USA > Connecticut > Encyclopedia of Connecticut biography, genealogical-memorial; representative citizens, v. 1 > Part 41
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CHASE, Augustus Sabin, Enterprising Citizen.
Augustus Sabin Chase, who for nearly half a century was closely and potently associated in active life with the indus-
trial and civic development of Waterbury, was born in Pomfret, Connecticut, August 15, 1828. He was one of three children of Captain Seth and Eliza Hempstead (Dodge) Chase, and their only son. He was descended from the earliest Puritan settlers of New England, and in him sur- vived many of their sterling qualities.
Mr. Chase's boyhood was spent on his father's farm, which had also belonged to his grandfather, and is still owned by the family. At sixteen he was a student at Woodstock Academy, and two years later he took charge of a country school in Brooklyn, Connecticut. Next he moved to Killingly, and went to work as a clerk in a store belonging to the Danielson Manufacturing Company. When Mr. Chase was twenty-two, an old Windham county resident, Dyer Ames, Jr., cashier of the Waterbury National Bank, and a former resident of Brooklyn, made in- quiries in Windham county for a young man to take a position in the Waterbury Bank. His selection fell upon Mr. Chase, who in 1850 took a subordinate position in the bank. In the following year he became assistant cashier ; in 1852, cashier ; and in 1864 at the age of thirty-six, its president, a position which he held for more than thirty years, or until the time of his death. Not very long after settling in Waterbury, Mr. Chase became inter- ested in manufacturing, an interest that continued during the remainder of his life. He was a stockholder and officer in many of Waterbury's successful companies, and of some of the most prominent he was president. At the time of his death he was president of the Waterbury Manu- facturing Company, of the Benedict and Burnham Company, of the Waterbury Watch Company, and of the Waterbury Buckle Company. Of these, the Water- bury Manufacturing Company, which he established in association with his eldest
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son, Henry S. Chase, was exclusively a family enterprise. It has grown from small beginnings to be one of the largest brass manufacturing plants in the Nauga- tuck valley, and in association with the Chase Rolling Mill Company and the Chase Metal Works, Incorporated, both of which were established by the family after Mr. Chase's death in 1896, consti- tutes as a whole one of the important fac- tors in the brass business of the country.
Mr. Chase had always taken an active interest in newspapers, having largely for his model a provincial paper of the char- acter of the "Springfield Republican." He was one of the original stockholders of the American Printing Company, which was organized in 1868 to continue the publication of the "Waterbury American" (founded in 1844), and with a small group controlled its policy and promoted its de- velopment. From 1877 until his death he was president of the American Printing Company and its impressive building and well equipped plant on Grand street were constructed by Mr. Chase and his son to give to a journal in which he felt keen pride a home suitable to its reputation. While in no sense a club man, he believed in the club principle rightly expressed, and was one of the founders of the Water- bury Club, and its first president. His interest in education was represented by the active service he gave to St. Mar- garet's School, of which he was a trustee, and of whose board he was treasurer from its establishment. He was one of the original members of the Second Congre- gational Society, and was an active mem- ber of the Waterbury Hospital Corpo- ration. For the hospital he obtained, through his friendship with the late Eras- tus de Forest, the beautiful site from which it has recently moved to its present location. He was the first treasurer of the city of Waterbury, and served the city on the school and water boards, and as a
member of the board of agents of the Bronson Library. In his earlier years he also served the town for one term in the Connecticut House of Representatives.
Mr. Chase's success in business was due to qualities not uncommon in them- selves, but rare in combination. His judgment was cool and deliberate; but, his judgment satisfied, he brought to the execution of his plans optimism and cour- age as radical in their way as the prelim- inary planning was conservative. He had faith in those with whom he was associ- ated, many of them being of his own selection. And there grew up around him a group of young men who looked to him for the hopeful stimulus that springs from buoyant faith. A self-reliant man, he re- lied on others to do their part, and made them feel his confidence and appreciation. At once just and sympathetic, he inter- ested himself in all those whose concerns touched him. He was never so busy as to lack time to listen and to advise.
