USA > Connecticut > Biographical encyclopaedia of Connecticut and Rhode Island of the nineteenth century > Part 37
USA > Rhode Island > Biographical encyclopaedia of Connecticut and Rhode Island of the nineteenth century > Part 37
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were impcratively required to superintend the erection and fitting-up of the factory in its new location. His presence at Bristol was no less imperatively required by the serious illness of Mrs. Camp. The two places were over thirty miles apart. No railroad then existed to reduce the time of the journey to an hour. The interven- ing distance must be traversed on horseback. Herculean strength of constitution enabled the devoted husband to sleep at home, take his breakfast and supper there, and yet be in New Haven for eleven hours-from 7 A.M. to 6 P.M .- throughout the summer of 1845.
Mr. Camp is the inventor as well as the manufacturer of most of the different kinds of clocks made at the present time. One of his most curious inventions is a clock which beats time to music, and whose movements can be regulated at will. It was designed for the use of schools in marking time for gymnastic, calis- thenic, and military exercises. In 1851 he entered into business on his own account, erected a building, and began the manufacture of clock-movements. This enterprisc he prosecuted alone until 1853, when he organized a joint-stock association, under the title of the New Haven Clock Company. The capital of the corporation was fixed at $20,000. The officers were as follows :- Hiram Camp, President ; James E. English-lately Governor of Connceticut and also United States Senator-Treas- urer; and John Woodruff-since a member of Congress-Secretary. In 1856, the New Haven Clock Company increased its capital and productive capacity by pur- chasing the machinery and business of the Jerome Clock Manufacturing Company. Its organization was slightly changed at the same time ;- James E. English becom- ing Secretary as well as Treasurer. Hc was afterward succeeded in the former office by Edward Stevens, the present Secretary, and the capital stock .was simul- tancously increased to $200,000. Throughout all these changes . Mr. Camp has retained the presidency of the company, and the general management of the manufac- turing department. More clocks have been made under his supervision than under that of any onc living man. His management of an establishment, making more clocks than any other on the globe, extends backwards from the present date for more than forty ycars. Until within the past twenty-five or thirty years, the principal seats of the clock manufacture have been in England, France, and Switzerland. But the United States have made, and are still making, gigantic strides toward the leadership in this, as in other branches of mechanical art. What the census of 1880 will reveal cannot now be anticipated, except that its publication is sure to disclose astonishing progress within the last decade. The U. S. Census of 1870 shows that in that year there were 46 establishments in this country devoted to the fabrication of clocks, clock cases, and clock materials; that the machinery in these establishments was run by 18 steam engines and 29 water-wheels; that 1605
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hands were employed ; that the capital invested in them amounted to $1, 133,650; and that the wholesale value of their products reached the sum of $3,022,253. Of these aggregates, the State of Connecticut had 28 establishments, II steam-engines, 27 water-wheels, 1471 employees, $1,008,650 invested capital, and $2,747,153 in wholc- sale valuc of the products.
Mr. Camp's energies have not been wholly confined within the limits of manu- facture and trade. He has filled several public offices in deference to the wishes of the people-such as member of the City Council, Selectman of the Town, Chief Engineer of the Civic Fire Department, and member of the State Legislature. The Emperor Charles V., after his stormy and eventful reign, sought peace in the seclu- sion of the monastery at Yuste, in Spain. There he amused himself by the collection and study of timepieces. Not one of them could he compel to keep precisely the same time with another; nor could he hold any one in exact correspondence with the movements of the heavenly bodies. From this deficiency of power over mechanical arrangements in carrying out his purposes he inferred, when too late, his supreme folly in having imperiously striven to make his multitudinous subjects think and worship just as he had done. Mind is more variable than matter, and is gov- erned by other forces. Not less pious, but vastly more wise, than he, Mr. Camp secks to bring about the harmony of human heart and life with the mind and will of the Almighty Mechanic of the universe, by supporting two Sabbath-school missionarics in Nebraska, and also a city missionary in another State. He knows that each human being has his place in the world mechanism-whether it corre- spond to that of" wheel, fusee, escapement, or merely tooth or peg-and aims through the instrumentality of his missionary agents, and the help of the Divine Spirit, to fit each for his place in the great whole; so that humanity in its entireness may move in perfect accord and concord with the Great Author of Nature and the Giver of all Grace.
