Commemorative biographical record of Hartford County, Connecticut : containing biographical sketches of prominent and representative citizens, and of many of the early settled families, Pt 1, Part 42

Author: J.H. Beers & Co
Publication date: 1901
Publisher: Chicago : J.H. Beers & Co.
Number of Pages: 1336

USA > Connecticut > Hartford County > Commemorative biographical record of Hartford County, Connecticut : containing biographical sketches of prominent and representative citizens, and of many of the early settled families, Pt 1 > Part 42

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carth. Well, that style of dress would do more for a man than any other that was ever adopted." AAnd who that has seen it doesn't agree with this criticism? But the picture as drawn of Capt. Dick seems fanciful. Only as a grim old sea-dog did the writer know him. A man of no frills, linen, cambric or otherwise. But this was in the latter years of his life, which were passed in the State of Texas as a cattle raiser, where, although he did not personally take any part in the business, until he had passed the half-century mark, it was said he would ride horses which younger men hesitated to mount. His theory was, it would "puzzle a mustang to pitch harder than a jolly-boat, and anybody who had ridden the last for a lifetime ought not to give in to the bucking of a pony." Not so easy to get boat and saddle in to line did it appear to one of the Captain's Mexican employes ; crossing one of the treacherous creeks of his adopt- ed State, a frightened horse necessitated going up stream a little way, and pointing to a "dug out (an apology for a skiff, made from a hollow log) Jesus (pronounced Hasoos) was dispatched to the work. Willing, but with hesitation, the Mexican picked up his oar, and under direction undertook to paddle up stream, but the boat persisted in mak- ing better headway stern-way, one should say down stream, as impelled by the tide ; having suc- ceeded with his best effort only in turning round a couple of times the Mexican landed a few rods below where he embarked, smilingly remarking, "Me no use't ride dis kind hoss, me not like him.' And the Captain, as much amused, executed his or- ders himself.

U'sed at all times to mixing with all kinds and conditions of men, the Captain had the happy fac- ulty of securing the friendly service of his em- ployes, and rarely was called upon to exercise the grim quality which his square lower jaw and deep- set eyes indicated, the quality which all men who are called upon to govern other men must possess, and which nowhere is more imperative than in the life of a ship's commander. Capt. Dick was just a sailor. He claimed for himself nothing more. To the end of his sea-faring life he was accustomed to taking "regular watch," indeed to the end of his life. The dozen or more years spent ashore, when steam had taken the pleasure and profit out of sailing craft, he still maintained the old habits of the sea as far as circumstances would permit. His Texas house was on a peninsula, the bay within ten rods of it on one side, and the Atlantic ocean, for nearly half a century his "usual place of busi- ness," within sight on the other side: and alnost any morning at 2 o'clock he could be seen at his bedroom window, with a spy-glass which had been his close companion since he was a boy across his knee or searching the horizon for a possible sail. There is no doubt the Captain was heart and soul a sailor. He loved the sea, and it was said of him by an East Hartford captain, himself a sailor of note and a man who had made name and fortune

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at sea, that Capt. Dick was "one of the best cap- tains who ever crossed the Atlantic, a man respected by all who knew him as thorough master of his business, excelled in seamanship by none ; equalled by few; and an example to all for faithfulness to the duty of the hour, and for his morality." Higher praise could hardly be given, and it is of special value, coming from a noble man, in the same pro- fession, who was a lifelong acquaintance and knew well whereof he spoke. Of special value too be- cause of the experience which led up to such po- sition and character. Capt. Dick started in to make this record when he was ten years of age. It was by no means to be supposed that he had at that time any special goal in view beyond gratify- ing the independence and courage which seem to have been born in him, and which were evidenced in all the acts and theories of his life. Deeds came before plans and theories it would seem through all his life pattern. It is not to hold this method up for emulation, any more than one would coun- sel all boys to run away from home, that these facts are noted, but to show that given the old-fashioned New England grit and steady perseverance, a good life, a strong life, and one worthy of imitation may grow out of even a bad beginning. A very bad beginning we should each feel it, to look back upon it with personal realization of its hardships. The Captain's own comment upon it, "Whoever begins life as second officer in the calaboose doesn't need to inquire about the hardships of life," per- haps needs interpreting to landsmen, and means that the boy who fills that post, "cook's mate" ( which is the very lowest place a boy can have on board a vessel), gets all the hard knocks every one above him may feel like bestowing and is lia- ble to get little else, unless he be of such a daring and determined nature that he can fight his own battles and command respect even in the hearts of such as have little deference for anything save brute force and manifest power. If earth affords a literal Hell it should be found by a friendless boy who starts out as a stowaway in an ordinary mer- chantman of the days when Capt. Dick so tempted fate. Those were the days of cat-o'-nine-tails and belaying pins as forms of "moral suasion." the days when even the indentured sailor had no rights the officers were bound to respect, and the captain was an autocrat. The merchant service was re- cruited from the slums of all nations, and usually the cook was "less than the least of all of these ;" himself the butt and plaything of the entire crew, more than likely a superstitious savage or a half- breed cut-throat, his gentle ministrations ( ?) would not be likely to be in the nature of a. word of en- couragement for a homesick boy. The Captain never was reminiscent of those days, and the im- agination leaves little to be desired of detail. When asked what started him to sea so early his reply was, "Reckon I thought there were mouths enough at home to feed without mine." There were ten or eleven children. The records, save as births and

