USA > Connecticut > Encyclopedia of Connecticut biography, genealogical-memorial; representative citizens, v. 1 > Part 33
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Theophilus Scranton, son of Captain Ichabod Scranton, born December 1, 1751, married Abigail Lee, who was born July II, 1754, daughter. of Jonathan Lee, of Madison. Mr. Scranton was a farmer in Madison, where he died February 16, 1827, and his wife passed away December 23, 1840.
Jonathan Scranton, son of Theophilus Scranton, born October 10, 1781, married (first) January 27, 1805, Roxanna Cramp- ton, who was born May 30, 1789, a daugh- ter of Ashbel Crampton, of Madison. She died December 27, 1833, and in 1844 Mr. Scranton married (second) Jemima, daughter of Daniel Platt. Mr. Scranton was a prominent member of the church in Madison. He was engaged in farm- ing, and was also a contractor of break- waters and wharfs. His death occurred July 27, 1847.
Erastus Clark Scranton, son of Jona- than Scranton, received a common school education in his native town. He began his career as a cabin boy on board a ves- sel, and first began mercantile pursuits at Georgetown, D. C., where, however, he remained but a short time. Soon he
owned a vessel and was a master. His advancement in commercial channels was rapid and attended with great success. In 1835 he became established as a whole- sale grocer at Augusta, Georgia, where until 1842 he conducted an extensive busi- ness. Later, for a short period, he en- gaged in a banking business at Apalachi- cola, Florida.
Returning about 1844 to his native State and town with a handsome fortune, Mr. Scranton entered into a business partnership with several gentlemen in New York who were interested in the trade with South America. He became largely engaged in commerce, doing an extensive coasting trade as far south as Florida, and was largely interested in a line of packets running between New York and Liverpool, England, also in ships making voyages to other ports. He also became identified with the business life of New Haven and its vicinity, being among the active promoters of the Shore Line railroad. In 1854 the business ties which had bound him to New York were severed, and in 1855 he was elected presi- dent of the Elm City Bank, afterward the Second National Bank of New Haven. The bank was then a new institution, and under his management its business ex- panded beyond expectation. New Haven was Mr. Scranton's business home for years prior to 1864, when it became his permanent dwelling place. In 1865 he was honored with the presidency of the New York & New Haven railroad, and was that year elected mayor of the city.
Not long after his return to his na- tive town, in the early forties, Mr. Scran- ton became interested and active in the town's welfare, and his old friends and fellow townsmen repeatedly honored him with positions of public trust and respon- sibility. He was elected to the State Leg- islature as a Democrat in 1845, 1846 and
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1850; as an American in 1856; and as a Republican in 1862 to the State Senate. Throughout the Civil War he was promi- nent among the supporters of the national government, and was generously active in the organization for sending contribu- tions to the support of the Union cause. In both Madison and New Haven, Mr. Scranton's diligence, ability and gener- osity won for him wide recognition and made him many warm friends, and the people intrusted to him the laboring oar in many public affairs and improvements. At the head of many public trusts Mr. Scranton remained until his sudden death by accident, December 29, 1866, while stepping upon a moving train at South Norwalk. In his death the commercial life of New Haven was deprived of a chief support, and the community lost a sagacious, public-spirited and beloved citizen. The erection of a public library building at Madison, the home of his youth, middle and later life, as well as the home for generations of his ancestors, is a fitting tribute to his memory by a lov- ing daughter.
On November 4. 1829, Mr. Scranton was married to Lydia Stannard, who was born October 8, 1808, daughter of Job Stannard, of Westbrook, and to this union came children, as follows: Ezra Erastus, born September 3. 1831, died May 19, 1855; Mary Eliza, born September 27, 1837, died December 16, 1839; Mary Eliza (2), born September 23, 1840; and Fran- cis Rathbone, born March 14, 1851, died November 7, 1853.
GRISWOLD, Matthew, Governor.
Matthew Griswold was born at Lyme, New London county, Connecticut, March 25, 1714, eldest son of John and Hannah (Lee) Griswold, and descendant of Mat- thew Griswold, of Kenilworth, Warwick,
England. The last named, one of the early settlers of Windsor (1636), was married to Anne, daughter of Henry Wolcott, and in 1639 removed to Say- brook, Connecticut. In 1645 he took up land in the eastern part of the township, called the Blackhall quarter, being the first settler in what is now Lyme; was prominent in the public affairs of his time, and became the richest man in the com- munity, his estate being baronial in ex- tent. His grandson, John Griswold, father of Governor Griswold, increased the wealth of the family, and was a man greatly esteemed for his wisdom and in- tegrity.
