USA > Connecticut > Biographical encyclopaedia of Connecticut and Rhode Island of the nineteenth century > Part 38
USA > Rhode Island > Biographical encyclopaedia of Connecticut and Rhode Island of the nineteenth century > Part 38
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Senator Coc was married on the 3d day of November, 1841, to Eliza Seymour, of Wolcottville, and has three children, two daughters and one son, all married, two being at Wolcottville, and one at Union City, wife of W. H. K. Godfery.
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LY, JAMES WINCHELL COLEMAN, M.D., of Providence, Rhode Island. Born in West Windsor, Vermont, October, 2nd, 1820. Ilis father, the Rev. Richard Montgomery Ely, was a Baptist clergyman, and a native of the same town. He was born February 10th, 1795, and died in Cavendish, Vermont, on the Ioth of June, 1861, in the sixty-seventh year of his age. His widow is still living, and, at the age of eighty-four, enjoys excellent health. The paternal grandfather of Dr. Ely was an emigrant from Springfield, Mass, and a settler in West Windsor, Vt.
While " the glory of children are their fathers" the desire of the children will necessarily be to learn all they possibly can about their fathers. This desire lics behind the family gatherings which, within the past fifty years, have become so noticeable a feature of New England life. On the ioth of July, 1878, very many of the descendants of Richard and of Nathaniel Ely, the original immigrants, held a family reunion at Lyme, Connecticut. On that occasion many extracts from the family archives were read to the assembly, and the statement was made that from all those archives " not a single scandal that would make one startling heading for a modern newspaper" had been unearthed. Loyalty seems to have been the grand characteristic of the Ely family from time immemorial. " They recognized the Divine Fatherhood, and brought to His reverent worship no lip service. Broad and inde- pendent thinkers, they were sometimes in advance of theological dogma, but they never revolted into Atheism; for they came to every investigation in a spirit of loyal faith, not of arrogant scepticism. In time of peace they served the State as good citizens ;- if called to civil office, with unsoiled palms. But when danger threat- encd the country they sprang to arms with passionate patriotism."-History of the Ely Reunion, p. 3.
Whether the family be of British, Saxon, or Norman ancestry, it is extremely difficult to decide. It is certain that some of its members have enacted an honorable part in the stirring dramas of English history. Ever since the sixteenth century, and probably for a much longer period, the Ely family has borne as a coat of arms :- " A fesse engrailed on a shield argent between six fleurs-de-lis or; crest, an arm erect, vest- cd, argent, in hand ppr., a fleur-de-lis sable." Not the least in point of real nobility and worth, of those entitled to this feudal distinction, was Nathaniel, the first Ameri- can ancestor of Dr. Ely. No known record gives the date of Nathaniel Ely's arrival in this country. " He probably came in 1632, or 1633. He was made a freeman on the 6th of May, 1635, at Cambridge, Mass. The qualifications of a freeman were, that he should be 'twenty-one years of age, of sober and peaceable conversation, orthodox in the fundamentals of religion, and possessed of a ratable estate of twenty pounds,' and it is said that some of the best men of the colony, lacking one or more of these qualifications, were precluded."
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In June, 1636, the eastern part of the Massachusetts colony had become too much crowded for the comfort of the inhabitants, and therefore the Rev. Thomas Hooker, with about one hundred others, men, women, and children, including Na- thaniel Ely, left Cambridge, and made the first settlement of the city of Hartford, in Connecticut. There Nathaniel Ely acquired lands, was elected one of the Con- stables of the town in 1639, a Selectman in 1643, and again in 1649. But in the latter year this hardy pioneer decided that Hartford was becoming too great a city for one of his tastes and habits, and therefore sought and received permission from the General Court to settle in what is now the town of Norwalk. "In 1651 Nathaniel Ely, Richard Olmsted, and others removed to Norwalk. On the 15th day of Febru- ary, 1651, the Indians deeded to Nathaniel Ely and others the west part of the town of Norwalk, this conveyance being witnessed by Samuel Ely, son of Nathaniel. Dur- ing his residence in Norwalk he was called to various official positions in the town, and in 1657 was its representative in the General Court." Not content to spend the remainder of his days in this, his third place of residence, he migrated again in 1660 to Springfield, Mass., where he died, December 5th, 1675, leaving only one son, Samuel, of whom any account has been preserved.
