Commemorative biographical record of New Haven county, Connecticut, containing biographical sketches of prominent and representative citizens and of many of the early settled families, V. I, Pt 1, Part 3

Author: Beers (J.H.) & Co., Chicago, pub
Publication date: 1902
Publisher: Chicago, J.H. Beers & co.
Number of Pages: 1040

USA > Connecticut > New Haven County > Commemorative biographical record of New Haven county, Connecticut, containing biographical sketches of prominent and representative citizens and of many of the early settled families, V. I, Pt 1 > Part 3

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(IV) Ephraim Tuttle, son of Timothy, born in 1710, married (second) in 1734 Hannah, daughter of Stephen Pangborn. She died in 1756. He died in Cheshire in 1773.

(V) Lucius Futtle, son of Ephraim, born in 1749, in Cheshire, married in 1773 Hannah, daugh- ter of Lieut. Andrew Hull. She died in 1800, and he died in 1846 in Wolcott, at the advanced age of ninety-seven years. For seventy-two years he was a consistent member of the Congregational Church in Cheshire. He had the entire confidence of the community, and shared largely in its offices and responsibilities. Early in the war of the Revolu- tion he entered the service of his country as a lieutenant, was at Boston, and at the battle of Long Island. He was in command of his company, which was in Col. Baldwin's Regiment, in 1777, at Fishkill-on-the-Hudson, also at the surrender of Burgoyne.

(VI) Lucius Tuttle (2), son of Lieut. Lucius, born in 1776, married in 1802 Rebecca, daughter of Mark Harrison, a descendant of Thomas, one of the first settlers of Branford. Mr. Tuttle settled in Wolcott in 1800, and died there in 1865. His wife died in 1870. Mr. Tuttle was the most enterprising and energetic business man in the history of the town.

(VII) Lucius Tuttle (3), son of Lucius (2), born Sept. 17, 1805, married Oct. 1. 1829. Laura Ann Bennett. He died April 13, 1858, and she Dec. 21, 1899.

(VIII) Eugenia Laura Tuttle, daughter of Lucius (3), became the wife of Luzon B. Morris.

JAMES HADLEY LL. D., Professor of Greek at Yale and Law Lecturer at Harvard, was born in Fairfield, N. Y., March 30, 1821. After complet- ing the regular course at the Fairfield Academy he acted as an assistant there for some time. Entering the Junior class at Yale, he was graduated in 1842, receiving the degree of Master of Arts in course, and subsequently studied theology. From Septem- ber, 1844. to April, 1845, he was tutor in mathe- maties at Middlebury ( Vt.) College. and in the fall of the latter year returned to Yale as tutor in Classical History, remaining in that capacity un- til advanced to the Assistant Professorship of Greek. Succeeding President Theodore D. Wool- sey as full Professor in 1858, he retained that Chair

COMMEMORATIVE BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.

until his death, which occurred in New Haven Nov. 14, 1872. Prof. Hadley also lectured in the Law Department of Yale and delivered a course of lectures at the Harvard Law School in 1870- 71. He was president of the American Oriental Society in 1870-71, was a member of the National Academy of Science and of the American Philo- logical Association, and served upon the American Committee for the revision of the New Testament. From Wesleyan he received the degree of Doctor of Laws in 1866. Aside from the distinction he ac- quired as professor and lecturer he was widely known as a student of philology and as a con- tributor to various reviews.

ARTHUR TWINING HADLEY, LL. D., thir- teenth president of Yale, was born in New Haven, Conn., April 23, 1856. He comes of an Academic family. His grandfather, James Hadley, was pro- fessor of Chemistry in Fairfield Medical College, in Herkimer county, N. Y. His father, James Had- ley, was one of the most notable of Yale's long line of notable instructors. His memory is treasured with feelings of woe by thousands of students throughout this country who have struggled through his Greek Grammar ; though as a teacher his memory is honored to-day by all of the large number of Yale students who came under his 11- struction.

