USA > Connecticut > Colonial Days And Ways: As Gathered from Family Papers > Part 17
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In mines of every description Dr. Smith was always interested. When buying real estate he always had a clause inserted granting to his owner- ship all the mines thereon, "whether opened or yet to be discovered," and whenever he sold any land, let the same be much or little, all such rights were expressly reserved by him. His Edinburgh corre- spondent had standing orders always to send him any new book of importance concerning mines and their workings. Some of these, both in Latin and
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in English, still remain in the old home, and prob- ably there are others at his fine Vermont residence. But I do not know that any appreciable part of the two fortunes which the doctor made came from his mining ventures.
By the close of the Revolutionary War, when he had time to think about it, Dr. Smith found that, to use a modernism, he had "expanded too much." The times were hard, very, very hard, for all. The Continental money had fallen so low as to be practically worthless. Gold and silver had almost disappeared. Barter took the place of coin, and when a debt could not be paid in produce or in goods, then there was the debtors' prison; and into that most illogical of all legal devices must the honestest of debtors helplessly fall if his creditors were pressing.
The illiberal, unjust, and unwise system of im- prisonment for debt was about as disastrous in its results upon the creditors as upon the debtors, but it was an astonishing number of years before any appreciable number of the former seem to have perceived this fact.
To show the operation of the generally de- pressed state of finances, it may be well to quote some of the prices brought by imported articles, and the proportionately small rates received for ar- ticles of home production, as shown by Dr. Smith's account-books for 1785-90, the items being taken at random.
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Beef, by the quarter, brought one cent per pound; sewing-silk was sold at "six pence per yard." A pound of sugar was "two shillings thripence "; a bushel of oats was "two shillings sixpence." Five hundred feet of pine boards brought one pound two shillings and sixpence, and two " Bandanna " handkerchiefs were worth as much. But the worst state of things is shown by the price, or rather the no-price, of the Continental currency, six hundred and sixty-nine Continental dollars being exchanged (in 1785) for only five pounds and four cents of what was known in Con- necticut as " York State money," which was rated at about half the value of the pound sterling. As paper money was so nearly valueless, the gold and silver coins of foreign nations were employed when barter would not suffice. This must have added greatly to the difficulties of business. In 1794 the sum of one hundred and thirty pounds and some shillings was paid in " pistoles," " pieces jo- hannis," Spanish dollars, guineas, and three New York bank bills, the latter at a considerable dis- count. Each piece of the gold was weighed sepa- rately and no two of the same nominal value were rated alike.
The demands made against Dr. Smith grew more and more urgent, but, full of resources as he was, he kept on satisfying them until at last, four years after the close of the war, he was obliged to realize that there was no relief in the near future,
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and that without putting himself beyond the juris- diction of his State he would eventually find him- self at the mercy of some narrow-minded creditor who could put his debtor in a place where the most resourceful of living men would find himself as helpless as the dead Julius Caesar.
Summoning his brother, the Rev. C. M. Smith, and the latter's son (the "brother Jack " of the diary), then a stripling lawyer of twenty-two years, the doctor laid his case before them, and also his plans to retrieve his fortunes. He made over to his brother the larger and more valuable parts of his property in and about Sharon, on the condition that his brother should satisfy all the most pressing of his debts. By realizing upon the more imme- diately salable portions of the doctor's property, as well as of his own and that of his wife, the parson, after a time, was able to accomplish this. As usual, the biggest creditors were the least pressing. The man who had furnished the £3330 to buy the forged note, having always received his interest with regularity, was present at this interview of the brothers, and would not accept of any security for the amount which was still due him; but this was eventually paid, together with all the other debts, in full.