deaths are storied in the old burying-ground, are scattered, and by no means well authenticated.

In the village graveyard the fact is indicated on the old moss-covered tombstones that the Grimeses, though now nearly all gone from the community, for a number of generations dwelt in the town. Among these inscriptions are Alexander Grimes, died March 25, 1840, aged ninety-six years, and Mrs. Mary Grimes, wife of Alexander Grimes, and daughter of Capt. Richard Dunn, of Newport, R. 1., died Feb. 26, 1823, aged seventy- five years. This couple were the parents of Capt. Richard Grimes, their other children ( record partly from tombstones) being Hannah, who married Harvey Dickinson, and died Sept. 1, 1831, aged sixty-two years (she was born in 1769) ; Polly, who died Jan. 3, 1843, aged sixty-six, married Elizur Dickerson, who was born in 1772, and died May 8, 1848; Nathan died in 1796, at Lana Vaux, aged twenty-two years; Samuel died at Point Peter in 1794, aged seventeen years; Henry died at An- tigua in 1803, aged nineteen years ; Sophronia died unmarried Aug. 29, 1861, at the age of eighty- one (she was born in 1780) ; William, who married Mary Jagger, was lost at sea in 1819, aged thirty- seven years; Roderick, born Oct. 3. 1786, died Nov. 25, 1861, married Mary Ann Church, who was born Sept. 21, 1793, and died Feb. 29, 1872. Roderick was the only one of the sons to remain to do business in Rocky Hill, where he was a mer- chant, became the first representative of that town in 1844, after its separation from the town of Wethersfield, and died there in 1861, aged sev- enty-five years. Of the sons, all except the young- est, Roderick, and the eldest, Alexander, led a sea-faring life, three dying in the West Indies from yellow fever, while another, Capt. William Grimes, lost his life on the sea, no tidings of him or the vessel on which he sailed ever having been received. This was one of the brigs "Marshall," of which Capt. Richard Grimes lost three. That is to say, three brigs each bearing the name of "Marshall" ( the name of a favorite nephew, the eldest son of his brother Roderick) were, by vari- ous means, lost to Capt. Dick, although in all his long experience as a navigator he never met with any very serious wreck. Capt. William's loss, one of those dreadful mysteries the sea will never divulge, was doubly pathetie because he took his brother's place, and doing so lost his life. It may have been by fire, the ship may have foundered, or, most harrowing thought of .all, but very pos- sible to the time, it may have fallen into the hands of pirates. For those were days when more than the ordinary terrors of the sea menaced the navi- gator. Capt. William was the favorite brother of Capt. Dick, and the uncertainty of his fate for many years darkened the life of this brother in whose place he died. Capt. Dick had fitted out his vessel, and expected to command her himself, but his brother offered to take his place (some matter of business making it expedient that Capt.

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Dick remain), and so sailed to his doom. Inas- much as Capt. Dick was the youngest of all those who followed the sea and had been the means of their all adopting that vocation. and in so doing all met their death, the fact that he continued to go to sea himself, and replaced the brig "Mar- shall" with another of the same name, proves that he lacked one specific attribute of a sailor, that is, superstition.

Of the Captain's elder brother Alexander noth- ing seems to be known at the present time. A family tradition says "he married one Sarah and lived at home with his parents until his wife and himself died," whether in young manhood or later there is no available record. The father, Alex- ander, was a shoemaker by trade, but is said to have been not at all enamored of the calling, and aside from the care of his hereditary acres ( by this time not numerous ) spent most of his time arguing against Calvinism, and that at a period when not to believe in infant damnation was proof of innate de- pravity sufficient to insure the condemnation of the unbeliever. Anyhow. "Daddy Grimes," as he was called, was nevertheless a close student of the Bible, and while he differed with the orthodoxy of his day and was denounced by it, he could make his arguments felt. Mrs. Alexander Grimes, the Captain's mother, comes down in history as just a plain farmer's wife, devoted to her family, and it would seem that her kindly life and gentle influ- ence were the restraining powers that went out with her roving son to make of him the honest man that all men respected. "\ self-made man" he surely was, beginning his career at ten.