Arthur Twining Hadley fitted for college at the Hopkins Grammar School, of New Haven, and en- tered Yale in 1872. He graduated in 1876, A. B., being the valedictorian of his class. Though one of the youngest men in his class he carried off abundant and varied honors, taking the Woolsey and Bristed Scholarships, one of the Winthrop prizes given to students "most thoroughly acquaint- ed with Greek and Latin Poets," the Clark Prize for the solution of astronomical problems, one of the Townsend Prizes for English Composition, and was also a junior exhibition speaker. He spent a year in post-graduate study of political science in New Haven, and then went abroad and spent two years in the same branch of study at the University of Berlin, under Wagner, Treikche and Gneist, also taking up history. On his return to America he was given a tutorship at Yale, and continued there in that capacity until 1883, teaching various branches, but mainly German. During the ensuing three years he was University Lecturer on Rail- road Administration, contributing during this peri- od a series of articles on transportation to Lalor's Cyclopedia of Political Science, and part of the article on Railways in the Encyclopedia Britannica. In 1885 appeared his "Railway Transportation ; Its History and Its Laws," which is one of his best known works, and has gone through translations into French and Russian. In1 1886 Prof. Hadley was elected by the corporation to the Professorship. of Political Science in the Graduate Department, which he held until his election to the Presidency;

during the absence of Prof. Sumner he also sub- stituted in the Academic Department, 1891-93. He has also lectured at Ilarvard, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and elsewhere. Gov. Har- rison, in 1885, appointed him Commissioner of Labor Statistics of the State of Connecticut, and his two reports in this capacity are marvels of re- search into the details of his work.

It is impossible licre to more than summarize Prof. Hadley's writings. He has contributed nu- merous articles to the principal magazines of the country, and had an article in Harper's Magazine for April, 1894, in which hic he laid stress upon the value of Yale Democracy, the importance of a higli standard of scholarship, and strict adherence to it, and the utility of athletics as a factor in Uni- versity life. His greatest work, "Economics: An Account of the Relation between Private Property and Public Welfare," appeared in 1896, and is in 11se as a text-book in a number of colleges. He was associated with Col. H. G. Prout in the editor- ship of the Railroad Gasette from 1887 to 1889. In 1898 Prof. Timothy Dwight resigned the presi- dency of Yale, and the problem which confronted the corporation-the task of finding a successor -- was no small one. There was a general feeling that it would perhaps be well to break away from some of the established precedents into somewhat broader methods. After months of careful consid- eration the choice devolved upon Prof. Hadley, who was elected thirteenth president of the University in 1899. The very fact that he was chosen marks a radical departure from Vale's traditions and shows the ability of the man, for he is the first president in all of Yale's two hundred years of history who did not qualify himself to prefix Rev- erend to his name. He assumed office at Com- mencement. in 1899, and began his duties with the well wishes of thousands of Yale alumni all over the country. In 1899 and 1902 he was honored with the degree of LL. D. from several institutions. Prof. Hadley married, June 3, 1891, Helen Har- rison, daughter of Gov. Luzon B. Morris. They have three children : Morris, Hamilton and Laura Hadley.

HON. DAVID TORRANCE, of the town of Derby. The career of this citizen, soldier, lawyer, legislator, State officer, jurist, for a decade past Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut, and present Chief Justice of that court, is an illustration of the possibilitics afforded by a Republican forni of government to any of its citizens though they come as he, a poor fatherless i boy from a foreign shore-an illustration. too, of merit and ability winning its way from unpromising beginnings to the most honorable position in so- ciety.

Judge Torrance was born March 3, 1840, in the city of Edinburgh, Scotland, a son of Walter and Ann (Sharp) Torrance. The father having

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COMMEMORATIVE BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.

died, the widowed mother, when David was nine years of age, came with her five children to the United States, locating in Norwich, Conn., where David attended the public schools for five years. At fourteen it fell to his lot to work in a cotton mill, and when fifteen years of age he entered the Chelsea Paper Mills at Greenville, in the town of Norwich, to learn the trade of paper-making. There the breaking out of the Civil war found him and fired his young patriotic heart. A younger brother, James Torrance, had previously enlisted and served through the period of the three months' call in the 3d Conn. V. I., then re-enlisted for three years in the 13th Conn. V. I. David remained at his work, however, until the following year when the call for volunteers became so loud he felt that he must heed it, and on July 17, 1862, when the 18th Conn. V. I. was making up, he enlisted as a private in Company A, of that regiment, and was chosen a sergeant of the company. The 18th was a gallant though unfortunate regiment in the battle at Winchester, Va., June 13, 14 and 15, 1863; when engaged as a part of the command under Gen. Mil- roy, it did desperate fighting and won unqualified praises from that officer. Here, in a third and last charge, it wholly disabled a Confederate bat- tery, though it lost 500 of its men who were cap- tured by the enemy under Gen. Johnston, Sergt. Torrance among the number, and were sent to suf- fer the horrors of Libby Prison, and afterward

