USA > Connecticut > Middlesex County > Middletown > Centennial address and Historical sketches > Part 8
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Arrangements were made in 1824, through the muni- ficence of this town, for the. removal of Capt. Par- tridge's American, Literary, Scientific and Military Academy, which had arisen in Norwich, Vt., to this city, more accessible and convenient for students from differ- erent parts of the country. A fine site for it was se- cured, and the foundation of a large substantial edifice laid, "according to the forms of masonic order by the fraternity," in the presence of numbers of the citizens. This and the Chapel being prepared, and the Institution opened, its fifthi anniversary was celebrated in Septem- ber, 1825. The Hon. Samuel W. Dana delivered the address, and besides the citizens, more than two hundred
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cadets from nineteen different States, and from the Dis- trict of Columbia, were present to hear him. The oc- casion and the audience were adapted to enlist his feel- ings and call forth his talents, and he spoke ably in fa- vor of the Institution. This was designed to answer to its name, to be appropriate to the wants of the American Republic, literary and scientific, exceedingly so in some branches, a part of the course being military science and instruction ; to be " in organization and discipline" strictly military, the students to be called cadets, and dressed in-uniform. It was intended to avoid the defects of other literary institutions, and to secure more than their advantages ; to gratify different tastes and talents, predilections and attainments, by allowing students to enter from one to six years, and to advance as fast as possible, without detention from those who were less pre- pared or more sluggish, regard being had " to a thor- ough understanding of the branches" studied; to edu- cate the mind and body together ; to occupy leisure hours in agreeable, healthful and useful exercises, and to gratify detachments by tours to a distance, once a year, to interesting scenery, " battle grounds" and important places :- all which is an imperfect sketch of its objects.
Until 1828, " the exclusive control of the discipline" was in the hands of Capt. Partridge ; its instruction by himself and teachers whom he employed : then a board of six trustees was appointed and the faculty increased. Ethical lectures, and other instructions were given by the chaplain, Rev. Walter Colton. An important one on duelling was given to the public. Others of the fac- ulty attended to their assigned branches. The account of a tour to the city of Washington, occupies one hun- dred octavo pages.
One catalogue states the number of cadets belonging
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to the Institution, to be two hundred and forty-three, though some twenty of them were in a primary school, taught elsewhere. Many students came from the south- ern States. Literary gentlemen present at an examina- tion, in 1827, spoke very highly of the acquisitions of the students.
Some who were at the academy, have held seats in the National Councils, or otherwise have acquired distinc- tion in the country or in the States, as writers on milita- ry tactics, as engineers, and officers in the Mexican war.
But the Institution was not continued here. In 1829 the buildings were vacated and reverted to the proprie- tors. They were for sale and at a reduced price. This occurred at an interesting period in the history of the Methodist Episcopal Church, when their leading men were contemplating the establishment of a College, some- where in the north-eastern States. The proprietors were desirous of accommodating them. Some other places wished for the Institution. In these circumstan- ces " the proprietors of the Academy offered their build- ings as a gratuity, for the use of a college or university forever, on condition that there should be an additional endowment raised of $40,000. Citizens of Middletown and vicinity, with a commendable zeal, by a public grant and by private subscriptions, pledged about $18,000 of the endowment." Hence arose the Wesleyan Universi- ty, which went into operation in 1830, though not chart- ered until the succeeding year. "The charter secures to it all the rights and immunities of a University." All persons are eligible as officers, and admissible as students without regard to sect or denomination.
The Institution could not have been more happy than it was, in the selection of its first President. Perform- ing an astonishing amount of labor, for one so feeble in
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health, for the cause of religion and the advancement of the operations of benevolence, Dr. Fisk labored hard and successfully for the University. He loved it until death, offered prayers to God in its behalf, and sent en- treaties to men, to exert themselves in its favor. His last interviews with the members of the Faculty and with the students, were adapted to accomplish more than the mere excitement of tender emotions.