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ILCOX, LUCIEN S., A.M., M.D., of Hartford. Born in West Granby, Conn., July 17th, 1826. His father, J. D. Wileox, M.D., was also a native of Connecticut, and for forty years was a general medical practitioner at West Granby, where he died in 1871, aged seventy-one. His mother, whose maiden name was Emmeline B. Hayes, was also of Connecticut birth and training.
Dr. Wilcox received his preliminary education in the academy at Westfield, Mass., entered Yale College in 1846, graduated A.B. in 1850, and subsequently received the degree of A.M. in due course. He then pursued the regular course of studies in the medical department of the University, and received the diploma of M.D., from its constituted heads in 1855. During the ensuing year he practised the duties of his profession in the Cherokee nation, and also officiated as an instructor in the Chero- kee Seminary. The labors of Dr. Wilcox, while in the Indian Territory, powerfully aided to return an emphatic "No" to the much-debated question :- " Are the Indians dying out ?" Probably no division of the aboriginal race has suffered more from contact with European immigrants than the Cherokees. Adair, who lived forty years among the southern Indians, estimated the number of Cherokees in 1722, at 6000 warriors, or 30,000 souls, and forty years later, according to John Eaton, in his Preliminary Observations relating to Indian Civilization and Education, at 2300 warriors, or 11,500 souls. Drake, the Indian historian, attributes the terrible decrease to the small-pox introduced among them by the slave-traders in 1738. Gallatin, on the authority of the Indian Department, estimated their number at about 15,000 in 1836. Two years later, in 1838, they were forcibly expatriated, and lost about one-fourth of their whole number by the hardships incident to their removal. The Missionary Herald, vol. 36, page 14, states that "from the time they were gathered into camps by the United States troops in May and June, 1838, till the time the last detachment reached the Arkansas country, which was about ten months, a careful estimate shows that not less than 4000 or 4500 were removed by death, being on an average from thirteen to fifteen deathis in a day, for the whole period, out of a population of 16,000, or one-fourth of the whole number. It does not appear that this mortality was owing to neglect or bad treatment while on the journey. It was probably necessarily involved in the measure itself, however carefully the arrangements might have been made, or however faithfully executed." In their new home, and also in their old seats, the Cherokees have since increased, according to the report of the Indian Office for 1876, to 21,072 souls. The Chero- kees evidently, are not dying out. It is to the praise of Dr. Wilcox, and of phil- anthropists like him, that they are numerically increasing and socially prosperous ; and that they are preparing to take their place eventually among the citizens of the United States of America.
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Leaving the Indian Territory in 1857, Dr. Wilcox settled in Hartford, and has since been in active practice in that city. In 1877 he was elected to the chair of the Theory and Practice of Medicine in the Medical School connected with Yale College and is now its incumbent. For many years he has been a contrib- utor to the Transactions of the Connecticut State Medical Society, and has con- fined himself chiefly to subjects of sanitary character. His wide range of professional knowledge has been wisely utilized by the Connecticut Mutual Life Insurance Company, of which he is the Medical Director, since 1865.
LACKSTONE, LORENZO, of Norwich, Conn., State Senator. Born June 19th, 1819, at Branford, and was educated at the Branford Academy. The Blackstone family is one familiarly known to all students of English litera- ture. No lawyer, either in Great Britain, the United States, or the Brit- ish colonies, is unacquainted with the Commentaries on the Laws of England, pub- lished by Sir William Blackstone, 1765-68. Distinguished legal authors, on both sides of the Atlantic, have profitably exercised their profound learning and critical acumen in annotations upon his pages. He was a master of the English language, and the first of all {institutional writers who taught jurisprudents to speak the language of the scholar and the gentleman. Nor was he less cmincnt as a Chris- tian than as a lawycr. England has had no son of whom she is more proud than of him.
New England carly received colonists from the Blackstone family in the mother country. The first of them who appears in colonial records was an eccentric non- conforming clergyman, who, as early as 1628, had settled in almost complete loneli- ncss on the peninsula of Shawmut, opposite that between Charles and Mystic rivers, at the head of Massachusetts Bay.