Mr. Chase also enjoyed, what many business men of his great responsibilities lack, a taste for literature and art. A home-keeping man, he gave much of his time to his library, and was a steady and discriminating reader of the best books. He loved beauty in form and color, and when at Madrid just before his untimely death, at Paris, June 7, 1896, he by in- stinct chose without guidance the first masterpieces of the Prado. He was no less a lover of nature. Few men have brought into their maturer years so keen and affectionate a memory of the country life of their boyhood. It was the great pleasure of his hours of relaxation to cul- tivate and beautify the Rose Hill estate where he lived with his family during his later years. As a citizen Mr. Chase was public-spirited, interested in all matters of local concern, helpful and generous, accepting the responsibilities of his posi- tion, sensitive for the reputation and wel-
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fare of the community, and responsive to the claims of society upon his duty, char- ity and neighborly kindness.
On September 7, 1854, Mr. Chase mar- ried Martha Clark Starkweather, daugh- ter of Dr. Rodney Starkweather, of Ches- terfield, Massachusetts. Six children were born to them, three sons and three daugh- ters. Mrs. Chase survived her husband for ten years, dying December 1, 1906. The six children are still living, and there are now in the family twenty-two grand- children, of whom seven are boys and fifteen are girls.
The sons, all of whom are graduates of the academic department of Yale, have followed most successfully in the busi- ness career of their father. Henry Sabin Chase, the eldest, and Frederick Stark- weather Chase, the youngest of the three sons, are associated closely in the control and management of the Chase Metal Works and its two allied plants. The other son, Irving Hall Chase, began his business career upon leaving college in 1880, with the Waterbury Clock Com- pany, of which he is now the president and treasurer, and in whose ownership his father was largely interested, and on whose directorate he served for more than twenty years. Of the daughters, Helen E. Chase is the eldest. Mary Eliza Chase, the second daughter, is the wife of Arthur Reed Kimball, a resident of Waterbury, and the business manager of the "Water- bury American," in which Mr. Chase was so largely interested. The third daugh- ter, Alice M. Chase, married Dr. Edward C. Streeter, and they are residents of Bos- ton.
GILDERSLEEVE, Oliver, Man of Large Affairs.
Oliver Gildersleeve, in whose death on July 26, 1912, not only his home commu-
nity, but the State of Connecticut, lost one of its worthiest sons, was a member of an old and prominent New England family, which is to-day represented in many parts of the country by distin- guished men of the name, the descend- ants all, through divers branches, from the original immigrant ancestor, who in the early colonial times founded the fam- ily in America. This ancestor was Rich- ard Gildersleeve, who was born in the year 1601 in Hempstead, Hertfordshire, England, and came from there to the New England colonies at a time the precise date of which is unknown, but which must have been in his early manhood. The first record we have of him in the new land is contained in the Colonial Records of 1636, where he is mentioned as the owner of two hundred and fifty- odd acres in Wethersfield, Connecticut. He seemed to be possessed of the in- stincts of the pioneer, and was ever mov- ing forward to unsettled regions as civil- ization followed him. In 1641, he formed one of the group of men who pushed themselves a little further west and founded the city of Stamford, and four years later he was once more of the party who pushed across the Long Island Sound, and settled Hempstead, Long Island. Here, in this colony in the wilderness which bore the same name as his birthplace in old England, he fi- nally took up his abode, remaining one of the most prominent men in the little place for some forty years. From his time downward, the record of his family has been one of long and distinguished serv- ice, first to the colonies and later to the republic which was reared upon that base. And not only in the Gildersleeve line proper, but in those families with which through the course of years it allied itself. Two generations from the founder there branched off from the line that we are
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considering, the Gildersleeve family which is now represented by its distinguished son, Justice Gildersleeve of the New York Supreme Court. From the generation fol- lowing came another branch from which is descended Professor Basil Lanneau Gil- dersleeve, author of a Latin grammar bearing his name and other text-books, founder of the "American Journal of Phi- lology," and holder of the chair of Greek in Johns Hopkins University. From still another offshoot are descended the Gilder- sleeves of Kingston, Canada, who have large transportation interests and are prominent politically there.
Obediah Gildersleeve, the great-grand- son of the original Richard Gildersleeve, was born in Huntington, Long Island, in the year 1728, and founded the ship-build- ing business in which Oliver Gildersleeve is at present engaged, it being thus one of the oldest industries in the State. This Obediah Gildersleeve was also the one to establish the home of the family in what is now known as Gildersleeve, Portland, Connecticut, on the river of that name, where his descendants have ever since dwelt. It was in the year 1776 that he moved to this place and in that year that he started to build ships. It was as early as 1790 that his son Philip built the famous old warship "Connecticut" for the United States navy.