The University has already conferred the Baccalau- reate degree on four hundred and one students, and has now a greater number of undergraduates than ever. Of the graduated, seventeen were from this town, seventy- five or eighty from the State ; others from more distant parts of the country. A large proportion of the whole, probably would not have received a collegiate education, had not this Institution arisen. Of the graduates, some have entered the professions of law and medicine, some are holding offices in schools and seminaries of learning, and many have become preachers of the gospel. And here a fact exists, which deserves particular notice. It is this, that quite a number who had entered the minis- try in the Methodist Church, have joined the University and secured a classical education, that they may more happily expound the scriptures, and more extensively advance the cause of Christ in the world.
The University is well established. Having teachers long experienced, some of whom have been here from nearly or quite the beginning, and sustained by the ex- isting income ; with libraries, university and society, large for the time the institution has existed, with appa- ratus and cabinets suited to different professorships, with several conferences for its patrons, and graduates traversing the country, speaking good words in its behalf, it possesses the elements of increase and permanency.
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A tribute of respect is due to the hero of Lake Cham- plain, on this occasion. Thomas McDonough was born in 1783, in New Castle County, Delaware, and at the age of seventeen entered the navy of the United States. He went with our fleet to the Mediterranean, where he was engaged in the destruction of the Philadelphia frig- ate, which the Tripolitans had taken, and the subsc- quent capture of a Tripolitan gunboat, by the side of the gallant Decatur. In these transactions particularly, he distinguished himself so much, that he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant. His alliance in the family of Mr. N. Shaler of this town, and his residence here as a citizen, neighbor and friend, are well remembered.
In Sept. 1812, then a captain, he took the command of the United States' naval force on Lake Champlain. To entertain anything like adequate ideas of what he did while in possession of that command, especially in the successful battle near its close, we need to read, or rather study, such an accurate and admirable account of the whole, as is given by J. Fennimore Cooper, and that spreads over twenty-five octavo pages. A sketch mostly from that account, is all that can now be attempted. Our force on the Lake in 1812 was small, but with that Capt. McDonough carried Gen. Dearborn's army into Canada, without opposition from the British force, which was then considered as inferior, and prevented all inter- ruption of merchant vessels on the lake by the enemy, and molestation of our inhabitants on its shores. In the winter of 1812-13, when the vessels of the belliger- ent powers were laid up, both were busily employed in altering, repairing and fitting their respective squadrons for the ensuing campaign, when it was thought an action might take place that would determine the point , which of the powers should have the control of the Lake; but
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it passed off, and its various operations, without any- thing decisive. In the winter of 1813-14, preparations were more vigilantly made for the next campaign. Capt. McDonough, awake to his responsibilities, was all eye and activity, day and night. That campaign brought the anticipated result ; but not until the summer had passed ; not until the enemy had commenced and built that summer the frigate Confiance, a vessel of greater ton- nage and force than any we possessed, nor until the Amer- icans, aware of what the enemy was doing, built speedily by great exertion, the sloop Eagle, which joined our squad- ron at the lines, where that was blockading the enemy. About the last of August it was well known that the Con- fiance was nearly ready for service, and that the whole British force by water, consisting of that frigate, the brig Linnet, and two sloops of war, the Chubb and Finch, with eleven or twelve gallies, would soon be in the lake under the command of Commodore Downie, and that at the same time Sir George Provost would enter the United States with a formidable army. The immediate design of Sir George was to visit Plattsburgh, where Gen. Mc- Combs was commanding with a handful of men in com- parison, and where were a great amount of military stores, and other public property. The squadron car- ried ninety-five guns, and had about one thousand and fifty men.
In these circumstances our squadron sailed from its anchorage at the lines, and took a position in front of Plattsburgh, to cut off the co-operation of Commodore Downie with Sir George Provost, to prevent effectually Sir George from receiving any assistance from the British squadron in his contemplated attack, and to annoy at the same time the British army in its necessary passage over a ravinc.
