed thorough acquaintance with the history, objects, and methods of public charities. He happily contrasted the present with the past in respect of provision for the sick and poor, and showed the superiority of the present by the fact that while the cultured and civilized nations of antiquity, like the Greeks and Romans, immortalized themselves by their marvellous genius and splendid deeds, they provided no place for the sick and afflicted, but left them to die deserted and alone. Wounded warriors were not exceptions to the general rule, and the poor were left to perish in utter neglect. Christianity alone is entitled to the credit of developing sympathy for the sorrowing, and of creating institutions for the relief of
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the needy and destitute. He spoke of their origin as public charitics in the reign of the Emperor Justinian, of their further development in the Middle Ages, and of the immense sums now lavished by the great centres of European civilization, like Paris and London, upon their elcemosynary establishments. The hygienic statistics, adduced by Dr. Hawley on that occasion, were of remarkable interest and value.
In the Eighteenth Annual Report of the Executive Committee-of which Dr. Hawley is a member-of the Hartford Hospital, is a statement of the progress made by the training school for nurses connected with the institution. Compctent women are trained therein, for a period of two years, and after passing a final examination, receive diplomas, certifying to their knowledge of nursing, their ability and good character. The practical character of an educated, progressive physician is admirably illustrated by his zeal in the foundation and supervision of a school like this. For want of skilled nurses many most valuable lives have been lost, that might otherwise have been prolonged to benefit society for many years. The efforts and prescriptions of the highest medical skill are not unfrequently made wholly nugatory by the ignorance and carelessness of the persons in charge of the sick. When the school is fully established, physicians may telegraph from any part of the State to the Hartford Hospital, and be supplied with skilled and careful nurses, at moderate cost. Already the public begins to appreciate the value of such a school, and will necessarily appreciate it more and more highly as it experiences the benefit resulting from the employment of the graduates.
The philanthropic and public spirit of Dr. Hawley have been further illustrated by his activity in the establishment of the " Inebriate Asylum at Walnut Hill." It originated proximately with a committee appointed by the Connecticut State Medical Society, in 1873, to procure from the Legislature an act for the reformation of persons of intemperate habits. Of that committee Dr. Hawley was a member, and was after- ward appointed, by resolution of the Legislature, a member of the committee instructed to report on the necessity and expediency of an inebriate asylum, and to present to the next Legislature an appropriate act for the cstablishment of such an asylum, if, in their opinion, such an institution were nceded in the State. At the request of this committee, the Legislature of 1874 incorporated the "Connecticut Reformatory Home," which name was changed by the Legislature of 1875 to the "Asylum at Walnut Hill," and an act was also passed to commit and control the inebriate, dipsomaniac, and habitual drunkard, in an inebriate asylum within the State. Dr. Hawley at that time served, as he does at present, on the executive committee and on the board of directors chosen at the annual meeting. " Walnut Hill was first opened for patients October Ist, 1877. As there were no accommodations for this purpose on the Walnut Hill farm, a large and commodious house was temporarily hired,
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and furnished." Two years' experience has greatly strengthencd the confidence of the benevolent projectors and managers in the soundness of the postulates laid down when they began their noble work : "First, that the drunkard can be cured ; second, that inebriate asylums have proved themselves to be a blessing to the intemperate, and a relief to the community ; third, that inebriate asylums lessen the number of patients in insane asylums." So profoundly enlisted have mind and heart become in the grand experiment, that they are "willing not only to devote their energies for the success of the institution without the least hope of pecuniary reward, but are willing to raise, by subscription, $25,000 toward paying for the land and erecting a suitable building on the Walnut Hill farm for the care and restoration of the intemperate." Faith, in the example of Dr. Hawley and his associates, is certainly by works made perfect.
In 1840 he married Miss Zerviah C. Fuller, of Hartford, who died November 19th, 1847, leaving issue in one son, George F. Hawley, who graduated as M.D. from the College of Physicians and Surgeons, at New York, in 1867, and who is now associated with his father in medical practice. Dr. Hawley was again married, July 19th, 1848, to Sarah Danforth, daughter of Sherman Boardman, of Hartford, and had issue by her in the person of one son, William Sherman Hawley, who is now deceased.
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AVEN, HENRY PHILEMON, of New London, Conn. " A Model Superintendent" of Sunday-schools, who found an admirable and appreci- ative biographer in H. Clay Trumbull, editor of the Sunday-School Times. From his " Sketch of The Life, Character and Methods of Work of Henry P. Haven, of the International Lesson Committee," the materials for this abbreviated biography have been drawn.