Besides a good many farms and other odd bits of real estate scattered through three States, the doctor still possessed about twenty-five thousand acres of land in Vermont; and to this youngest of
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the thirteen States he and his wife wended their toilsome way. It is at this point that his many letters begin. The new State needed countless things, and the doctor was the man to supply them. In every letter there is a demand for this, that, or the other thing that is "absolutely neces- sary and must be sent forthwith." Herds of cattle, unnumbered yokes of oxen,-" because they can travel these trackless wilds better than horses,"- wagons, cart wheels, sleds, "tools for a wheelright and a man to use them," a "farrier and all the tools for his trade," " machinery for a sawmill of the biggest kind," a "linnen and a woollen loom and a weaver for each of them, good ones who understand their trade," were among the things sent for, while his old correspondents in Great Britain, Holland, and the West Indies forwarded to his new abode and his new store all the things which they had been wont to supply to his first.
In Vermont all of the doctor's enterprises pros- pered, and as rapidly as possible both principal and interest of all the debts which he had left behind were repaid; and when he wrote his last letter to "Dear Johnny," a month or two before his death, in 1804, he was able to say :
" At last I owe no man on earth a penny that cannot be paid at a moment's notice, and I now have leisure to devote to my favorite project,- the establishment in my native State of as fine a
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Medical College and Hospital connected therewith as may be in any Country. I am not yet seventy, my health is good. I hope to live to see it started. In my time Great Things have happened and greater are to come. I wish I could live a Thou- sand Years! I suppose your Father will shake his head over this, but I believe the Lord has a great work for this Country to do, and I want to see it ! "
In spite of this desire and his good health, the brave old doctor had not reached seventy years when he calmly fell asleep. All his worldly affairs were in good condition, and he left to his widow and to his favorite nephew what, for his day, was considered the large fortune of something over one hundred thousand dollars.
CHAPTER XXII
A COUNTRY PARSON'S USEFUL LIFE
CHAPTER XXII.
A COUNTRY PARSON'S USEFUL LIFE. 08
Ancestors. Personal Characteristics. Small-pox in Sharon. "Old Jack " and "Billy G -. "
A Lesson in Kindliness. Influence with Indians. The Sabbath Made for Man.
T HE Rev. Cotton Mather Smith was a member of what the "Auto- crat of the Breakfast Table" and Richard Grant White used to de- light in calling the Brahman class of New England, meaning the descendants of the early ministers and magistrates of the Plymouth, Massachusetts, and Connecticut colonies.
The ministers from whom he was descended were the Rev. Henry Smith of Wethersfield, and the Rev. Richard Mather of Dorchester, while he was collaterally related to all the " preaching Ma- thers," and to the Rev. John Cotton of Boston. Mr. Smith's father, grandfather, and great-grand- father of his own surname all fought in the numer- ous colonial wars. A colonial governor and a major-general were numbered among his ancestors, besides many magistrates and officers of lesser rank. Hence it is not wonderful that while Mr. Smith was a man of peace he was also in favor of fighting in a good cause.
The Rev. A. R. Robbins of Norfolk, Connecti- cut, who was for many years the beloved pastor of
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the Congregational church in that place, was a lifelong friend of Mr. Smith's, never allowing a year to pass without an exchange of visits, though this was not an easy matter with the twenty miles of steep hills intervening. A son of the former, the Rev. Thomas Robbins of Hartford, Connecti- cut, well remembered his father's friend, and writing in 1850 said :
" The Rev. Cotton Mather Smith was min- ister of a parish in the immediate neighborhood of my father's (Norfolk, Connecticut), and was often a visitor at our house in my early years. My personal acquaintance with him was chiefly in that period. . . . Mr. Smith was rather tall . . . and united great benignity and acute intelligence in his expression. His manners were remarkably polished, so that he might have ap- peared to advantage even in a Court; they were a delightful compound of simplicity, grace and dig- nity ; while on the other hand they were entirely free from hauteur or ostentation, and he could make the humblest man in the community feel at home in his company. . . . He never performed an act or uttered a word that was fitted needlessly to wound others or to lessen the influence of his own fine character. . . . He had a good deal of. unction in the pulpit, but his manner was simple, natural and graceful."
The sermons of that time were usually written
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out in full, and read in a more or less pleasing manner; but though the outlines of Mr. Smith's sermons were carefully thought out in the study,. he trusted to the inspiration of the moment for the dress in which he offered them to his congregation. Many instances of his eloquence are still tradition- ally related. As it is a matter of record that the church of the Sharon pastor was twice enlarged during his ministry to accommodate the increasing numbers of his hearers, and that persons residing in parishes from ten to twenty-five miles distant from his own were among the frequent attendants at his ministrations, it is probable that his confi- dence in the inspiration of the moment was well founded.