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The American force consisted of the Saratoga, the Eagle, the Ticonderoga, the Preble and ten gallies, car- rying eighty-six guns. The number of men was eight hundred and twenty. By the manner in which Mc- Donough anchored his vessels, " with the shoal so near the rear of his line as to cover that extremity, and the land of Cumberland Head so near his broad side, as necessarily to bring the enemy within the reach of his short guns, he completely made all his force available."
Two or three days after, the British entered the lake and sailed for Plattsburgh, giving to Sir George Provost the preconcerted signal of readiness for attack.
On the morning of September 11th, the enemy were seen coming round Cumberland Head, and as they filled, the Americans sprung their broad sides to bear, and a few minutes passed in solemn and silent expectation. Suddenly the Eagle discharged in quick succession her four long eighteens in broadside at first without effect, and the enemies gallies opened. As soon as Capt. McDonough saw that the Eagle's shot told-he sighted himself a long twenty-four, and the gun was fired. This is said to have struck the Confiance, and to have passed the length of her deck, killing and wounding several men, and carrying away the wheel. This was a signal for all the American long guns to open, and it was soon seen that the English flag ship, in particular, was suf- fering heavily. The Linnet fired a broadside at the Saratoga. Commodore Downie had some difficulty in anchoring his vessel, and did not fire a gun till his ship was secured, " and then it appeared a sheet of flame, discharging all her guns at nearly the same time, princi- pally at the Saratoga. The effect of a broad-side from sixteen long twenty-fours, double shotted, in perfect smooth water, with guns levelled to point blank range
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and coolly sighted, was terrible in the little ship that received it. About forty men in the Saratoga, near one fifth of her complement, it is supposed, were killed and wounded by this single discharge. The bodies so cum- bered the deck that it was necessary to unfasten the hatches and pass them below, which was done in a mo- ment, and the ship resumed her fire as gallantly as ever. Among the slain, however, was the first lieutenant, and. only one officer of that rank was left in the vessel. All the guns on the side first engaged were soon rendered. useless, and yet in these circumstances, Capt. McDon- ough found the means of winding her round and firing from the other side. His conduct throughout the battle, and particularly at this crisis, has been greatly extolled. " The personal deportment of Capt. McDonough in the engagement, like that of Capt. Perry in the battle of Lake Erie, was the subject of general admiration. His coolness was undisturbed throughout all the trying scenes on board his own ship, and although lying against a vessel of double the force and nearly twice the tunnage of the Saratoga, he met and resisted her attacks with a constancy that seemed to set defeat at defiance. The winding of the Saratoga, under such circumstance, ex- posed as she was to the raking broadsides of the Con- fiance and Linnet, especially the latter, was a bold, seamanlike and masterly measure, that required unusual decision and fortitude to imagine and execute. Most men would have believed that without a single gun on the side engaged, a fourth of the people cut down and. their ship a wreck, enough injury had been received to justify submission ; but Capt. McDonough found the means to secure a victory in the desperate situation of the Saratoga."
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The battle lasted two hours and twenty minutes, and during the conflict the efforts of the parties were mainly against the ships of the commanders, though the Eagle suffered much in the loss of men. Commodore Downie fought as long as he could. He surrendered none too soon. Bad as was the situation of the Saratoga, the situation of the Confiance was worse. The former was hulled fifty-five times, principally by twenty-four pound shot, the latter one hundred and five times. Twenty- eight men were killed in the Saratoga and twenty-nine wounded, fifty-seven in all. A British officer, the day after the battle, reported the deaths in the Confiance to have been forty-one, and the English afterwards admit- ted the wounded to have been eighty-three, making a to- tal of one hundred and twenty-four, but this number is supposed to be much below the truth. Taken in all its circumstances, the victory was great and triumphant. Capt. McDonough had been honored before, but he re- ceived a vast accession of renown from the transactions of this day. Besides the usual medal from Congress, and various compliments and gifts from different States and towns, he was promoted for his services. The Leg- islature of New York presented him also, with a small estate on Cumberland Head, which overlooked the scene of his triumph. Albany granted him the freedom of the city. The officers and crews met with the customa- ry acknowledgements, and the country generally placed the victory by the side of that of Lake Erie. In the navy, which is better qualified to enter into just esti- mates of force, and all the other circumstances that en- hance the merits of nautical exploits, the battle of Plattsburgh Bay is justly placed among the very highest of its claims to glory." "The consequences of this victory were immediate and important. During the ac-
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tion, Sir George Prevost had skirmished in front of the American works, and was busy in making demonstra- tions for a more serious attack. As soon, however, as the fate of the British squadron was ascertained, he made a precipitate and unmilitary retreat, abandoning much of his heavy artillery, stores and supplies, and from that moment, to the end of the war, the northern frontier was cleared of the enemy."