It was Philip's son, Sylvester Gilder- sleeve, the grandfather of our subject, who organized the business under the firm name of S. Gildersleeve & Sons, which it continues to bear to this day. It was also this member of the family who was instrumental in establishing a line of packets between New York City and Gal- veston, Texas, and developing a trade be- tween the two ports in which fifteen vessels were employed, all of which were built by S. Gildersleeve & Sons. Sylves- ter Gildersleeve was a man of parts and
occupied a position of great prominence among his fellow citizens of Gildersleeve and Portland. He lived to be ninety-one years of age and there is an interesting photograph of him seated upon the same sofa with his son Henry, his grandson Oliver and his great-grandson, Alfred Gildersleeve, four generations of ship- builders. Since then Alfred has grown up and has now a son Alfred, Jr., who if he follows in the footsteps of his fore- bears, as there seems every reason to be- lieve he will, will make the seventh gener - ation of ship-builders in his family.
Oliver Gildersleeve was born into this business, just as he was born into the old family mansion at Gildersleeve, when he first saw the light on March 6, 1844. He passed his entire life in Gildersleeve with the exception of the short time he was away at school, and indeed received the elementary portion of his education there in the local schools. He later attended the Chase Private School of Middletown, Connecticut, and completed his course of studies at the public high school in Hart- ford. Upon graduating from the latter institution, at the age of seventeen, he entered the ship-building establishment of S. Gildersleeve & Sons as an appren- tice. If it is true that Mr. Gildersleeve was born into the ancestral business, it is equally true that no favor was shown him, nor, indeed, any of the Gildersleeve children, in the work required of them in their apprenticeship. The men of the line have had far too much practical sense to allow their children to hope for the direc- tion of an industry without that experi- ence and skilled training which alone could render them fitted to the task. It thus happened that the training of Oliver Gildersleeve in the business which he was one day to head, was long and arduous and consisted of every kind of work used in connection with the building of vessels
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of every kind, so that to quote a local publication, when the time came for him to assume the management of the concern he could "plan, draft, estimate, contract for a vessel of any size, can do any part of the work, and build the whole vessel with his hands, give him time enough." At the time of his entrance into the estab- lishment, there was on the ways a vessel destined to obtain national fame, and it was upon its construction that the youth performed his first labor. This was the gunboat "Cayuga," which was being built for the United States government, and which later took part in the Union attack upon New Orleans in the Civil War, lead- ing the fleet in the capture of that place. The old gunboat "Cayuga" was number eighty-three of the vessels built by S. Gildersleeve & Sons, but during the con- nection of Mr. Gildersleeve with the yard, in the neighborhood of one hundred and fifty vessels were added to these, show- ing how great has been the activity since that day.
Mr. Gildersleeve's position as head of this large and important industrial enter- prise was sufficient to make him a promi- nent figure in the business life of his com- munity, but his interests by no means stopped there. He was a man interested in all industrial growth, not merely from the selfish attitude of the investor, but from that of the public spirited citizen who desires to see all that can benefit the community proper. How energetic he was in the matter of the town's industrial interest is admirably shown in the case of the National Stamping and Enamelling Company of New York which had had for many years a plant at Portland, Connec- ticut, which at one time had employed six hundred hands in its extensive operations. The plant was an enormous one cover- ing one hundred and thirty-five thousand square feet of land with its buildings and
altogether occupying eighteen acres. In the latter part of the past century and for the first five years of the present one, this great factory had been practically aban- doned, no work was carried on there and the valuable buildings and equipment were rapidly deteriorating. These facts coming to the notice of Mr. Gildersleeve, awakened in him a desire to remedy what he considered a most unfortunate state of affairs, and he set about with character- istic energy to reestablish the business. He interested a number of New York capitalists in the matter and in connection with them bought the entire property. The Maine Product Company was then organized and with new machinery in- stalled in a part of the old plant, a large business in mica products was estab- lished. With the taking over of the busi- ness of the National Gum and Mica Com- pany of New York City, it became the largest concern of the kind in the United States. The remainder of the great plant they rented to the New England Enamel- ling Company of Middletown, Connecti- cut, which has developed a great indus- try of its own, and promises, indeed, to do a larger business than that carried by its predecessors. This is but one example of the many enterprises with the organi- zation or rehabilitation of which Mr. Gil- dersleeve was identified. He was actively engaged in the management in one or an- other capacity of well-nigh every concern of importance in the neighborhood. He was especially active in introducing into Portland and other communities the pub- lic utilities upon which to such a large extent the development of a modern com- munity depends. He was the founder and president of the Portland Water Com- pany of Portland, Connecticut, from 1889 until his death ; the Portland Street Rail- way Company, from 1893 to 1896; the Middletown Street Railway Company of