Governor Matthew Griswold, the third to hear this name, was adinitted to the bar in 1743, and soon after appeared as coun- sel for John Winthrop, son of Wait Still Winthrop, who sued the colony for serv- ices of his ancestors and moneys owed them. In 1751 he was elected to the Gen- eral Assembly. In 1757 he was authorized by the general government to sue for, levy and recover debts in its name and behalf. In 1759 he entered the Governor's Council. Previously (1739) he had been rewarded by Governor Talcott for his "loyalty, courage and good conduct," hav- ing served as chaplain of the south train band of Lyme, while in 1766 by appoint- ment of Governor Pitkin, he became ma- jor of the Third Regiment of Horse and Foot in the service of the Colony. He re- entered the council in 1765. and was one of its members who refused to conte- nance Governor Fitch in taking oath to support the requirements of the Stamp Act.
Griswold was raised to the bench of the Superior Court in 1766, and three years later was made Chief Justice, serving for fifteen years. In 1770 he was one of the commissioner of the Society for the Prop- agation of the Gospel in New England and parts adjacent in America. In 1771-
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84 the office of Deputy Governor was held by him, and during that period (in 1775) he was head of the Council of Safety. As chief magistrate, in 1784-86, "Griswold took part in establishing the so-called continental policy in the State, by con- ceding to Congress the power of impost." He presided over the convention which ratified the constitution of the United States, and this was perhaps his last appearance in an official capacity. Farm- ing now occupied much of his time. His library, the best in New England, if President Stiles is to be believed, again afforded him resources of recreation, and one result of study and meditation was a treatise entitled "Remarks on Liberty and the African Trade," which, though in- tended for publication, was never printed. The degree of LL. D. was conferred upon him by Yale in 1779.
Governor Griswold was married, No- vember 10, 1743, to his second cousin, Ursula, daughter of Governor Roger and Sarah (Drake) Wolcott, who bore him three sons and four daughters. Matthew, the second son, became chief judge of the court of New London county ; Roger, the third and youngest son, was Govern- or of the State in 1811-13. A descendant of Ursula (Wolcott) Griswold has com- piled a list of the eminent men descended from her or connected with her family circle, and it comprises sixteen governors and forty-six judges, the names of Ells- worth, Pitkin, Huntington, Trumbull, Ely, Diodate, Gardiner, Waite, Lynde and McCurdy appearing among the many. Mrs. Griswold died April 5, 1788. Gov- ernor Griswold died at Lyme, Connecti- cut. April 28, 1799.
DANA, Samuel W.,
Governor, Senator.
Samuel Whittlesey Dana, a Representa- tive and Senator from Connecticut, was
born in Wallingford, Connecticut, Febru- ary 13, 1760, a son of James Dana, the celebrated Connecticut clergyman and antagonist of Jonathan Edwards.
He was a student at Yale College, from which institution he was graduated in 1775, then entered a law office, where he continued his studies along that line, and after passing a successful examination was admitted to the Connecticut bar in 1778, and in due course of time became an eminent and able lawyer. He opened an office in Middletown, Connecticut, for the active practice of his profession, and his clientele became both extensive and re- munerative. He was a Federalist in poli- tics, and was elected by that party to the Fourth Congress to fill a vacancy caused by the resignation of Uriah Tracy; he was reelected to the Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, Ninth and Tenth Congresses, and served from January 3, 1797, to March 3, 1809; and was reelected to the Eleventh Congress, but before taking his seat was elected as a Federalist to the United States Senate to fill vacancy caused by the resignation of James Hillhouse; was reelected in 1815, and served from May 10, 1810, to March 3, 1821. In the latter named year he settled in Middletown, Connecticut, and was elected mayor, an office which he continued to hold for a number of years, discharging the duties thereof to the satisfaction of all con- cerned. His death occurred in that city, July 21, 1830.
HINMAN, Joel,
Jurist.
Joel Hinman was born at Southbury, Connecticut, January 27, 1802, son of Colonel Joel and Sarah (Curtiss) Hin- man, and grandson of Colonel Benjamin Hinman. He studied for the profession of law after completing his preliminary education, was admitted to the New
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CENTER CHURCH, HARTFORD, Founded by Rev. Thomas Hooker.