When Governor Winthrop arrived at Charlestown in the summer of 1630, it is stated in the records of that placc that "Mr. Blackstone, dwelling on the other side of Charles river, alonc, at a placc by the Indians called Shawmut, where he only had a cottage, at or not far off from the place called Blackstone's Point, he
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came and acquainted the Governor of an excellent spring there, withal inviting him and soliciting him thither, whereupon, after the death of Mr. Johnson and divers others, the Governor, with Mr. Wilson, and the greatest part of the church, removed thither." In consideration of his services, 50 acres of land, near his house in Boston, were granted to Blackstone forever, at a court held in April, 1633.
But the "old planter" did not choose to remain in the neighborhood of his new associates. He soon removed to the banks of the Pawtucket River, within the present limits of the State of Rhode Island. There he met with Roger Wil- liams, the founder of the Baptist denomination in America. "Like Maverick and some other of the old planters, though no church member, he had been admitted a freeman of the company ; but he sold his land, bought cattle, and removed. He left England because he could not endure the lords bishops, and he liked the 'lords brethren' just as little. Such was his account of the matter; yet he had no sym- pathy with Williams, and continued to acknowledge the jurisdiction of Massachu- setts."-Hildreth's History of the United States, Vol. I., pp. 231-2.
From 1843 to 1857 Senator Blackstone was engaged in mercantile pursuits, both in Liverpool and London. He is now a well-known banker and manufacturer at Norwich. He is also President of the Chelsea Savings Bank, and has been in that position since its organization. Of the Thames National Bank, and of the Thames Loan and Trust Company he is a director; is also director in three rail- road companies, director in the Tonemah Mills, and of the Executive Committee of Management. To the Attawangan, Ballou, Totokett, and Pequot Mills he sustains the relation of treasurer.
In local affairs Mr. Blackstone is deeply and beneficently interested, and serves as Trustec of the Norwich Free Academy. Of the Board of Alderman of the City of Norwich he was a member for four years, was Mayor for a similar period, and represented his constituents in the lower branch of the State Legislature in 1871. In 1878 he was elected, on the Republican ticket, to membership in the State Senate, and served, in 1879, as chairman of the Committee on Finance, with marked ability and success. His extensive and protracted business experience, acknowledged skill in financial matters, thorough acquaintance with legislation and manifold accom- plishments of head and heart, enabled him to wield powerful influence among his fellow-legislators, and that in the best interests of the State.
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OOLITTLE, TILTON EDWIN, lawyer, of New Haven. Born at River- ton, Coin., July 31st, 1825. His father, Ambrose E., and his grandfather, Benjamin Doolittle, were natives of Cheshire, Conn., and farmers by occupa- tion. The Doolittles are of English origin, and allied by faith and moral characteristies, and possibly also by blood, with that sturdy Dissenting minister, Doo- little, of whom a record, preserved in an old London library, states that when ordered by troopers to desist from preaching, he positively refused to do so, on the ground that his ministerial authority was derived from the King of kings. The same godly and manful spirit prompted the first emigrants of the name to leave England for settlement on the lands acquired by purchase of their co-religionists from the aborig- ines of New England. Abraham and John Doolittle, brothers, were resident in Massachusetts soon after the settlement of Salem, in which John died childless. Abraham removed to New Haven prior to 1642, and was the owner of a house in that town in or about the same year. He took the freeman's oath in 1644, and became the chief executive officer, or sheriff, of the county. He was next ehosen by the people of New Haven, in 1669, one of the committee appointed to super- intend the affairs of the new eolony located in the town of Wallingford, which was incorporated May 12th, 1670, by Aet of the Court of Election held at Hartford. Dr. C. H. S. Davis, in his History of Wallingford states that "this committee held the land in trust, and acted as trustees in all the affairs of the town; they not only attended to the temporal, but the spiritual affairs of the people," and obliged the undertakers and all succeeding planters to subscribe an engagement not to disturb the church when settled there, "in the choice of minister or ministers, or other church officers, or in any of their other church rights, liberties or administrations," and not to " withdraw due maintenance from such ministry." Abraham Doolittle had been on the ground as early as 1668, and was well aware of the social and material value of a settled ministry to the new community. In the famous Indian war, known as " King Philip's war," he was a member of the Vigilance Committee, and from his signature, " Sergeant Doolittle," to a church covenant on Feb. 15th, 1675, seems to have held military rank among the defenders of the town. His dwelling was forti- fied against any attack of the Indians by an encircling pieket abattis. He was several times elected deputy from New Haven, and afterward from Wallingford to the General Court. He was also chosen townsman, or selectman, on different occa- sions, and appears to have been a valuable and highly appreciated citizen. He died August 11th, 1690. From this notable veteran Mr. T. E. Doolittle is a descendant of the seventh generation. His mother was Elizabeth A., daughter of General Ben- ham, a farmer, of Cheshire, Conn., and a descendant of Joseph Benham, who remov- ed from New Haven to Wallingford in 1670.