Commodore McDonough was in the naval service till near the time of his death, and in command of the frigate Constitution, in the sea where he performed his earliest exploits. Forced by continual ill-health to give up the command of that ship, he embarked in a private vessel from Gibralter on the 24th of October 1825, and on the 10th of November following, died at sea. On the arri- val of his remains at New York, the authorities of the city, in sympathy with the feelings of the nation, deeply mourned the loss of their country ; the vessels in the harbor displayed their colors at half mast, and a detach- ment from the militia accompanied the hearse through the city. You know where his flesh rests in hope ;- where the citizen lingers and the stranger stops to read and reflect. To the accomplishments of a gentleman and of an officer, he added the graces of a christian. " In a letter to a relative in his native State, written in June 1814, he expatiates upon the happiness which he derived from his reliance on the merits and atonement of Christ, and earnestly exhorted the friends of his youth to a religious life, as the only one which leads to happi- ness, and which good sense points out to those convinced of the reality of another world. To his brother's widow left in narrow circumstances, he tendered liberal pecu- niary aid, declaring that his religion made him the wid- ow's friend. On the morning of his great victory he
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prayed with his men, and as he saw the hostile fleet ap- proaching, he remarked : "They are superior to us in force, but by the blessing of God we can beat them." During the battle he was obliged frequently to work his own guns, and three times he was driven across the deck by splinters &c., which flew around him. When asked how he escaped amid such carnage ? he replied, pointing to heaven, " there is a power above which determines the fate of men."* In announcing his victory to the War Department, he said : "The Almighty has been pleased to grant us a signal victory on Lake Champlain, in the capture of one frigate, one brig and two sloops of war." Thus he did homage to the God of battles.t
In conclusion suffer me to say, the lines are fallen to you in a pleasant place, and you have a goodly heritage. There are many rivers in our country, longer and deeper than this, with larger cities on their banks than any of which we can boast, and the more beautiful and prosper- ous they are, so much the better. But the Connecticut has always been admired.
" Fair, noble, glorious river ! in thy wave,
The sunniest slopes and sweetest pastures lave,
The mountain torrent, with its wintry roar, Springs from its home and leaps upon thy shore : The promontories love thee-and for this
Turn their rough cheeks and stay thee for thy kiss."
And on this river, or elsewhere it would be difficult to find a place, more delightfully situated than this where we are assembled, or scenery more charming than that which spreads itself around us. The elder President Adams in a journey in the month of June 1771 struck
* Religious Intelligencer, vol. 10, pp. 454.
t Allen's B. Dictionary.
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the Connecticut river at Enfield, and passed down through Windsor and Hartford to Wethersfield, admir- ing the valley on the way, and saying when at the last place. "This is the finest ride in America, I believe : nothing can exceed the beauty and fertility of the coun- try." But when he had proceeded on farther to Prospect Hill in Upper Middletown, and the river for miles open- ed before him, with the intervals and improvements on both sides ; with the luxuriant crops ripening for har, vest, the body of this town, and the mountains in the dis- tance, he was enraptured, and said ; " Middletown I think is the most beautiful of all." Spending two days here, he adds : " The more I see of this town, the more I admire it." Art and industry have added much to the beauty of the place since his visit ; it has many more buildings, private and public, and many of superior architecture. The city and the scenery are seen to great advantage from the river eastward, and from slopes and elevations of land in different directions, from the dwellings of many of the inhabitants, particularly from those on High street, and from the University. By this scenery the most pleasing sensations are produced, when the sun throws his rays over the eastern hills, and when he sinks in the west.