Though Mr. Smith's fame as an eloquent preacher was locally great, it was as a pastor that he was longest remembered.
In my girlhood there were still many old per- sons who had known him, and the mingled feel- ing of reverence and affection with which they mentioned his name was pleasant to know. The anecdotes were many, showing him in many lights. Some persons told how, "during the awful small- pox winter, when the weather was as cold as was ever known in New England, he and his heroic wife banished themselves for three months from their own house, taking refuge in an outbuilding, where their indispensable wants were supplied by an old slave who had had the dreaded disease, that
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they might be free to come and go while minister- ing to the sick and dying, without endangering the neighbors or their own household." This was related to me by a very old lady - Mrs. Deming, mother of the late Dr. Ralph Deming, a " beloved physician " of Sharon, who died in 1877. "It was no wonder that all loved Parson Smith," said the old lady. "He was the good shepherd who was always ready to lay down his life for his flock."
Another has recorded that " this visitation of the smallpox put all Mr. Smith's benevolence, con- trivance, activity and fortitude in requisition. . For nineteen successive days and nights the hum- ble imitator of Him who went about healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people, put not off his clothes for rest." Mr. Smith was possessed of no little medical skill, and it was always freely at the service of any who required it.
An instance which shows the parson's sense of humor, combined with a gentle and kindly dig- nity, was told by my grandfather, who himself strongly resembled his grandfather in these and other qualities. Among the orphans, several of whom were always sheltered and cared for in the parsonage, was one young incorrigible who, by way of punishment for some fault, was one fine Sunday in June forbidden to attend morning ser- vice. This might not, nowadays, be deemed a severe chastisement, but then the Sundays gave
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the one opportunity of the week for social inter- course.
While the sermon was in progress, presumably to the satisfaction of all present in the old meeting- house, there was a movement among the boys who filled the first gallery, and an irresistible but half-smothered chuckle ran around among them, as fire runs through stubble. The second or top- most gallery, where the slaves sat, was in a still more visible and audible commotion. Even the decorous tenants of the big square pews on the ground floor seemed to find some difficulty in fol- lowing the thread of the parson's discourse. The parson redoubled his efforts, and at the same time the commotion in the auditory was increasing.
The preacher stopped and looked around with some displeasure, but more wonder. Every one was looking in his direction, and yet no one was looking at him. His wife was biting her lips with a vexation belied by her laughing eyes.
The old slave Jack could stand it no longer. Making his way behind the seats crowded by his brethren, whose ivories were unusually exposed, to the end of the topmost gallery, which was that in which he presided as the self-constituted main- tainer of discipline among hisown race, Jack stepped forth upon the flat top of the massive sounding- board, which was on a level with this gallery floor and hung like a threatening extinguisher above the pulpit. Here he was for a moment in full
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view of the congregation, but hidden from the parson's sight, until he reappeared returning to his own seat, and bearing in his arms a very happy and complacent black-and-tan dog, which had been decorated by a pair of the parson's best bands, and then released from the durance in which he always had to be kept on Sunday to prevent him from fol- lowing his master to church. The eager Carlo had found that he could not get in by the doors from the vestibule into the body of the meeting-house, or even by those of the first gallery, so he had as- cended the stairs leading to the top gallery, and then had reached the sounding-board, on which he had been gravely seated, apparently well pleased with himself and his ministerial garb, and, to those who had perceptions of the ludicrous, seemed to be mocking his unconscious master in the pulpit beneath.
As Jack reappeared bearing the unresisting dog, - for Carlo was a faithful friend, and cultivated no color prejudices,- the aggrieved old slave turned toward his master, breaking all meeting-house rules by exclaiming, with irrepressible indignation : " Massa, massa ! Dis some mo' o' dat Bill G-'s debiltry. He got 'o be stop' somehow !"