Belle Island. Young Torrance shared the fortunes of the regiment up to the time of his capture and parole in July, 1863. In the meantime, on May 24, 1863, his brother James, a young man of twenty and of distinguished bravery, was killed in a charge in battle at Port Hudson. At the close of that year Sergt. Torrance was appointed captain of Company A, 29th Conn. V. I., a colored organization com- manded by the late Hon. William B. Wooster, of Derby. Capt. Torrance was advanced to the posi- - tion of Major in July, 1864, and to Lieutenant Colonel of the regiment in November of the same year, serving in this position until the regiment was mustered out at Brownsville, Texas, in Oc- tober, 1865.

Returning to Connecticut with an honorable record after the war, Col. Torrance. in January, 1866, entered the office of his superior officer, Col. Wooster, with whom much of his army life had been passed, as a law student. Before entering the army he had cherished the purpose of studying law, and there he really began while yet in camp await- ing the disbanding of the regiment. He pursued his studies in the office under Col. Wooster until in 1868, when he was admitted to the Bar in New Haven county for the practice of the law in all the courts of Connecticut. Soon afterward he en- tered into partnership with his preceptor under the firm name of Wooster & Torrance. The senior member of the firm was already known and eminent as a counselor, for he had had a large practice be-

fore entering the service, which he did from a sense of duty, closing his office and going to the front. The new firin went before the people of Birming- ham and the town of Derby with a magnificent title, and both members being soldiers the two colonels brought to their office the prestige of brave leadership in the army ; both possessed those manly graces which win favor from the public and secure popularity ; and both were known to be honest men? tried and true-men whom their clients could trust to the farthest extreme. A large and lucrative practice was the logical result. The junior mem- ber of the firm won decided respect for his ability wherever he conducted cases in court, and as the years passed grew into great favor. He affiliated with the Republican party, and in 1871 was elected from the town of Derby to the General Assembly, and was re-elected in 1872. Here he appeared to advantage both in committee work and on the floor of the house, his rare good sense and practical mind commanding the attention of that body. In the fall of 1878 he was nominated by his party, the Republican, for Secretary of State, and was elected, serving two years with that efficiency that had previously marked his work in other lines. In 1881 he was appointed Judge of the Court of Common Pleas of New Haven county, and in 1885 he was reappointed Judge of the same court, but before entering upon his second term he was made Judge of the Superior Court of the State. In 1890 he was advanced to the highest judicial tribunal of the State, the Supreme Court of Errors. In 1899 he was elected a member of the Faculty of the University of Yale, holding the chair on Evidence. On Oct. 1, 1901, he was appointed Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut.

The law firm of Wooster & Torrance was changed in January, 1882, to that of Wooster, Tor- rance & Gager, the latter gentleman, who had been a law student in the office since in July, ISSI. hav- ing been admitted to the firm at that time. On his appointment in 1885 to the Bench of the Superior Court, Judge Torrance withdrew from the firm.

Such a career as is outlined in the foregoing brief article is certainly unique, almost phenom- enal. One has only to read between the lines to judge of the man, of his worth to a community, to a State, and to a nation. In suggestions of what were the elements and traits composing his note- worthy life, a writer in the New Haven County His- tory said of him :

Judge Torrance is wholly a self-made man. The Col- leges cannot claim him, though Yale University has con- ferred upon him the honorary A. M. The law schools cannot declare that they gave him his sustained intellectual power and logical acumen. His education has been his own work, and the curriculum of his studies. his own planning, and the zeal with which he has pursued them has been determined by his own tastes. He was by nature liberally supplied with good Scotch sense, and with the metaphysical tendency of the Scotch mind. The world is not all one-sided to him, but every pro has a con, and

COMMEMORATIVE BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD ..

without effort both of those will appear at the same time in his mind, each to be weighed and credited with its value, and then, when the balance is struck, it does not need revision.