Until the Valley of the Father of waters, and the re- gions beyond the Rocky Mountains, and the Sierra Ne- vada, shall be occupied ; till the mines of California shall be ascertained and appropriated, there will be great emigrations from the East : and with the rapidly in- creasing influx of population from Europe, and recently from the Isles of the Pacific, and from Asia, these things may be accomplished sooner than we expect, and then the vallies of James river and of the Connecticut may come afresh into remembrance. In the meanwhile a health-
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ful increase of population may be expected here. Man- ufactures may increase on the little, but valuable mill streams which come to the borders of the city on purpose to bless you. If the calls for the Portland stone multiply as they recently have done, there must be a dense population on the opposite side of the river ; and if foreign commerce should not be revived with the West Indies, one, more foreign, may be carried on by them, through a ship channel across the Isthmus to the South Seas, and be the more productive by the enterprising and adventurous spirits who shall previously fly from us.
Yes, there are attractions enough now, to cause an in- crease of population here. And half a century hence, a century, two centuries, how many fine dwellings, coun- try seats and charming cottages will appear on the sur- rounding slopes, and how will society be advanced by literature, by science and the arts, by kindness, and above all by Christianity. But who shall live at those periods ? Our grave yards now are more numerous than our churches, and filled with larger congregations. The cemetery just laid out will soon be occupied, and how many now present, who shall go thither for a walk ; to throw flowers on the graves of friends ; to meditate, and to thank God for the glorious doctrine of the resur- rection, will soon find there their own narrow house ? But let us serve God and our generation faithfully, and then death will but unite us to our pious ancestry, and to the good of all past ages.
WE copy as an appropriate Appendix to Dr. FIELD'S Address, the following statistical account of " Middle- town as it is," in 1850. It is from the pen of E. M. GORHAM, Esq., and was originally published among the correspondence of the New York Journal of Commerce, PUBLISHERS OF ADDRESS.
middletown~Its Manufactories.
As a place of residence and natural beauty, Middle- town has few equals and still less superiors. Its numer- ous and well arranged shade trees, general healthful- ness, clean and spacious streets, full complement of churches and schools,-stately private mansions, with ample grounds tastefully ornamented with delicate shrub- bery and rare exotics, shedding forth, in the season, their genial influence-render it one of those quiet rural cities where wealth, satisfied with objects that impart refinement and rational enjoyment, must ever delight to dwell. Located on a gentle rise of ground gradually stretching up west from the river to an elevation of one hundred and fifty-five feet, (the height of the College grounds,) a profusion of beautiful landscape scenery is spread out to view, affording the lover of nature ample food for " a feast of reason, and a flow of soul." And not upon the city alone has nature made its bountiful be- stowments. The surrounding country furnishes many fine pleasure drives, and is alike picturesque. Wealth it also has in no stinted measure, but like too many places possessing superior natural charms, the residence of capitalists, it experiences, to too great an extent, the need of their capital, without feeling its thrift-giving power.
The neat white dwelling-house, dotting in thick suc- cession its central localities, speaking of the honesty and true citizenship of the journeyman mechanic and the
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factory operative, is most lamentably, and we might say, censurably deficient. There is in and around the city, a great surplus of eligible, yet unoccupied ground, which might be profitably laid out into suitable squares or plots, and thus afford at a cheap rate a spot upon which the steady and prudent mechanic might erect his " little castle," and at the same time instilin to his existence principles of frugality and a habit of husbanding his earnings, now too often worse than squandered, and, perhaps, simply because no such self-elevating and really tangible object offers itself as an incentive to sober in- dustry and more ennobling action. It is for the capita- lists and land-holders of Middletown, to offer these in- ducements to economy and frugality if they will, and at the same time not only enhance the value of their own property, but also add to the real wealth and business of the place.
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