Henry P. Haven was born of substantial New England stock, in Norwich, Conn., February 11th, 1815. When he was four years old he suffered the loss of his father, and his mother-widowed a second time-was left alone to provide for five children. The advantage of a collegiate training to a young man is, according to President Porter of Yale, that he learns to do what he ought to do at a proper time, whether he wants to do it or not. This substantial advantage young Haven received from the very circumstances in which he was providentially placed. At the age of eight he did nearly all the farm work on the homestead, and did not obtain his first suit of new clothes until he was fifteen years old. His scho- lastic education was necessarily defective, and did not extend beyond that imparted by the imperfect public schools of the period, and by two terms of instruction at a select school, where the tuition was five dollars a term.
It was to the Sunday-school of the First Congregational Church of Norwich Town that he was most indebted for the influences which, in conjunction with those of his godly New England home, shaped his character, and directed his course to the highest and best ends. He often used to say that it was the Sunday- school which made him what he was, and this grateful conviction doubtless aided to make him what he became. In a little Sunday-school, taught by Harriet Lathrop-afterwards the wife of Rev. Dr. Myron Winslow of Ceylon-he received some of his first religious impressions, and learned to love that agency by which he subsequently did so much for the children's Saviour.
When young Haven was only fifteen years of age, his mother removed to New London. There he was indentured to Major Thomas W. Williams, a promi- nent ship-owner and merchant of that seaport. He was to have ninety dollars for his first year's wages, one hundred and twenty for each of the next two years, and one hundred and fifty a year for the remaining period of his apprenticeship. The narrowness of his income gave him no anxiety. His care was rather to fill his place than his pocket. He had already learned the lesson of doing whatsoever his hand found to do with his might. When the book-keeper gave up his position in the business, Haven asked if he might try his hand at keeping the books. In reply, he was told that he was quite too young to manage them ; but, on press- ing his point, permission was at last given to make the attempt. He improved
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the opportunity, worked early and late, and on at least one occasion was at the store until two in the morning, and back again for a new day at four. With such dogged persistence, backed by a splendid physical constitution, and guided by infallible moral principles, success in life-under ordinary conditions-was simply a question of time. He soon became too valuable to warrant his employers in keeping him to the pecuniary terms of the original contract. At nineteen his salary was unex- pectedly raised to four hundred dollars a year, and on the expiration of his indentures, he was employed as confidential clerk at five hundred dollars. Two years later he became a partner in the business establishment, and sustained that relation thenceforward to the day of his death. Work, hard work, persevering work -another name for genius, according to some-was the principal cause of his fair start in business life. Before his apprenticeship closed he had made a public con- fession of his faith in Christ by uniting with the Second Congregational Church in New London. He was already a Sunday school teacher, having entered upon the duties of that office at the age of fifteen.
One Sunday morning in May, 1836, Mr. Haven, then twenty-one years old, asked his superintendent if he knew of any place where neighborhood mission work was needed in the country about New London. A district in Waterford was at once pointed out where rum-selling, drunkenness, and licentiousness werc rife among the scanty population. It was a sink of iniquity. Haven immediately began a Sunday- school there, which he maintaincd for about forty ycars until he entered into heavenly rest. Nine scholars and seven teachers constituted the humble and unpromising beginning. But out of that plain and unattractive seed were to grow plants of righteousness and flowers of praise-the glory of the Church and the grace of the nation. Had he been in charge of the Bethany school in Philadelphia, or of that in Akron, he could not have been more intelligently enthusiastic.
" The Waterford school was carefully classificd. Scholars who belongcd together
werc put together. Teachers were assigned to duty according to their special fitness. There was a uniform lesson in the school. All studicd the same passage of Scrip- turc. Excrcises of worship were an important part of the school service-exercises in which teachers and scholars had a part with the superintendent. A select number of the Psalms were printed expressly for responsive reading in that school. Ap- propriate hymns were also printed for usc there. Portions of Scripture were mnemo- rizcd and rccited by all in unison. A registry of the school membership was opened at the start ; also a record of the attendance of cach teacher and scholar separately ; a running history of the school work and progress; and a special his- torical record of cach member of the school. A teachers' meeting and a normal class were likewise started on the first day of the new Sunday-school. After the
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ordinary session of the school, the teachers werc brought together in a class. The next Sunday's lesson was taken up and studied by them under their superintendent's lead-studied with a view to ascertaining both the substance of the lesson and the best methods of its teaching. A judicious system of marks and rewards was intro- duced into the school. All these plans looked to thoroughness and permanency. There was a completeness and symmetry about them which are only too rare in similar work at the present day."
The different details of this laborious plan were subscquently carried out, with such modifications as experience might suggest. They characterize Henry P. Haven as a man of originality and wisdom in the department of Sunday-school methods.