From this roving and adventurous founder of civilized communities Dr. Ely is of the eighth generation, in the line of direct descent. His mother, née Laura, daughter of Benjamin Skinner, was a native of Pomfret, Vt., of which her father was an early settler. He afterwards removed to West Windsor, and is further memorable as the forefather of a line of Universalist ministers, bearing the name Skinner.
The primary education of young Ely was imparted in the common schools of his native town; and his complete preparation for college received at Townsend, Vt., under the care of Mr. Wheeler, who afterward held the incumbency of the Greek Professorship in Brown University. To the latter institution the pupil also bent his steps, entered therein September 1838, and graduated therefrom as A.B., in 1842. Electing the profession of medicine, he next began the study of its theory and practice at Chester, Vt., in the office of Dr. Abram Lowell, with whom he remained about eight months. He then entered the office of Dr. Henry Tucker, of Barns- table, Mass. From thence he repaired to Boston, and pursued his studies under the direction of Dr. Charles Steadman, who was in charge of the medical department of the State institutions then located at the Capitol. In these-the House of Indus- try, the House of Correction, the Reform School for boys, and the Lunatic Asylum- Mr. Ely practised for some time as House Physician and Interne, thus gaining large and most useful experience. In April 1845 he relinquished his position under Dr. Steadman at Boston, returned to his old preceptor, Dr. Tucker, at Barnstable,
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and assisted him in practice up to the time of his death in June of the same year, He then finished his office studies under the auspices of Dr. Jackson, who was also resident in Barnstable. Besides the theoretical and practical knowledge gained in these successive relations, Mr. Ely received that derived from the regular course of lectures in the Harvard Medical School, from which he received his diploma of M.D., in March, 1846.
On the 20th of April, 1846, Dr. Ely settled in Providence, R. I., opened an office in that city, and has since pursued the duties of his profession in the same locality up to the present time. In 1847 he joined the State Medical Society, and subsequently filled most of the offices within its gift, including that of president. About the year 1850, he received the appointment of Attending Physician to the Dexter Asylum, exercised the functions of his office for upwards of sixteen years, and latterly has been Consulting Physician to the same institution. In 1868 hc was selected for the post of Visiting Physician to the Rhode Island Hospital at its opening, and discharged the duties appurtenant thereto until 1874. Since then he has been Consulting Physician to the Hospital, and has also officiated as Consult- ing Physician to the Butler Hospital for the Insane.
Dr. Ely is a member of the Providence Historical Society, and also of the Franklin Society of Science. In educational affairs he has uniformly exhibited the deepest interest ; has served for two years on the School Committee, but was com- pelled to decline further usefulness in that capacity by the unrelenting pressure of professional claims. He is the author of several extremely valuable contributions to modern medical science. His monograph on "Fatty Degeneration; being the Annual Discourse delivered before the Rhode Island Medical Society, at Providence, June 29th, 1853, and Published by request of the Society," also published in the American Journal of the Medical Sciences, for January, 1854, is a repertory of exten- sive, digested and admirably arranged knowledge of that somewhat obscure subject. It is written with great clearness and force, and prescribes the treatment, as well as describes the nature and symptoms, of the disease.
Dr. Ely was married on June 6th, 1848, to Susan, daughter of Lieutenant-Gov- ernor Thomas Backus, of Killingley, Conn.
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R OBINSON, HENRY C., lawyer, of Hartford. Born in that city, August
28th, 1832. His father, David F. Robinson, was a native of Granville, Mass., and removed to Hartford early in life. For many years he was largely engaged in book publishing, and was also, for a long time, Presi- dent of the Hartford Bank, one of the most vencrable and vigorous monetary institutions of the locality. His wife, the mother of Mr. H. C. Robinson, née Annie Seymour, was a lineal descendant of Elder Brewster, one of the leaders of the " Mayflower" Pilgrims. On the paternal side he is descended from the Rev. John Robinson, than whose no name is more deservedly revered by the Congre- gationalists of New England. At twenty-five years of age John Robinson was a Master of Arts in the University of Cambridge, and prior to that a Fellow of Corpus Christi College there. He was also, according to Dr. Leon- ard Bacon's Genesis of the New England Churches, in deacon's orders in the Church of England, a useful, hard-working minister of Christ, "a man of a learned, polished, and modest spirit, pious and studious of the truth, largely accomplished with suit- able gifts and qualifications." From purely conscientious motives he became a Separatist from the Church of England, and in common with his brethren of the same religious persuasion, suffered much persecution from the eager severity of the bishops, by whom they were driven into exile. Escaping in small parties to Holland, they established themselves at Amsterdam, from which Robinson, accom- panicd by his followers, removed to Leyden, where they enjoyed all the privileges of religious liberty. There he connected himself with the University, gained great public favor, and acquired high renown among his co-believers by contending pub- licly against the Arminian Episcopius.