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF BIOGRAPHY
Haven county bar about 1827, and while practicing his profession at Cheshire, Connecticut, was elected a judge of the Superior Court in 1842, as a jurist he rapidly rose to eminence; his decisions were noted for their clear, practical com- mon sense. He was a judge of the Su- preme Court, 1851-61, and became Chief Justice in the latter year. Twenty vol- umes of the Connecticut reports contain decisions rendered by Judge Hinman.
He was married to a Miss Scovill, of Waterbury, Connecticut. He died at Cheshire, Connecticut, February 21, 1870.
HOOKER, Rev. Thomas, Noted Divine.
One can scarcely turn a page of Con- necticut Colonial history without finding the name Hooker. Rev. Thomas Hooker was really the father of Democracy on this Continent, for it is to be remem- bered that the government of the Massa- chusetts Colony was theocratic. To quote from a biographical sketch of Rev. Thom- as Hooker written by Walter Seth Logan : "No man could vote unless he was a church member. Out of more than three thousand inhabitants, two-thirds of them men of mature age, there was only about three hundred qualified electors. The church was dominant in the state, and the dominancy of the church is always despotism. Hooker was not at all in ac- cord with the theocratic idea. It has been said that he removed his congregation to Connecticut because he and they differed with the majority of the inhabitants of Massachusetts upon religious questions. It is a mistake. He moved from Massa- chusetts to Connecticut for the same reason that he had moved from England to Holland and from Holland to America, to find a place not so much where he could worship God as he chose as where
he could be a free citizen, with the right and the power to work out his own des- tiny for himself and to found a real de- mocracy for himself and for his devoted followers. He moved from the Valley of the Charles to the Valley of the Connec- ticut in order to escape from a govern- ment theocratic in its origin and inevit- ably aristocratic in its nature, to a place where a real democratic government could be established-where the people could rule. It was a political rather than a religious migration."
When the General Court convened at Hartford on May 31, 1638, to frame a constitution for the new Commonwealth, Rev. Thomas Hooker preached the open- ing sermon from the text, Deuteronomy L, 13: "Take you wise men and understand- ing, and known among your tribes, and I will make them rulers over you." Rev. Thomas Hooker said: "The choice of public magistrates belongs unto the people by God's own allowance," and he laid down as his second principle: "The privilege of election which belongs to the people, therefore must not be exercised according to their human, but according to the blessed will and law of God." His third principle of doctrine is thus stated : "They who have power to appoint officers and magistrates, it is in their power, also. to set the bounds and limitations of the power and place unto which they call them."
The biographer already quoted goes on to say: "For the first time in the world's history, the suggestion of a written con- stitution made by the people themselves to establish a government and to limit the power and authority of their officers and magistrates is here made. The sug- gestion found its fruition seven months later, in 1639, in the Constitution adopted by the Colony of Connecticut, and a hun- dred and fifty years later still, in the Con-
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stitution of the United States under which our government went into operation in 1789." Thomas Hooker was not only the first American Democrat but he was the father of the Constitution of the United States. Later on in his sermon he says: "The foundation of authority is laid in the free consent of the people," and his final exhortation is: "As God has given us liberty let us take it."
The origin of the Hooker family in England has not been definitely estab- lished, yet evidence has been adduced which satisfied the family genealogist, the late Edward Hooker, commander, United States Navy, that the Rev. Thom- as Hooker came from the Devonshire family of that name. His cousin, Roger Hooker, left a definite statement in the family Bible that the Rev. Thomas Hooker and the Rev. Richard Hooker, author "Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity," were cousins. Other records were made by different members of the Hooker family at a date sufficiently early to be reliable, all to the effect that the Rev. Thomas Hooker belonged to the Devonshire family. The evidence is strong, if not conclusive, that Thomas Hooker, father of the clergyman, was the son of John Hooker, member of Parlia- ment. The latter was mayor of Exeter, an office also held by his father, Robert Hooker, and his grandfather, John Hooker. If this be true, the Rev. Thom . as Hooker belonged to a family of wealth, rank and social position, and it would account for his having an estate which inventoried at £1,136-15s, an amount of wealth he could hardly have acquired while a resident of New England.