This was too much. From the pulpit along the crowded seats of the two galleries even to the de- corous depths of the deacons' pew on the main floor, a laughter that was more than rippling was both seen and heard, clearly to the scandal of the
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frowning and belligerent Jack, and perhaps to that of some of the severer magnates of the pews. But what would you ? The pranks as well as the misfortunes of the mischievous Billy G- were well known but always unexpected to the little community ; and the sense of humor is one which has seldom been denied to kindly natured folk. The parson was never troubled about his own dignity, probably feeling it too firm to need protection, so he laughed with the rest, while gently bidding Jack to relieve the dog of his offending finery and take him home. Then, turning to the congregation, he said that the little boy's jest had been made without any mali- cious intent, and without a sense of the disrespect it would be showing to the Lord's house. The child, he said, was too young to realize this, and " as we would have our own sins of either wilfulness or ignorance pardoned by our Heavenly Father, so must we pardon the offenses of children, and espe- cially those of the fatherless." From this he talked on, dwelling upon the duties of all members of Christ's church toward the younger and weaker of the flock, until, after the benediction, "his hearers could only greet each other silently for the tender emotions which filled their hearts."
Neither public nor private admonition was given to the delinquent Billy (save possibly by old Jack in the barn), and the flow of his jokes did not cease, though after this they were of a less public character. In later years he went to South Caro-
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lina, and there became a physician of some local reputation, though dying before reaching the prime of life. Recognizing his approaching end, he left to Parson Smith the care of his two motherless children and their little inheritance-a sure proof of the confidence he had retained in the faithful kindness of the friend who had pardoned so many of his own boyish offenses.
Indeed, Mr. Smith ever possessed a certain boy- ishness of heart which, from his earliest years to his latest, gave him great influence over the young of all classes. While still a college student he was associated with Dr. Jonathan Edwards in the charge of a school which had been established among the Indians at Stockbridge, Massachusetts. Here were early brought into play the same powers of intel- lect and the generous qualities of heart which dis- tinguished him through life.
His influence over his wild pupils, which was great, was first gained by his agility, strength, and skill in all athletic sports, especially in marksman- ship, in leaping and in running, in which things it is stated that he easily excelled all his white competitors and most Indians. The Indians could well appreciate the young minister's superiority in a line so peculiarly their own, and the influence it gained over them was increased and retained by the unfailing justice and perfect courtesy which charac- terized all his dealings with them. "At the same time," says Dr. Sprague, in his " Annals of the American Pulpit," "he labored for and with them
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with untiring diligence and corresponding success, and became a proficient in their language while im- parting to them his own."
Twenty years after Mr. Smith's labors in Stock- bridge had ended, two of his former Indian pupils accompanied Colonel Hinman's regiment on its trying march through the wilderness to Fort Ti- conderoga. During the dangerous illness there of their former teacher and then chaplain, these In- dians devoted themselves to his service, and that of his wife after her arrival, with a touching assi- duity. On his return to Sharon they helped to bear his litter for the journey, which consumed nearly two weeks, although burdens of any kind were usu- ally despised by their race; and for many years thereafter they paid him an annual visit. They always spoke with great pride of their quondam teacher's youthful athletic accomplishments, al- though similar gifts were not then so unusual in the clerical profession as they afterward became.
In Mr. Smith's time all country ministers were, by force of circumstances rather than choice, both farmers and huntsmen; and sometimes they were carpenters and smiths as well, and saw nothing in- congruous in their diverse employments. Certainly their congregations must have been the gainers by the exercise which made their spiritual head so physically robust, the health of the mind depend- ing so much upon that of the body.