In Leyden he performed a truly great work in training the exiled Pilgrims for their wonderful destiny of patient suffering and unprecedented achievement. Their chronicler, William Bradford, in words of touching pathos, describes his influence upon them: "Such," he wrote, "was the mutual love and reciprocal respect that this worthy man had to his flock and his flock to him ... that it was hard to judge whether he delighted more in having such a people, or they in having such a pastor. His love was great toward them, and his carc was always bent for their best good both for soul and body. For, besides his singular abilities in divine things, whercin hc excellcd, he was also very able to give directions in civil affairs; by which means he was very helpful to their outward cstates, and so was every way as a common father unto them. And none did morc offend him than those that were close and cleaving to themselves, and retired from the common good; as also such as would be stiff and rigid in mat- ters of outward order, and inveigh against the evils of others, and yet be remiss
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in themselves, and not so careful to express a virtuous conversation. The church, in like manner, had ever a reverent regard to him, and had him in precious estimation, as his worth and wisdom did deserve ; and though they esteemed him highly while he lived and labored among them, yet much more after his death when they came to feel the want of his help, and saw, by woful experience, what a treasure they had lost."
Robinson was a voluminous writer, a vigorous polemic, and a pastor of pro- foundest but most cheerful piety. When the first detachment of Pilgrims, destined for voyage from Southampton, England, to Plymouth, New England, in the memorable Mayflower, left Delft Haven, Holland, in the Speedwell, he and his family, with a remnant of his congregation, were left behind. But he accompanied them to the ship, where " heads are reverently uncovered; all kneel for worship; and once more Robinson, with tremulous voice, commends the departing Pilgrims to Him who rules the winds and the sea." Then, says Winslow, " lifting up our hands to each other, and our hearts for each other to the Lord our God, we departed, and found His presence with us."
Robinson was not permitted to join his emigrant flock in the New World. He had exerted great influence in persuading them to undertake the foundation of an English colony in America ; he had "great hope and inward zeal ... for propagating and advancing the Gospel of the kingdom of Christ in those remote parts of the world ;" he had repeatedly and judiciously advised them in affairs, temporal and spiritual, after their settlement in New England ; but, in the ripeness of wisdom and experience, he was called to his eternal rest, at the age of fifty years, on the first of March, 1626, " leaving," as Dr. Bacon justly remarks, " to the Church Universal a name worthy of everlasting remembrance." Some, if not all, of his children, and all but a remnant of his flock, at last reached the New England he longed for, and their descendants beheld what on English soil he had not been permitted to see,-" a church without a bishop, and a state without a king."
That branch of the renowned Separatist pastor's family with which Mr. Rob- inson is identified, settled in Guilford, Conn., late in the seventeenth century. Col. Timothy Robinson, his great-grandfather, served with distinction in the Revo- lutionary war, and had the joy of seeing the principles, for which his godly clerical ancestor had so heroically contended, victorious on the American continent.
The preparatory education of Henry C. Robinson was obtained in Hartford schools. Thence, entering Yale College in 1849, he graduated in the class of 1853, in company with many who have since risen to eminence in the various walks of life; and, among the rest, of President White, of Cornell University, now United
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States Minister to Berlin. Then, electing the profession of law, he commeneed the study of its theory and practice in the office of his brother, Lucius .F. Robinson, who, during his active career, was one of the most brilliant lawyers in his own section of the country. He also studied under the direction of the late Chief Justice W. L. Storrs.
Admitted to the Bar in 1855, he became associated in practice with his brother, Lucius F., and maintained the connection until the death of the latter in 1861. Since then he has practised alone, although his office associations have been with some of the leading lawyers in the State; such as Judge W. B. Shipman, now of New York, Waldo & Hyde, etc. As an attorney, Mr. Robinson has established a high reputation, and, while occupied with general practice, has also acquired distinction for his intimate knowledge of Insurance Law.