The Rev. Thomas Hooker was born in England, about 1586. On third month, 27, 1604, he matriculated at Emanuel Col- lege, Cambridge, which was regarded as a Puritan institution, from which he re-
ceived the degree of B. A. four years later and the degree of M. A. in 1611. He held one of the two Walstan Dixie fel- lowship foundations. Following his clas- sical course he took up the study of the- ology there, but did not remain to com- plete the course, but was given the degree of B. D. There is evidence that Mr. Hooker continued at the university as catechist and lecturer, and that while at the university and in its vicinity "he be- gan the systematic development into ser- monic form of those essays on experi- mental religion which constituted always the main bulk of his preaching." His min- isterial work in England covered a period beginning about 1618 or 1620 until his flight into Holland. His first rectorship was over the small parish of Esher in Surrey. At a later time he was described as follows :
"One, Mr. Hooker, then at Cambridge, now in New England: A great Scholar, an acute Disputant, a strong learned, a wise modest man, every way rarely quali- fied; who being a Non-Conformitan in judgment, not willing to trouble himself with Presentative Livings, was contented and persuaded by Mr. Dod to accept of that poor Living of 40 f per annum. This worthy man accepted of the place, having withal his dyet and lodging at Esher, Mr. Drake's house." While there he married Mrs. Drake's waiting-woman Susanna. In 1626 he accepted an invitation to be- come lecturer in connection with the Church of St. Mary at Chelmsford, Essex. These lectureships, supported by private gifts of wealthy Puritans, were established in order to have a more efficient preaching service than could often be had from the "dumb ministers," as the legally appointed clergy were called by the Puri- tans. These lectureships were immensely popular with the masses and correspond- ingly obnoxious to the clergy, who,
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headed by the narrow-minded and bigoted Archbishop Laud, sought through injunc- tions issued against preaching on a range of doctrinal topics that were foundations of the Puritan belief, to silence the lec- turers.
The persecution of the Puritans was continued with increasing severity. In the spring of 1629 Thomas Hooker gave a bond of £50 for his appearance before the Bishop of London. On July 10, 1630, he was cited to appear before the High Commission Court, but he fled to Hol- land, forfeiting his bond which was made good to his bondsman by his Chelmsford friends. He remained in Holland about three years, engaged in ministerial work. and all the while under surveillance by order of the archbishop. Mr. Hooker then returned to England, but shortly afterward, learning of efforts to arrest him, he and his family secretly boarded the ship "Griffin" and sailed for New England. The voyage occupied eight weeks, the vessel arriving in Boston, Massachusetts, on September 4, 1633. Mr. Hooker located in Newtown and his church prospered. The difference be- tween the political and religious ideals of the Massachusetts Colony and those held by Mr. Hooker and his adherents has already been described. It was finally decided that the company would remove to Connecticut. Some of them must have located in Connecticut before September, 1635, but the 3Ist of the following May saw the main body of the Hooker com- pany on their way.
Save for the signs of Indian trails, it was an almost trackless forest into which the Pilgrims plunged. In the party were many women of refinement and delicate breeding, who showed their pluck and courage as well as steadfastness to their faith by undertaking willingly a journey such as would tax the endurance of a
hardy explorer. After much hardship and suffering, including the loss of a large proportion of their cattle, goats and swine, Mr. Hooker's company finally ended their journey on the site of the present city of Hartford. From this point on the story is the history of the first church and of the Connecticut Colony.
Rev. Thomas Hooker lived in a day of much theological disputation, as has already been noted. Mr. Hooker was a quick thinker, a keen debater, and an able conversationalist. Most of his published writings, of which some thirty letters are still extant, were first delivered as discourses. He did not cultivate the graces of oratory but drove his points home with a directness and vigor of state- ment that remind one of the style of Abraham Lincoln, with which everyone is acquainted. He fell a victim to an epidemic that overran the country at that time, his death occurring on seventh month, 19. 1647.
KIRTLAND, Jared P.,
Naturalist, Author.
Jared Potter Kirtland was born at Wallingford, New Haven county, Con- necticut, November 10, 1793, son of Tur- hand and Mary (Potter) Kirtland, and grandson of Dr. Jared Potter, a distin- guished physician of Wallingford. His father, who became general agent of the Connecticut Land Company, removed in 1803 to Ohio, where the lands of the com- pany lay, but the son remained with his grandfather, who had adopted him. He received his early education at the acade- mies of Wallingford and Cheshire.
