USA > Connecticut > Encyclopedia of Connecticut biography, genealogical-memorial; representative citizens, v. 1 > Part 44
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SIGOURNEY, Lydia Huntley, Authoress.
1791, only child of Ezekiel and Sophia (Wentworth) Huntley, and, through her father, of Scotch descent. The latter, who took part as a soldier in the Revolu- tionary War, has been described as a man of worth and benevolence; her mother "possessed those well-balanced, unob- trusive virtues of character that marked the New England lady of the olden time." For many years Mr. Huntley was em- ployed by a wealthy druggist, Dr. Daniel Lathrop, and when the latter retired from business he retained his old clerk to assist him in managing his estate. Mr. Huntley and his family lived with the Lathrops, whose social circle included many people of eminence and culture, and thus from her early childhood Lydia was accus- tomed to the best society.
Her attainments were remarkable for those days, including a knowledge of Latin and Greek ; and a love of imparting what she knew led her, on finishing her studies, to open a select school for young ladies, in association with her intimate friend. Ann M. Hyde. Four years later, at the solicitation of influential families in Hartford, she removed to that city to open a similar school, making her home with the widow of Colonel Jeremiah Wadsworth. At the suggestion of a member of the family, in 1815 she pub- lished a little volume of selections from her writings, entitled "Moral Pieces in Prose and Verse," and this brought her fair returns in money, and requests for contributions to various periodicals ; but, as she relates in her autobiography, "Letter of Life" (1866), with the estab- lishment of fame as a writer, came "a host of novel requisitions." Churches, charit- able societies and academies applied to her for hymns or odes for various oc- casions ; friends who had lost children or parents begged for elegies ; and strangers
Lydia (Huntley) Sigourney was born at Norwich, Connecticut, September I, about to celebrate wedding anniversaries
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begged for "a few appropriate lines" from her pen. The tenderness of her heart made it well nigh impossible for her to refuse, and the amount of this gratuitous and ephemeral work produced during her lifetime was enormous, and undoubtedly detrimental to her powers. Miss Hunt- ley's school was highly successful ; but in 1819 she gave it up, and in that year was married to Charles Sigourney, a wealthy merchant of Hartford, Connecticut, who was of French descent, and a widower with several children. He was a man of considerable learning and of artistic tastes, and was able to surround his wife with everything that contributes to a happy domestic life. They soon removed to a stately dwelling overlooking the city, and what is now Bushnell Park, but at that date, "out of town," and this was their home for nearly twenty years. Mrs. Sigourney left Hartford but rarely after her marriage, her only extended journey being to Europe in 1840, an account of which was published, under the title "Pleasant Memories of Pleasant Lands" (1840). During this visit she received many attentions from notable people, in- cluding letters of appreciation from sev- eral monarchs, and two volumes of her poems were republished in London. Her husband's failure in health and in business made literary work a necessity, and Mrs. Sigourney became one of the most volum- inous authors of her time, contributing more than two thousand articles to periodicals, and publishing nearly sixty volumes. She was a graceful and finished writer ; everything she produced was per- vaded with a strong religious sentiment, and her beautiful character was reflected in her pages; but modern taste finds her prose stilted and her poetry lacking in fire. To say that she has been called the "American Hemans" is, perhaps, to char- acterize her best as an author.
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No resident of Hartford was more be- loved than Mrs. Sigourney, who is remem- bered there as much for her deeds of charity as for her work in literature. The sick, the afflicted, the orphan, the prisoner, were objects of unceasing ministries, and often she practiced great self-denial in order to carry out her philanthropic plans. Among her works were: "Traits of the Aborigines of America" (1822) ; "Sketches of Connecticut, Forty Years Since" (1824) ; "Letters to Young Ladies" (1833, twentieth edition 1853, at least five London editions) ; "Letters to Mothers" (1838); "Pocahontas, and Other Poems" (1841); "Scenes in My Native Land" (1844); "Voice of Flowers" (1845) ; "Whisper to a Bride" (1849) ; "Letters to My Pupils" (1850) ; "The Faded Hope" a memorial of her only son (1851) ; "Past Meridian" (1854) ; "Lucy Howard's Jour- nal" (1857); "The Daily Counsellor," poems (1858) ; "Gleanings" (1860) ; and "The Man of Uz and Other Poems" (1862): "Niagara," "The Death of an Infant," "Winter," and "Napoleon's Epi- taph," are favorable specimens of her verse.