The trend of his mind has an illustration in a matter somewhat private, and yet not exclusively so. For many years a club composed of a few of the citizens of Birming- ham. drawn together by kindred tastes for philosophical studies, has held weekly meeting. Its name is taken from the Greek word for mind. and hence it is called the "Nons Club." Judge Torrance has been the leader in its disens- sions, though his modesty would forbid him from claiming to be more than a peer among equals. All the members are, en rapport with the object of the club. The latest subject of investigation in metaphysics has been "Kant's Critique of Pure Reason." Such subjects as that are both informing and recreative to this inquiring company, and no one takes more pleasure in these analytic. acute and logical excursions into the realm of pure and applied reas- oning than Judge Torrance. He is an independent thinker. and wherever truth may lead he will follow, whoever may keep him company. It is easy to see how such a mind naturally gravitates to the judge's bench.

But with his Scotch metaphysical intellectuality is united an affability of manner which can state an inde- pendent judgment frankly, and even vigorously. and yet not give offense in any quarter. He has that quality of agreeable genuineness which wins a liking from its very frank sincerity. and . hence few men have created fewer antagonisms than he in all the walks of life-hence, too, his popularity wherever he is known.

Judge Torrance is a member of the Masonic fraternity, a distinguished member of the Army and Navy Club of Connecticut, and closely asso- ciated with the G. A. R. He never allows himself to forget the old comrades in arms: and when he is not sitting on the tribunal of justice makes him- self as one of his many friends. He is always in demand in a social way, and his speeches at dinners and anniversaries are features of the oc- casions.

' On Feb. 12, 1864, while home from the war on furlough at Norwich, Conn., the then Capt. Tor- rance was married to Miss Annie France, of that city, and the union has been blessed with three children, namely: Margaret G .: Walter S .; and James F., who was graduated from Yale Law School in 1894, and was Judge of Probate Court, and is now prosecuting attorney of City Court. The family are parishioners of the Congregational Church at Birmingham, and prominent in social life. .

HON. JAMES EDWARD ENGLISH. Mem- ber of Congress, Governor of Connecticut, and United States Senator, whose death occurred at his home in New Haven, March 2, 1800, full of years and honors, was pre-eminently a self-made man ; more so than any other of New Haven's citizens un- less it be the late Hon. Roger Sherman.

Mr. English was born March 13. 1812, in New Haven, son of James and Nancy (Griswold) Eng- lish, the father a citizen highly respected for his personal worth, who intelligently discharged several public trusts with fidelity. The mother was a woman of singular sagacity; she was descended

from a family greatly distinguished in the history of Connecticut, having given to it two governors. Our subject's paternal grandfather was the com- mander of vessels engaged in the West India trade and his great-grandfather fell pierced by a bayonet in the hands of a British soldier, at the time of the invasion of New Haven during the war of the Revolution. James E. English was a descendant in the sixth generation from Clement English, of Salem, Mass., his line being through three successive Benjamins to James English, his father. The first Benjamin English, son of Clement, born in 1676, married Rebecca Brown, in 1699, and in 1700 settled in New Haven, where for two hundred years his descendants have been identified with the town.

The subject of this sketch in boyhood exhibited singular self-reliance, a trait of character that ever remained with him. At the age of sixteen he was apprenticed to the trade of a carpenter, and be- gan his first work June 27, 1827, on the old Lan- casterian school house. His apprenticeship closed on his twenty-first birthday. He never worked as a journeyman at his trade but at once became a con- tractor, and followed this occupation until twenty- three years of age, by which time he became the possessor of a moderate capital. Having natural architectural tastes, he designed and erected in this short experience a number of creditable buildings in New Haven ; and for the next twenty years he was engaged in the lumber business, covering a period when commercial enterprises of every kind were subject to great fluctuations-a period of general financial embarrassment, when many men found it difficult and often impossible to avoid commercial disaster. Far-seeing and always looking beyond the present, he avoided speculation, never heing san- guine nor despondent. He branched out in his lumber business, buying and building vessels, en- gaged in shipping clocks to Philadelphia, and re- turning with coal and general merchandise to New Haven and other ports, and in this was successful. Next he became identified with the manufacture of clocks, having successfully re-organized the former Chauncey Jerome works under the name of the New Haven Clock Company. In this enterprise he was associated with Harmanus MI. Welch, after- ward president of the First National Bank, and for several years a partner with him in the lumber busi- ness : also with Hiram Camp, these three purchasing the clock plant. In a few years they made this com- pany not only a success, but one of the largest clock manufacturing concerns in existence. Mr. Eng- lish, about this time, became prominently identified with the First National Bank of New Haven, and also with the Connecticut Savings Bank, having been at the head of the latter institution from its organiza- tion in 1857. He was largely interested in various manufacturing and commercial industries in this and other States, being also associated with the management of the Adams Express company. Emi- nently successful in accumulating property, by judi-

James & English

COMMEMORATIVE BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.

cious investments in real estate he finally became the owner of probably more business buildings than any other individual in New Haven. He was a man of the strictest integrity, taking no advantages of the great opportunities that arose during the war by changes in the financial policy of the government, which greatly affected commercial values, of which some men of high station availed themselves. Not a dollar of his large fortune came from speculation. His business sagacity made it all. "If I have been successful as a business man, it is because I have been content with reasonable profits, for I know that enormous gains soon invite ruinous competition."