When the question of winter sessions of the Sunday-school came up, he quickly settled it by deciding that the school should be kept open so long as one teacher and two scholars would attend. Religious inquiry meetings were often held after the sessions closed, and frequently resulted in bringing scholars to decide for Christ. " Thus the years went by. Mr. Haven's business responsibilities increased. He married and had a family to look after. He was called to varied and engrossing duties by his town, his city, his State. Important private trusts were confided to him. He was chosen superintendent of the Sunday-school of his church in New London. He neglected none of these responsibilities ; but for none of them, nor for all, did he suspend his work at his 'Gilead Sunday-school' in Waterford." In May, 1861, the harvest reaped from that unsparing sowing was most pleasingly manifest Not once a year on the average, had the school intermitted a session, including occasional suspension on account of funerals in the neighborhood. "On 1099 of the 1279 sessions of the school had Mr. Haven himself been present, notwithstanding his varied private and public labors, which rendered his occasional absence inevitable. Of the 418 persons who had up to that time been members of the school, more than 100 had united with various churches elsewhere ; while four who had come into the school as scholars were already in the gospel ministry or were preparing for it. Yet the entire membership of the school had averaged during its twenty-five years only thirty-seven-twenty-nine scholars and eight teachers."
After Mr. Haven had been more than twenty years in charge of the neighbor- hood Sunday-school at Waterford, he was urged to accept the superintendency of the Sunday-school connected with his own church in New London. This he consented to do, and held its sessions in the morning, and those of the Gilead school in the afternoon. Entering upon his new dutics in January, 1858, his city Sunday- school soon became as much of a model in one spherc, as his country school had been in another. Punctuality, constant occupation, a cheerful and reverent spirit, and unity of exercises characterized its assemblics. Beneficence was carefully culti-
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vated by Mr. Haven. A "Henry Martyn Missionary Association" was organized for the support of home and foreign missions; a " Building Aid Cent Society" was instituted to assist in the erection of a new church, and systematic and consecrated giving was encouraged by the introduction of the "envelope system." The Bible was the text-book of the school. Tracts and other religious reading were often judiciously distributed, and the salvation of the pupils diligently and wisely sought in and through the use of these and all appropriate means. Classes of inquirers and young converts were banded together for mutual prayer and conversation. The pastor of the church, the Rev. Dr. George B. Wilcox, was accustomed to attend the school sessions, and also to preach to the school on one Sunday evening of each month. "Once a month also, the Sunday-school concert, with its general exercises of worship, its topical recitation of Bible texts, and its addresses to the young, occupied a Sunday evening." The fame of this Sunday-school spread abroad throughout the United States. "Its opening and closing exercises were copied far and near," and did much "toward giving larger prominence to the element of worship in the Sunday-school, and in shaping the general character of the exercises of the superintendent's desk throughout the United States."
Mr. Haven did not stumble into the right way of overcoming obstacles, nor did he build up an abiding structure without a wise plan. He did his work in his own way, prepared himself thoroughly for whatever he had to do, made intel- ligent use of an admirably selected library, gave amply sufficient time to prepara- tion, and was methodical to the last degree in study, as in everything else. In his library, as in his schools, everything had a place, and everything was in its place. If materials for his purposes did not offer themselves, or were not procur- able, like a mechanic who manufactures his own tools, he provided them for him- self. Hymn-books and lesson papers were often obtained in this way.
With the teachers he frequently held mutual counsel, and thus also studied to make his school a unit, and effective to the highest possible degree. He taught them how to teach, and in the kindest manner sought to revive waning interest, and to stimulate flagging zeal. "The superintendent who has not started a teachers' meeting in his school," Mr. Trumbull affirms, "has not begun to live as he ought to. The superintendent who has no teachers' meeting is not ready to die." " In seasons of special religious interest Mr. Haven would gather his teachers at his home for consultation and prayer over the scholars of their charge; or he would ask them to visit their scholars personally, to talk and pray with them con- cerning their spiritual welfare." "He did most by bringing others to do more. His best work was in so skilfully keeping others at work. That is always the way of the wise leader of inen."
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" There was a system of training and a process of indoctrination carried on in the general exercises of Mr. Haven's school as led by him from the desk. Important portions of Scripture and uninspired formularies of religious truth were thereby intelli- gently committed to memory. The successive arrangements of Bible readings and recitations in the opening and closing services were made to exhibit the leading doctrines of the evangelical churches in the very words of the Bible. At different times these proof-texts-read or recited for months together at the opening of the school session in both New London and Waterford-showed God the Creator; the sinfulness of man; the conditions of forgiveness; the nature and work of Jesus Christ ; the way of salvation; the Church of Christ; the resurrection; the future state of the lost and of the redeemed; the duties of man; the joys of Christian service ; and other elementary religious tenets. And there were frequent recitations of the Ten Commandments, the Beatitudes, choice psalms, and selections from the Epistles ; together with the Apostles' Creed, the Gloria Patri, the Te Deum Lauda- mus, and the likc. In this way the cnd now aimed at in what is sometimes called the "supplemental lesson," or a course of systematic instruction in doctrine, in addition to the Bible lessons of the International series, was secured by Mr. Haven in his Sunday-school work for long years before his death." He knew the difference between the " old paths" and the " old ruts," and, while adhering to the one, kept out of the other.
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