After a number of years of widowhood, Mrs. Sigourney died at Hartford, June 10, 1865.
BEACH, Moses Yale,
Journalist.
Moses Yale Beach was born at Wall- ingford, Connecticut. January 1, 1800. His paternal ancestors were among the first settlers of Stratford, Connecticut, and on his mother's side he was descended from the family of Elihu Yale, the bene- factor of Yale College.
Early apprenticed to a cabinet maker at Hartford, Connecticut, he was am- bitious and full of energy, and before the expiration of his apprenticeship pur-
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chased his release and began business for himself at Northampton, Massachusetts. He secured a partner in his trade, and won subsequently the first premium of the Franklin Institute for the best cabinet ware exhibited. Mr. Beach had inventive talent, and was associated with Thomas Blanchard in the invention of the stern- wheel steamboat. He also invented a machine for cutting rags, which is now generally used in paper mills, but owing to delay in obtaining the patent he did not derive any considerable remuneration from the invention. In 1827 he removed with his family to Saugerties-on-the- Hudson, where he was for a time engaged in the paper mill business. Mr. Beach in 1821 married Nancy Day, a sister of the founder of the New York "Sun," and in 1835 he purchased an interest in that paper, of which he subsequently became proprietor. From the outset, his native energy and enterprise told upon the "Sun" -new features were introduced, and original methods adopted for securing the first tidings of important events. Express trains were run between various points at Mr. Beach's expense, and, prior to the introduction of the telegraph, he em- ployed carrier pigeons to bring early European news from incoming steamers, as well as from political gatherings, race tracks, etc. He assisted Clark and Locke in the preparation of the "Moon Hoax," which first appeared in the "Sun," baffled the scientific world, and caused much comment in the journals of both hemis- pheres. During the Mexican War he found the means of transmitting news so slow that he established a fast express by means of which the time between Mobile and Montgomery, Alabama, was reduced one-third. He laid the matter before his fellow-publishers, who agreed to share the expense of the undertaking, and this was the origin of the alliance known as the "Associated Press."
Realizing the demoralizing effects of war on the county, he visited Mexico in 1848, at the urgent request of President Polk, and secured the interviews and agreements which were the basis of the subsequent treaty of peace. During the trip, Mr. Beach received the first premo- nition of the paralysis which eventually terminated his life. Finding after a con- siderable struggle that he could not over- come this disease, he gave up business in 1849, and returned to his native town, where he passed quietly the remainder of his life. He was always an active worker in public matters and an earnest advocate of popular education. He died at Wall- ingford, Connecticut, January 19, 1868.
CAMP, Caleb Jackson,
Man of Affairs.
The type which has become familiar to the world as the successful New Eng- lander, practical and worldly-wise, yet governed in all affairs by the most scru- pulous and strict ethical code, stern in removing obstacles from the road, yet generous even to the enemy, is nowhere better exemplified than in Caleb Jackson Camp, in whose death on June 19, 1909, Winsted, Connecticut, lost one of its most prominent citizens, and a figure which car- ried down into our own times something of the picturesque quality of the past. The successful New Englanders of the past generation, men who were responsible for the great industrial and mercantile de- velopment of that region, enjoyed, most of them, the juncture in their own persons of two sets of circumstances, calculated in combination to produce the strong char- acter by which we recognize the type. For these men were at once the product of culture and refinement, being descended often from the best English stock, and yet were so placed that hard work and frugal living were the necessary con- ditions of success and livelihood itself.
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Caleb Jackson Camp.
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Such was the case with Mr. Camp, who on both sides of the house was descended from fine old English families whose rec- ord in the "New World" had maintained the high standard they already occupied. On his father's side the line runs back to Sir Thomas Parsons, of London, and to one Alderman Radcliffe, of "London Town," a well known figure in his day and generation. In the maternal line the first traceable ancestor was Sir Thomas Stebbins, baronet, of England. Elder John Strong, of Northampton, was an an- cestor on both sides, and both sides have a fine Revolutionary record. Mr. Camp's grandfather, Moses Camp, was a soldier in the Nineteenth Continental Regiment under Colonel Webb, and with his com- pany commanded by Captain Bostwick, took part in the famous crossing of the Delaware at Trenton, on the evening of Christmas Day, 1776, when Washington accomplished his brilliant coup in the face of the English army. A great-grandfather of Mr. Camp was Lieutenant Samuel Gay- lord of the Seventh Connecticut Regi- ment, and a great-uncle on the maternal side was General Giles Jackson, General Gate's chief of staff. Mr. Camp's parents were Samuel and Mercy (Sheldon) Camp, residents of Winsted, Litchfield county, Connecticut.