Starting for himself in the world at an age when fortune's curled darlings are being led about | by a nursemaid. dressed in kilts, and only expected to keep their kid slippers neat, Capt. Dick set . up business for himself, minus any slippers at all, his capital-entire stock in trade-one shirt and a pair of breeks. The ten-year-old boy without shoes, hat. coat or even handkerchief began to paddle his own canoe, and for three years was not heard from. That he lived, prospered and made good use of his time is proven in the fact that at twenty- one he was master and owner of a brig. Eleven years is a short time to master a business, accumu- late a capital. and get to the top of one's trade. Even with capital. influence and regular training it might be called good business to get from the ship's galley to captain's office at twenty-one. But to do that without aid from anyone. either of money or power, and better still to get there with a char- acter of solid worth, makes the barefooted renegade well worthy of consideration. Had he gone out strengthened by the safeguards of religious home influence, had he been old enough to have gained the solidity which a good education gives, or even had the trend of the times been then, as now, to- ward refinement even in a sailor's duty, it would be more easy to look for good results even in the life of a barefooted stowaway. Or was there in

the rugged truthfulness of that day a helpful in- fluence which the superficiality of later conventions does not reach: This boy going out from home alone, without any of life's "conveniences," thrown into the vilest association, with next to no educa- tion, learns geography by personal contact, im- bibes history as a part of his business, acquires a more than ordinary education in learning his trade, and fits himself for association with the best class of people. His daughter has in her possession a water-color painting of the Captain, taken at a dinner in Liverpool in 1818 by John Elihu ( ?), while the Captain was not yet thirty. There were present people of his own and other crafts who were men of import, among them an artist, and the picture was painted on a wager regarding the celerity with which it could be done. But what brought the runaway into such company? It is not the natural end of the truant to turn up master of his trade ; nor does the lad who runs away from school and home gain an entree to cultivated cir- cles merely by crossing a few oceans and twenty years' service on shipboard. This boy carried al- ways a tender memory of his mother, and when he died, at sixty-nine years of age, there was along- side the gold compass some one had given him in memory of valued service, and a few other treas- ures, a poor little Didi-bag made of coarse blue serge; it was the choicest thing there, his mother made it for him while he was yet a young man. His mother was one of the strong truthful women so common to her time, self-reliant and independ- ent. So was the Captain. It mattered little to him what other possessions a man might have did he lack manly independence. Always ready to help the unfortunate, he had no sympathy with the in- dolence and weakness that asks for uncarned money, and no respect for the man willing to be supported in idleness.

Capt. Grimes in the prime of life did a large business in passenger traffic and freight-usually, but not always commanding his own vessels. At the time he mastered navigation steam was proba- bly unthought of. For many years he carried pas- Sengers and merchandise between New York and Liverpool and London, but as master and owner of his own ships he took his course where profit and choice called. Three times he circumnavigated the earth, and affirmed that he entered every port on the face of the globe a white man had ever vis- ited, and, he almost believed, some where no ship but his own had ever ventured. He was years in the West India trade in the last years of the eight- eenth and beginning of the nineteenth century. When he was first attracted to Texas does not ap- pear, but it is evident he knew the country carly. a number of his land grants having been from the Spanish government. And in 1837, with his wife and infant daughter, he removed to the Republic of Texas. The brig in which he sailed ( supposed- ly the "Driver") was the only vessel of twenty- seven, leaving New York at the same time, that

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was ever heard of again. An unusually long and severe Equinoctial storm kept the Captain on deck most of the time for seven days, and four days and nights he stood at the helm, never once taking his hand off it in that time, his only nourishment alternate coffee and whiskey. To understand the full measure of the work done one should know the style of the ungainly steering tackle of those early days, which would try the strength of an ordinary man even in fair weather.