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Middletown, Connecticut; the Gilder- sleeve and Cromwell Ferry Company of Cromwell, Connecticut; the Middlesex Quarry Company of Portland; the Phoe- nix Lead Mining Company of Silver Cliff, Colorado; the Brown Wire Gun Com- pany of New York City; and vice-presi- dent and treasurer of the Maine Product Company from its organization in 1905 until his death. He was also a director in the First National Bank of Portland; the Alabama Barge and Coal Company of Tidewater, Alabama; the United States Graphotype Company of New York; the Texas and Pacific Coal Company of Thur- ber, Texas; the Ideal Manufacturing Company of Gildersleeve, Connecticut ; and trustee of the Freestone Savings Bank of Portland, Connecticut ; of prop- erty under the will of Henry Gildersleeve, and of the S. Gildersleeve School Fund of Gildersleeve, Connecticut. Mr. Gilder- sleeve was also interested for a number of years in the shipping commission busi- ness of his brother, Sylvester Gilder- sleeve, with offices at No. 84 South street, New York City, and in 1897 he estab- lished at No. I Broadway, New York, under the management of his son, Louis Gildersleeve, an agency for the sale or hiring of the vessels constructed at the yards in Gildersleeve. This agency has succeeded admirably under the direction of the young man who seems to have in- herited much of his father's business abil- ity. In reading over this great list of prominent companies and corporations one cannot help being impressed with the magnitude of Mr. Gildersleeve's labors, for he was no figurehead allowing the use of his name at the head of official lists and on directorates for advertising purposes, but a hard worker who really took part in the labors of management. Yet even this gives no adequate idea of the real extent of his activities which invaded every de-
partment of the community's life. Mr. Gildersleeve did not, it is true, enter poli- tics in the usual sense of that term, yet even in politics he did take a disinterested part, and in the year 1900, an active one. He had always been a staunch member of the Democratic party and a strong sup- porter of the principles for which that party stood and was, of course, looked upon as something of a leader by his political fellows, on account of his general influence in the community. It is prob- able, however, that no one was more sur- prised than he, probably no one as much, when he learned in 1900 that he had been chosen the Democratic candidate for Con- gress. It was an exciting campaign and Mr. Gildersleeve's known rectitude and his personal popularity counted for much, so that in the election he ran far ahead of his party, but even personal considerations were not sufficient to overcome the nor- mal Republican majority in the district. so that he was defeated, though by a very small margin.
Mr. Gildersleeve was prominently iden- tified with the social and club life of the community and, indeed, was a member of many associations of nation wide fame and importance. Among others he be- longed to the National Geographic So- ciety of Washington, D. C., the Civil Fed- eration of New England, the Middlesex County Historical Society of Middletown, Connecticut, and the Association of the Descendants of Andrew Ward.
Throughout his life Mr. Gildersleeve exhibited a growing interest in, and devo- tion to, the cause of religion and the Epis- copal church, of which he was a lifelong member. For many years he attended divine service in Trinity Church, Port- land, and since 1884 was a warden there- of until his death. In the same year (1884) he was elected a delegate to the Annual Diocesan Episcopal Convention,
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an office which he held and performed the functions of, until the time of his death. He was also a member of the Diocesan Committee to cooperate with the General Board of Missions, the Diocesan Commit- tee on Finance and of the Diocesan Com- mittee appointed to raise the "Missionary Thank Offering" to be presented by the men of the church at the General Conven- tion in Richmond, in gratitude for the three hundred years of English Chris- tianity, from the settlement of Jamestown in 1607 until that year, 1907. Not only was he interested in diocesan matters, but he took an active part in the work of the parish and served as superintendent of the Sunday school from 1872 until his death. He was chairman for two years of the Building Committee of the John Henry Hall Memorial Parish House, and in 1900 himself established a memorial fund in connection with the church. He was also a member of the Church Club of Connecticut for a number of years.