Politically Mr. English was reared a Democrat. and "ever remained faithful to the conviction of a lifetime, that only by adherence to the principles and policy of genuine Jeffersonian Democracy could the State reach the full proportions of a free and pros- perous community." He held many public trusts, covering a period of forty-one years-1836-1877. He was selectman of his town from 1836 to 1848; a member of the common council in 1848-49; rep- resentative in the State Legislature in 1855-56; State senator from 1856 to 1859; member of Congress from 186t to 1865; governor of Connecticut from 1867 to 1869, and again in 1870; and United States senator by appointment from 1875 to 1877. "The municipal trusts of his early manhood were those imposed upon him by the general conviction of his fellow citizens, irrespective of party, that their in- terests might be safely confided to his recognized integrity, capacity and public spirit."

"His services in both branches of the Legislature were generally marked by attention to the business rather than to the political aspects of the legislation in which he was called to act. When, subsequently, he became governor of the State, the practical cast of his mind was conspicuously manifested in the emphasis which he gave in his messages to the cause of free public school education, and in the advocacy of which he was ultimately successful.

"But that which specially and honorably marks Mr. English's public career is the course he pur- sted while a representative in Congress. His term of service, extending from 1861 to 1865, covered that period in our history during which slavery ceased to disgrace the Nation, and the constitutional amendment prohibiting involuntary servitude be- came the supreme law of the land. Mr. English went to Washington a pronounced War Democrat, believing that the great national exigency demanded every sacrifice to prevent our great republic from being divided into perpetually contending and con- temptible fragments.

"While as a Democrat he fully recognized the constitutional right of the Southern States to the possession of their slaves, he also felt that slavery was a monstrous injustice, and therefore had no regret when, as a war measure, he found himself at liberty to record alike his abhorrence of slavery and his sense of justice toward the owners of slaves in

the District of Columbia, by voting for the bill which united the emancipation of the slave with compensa- tion to the master.

"Long before the close of the war it became evi- dent to all thoughtful observers that the question of general emancipation must be met sooner or later. and Mr. English made up his mind to take the hazard and incur the odium of voting with his po- litical opponents whenever, in his view, it became a political necessity. More than a year before the final passage of the bill providing for the necessary constitutional amendment, the position of Mr. Eng- lish was well understood in Washington. When the bill was first introduced in the House by Mr. Ashley, of Ohio. he was assured of Mr. English's support in case it was needed. But when it was found that the Administration party were not united on the measure, Mr. Ashley advised Mr. English not to vote in its favor, as it was sure not to pass. With a very practical conviction of the folly of striking when there is a certainty that nothing will be hit, Mr. English acted upon this advice, but with the emphatic assurance to Mr. Ashley that whenever it was necessary he might rely upon his vote. When informed a year later that the bill would be put to vote the next day, Mr. English was in New Haven, in attendance upon his sick wife. Traveling all night, he reached Washington in time to listen to a part of the exciting debate, and to hear his name called among the first of the ten War Democrats who, as it was hoped, would vote for the bill, and whose votes were necessary for its passage. When his ringing 'Yes" was heard in the crowded gather- ing there was general applause. To a New Haven friend who was in Washington a day or two after- ward he said, 'I suppose I am politically ruined, but that day was the happiest day of my life.'

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Commemorative biographical record of New Haven county, Connecticut, containing biographical sketches of prominent and representative citizens and of many of the early settled families, V. I, Pt 1, Part 3

Author: Beers (J.H.) & Co., Chicago, pub Publication date: 1902 Publisher: Chicago, J.H. Beers & co. Number of Pages: 1040

Author: Beers (J.H.) & Co., Chicago, pub
Publication date: 1902
Publisher: Chicago, J.H. Beers & co.
Number of Pages: 1040