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The early education of Mr. Doolittle was received in the Protestant Episcopal Academy at Cheshire, whence he repaired to Trinity College, Hartford, matrieulating there in 1840, and graduating A.B. in 1844, and afterward A.M. in due course. Next he entered the Yale Law School, graduated, and was admitted to the Bar in 1847. From that year until 1861 he prosecuted the duties of his profession alone ; then formed a eopartnership with Judge Samuel L. Bronson, which lasted until 1870. A period of four years individualized practice followed, and was sue- eeeded in 1874 by business association with Judge Henry Stoddard. In 1876 Mr. William L. Bennett was added to the firm, which is now in active practice, under the style and title of Doolittle, Stoddard & Bennett.
In the spring of 1859 Mr. Doolittle was appointed United States District Attorney, by President James Buchanan, in place of Judge W. D. Shipman, who was appointed to the Distriet Judiciary of the United States Court. Mr. Doolittle retained his office until 1860. In 1866, 1867, and 1870, he was a member from New Haven of the lower house of the State Legislature, and served mainly in the Committee on the Judiciary. In 1874, he was again a member from the same district, and officiated as Speaker of the House.
Mr. Doolittle praetised law from 1846 to 1850 in Cheshire ; from 1850 to 1858 in Meriden, and thenee removed to New Haven, where he has since resided. As a lawyer, his professional standing is of the first rank, and his serviees are in great demand. During the carlier portion of his active earcer he addieted himself chiefly to civil suits. Since then he has accepted many briefs in criminal cases, and appears more frequently in the courts than any other lawyer in the county.
On the Ist of November, 1848, he was united in marriage with Mary A., daughter of John Cook, of Wallingford, and has issue three children-one daugliter and two sons.
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VES, LEVI, M.D., of New Haven. Born in New Haven, July 13th, 1816. His father, Dr. Eli Ives, was one of the most eminent medical practitioners and professors in that city. His mother, née Maria Beers, was the daughter of Nathan Beers, who, in early life, was an adjutant in the Continental army, and had charge of the unfortunate Major André on the night before his execution. During the hours of that night Major André made a pen portrait of himself, and presented it to Mr. Beers. It is now in the Art Gallery of Yale College. After seven years of patriotic military service, Nathan Beers returned to . New Haven, became an honored Deacon in the North Congregational Church, and lived to the age of ninety-six. His widow survived to the age of ninety-eight.
The early education of young Ives was obtained at the Hopkins Grammar School, after which he received a partial course of instruction in the Academical department of Yale College. In 1834 he entered the office of his father as a medical student, and afterwards took a full course of professional training in the Medical School forming part of Yale University, from which he graduated as Doctor of Medicine, in February, 1838. The ensuing eighteen months were spent in medical observation and practice at Bellevue Hospital in the city of New York. Hc then began the local practice of his profession in New Haven, where he has since resided, and sustained the high hereditary fame of this branch of the family. Obstetries, for many years, was his specialty, and in this department of professional service he acquired an immense practice.
While at the zenith of reputation, for reasons satisfactory to himself, he determined to relinquish the further pursuit of that particular seience, and has since entered on a wider range of professional activity. He is now Consulting Physician and Surgeon to the Connecticut State Hospital, situated at New Haven. Dr. Ives is a member of the New Haven Med- ical Association, of the Connecticut Medical Association, and of the American Med- ical Association, to which he has repeatedly been a delegate. He has also been a member, for many years, of the Connecticut Academy of Science and Art.