The Captain was of medium height, very strong, with no superfluous flesh. He could be a very martinet did occasion require. Insubordination once sent a man flying overboard in mid-Atlantic ocean by impact with the Captain's fist, and, when the fellow did not, or could not, swim, over went the Captain to the rescue, so goes the testimony of a "hand" who claimed to have been present. Yet his last dollar could be had by a shipmate in trou- ble, and it is told of him that during an epidemic of yellow fever in the Indies he went to the hospital with his crew and helped nurse every one of them through the disease, losing none. Three times he went through the scourge himself. Once in the isolation of his first Texas home cholera found its way into one family, contracted through some vis- iting child. It took the three little ones of the family : the parents were worn out, everyone else fled. The Captain dug the graves and buried the three little victims, deaf to threats and entreaties of such as warned him that he was exposing him- self and others in so doing, his only reply being, "I don't deserve to live if I can neglect others in such strait." In the war of 1812, privateering off the coast of France, his vessel and effects were taken, himself and crew landed on a desolate coast with nothing but the scanty supply of clothing they wore. and not all together at that. Three years of wan- dering, hardship and privations followed ere he could work his way back to home and a new start. But all these reverses only meant "Begin again." He was comparatively an old man when convinced that a new fortune could not be made at sea with- out help of steam, and feeling himself too old to learn steam navigation he left the water, and gave his time to landed interests and stock in the Lone Star State. He had for a long time, while still in maritime employ, been interested in the growth and advantages of Texas, but did not move his family there until 1837. It is a family tradition that Capt. Grimes was one of the original three hundred settlers that received a headright upon the Stephen F. Austin proposal of grant laid before the governor in 1821, which, however, was super- seded by a colonization law by the Republic of Texas, by the provisions of which each family re- ceived not less than one labor (about 177 acres) or more than one sitio ( about 4,428 acres ) of land. according as the occupation of the head was faim- ing or stock raising. Capt. Grimes' name does not appear on the list of the names of the "old three hundred." The three hundred families were all or

nearly all in Texas before the close of the summer of 1824, and while the work of issuing titles was not entirely completed before 1827 nearly all titles were issued immediately after Aug. 24, 1824. From the fact of the non-appearance of Capt. Grimes' name on the original list it may be that he came by a headright through some subsequent grant. At any rate, he was a pioneer of the Lone Star State, and got his headright fast enough of a league and labor of land on the Caranchua river, so called because it watered the home country of the Indian tribe of that name, familiariy known as "Cronks." They were a specially violent and vicious people in their palmy days.

Capt. Grimes became the owner by purchase long before this time of thousands of acres of land in the State, and from 1837 made Texas his home, though he did not abandon sea-going and his maritime business until about 1843, at that time turning his attention entirely to cattle and sheep raising. In 1848 his only son joined him in the business, and a few years later, a cyclone having destroyed the sheep industry entirely and deci- mated their stock of cattle, they began the shipping of cattle to New Orleans, while they still continue 1 to increase their own herds. Later still the busi- ness was improved by driving cattle to Kansas and Missouri. The Captain was a warm personal friend and an ardent admirer and supporter of Gen. Sam Houston. He had no taste for public life or for politics, though he never shrank from any obligation that he felt good citizenship in that line of duty implied, and regularly made his eigh- ty-mile trip on horseback to and from the county seat to deposit his vote as a Democrat. His was a strong. forceful character, and though stern when occasion demanded sternness, and late in life of a rough exterior, beneath it was always a warm, kind and sympathetic heart that prompted many generous acts and deeds of kindness. The habit of the new country in which he made his home was always to "remember the stranger within thy gates." The Captain had located himself midway between two post towns, twenty miles from each, and it was no unusual thing for him to entertain gratuitously twenty-five people weekly: indeed, it was often said no one from the United States or Europe ever entered eastern Texas without stop- ping overnight with him. This tallied exactly with the Captain's pleasure, as he always practiced the doctrine he preached 'to his children never to turn the wayfarer hungry from the door. He remem- bered the days he wandered in France, hungry, a stranger in a foreign land. The cases were hardiy parallel, only that one is nearly as badly off twenty or forty miles out of reach of a hotel as he would be without the means to pay his way within one.

The Captain was a kind and indulgent man in his family, and while not rich at the time of his death, which occurred in April,: 1898, at his home in Tres Palacios. Matagorda Co., Texas-he left enough property to provide well for his wife and

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daughter. and helped his son quite as generously during their business relations of more than a dec- ade. Cattle raising in its early stages, though always a sure and reasonably profitable business, was not especially lucrative until shipping was added thereto. The younger Grimes, William Bradford, was a man of decided push and energy, who with youth and ambition to aid him made of the Grimes combination a valuable business. The son is still living, but now resides in Kansas ; find- ing it to his business advantage to do so, he fol- lowed his cattle to the growing West, removing his family to Kansas City, where for many years he was a prominent man in business circles. His children have nearly all located in the West, though born in Texas.