Caleb Jackson Camp was born in Win- chester, June 12, 1815, and spent the first fifteen years of his life on his father's farm. During this time he attended the local common school, gaining what a bright and alert brain could from the somewhat rudimentary education offered there, and later supplementing this with two years at the village academy. After completing his studies in this institution, removing to Winsted, he secured a posi- tion as clerk in the general store of Lucius Clarke. Mr. Camp's coming to Winsted and engaging in the mercantile business
were for life, and he never changed the one as his place of residence or the other as his occupation. A capacity for hard work and unusual quickness in mastering detail, together with a pleasant manner and the willingness and even desire to do his best in his employer's interests, quickly gained recognition for him, and after only four years, when he was but nineteen years of age, he was taken into partnership by Mr. Clarke. Upon the re- tirement of Mr. Clarke later, the firm be- came known as M. & C. J. Camp, and carried on the same business successfully for many years, becoming a factor in the life of Winsted in more ways than one. It quickly grew under the able manage- ment of Mr. Camp until it became the largest and most prosperous house of the kind in Litchfield county. Indeed, so great grew its reputation, not merely for successful business methods, but for the probity and honesty with which its affairs were managed, that parents anxious for their sons to engage in the mercantile life strove to have them serve their appren- ticeship in the establishment, which might be regarded as a sort of industrial train- ing school for the region. But it is not alone in this manner that the firm of M. & C. J. Camp contributed to the develop- ment of the town. It reached out, or rather Mr. Camp reached out through its instrumentality, beyond the limits of the mercantile business to the control and operation of many enterprises which were of great value in building up the town. Such was the case of the Union Chair Company of Robertsville, which was owned and managed by the Camp firm for thirty-five years. Another of Mr. Camp's ventures, engineered through the firm, was the construction of the first brick building block in Winsted, an in- vestment which proved highly lucrative. A part of this enterprise was the building
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and fitting out of a large public audito- rium, which was not the least successful feature, remaining, as it did, the largest and most popular hall in Winsted for a number of years. Mr. Camp also was in- strumental in introducing stone sidewalks in Winsted, and his firm organized the town's first gas company. But he did not confine his attention to home enterprise exclusively. He was interested in western industry and a great believer in the de- velopment of that vast region. The State of Minnesota especially engaged his at- tention, and in 1874 he organized and founded the Winona Savings Bank, in Minnesota. The institution is now a thriv- ing one, Mr. Camp remaining a trustee for some thirty years. The Winona institu- tion was not the only bank in the organi- zation of which Mr. Camp had a hand. He was one of the twenty-two incorpora- tors who in 1860 founded the Winsted Savings Bank and was a director until his death, he surviving the others by more than thirteen years. He was one of those elected directors of the Hurlburt Bank of Winsted upon its organization in 1857, an office which he continued to hold until his death. He was president of the Con- necticut Western Road, and during his term of office the stock advanced one hundred per cent.
Besides the many business ventures in which Mr. Camp was engaged he was closely associated with many other de- partments of the life of the community. He was greatly interested in the political issues which at that time agitated the country, and was a firm adherent of the principles of the Republican party. He was a devoted member of the Congrega- tional church, and most active in the work of the congregation. He contributed sub- stantially to the support of the many be- nevolences connected with the church and to its advancement generally. He also
gave much of his time to the temperance cause in Winsted. At his death he left a fund of $25,000 to be used in bettering the condition of people who had met with reverses after having seen better times.
Mr. Camp was married, May 22, 1839, to Mary Beach, a native of Winsted, and a daughter of the Rev. James Beach, for thirty-six years the pastor of the Congre- gational church in that place. They were the parents of five children, three of whom survive their parents. They are Mary Mehitable, now Mrs. Hermon E. Curtis, of Redlands, California; Augusta, now Mrs. Franklin A. Resing, of Winona, Minnesota, and Ellen Baldwin, of Win- sted. The two other children, James and Anna, died very young. Mrs. Camp died December 18, 1880, and on November I, 1883, Mr. Camp married Sarah M. Boyd, of Waldoboro, Maine.