In June, 1841, he married Caroline, daughter of Elijah Shoemaker, of Wyoming Valley, in Pennsylvania; and grand-daughter of Elijah Shoemaker, one of the vic- tims of the infamous Wyoming massacre. The issue of this marriage is Robert S. Ivcs, M.D., born in April, 1842, a graduate of the academic and medical departments of Yale, and a physician in active practice at New Haven.
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OE, LYMAN W., of Torrington, (Wolcottville), Conn., State Senator. Born in Torrington, January 20th, 1820. His father, Israel Coc, is of the eighth genera- tion in line of direct deseent from Robert Coc, who was born in the county of Suffolk, England, in 1596, and emigrated to this country in 1634. Robert Coe settled first in Watertown, Mass., then removed, in 1636, with a colony of pioneers to the banks of the Connecticut River, and thence, in 1640, again migrated, in company with others who sought a more satisfactory home, to a locality on Long Island Sound, where they founded the town of Stamford.
Jonathan Coe, fifth in descent from the original immigrant, was born in Dur- ham, Conn., in 1710. From thence he removed to Torrington, and subsequently to Winchester. In 1813, Israel Coe, father of the Senator, entered into the employment of the Torrington Cotton Factory Company, and remained in that relation until 1821, when he repaired to Waterbury. In 1825 he accepted employment from A. Benedict, and in January, 1829, purchased the interest of Nathan Smith in that gentleman's business establishment, which was reorganized under the firm-title of Benedict, Coe & Co. The term of partnership expired in February, 1834, and Mr. Coe retired from the concern. He next engaged in the manufacture of brass kettles at Wolcottville, and erected a mill at Wolcottville for the better prosecution of his enterprise. In 1841 he organized a joint-stock association, under the title of the Wolcottville Brass Company, of which he became the president, and Lyman W. Coe, the secretary and treasurer.
In July, 1843, Israel Coe retired from the presidency of the association, and engaged in banking at Detroit. During his residence in Waterbury he was elceted to the lower house of the State Legislature in 1824 and 1825, and in 1843 repre- sented the district that includes Wolcottville in the Senate.
Both in manufacturing enterprise and in political aptitude Lyman W. Coc is the worthy successor of his energetic and successful father. His scholastic education was such as is ordinarily imparted in the excellent district schools of Connecticut-not finished, but suggestive-not satiating, but stimulative. In 1845, at the age of twenty- five, he was elected to the lower branch of the Legislature from Torrington. After his removal to Waterbury he represented that town in the House in 1858, and also the Fifth District of the State in the Senate in 1862. In 1877-8-9 he was again a member of the same body, and was re-elected in November, 1879, for the further space of two years-being his third senatorial term of service from the Fifteenth District.
Senator Coe has officiated, at different times, as chairman of the Committees on Railroads, Cities and Boroughs, New Towns and Probate Districts, Judicial Expenses, and President pro tempore of the Senate. In each of these positions he
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has faithfully discharged the duties pertaining to it, to the general satisfaction of the public, and the increase of his own reputation as a faithful, diligent, and bene- ficent legislator. His thirty years of residence at Waterbury were spent in vigorous and efficient contribution to its prosperity, as general agent and manager of some of the largest corporations in that place.
On his return to Wolcottville, a few years ago, he organized the Coe Brass Manufacturing Company-now one of the most prosperous associations in the Nauga- tuck valley-and has been its president from the date of its establishment. It has been one of the largest producing mills in the brass industry in New England, and enjoy's a large foreign trade-particularly with Russia and Spain. The manufacture of brass for metallic cartridges is one of its special features. The business interests of his corporation have required Mr. Coe to visit Europe no less than seven different timcs. A keen, shrewd observer, naturally addicted to generalization, and quick to apply conclusions with a view to speedy practical results, he has not only visited the objects of usual interest in the principal European cities, but has investigated the working of the several systems of government, the financial and manufacturing undertakings, and the condition of the laboring classes as compared with that of American artisans. It scarcely needs to be said that in all these particulars he holds that our own free Rcpublic possesses greater and better facilities for the devel- opment, prosperity, and happiness of the vast majority of the people than can be found in any and all other countries.
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