Official honors and responsibilities have frequently sought his acceptance. From 1872 to 1874 hc was. Mayor of Hartford, and, during his term of office, that city was made the sole capital of the State. His influence was largely efficacious in bringing about that desired consummation. In 1878 he was elected a member of the lower house of the State Legislature, and served as chairman of the Judiciary Committee Politically, he is affiliated with the Republican party, and has twice been its chosen candidate for the Chief Magistracy of the Commonwealth :- first in 1876, and again. in the succeeding Gubernatorial election, in which he lacked only 1,400 votes to ensure success. For the mercantile and other interests of his native city, Mr. Rob- inson has uniformly exhibitcd keen appreciation. His professional eminence is suffi- ciently attested by the fact that for several ycars he has been leading counsel for the New York, New Haven, & Hartford R. R., and also for the Connecticut Mutual Life Insurance Company, etc.
In 1862 he was married to Eliza, daughter of John F. Trumbull, of Stonington. Between the Robinson and Trumbull families two prior alliances had been con- tracted ; first, Lucius F. Robinson had married Eliza, daughter of Governor Joseph Trumbull ; and, sccond, Sarah Robinson, sister of Lucius F. and Henry C., had mar- ried Dr. John Hammond Trumbull, the celebrated philologist and antiquarian.
Barry Douglas
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OUGLAS, BENJAMIN, of Middletown, Ex-Lieutenant Governor of Con- necticut. Born at Northford, Conn., April 3d, 1816. His is one of the prominent New England families that can trace its pedigrce backwards for more than two hundred years to the first American immigrant ancestor. Back again from that ancestor, this branch of the Douglas family, in common with others, has certain historical knowledge of its forefathers up to a period when au- thentic history is confused with the mists of tradition.
The Douglas family presents marked hereditary traits. Vigorous, persistent, war- like, and masterful always-especially bold and aggressive when belligerent in defence of their rights-loyal and faithful unto death in seasons of warfare; in the times of peace their energies are devoted with equal force to overcoming the difficulties of politics, theology, law, medicine, and mechanics. The Douglases of Middletown have achieved a pre-eminence in the field of hydraulics that reminds the observer of similiar victorious achievements on other and more celebrated scenes of activity.
Than the Douglas family there is none more renowned in the romantic and thrilling histories of the Scottish people. According to Hume's History of the House and Race of Douglas and Angus, vol. I., pp. 5, 6, it first appears in public in the reign of Solvathius, King of Scotland, whose crown it preserved by a valorous onset on the army of Donald Bain, at the moment the latter dcemed himself sure of victory. Donald's men were defeated, and Donald himself was slain. When the King inquired for the valiant nobleman whose courage and address had won the day, answer was made in the Gaelic tongue :- " Sholto Du glasse; that is to say, Bchold yonder black-gray man-pointing at him with the finger, and designing by his color and complexion, without more ceremony, or addition of titles of honor." Delighted with the merits and services of the man, the King imposed the name of Douglas, and rewarded him royally with many large cstatcs. This account may or may not be wholly true to fact. Probability is undoubtedly in its favor.
The original arms of the Douglases in the days of chivalry were simply thrce silver stars on a bluc field; a device which is held by heraldic antiquarians to indicate relationship to the Murrays. "The cognizance of Douglas blood," as Sir Walter Scott has expressed it, is given in Burke's Heraldry, and in ordinary language may be thus described :- " Upon a field of silver, a man's heart, red, beneath an imperial crown in its proper colors; above the dividing line, upon a blue ground, three stars of silver." The crowned hcart was assumed in memory of the good Sir James of Douglas, to whom the dying king Robert Bruce bequeathed his heart, with the request that he would carry it to Jerusalem, and there bury it before the high altar ;- a task which Hume states that he had happily accomplished before his death. Tradition further states that on his way to the Holy Land he was
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beset by enemies, and that he threw the silver box into the midst of the mailed crowd, exclaiming :- " Lead on, brave heart, as ever ; and I will follow." He did so, fought with superhuman daring, and proved to be victor in the deadly mêlée.