HOWE, John Ireland,
Inventor.
John Ireland Howe was born at Ridge- field, Connecticut, July 20, 1793. Having studied medicine, he served several years as a resident physician of the New York Almshouse. In 1828 he secured a patent on a rubber compound, and prepared specifications and drawings of the machin- ery required in the process of compound- ing, although he neglected to apply for a patent on the latter. In 1829 he removed to North Salem, New York, and embarked upon the manufacture of a rubber com- pound, but was unsuccessful. In his own words: "So far as I know, I was the first person who attempted to utilize rubber by combining other substances with it, but I did not happen to stumble upon the right substance." Having seen pins made by hand at the New York Almshouse, and believing they could be more quickly made by machinery, he spent the winter
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of 1830 in experimenting toward this end, and built a machine which, though crude, combined the essential features of the successful mechanism. In the following winter he constructed a successful work- ing model in the factory of R. Hoe & Company, New York, and after the issu- ance of the patent in 1832 this machine was exhibited at the American Institute Fair, where it won a silver medal.
About this time he became associated with his brothers-in-law, Jarvis Brush and Edward Cook, New York merchants, and by their financial aid completed in the spring of 1833 a more nearly perfect ma- chine. He then secured patents in France, England, Scotland and Ireland (1833), and spent the following year in Manches- ter, England, building machines, and un- successfully trying to sell his patents. Early in 1835 he returned to New York, where in the following December he organized the Howe Manufacturing Com- pany, of which he was for thirty years general agent and manager of the manu- facturing department. A factory was established in New York during the winter of 1836, but in 1838 the business was removed to Birmingham, Connecti- cut, where a new rotary machine was invented by him the same year, but not patented until 1840. In 1842 Dr. Howe was awarded a gold medal by the Amer- ican Institute for the best solid-headed pins, made by this machine. He obtained a patent dated December, 1842, on im- provements in the method of sheeting pins, and by combining his own device with that of Samuel Slocum increased the number of packs sheeted in one day by a single person from three to thirty. By utilizing the invention of De Grasse Fowler, he increased the number to about one hundred, and by combining the im- provements of Thaddeus Fowler and Tru- man Piper made a purely automatic ma-
chine which would sheet two hundred and fifty packs of pins in a day. In 1858, by the joint invention of Mr. Piper and Dr. Howe, "mourning" pins were produced of unexcelled smoothness and brilliancy. The "whitening" operation was also greatly facilitated by Dr. Howe's pro- cesses, its rapidity being increased some ten-fold.
He died at Birmingham, Connecticut, September 10, 1876.
GILLETTE, Francis,
Lawyer, Legislator.
Francis Gillette was born in Bloom- field (then a part of Windsor), Hartford county, Connecticut, December 14, 1807, a son of Elder Ashbel and Acsah (Fran- cis) Gillette, and a descendant of the two brothers, Nathan and Jonathan Gillette, who came from France to New England in 1630, and settled first in Dorchester, Massachusetts, then removed to Windsor, Connecticut, when that place was settled in 1635, and became proprietors there.
Francis Gillette was graduated from Yale College in 1829 as valedictorian of his class. He studied law with General W. W. Ellsworth, but on account of ill health decided not to engage in practice, but become a farmer. He was soon, how- ever, called to public life. He was a rep- resentative in the State Legislature, 1832 and 1836; and the unsuccessful candidate of the Liberal party for Governor of Con- necticut in 1841, and of the Liberal and Free Soil parties for several guberna- torial elections. In 1854 he was elected by a coalition of the Whigs, Temperance men and Free-soilers, to fill the vacancy in the United States Senate caused by the resignation of Truman Smith, and he served from, May 25, 1854, to March 4, 1855. He was an active anti-slavery advo- cate, and introduced into the State Legis-
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lature a proposition to strike the word "white" from the State constitution. He was an early member of the Republican party, and a silent partner in the "Even- ing Press" of Hartford, the first paper in the State to support the new party. He was a prominent promoter of the cause of education, and a trustee and for many years president of the State Normal School.