Capt. Grimes married, when about thirty-five, Miss Charlotte Bradford, of Rocky Hill, and to them were born two children. William Bradford and Frances Charlotte Bradford. The mother of these was a forceful character, just the kind of woman for the wife of so dauntless a seaman, whose sit- uation for so many years left her alone with the care of the family, being of that sturdy type of New England womanhood that in times of doubt and fear and danger was equal to the occasion, through the strength and fearlessness of her char- aceter. It might be possible to add to the interest of these pages by giving incidents in her pioneer life in Texas, when this gentle woman, accustomed heretofore only to the quiet pleasures of a lively township, or the more brilliant attractions of New York and other cities, found herself hobnobbing with a French family on one side and a plain American-otherwise squaw. papoose and "big chief"-on the other, with always the chance of no neighbors at all within twenty miles or more. Suffice it to say that from 1837 to 1842 Mrs. Grimes lived in Texas with only her infantile daughter as permanent family, and a fluctuating neighborhood never large, and had the courage to return there to take up her permanent home in 1847, at the call of domestic expediency. Then the Indians were gone. her children were both with her and well grown, and the presence of a favorite sister as stanch as herself made a difference in life on the frontier. But under the best of circumstances life in a new country call. for courage and the highest character. These belonged to Mrs. Grimes in full measure.

Going back to the village record in the ceme- tery for further history, we find that William Brad- ford died Sept. 21, 1824, aged sixty-four, and that his wife Elizabeth Sears died Oct. 13. 1828, aged seventy-one years. These were the parents of Mrs. Charlotte ( Bradford) Grimes, their other children (record from the tombstones ) being: Betsey mar- ried Ralph Bulkley, and died in 1876, in her nine- tv-fifth year : William married Eliza Price. of New York, and died in 1865: Nancy married Dr. Syl- vester Bulkley, and died in 1872. agel eighty-six year -: George died at Fayetteville, N. C., in 1846,

aged fifty-eight years: Horace married Susan- -, and died at Fayetteville, N. C., in 1824; Fanny died in Texas in 1862, aged sixty-nine years : and Sophia married Charles H. Hill, and died in New York in 1841, aged forty years.

William Bradford, the father of Mrs. Capt. Grimes and the children just named. was married probably in Glastonbury, as his first child was born there in 1782, when the father was twenty-two years of age. In about 1783 he came to Rocky Hill, and built the house now occupied by Mrs. Fanny Grimes Camp (his only surviving grand- daughter ), in which house the rest of his chil- dren were born. It stands high above the Con- necticut river, overlooking its lovely valley, and three immense poplar trees, planted in front of it by Mr. Bradford in the same year, have been these almost 130 years a landmark pointed out to the travelers by boat up and down the river. The house has always been in the family, and occupied by some member of it. Mr. Bradford said when building it it should always furnish a refuge for his daughters, and singularly enough nearly all of them returned to it as widows and died where they were born. In 1871 Mrs. Camp purchased the place from the aunt then owning it, and gave it to her mother, who died there in 1887. in the same room in which she was born (as was also her daughter ), and in her ninetieth year. Mr. Brad- ford engaged in mercantile business, and in connec- tion with his eldest son, whom he established in business in New York City, he was an importer of fine goods, and left what was in those days a very good property to his daughters: having es- tablished his sons in business, he said they could take care of themselves-results proved him a true prophet. Mr. Bradford was of Puritan stock, be- ing a descendant in the seventh generation from the illustrious William Bradford, who came over from England in the "Mayflower" in 1620, his grand- daughter in the ninth generation. Mrs. Camp has a pair of shears said to have come over with him. lle was governor of the Colony of Plymouth. Mass., from 1621 to 1657. excepting five years, which honor he declined for that period. The gov- ernor was born about 1580, at Austerfield. Eng- land, and died in Plymouth, New England, in 1659. His second wife, whom he married in 1623, was Mrs. Alice Southworth, nec Carpenter. The line of William Bradford's descent was through six Williams, he being the seventh of the name in (lireet linc.

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Commemorative biographical record of Hartford County, Connecticut : containing biographical sketches of prominent and representative citizens, and of many of the early settled families, Pt 1, Part 42

Author: J.H. Beers & Co Publication date: 1901 Publisher: Chicago : J.H. Beers & Co. Number of Pages: 1336

Author: J.H. Beers & Co
Publication date: 1901
Publisher: Chicago : J.H. Beers & Co.
Number of Pages: 1336