The memory of such ancestors as the good Sir James is influential on the lives of those in whosc veins their blood runs. Ancestral characteristics of mental and moral class, are as surely transmissible as those of the physical. The pride of birth is no empty foolish thing, when it can be truthfully affirmed of forefathers, that was boastcd of the Douglases, by their historian, two centuries ago :--- " We do not know them in the fountain, but in the stream; not in the root, but in the stem ; for we know not who was the first mean man that did by his virtue raise him- self above the vulgar;" or when it can be said of them, as is said of Deacon William Douglas, the first immigrant, that their precepts have been treasured by their children, and have borne lasting fruit in the Christian character which has marked the progress of the family to the present time.
William of Douglas was a conspicuous chieftain in Scotland between the years 1175 and 1213, and witnessed charters between the King and the Bishop of Glas- gow. Another Sir William of Douglas, known in the family traditions as William the Hardy, a daring, restless, adventurous warrior, was the first man of mark who joincd Wallace in the rising against the English in 1297. In 1357, Sir William Douglas, the head of the house, who had hitherto borne no higher title than that of knight, was made Earl of Douglas, in consideration of his brilliant feats at Poitiers, and on other fields. Subsequently he became Earl of Mar, by marriage, and with vaulting ambition disputed the succession to the Scottish crown with Robert II., the first of the Stuarts. The pages of English and Scottish history bristle with the exploits, the victorics, the defeats of the Douglases ; of James, second Earl of Douglas, and the conqueror of Hotspur, who fell at Otterburn in 1388; of Archibald, the fourth Earl, surnamed the "Tyncman," or loser, from his many misfortunes in battle ; of the Earls of Angus, the Marquises and Duke of Douglas, the Lords Douglas, Earls of Morton, March, Solway, Sclkirk, Forfar, Dumbarton, the Lords Mordington, the Earls, Marquises, and Dukes of Queensberry ;-- all men of the Douglas blood. Since the arms of the British monarch have bornc the triple de- vice of the rose, the thistle, and the shamrock, there has been no battle of note wherein the red cross of St. George has flamcd in the van, that some loyal, fiery Douglas has not spurred in its defensc, and helped to bear on to triumph.
When the New World became accessible to the peoples of the old, it could not well have been otherwise than that the Douglas blood and name should bc represented in the influx of brave and conscientious settlers. Robert Douglas, it is believed, was born in Scotland, about the year 1588. His son, William Douglas,
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was also born in the same country, in the year 1610. He found his way to Ringstead, in Northamptonshire, England, and there married Ann, the only daughter of Thomas Mattle, in 1636. Four years later, in 1640, William Douglas emigrated to New England, with his wife and two children, Ann and Robert. Tradition states that they landed at Cape Ann, and that they settled at Gloucester, but removed to Boston that same year. The next year he removed to Ipswich, remained their four years, and returned to Boston in 1645. He followed the coopers' trade in Bos- ton, and in 1660 removed to New London, Conn., purchased property there, and received the grant of two farms from the town in remuneration of his services. One of these, inherited by his son William, has remained in the family, in the direct line of his male descendants, for over two centuries. The other, granted to him in 1667, was inherited by his eldest son, Robert, and is still in possession of his direct male descendants.
Deacon William Douglas was active and efficient in the ecclesiastical and civil affairs of the town, and after the outbreak of King Phillip's war in 1675, was ap- pointed one of the Commissaries to the army by the General Council convened at Hartford, May 19th, 1676. He also represented his town in the General Court at several different sessions. When he died, in the seventy-second year of his age, the Rev. Simon Bradstreet, his pastor, noted the event in his diary, and added the simple but touching remark :- " He was an able Christian and this poor church will much want him."
Of the five children of Deaeon Douglas, William, the youngest, was born in Bos- ton, Mass., April Ist, 1645. He succeeded his father in the diaconate of the church on the death of the latter in 1682, and held that honorable and important office for upwards of fifty years, until his death. He was twice married ; first to Abiah Hough, by whom he had eight children ; and second, to the widow Mary Bushnell, who survived him. His third child, William, was born in New London, Conn., Febru- ary 19th, 1672-3, was admitted to the church in 1698, and in 1699 removed with his wife and two children to "the new plantation on the Quinnebaug, which was after- wards named Plainfield," and where he became the proprietor of many broad and goodly acres. There, too, he aided in the organization of a church, of which he was chosen the first deacon. He married Sarah Proetor, by whom he had twelve chil- dren. Deacon Douglas dicd, greatly lamented, in the forty-sixth year of his age.
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