He married, in 1834, Elisabeth Daggett, daughter of Edward and Elisabeth (Dag- gett) Hooker, and a descendant of Thomas Hooker. He died in Hartford, Connecticut, September 30, 1879.
FOSTER, Lafayette Sabine, Legislator, Jurist.
Lafayette Sabine Foster was born in Franklin, Connecticut, November 22, 1806, son of Captain Daniel and Welthea (Ladd) Foster, and a direct descendant of Miles Standish through his grand- mother, Hannah Standish; and of Dr. John Sabin. His father was an officer in the Continental army, and fought at Saratoga, Stillwater and White Plains.
Lafayette S. Foster was graduated from Brown University in 1828, honor man of his class, after having paid his own way by teaching. He continued to teach, meanwhile studying law, and while in charge of an academy at Centerville, Maryland, 1829-30, was admitted to the bar. He returned to Connecticut, con- tinued his study of law under Calvin God- dard at Norwich, and was admitted to the Connecticut bar in 1831. He practiced in Hampton, Connecticut, 1831-34, and then settled in Norwich, where in 1835 he edited "The Republican," a Whig news- paper. He was a representative in the State Legislature, 1839-40, 1846-48, and 1854, and was speaker during the last three terms. He was twice defeated as a
Whig candidate for Governor of the State; was mayor of Norwich, 1851-52; and United States Senator, 1855-61, and 1861-67, being president of the Senate pro tempore from March 7, 1865, to March 2, 1867, and acting Vice-President of the United States from April 15, 1865, to March 2, 1867. He was a conservative Republican, and opposed the repeal of the fugitive slave act and the bill granting the franchise to colored men in the District of Columbia without an educational qualification. He also opposed the repeal of the Missouri Compromise and the Le- compton Constitution for Kansas. He withdrew from the canvass as a nominee for Senator for a third term in 1866, re- turned to the practice of law, and in 1869 declined the chair of law in Yale College, but was lecturer on "Parliamentary Law and legislation," there, 1875-80. He was State representative and speaker of the house in 1870, resigning in June of that year to take his seat as judge of the Su- preme Court of the State. In 1872 he sup- ported Horace Greeley for President, and in 1874 was the defeated candidate for representative in Congress. He was re- tired as Supreme Court judge, by age limit, in 1876, and resumed the practice of law. He was commissioner from Con- necticut to settle the State boundary with New York in 1878-79, and to purchase Fisher's Island in 1878. He was vice- president of the American Bible Society. He gave his library to the town of Nor- wich, and his residence for the use of the Norwich Free Academy.
He was married in 1858 to Kate God- frey, of Southport, Connecticut, and his widow and four children survived him. Brown University conferred upon him the degree of Doctor of Laws in 1851. He died in Norwich. Connecticut, September 19, 1880.
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KINGSBURY, Frederick J.,
Man of Affairs.
Frederick John Kingsbury, whose death on September 30, 1910, at the age of eighty-seven years, deprived the city of Waterbury, Connecticut, of one of its best known and most distinguished citizens, was a member of a very ancient English family, the name of Kingsbury or Kynges- bury, as it was originally spelled, being frequently met with in the fifteenth cen- tury and even that preceding it. As early as 1300 we hear of one Gilbert de Kings- bury, a churchman of Kingsbury, in War- wickshire, with which place the name is very probably associated in its origin. There were also Kingsburys in Suffolk and other counties in that part of Eng- land a little later. The relationship of the various bearers of the name at that time is not entirely obtainable, but a family be- comes traceable in Suffolk in the early part of the sixteenth century, and from the time of John Kyngesbury, of Great Cornard, Suffolkshire, who died on Au- gust 10, 1539, the line is continuous and unbroken down to the present day.
It was about one hundred years after this date that Henry Kingsbury, of the sixth generation from the John mentioned above, came to this country from Assing- ton, Suffolkshire, with John Winthrop, and in 1638 is recorded as one of the founders of Ipswich, Massachusetts, in that year. The Kingsburys were from their advent here active members of the community, and became prominent in general affairs, religious, civil and mili- tary, many of them distinguishing them- selves greatly in the services they per- formed for their fellow colonists. The family was represented during the Revo- lution by Judge John Kingsbury, who at the breaking out of the struggle was a student in Yale College. He served his
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