Mr. Gildersleeve was married, Novem- ber 8, 1871, to Miss Mary Ellen Hall, a native of Portland, and a daughter of Hon. Alfred Hall, of that place. The Hall family is a very old one in that part of the country and was descended origin- ally from John Hall, a first settler in Hartford and Middletown. To Mr. and Mrs. Gildersleeve were born eight chil- dren, two of whom died before their father, and the rest survive him with their mother. They were as follows: Alfred, born August 23, 1872, married Miss Lucy C. Ibbetson and had by her three children, Marion Hall, Lucille Darling and Alfred Henry; Walter, born August 23, 1874; Louis, born September 22, 1877, and died July 3, 1913; Emily Hall, born 1879, and died August 12, 1880; Elizabeth Jarvis, born June 6, 1882, and died January 18, 1883; Charles, born December 1I, 1884,
and married Miss Margaret McLennan ; Nelson Hall, born September 14, 1887, and Oliver, Jr., born March 9, 1890.
CAPRON, Samuel Mills, Accomplished Educator.
With a virile intellect that made him a power as an educator, and with a gentle- ness of spirit that appreciated and enjoyed the beauty of the tiniest flower, the late Samuel Mills Capron, of Hartford, Con- necticut, was a man who, once known, could never be forgotten. He left the im- press of his splendid nature upon all with whom he came in contact and his influ- ence was a vital force in the lives of those who came under his teachings. By the very constitution of his mind he was des- tined to be an instructor of men. When he was called from this life the institution of learning with which he was connected and the city in which he resided suffered an almost irreparable loss, which, how- ever, came with deepest force in his home and in the circle of his intimate friends. Men of learning sought his companion- ship and found him a peer, yet he had a heart that reached out to the humblest and a ready sympathy quick in re- sponse. Those who were associated with him and came to know the full reach of his nature in its intellectual and spiritual development speak of him in words only of the highest praise. He was a man great and able, true and kind, and his life was as white as the sunlight.
Samuel Mills Capron was born in Ux- bridge, Massachusetts, May 15, 1832, and died at Hartford, Connecticut, January 4, 1874. He was a son of William Cargill and Chloe (Day) Capron, both born in Uxbridge, and both descended from old New England families. Samuel Mills Capron was prepared for college at Phil- lips Academy, Andover, Massachusetts, at
Conn-1-19
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that time in charge of Dr. D. S. Taylor, an eminent educator. Mr. Capron was gradu- ated from Yale College in the class of 1853, other members of it being Andrew D. White, later president of Cornell Uni- versity ; Hon. Wayne McVeagh, of Penn- sylvania; E. C. Stedman, the poet ; and the Hon. Henry C. Robinson, of Hartford. He then came to Hartford, where he was given the management of the Hopkins Grammar School, included in which was the classical department of the high school. His brother, William B. Capron, had been the principal of the latter for six years. His health having become im- paired by his arduous labors, Mr. Capron went abroad in 1863 and spent a year or more in foreign travel and study. Upon his return to Hartford in the spring of 1865 he was appointed principal of the Hartford public high school, in addition to the Hopkins Grammar School, and was the efficient incumbent of this until his lamented death. All his life he gave him- self to the cause of education with a whole-hearted devotion that was as ad- mirable as it was productive of results. As an instructor in the classical lan- guages, Mr. Capron had all the scholars who were preparing for college under his charge for at least one year, and his ex- cellence as a teacher has been reflected in the very creditable position that numbers of them have taken in the various callings of life. Graduates and scholars alike were ready to profess a peculiar respect and affection for him. Pupils who came under his instruction received the full benefit of his ripe scholarship, and felt the inspiring influence of his own interest in the work. The year after he was placed in charge of the school the graduates were three in number; in 1873 they were forty-four. Under Mr. Capron's careful supervision the reputation of the institution increased until, at the time of his death, none stood
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