Scientific tastes early developed them- selves in Kirtland while he was yet a boy. He devoted much time to the cultivation of fruits and flowers; took up the study
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of botany, and while aiding his cousins in rearing silkworms, discovered that the female silkworm secluded from the male could lay fertile eggs, and thus antici- pated by half a century the experiments of Siebold and Steenstrup, which resulted in the demonstration of parthenogenesis in insects. In 1810 he went to his father's home at Poland, Ohio, and on the way, at Buffalo, made a careful study of the fish fauna of Lake Erie, there laying the groundwork of a monograph of the fresh water fishes of the west, published not long afterward. He remained for a year at Poland, teaching school, studying the fauna and flora of that section, and rais- ing and experimenting upon bees, an oc- cupation which he pursued for sixty-five years, becoming one of the great author- ities in the theory and an important con- tributor to the practice of this industry. Returning to Connecticut, he continued his studies at Wallingford and at Hart- ford, giving particular attention to chem- istry. It was his grandfather's desire that he should enter the medical school of the University of Edinburgh, but owing to the breaking out of the war with Great Britain he was unable to do so, and instead, he entered the Medical Depart- ment of Yale College. At the end of a year he abandoned his books for a time for the sake of his health, and then en- tered the Medical School of the Univer- sity of Pennsylvania at Philadelphia ; but in 1815 returned to Yale College, from which he was graduated. After practic- ing at Wallingford, Connecticut, for two years and a half, in 1818 he determined to remove to Ohio, but was induced to settle in Durham, Connecticut, and there spent five years, continuing the cultiva- tion of the natural sciences while practic- ing medicine.
In 1823 Dr. Kirtland became a resident of Poland, Ohio, where he found a wider
field open to him. In 1828 he was elected to the Legislature to represent Trumbull county, and served three terms, securing the adoption of important measures, espe- cially the substitution of active labor for solitary confinement to which inmates of penitentiaries were condemned. He prac- ticed at Poland until 1837, and then be- came Professor of the Theory and Prac- tice of Medicine in the Ohio Medical Col- lege at Cincinnati. In 1837, also, he was appointed an assistant on the Geological Survey of Ohio, under Professor William W. Mather, and prepared a report on the geology of the State which was published in the second annual report of the survey. An elaborate exposition of the geology of Ohio had been projected by him, and to this end the fishes and mollusks had re- ceived particular attention ; his descrip- tions and drawings of the fishes were sub- sequently published in the journal of the Boston Society of Natural History. In 1829, in studying the naiades, he dis- covered sexual differences in them, and showed that the male and female could be distinguished by the forms of the shells, as well as by their internal anat- omy. The truth of his statements was confirmed by Agassiz in 1851, and is now universally accepted. In 1837 he pur- chased a fruit farm at Rockport, a little west of Cleveland, Ohio, and here built a handsome residence. In 1842 he re- signed his position at Cincinnati, and in 1843 became one of the founders of the Cleveland Medical College, in which he occupied the chair of theory and practice for twenty years. During the Civil War, when sixty-nine years of age, he offered his services to the Governor of his State, and for several months acted as examin- ing surgeon for recruits at Columbus and Cleveland. The compensation received was patriotically given to the bounty fund and the Soldier's Aid Society of Northern
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Ohio. He was the first and only presi- dent of the Cleveland Academy of Sci- ences, formed in 1845, and held office un- til 1865, when, in compliment to his part in founding it and to his services, its name was changed to that of Kirtland So- ciety of Natural History. To it he do- nated his collections, including one of birds, mounted by himself, the finest in the State. He was at one time president of the State Medical Society; was an officer of several organizations of agri- culturists and fruit growers ; and a mem- ber of many learned societies. The de- gree of LL. D. was conferred upon him by Williams College in 1861.
Dr. Kirtland's contributions to period- ical literature were numerous, and many of them appeared in the "American Jour- nal of Science" and the "Journal of the Boston Society of Natural History." The value of his work in promoting agricul- ture, especially pomology and horticul- ture, and in extending an interest in na- tural history in Ohio, is inestimable. He imparted his own enthuiasm in the pur- suit of knowledge to every one who heard him lecture or converse, and attached to himself the young as well as the old by personal magnetism and a captivating cheerfulness of disposition.
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