As an army chaplain Mr. Smith seems to have been very successful in a more than usually difficult
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situation. General Schuyler, one of the best officers and most honorable men of our Revolutionary War, highly esteemed by General Washington and other officers whose good opinions were medals of honor, was heartily disliked by the New England troops. The reason for this dislike is well explained by Mrs. Smith in her account of her journey to join her hus- band at Ticonderoga. She says :
" My Husband, as Chaplain, had used his influ- ence with the men to soften the bitterness of feeling which so many of them entertained toward the ' Dutchman,' as they were wont somewhat con- temptuously to style General Schuyler. The latter is a man of the purest patriotism and of much ability, but he was then unused to the state of things in our Colonies of New England, whereby a man of the best birth and breeding may yet be a mechanic or a tradesman by reason of the poverty of the land, and the fact that so many of our fore- fathers had been obliged to give up all their es- tates when for conscience sake they left the Mother Country. On the contrary such of the settlers from Holland as were of good family were able to bring their worldly goods with them to the new land and by reason of the fertility of the soil and their advan- tageous trade with the Indians were never obliged to resort to handicrafts for a livelihood.
" My Husband has many times told me of the surprise of General Schuyler to find that one of our
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Trained Band Men whom he knew to be but a carpenter, was at the same time a man of much influence and an office holder in his native town, being the son of a magistrate appointed by the Crown. He could never be brought to see that while we in Connecticut were all so much on a social equality, it was yet an equality on a high plane; while on the other hand it was difficult for our men (so many of whom, though poor, had re- ceived the best education the country afforded) not to feel themselves superior to 'a parcel of stupid Dutchmen', (thus discourteously, I grieve to say, were they often referred to), many of whom spoke but imperfect English and almost none of whom had received a college training. My Hus- band had always been striving to bring about a better understanding between the troops of Con- necticut and those of New York, and had thus gained and still retains the active friendship of General Schuyler, while he was always much liked as well as reverenced by all the soldiers in the command."
The Rev. Dr. McEwing of New London, Con- necticut, writing in 1855, when there were still living many old people who remembered Mr. Smith, says :
" The American Revolution found Mr. Smith in the maturity of his powers, wielding, within
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his sphere, a great influence. He had dedi- cated himself to the Christian ministry, but this did not make him too sacred to give himself to his country. His brethren, the Congregational clergymen of New England, were, at large, distin- guished patriots in the struggle for independence. None of them in the incipient movements of the Revolution, or in providing for the hardships and conflicts of the War, brought the people of their charges up to a higher tone of action than did the Pastor of Sharon. His sermons, his prayers, the hymns he gave to the choir, were impulsive to patriotism, . . . but domestic action did not satisfy him. Into the momentous campaign of 1775 he entered as chaplain to a regiment in the Northern Army. His influence in producing good order and cultivating morals in the camp, in consoling the sick " (and, it might be added, in taking care of them), " and in inspiring the army with firmness and intrepidity attracted the admiration of all."
In Sedgwick's " History of Sharon " it is stated :
" Parson Smith, like the other clergymen of the day, was a most ardent and decided Whig, and his personal influence contributed not a little to lead the public mind in the right channel. . The intelligence of the battle of Lexington was brought to Sharon on the Sabbath, and Mr. Smith
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at the close of the morning exercises, announced it from the pulpit and made some remarks tending to arouse the spirit of the people to firmness and re- sistance. Immediately after the congregation was dismissed, the militia and volunteers, to the num- ber of one hundred men, paraded on the west side of the street, south of the meeting-house and prepared to march immediately to the scene of action."
After Mr. Smith's enforced return from the fighting field he still continued his active work of inspiring the soldiers, keeping the home-stay- ers up to their duty as providers for those in the field, and comforting those who had sent, and sometimes those who had lost, their best be- loved.
In still more practical ways was manifested the parson's earnestness in the cause. During this war the only sources of food-supply were to be found in the unharassed portions of the thirteen States, and it was as essential that every possible spear of grain or hill of corn should be raised to supply provisions for the army as it was to furnish the men and ammunition.
During the early part of one week in the sum- mer of 1779 a very large quantity of wheat had been cut by the Sharon farmers, and bound into sheaves, and these, in view of threatening rain, not being sufficiently cured to put into the barns, had
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been piled into shocks in such a way as to shed the rain if it did not prove to be of too pene- trating a quality. But this it proved to be, and the hearts of all grew heavier and heavier, for the continued wet was a menace of " sprouted wheat," from which wholesome flour could not be made.
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