USA > Connecticut > Encyclopedia of Connecticut biography, genealogical-memorial; representative citizens, v. 1 > Part 49
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tures, and was frequently called upon as orator for historical celebrations. A series of parochial lectures in his own church led to the preparation of the "History of the Episcopal Church in Connecticut," his first large work. The first volume was printed in 1865, the second in 1868. This book was a labor of love. He was care- ful in research, and thorough in verify- ing facts, seeking the original records and corresponding with living witnesses to the facts of which he was writing. In later years he took a unique place as ad- viser and counsellor in the church. He was a constant and productive worker, taking few and brief vacations. He went abroad in 1870, and was welcomed heart- ily in England and Scotland ; his history had made him known across the sea, and he formed many new friendships there. In 1868 he was a member of the general convention of the Protestant Episcopal church, composed of the house of bishops and the house of clerical and lay depu- ties, four from each diocese. He sat in eight conventions, and presided over the lower house in 1880 and 1883. He always served on the most important commit- tees, and exerted a potent influence in the deliberations of the conventions, though he was not given to frequent speaking. He undertook the writing of a biography of Dr. Samuel Johnson, commonly known as the Father of the Episcopal Church in Connecticut, and also the first president of Columbia College. He spent three arduous years in the preparation of this work, which was published in 1873. Dr. Johnson, it may be said, was the first in Connecticut to teach the Copernican the- ory of astronomy, when Yale College and the Pope of Rome still agreed that the sun went around the earth. Dr. Beards- ley's "Life of Bishop Seabury" was finished in 1880, and in the same year he attended the provincial synod of the Church of
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England, at Montreal, as representative of the American Episcopal church.
He loved his work, his church, and the services of the church, and often attended divine services in other churches. He was rarely disabled by sickness, and en- joyed uniformly good health all his life. The first Sunday of August, 1890, was the first time in forty years, unless out of the country, when he failed to be present on the first Sunday of the month to admin- ister communion. A collection of his his- torical papers and addresses at various anniversaries was made at the request of
his friends, and published under the title of "Addresses and Discourses." In 1884 he was one of a deputation from Connec- ticut to Scotland and the Scotch Episco- pal church to commemorate the conse- cration of Bishop Seabury, of Connecti- cut, at Aberdeen, and to renew and strengthen the bond between the two Episcopal churches. He had many friends in Scotland then to welcome him. He was interested in the new diocesan school called St. Margaret's for girls, established in Waterbury in 1875, and in the raising of the diocesan fund for the support of the bishop to one hundred thousand dollars, bringing much relief to the churches and parishes and improving the financial con- dition of the diocese. Friendship with Philip Marett, to whom New Haven owes in great measure its public library, led to placing Dr. Beardsley in a position of great trust and responsibility in the dis- position of his estate at the death of his daughter, Mrs. Gifford. Many worthy in- stitutions were benefited. Dr. Beardsley was the one man above all others in whom Bishop Williams trusted, and on whom he leaned in later years.
Dr. Beardsley was a remarkably wise man; shrewd in good sense, able to look at things in a quiet, judicial way, to see the probable course of things and the end from the beginning. It
was New England wisdom of a good kind. He had his own way of judging men, and he felt strongly on many questions; but he measured men quite accurately, and made not many mis- takes. He knew well the Connecticut parishes, and was in full sympathy with them in their desire to keep in the old paths. He knew how the people in the parishes felt, what traditions were behind them, what feelings and motives and desires ap- pealed to them and were likely to influence them. Of course Dr. Beardsley was a conservative, a man not given to change, distrusting a good many new methods and ideas in the religious world. He trusted to the ministry of the Word and Sacraments, to the preaching of the Gospel, to ordinary parochial ministration, to build up the church.
He made no selfish struggle for place or power. He did his work, and let it pass for what it might. He did the work close at hand, and took up one task after another as they came to him. * * * Of highest ideals as regards integrity and honesty and justice, a man of great gentleness and kind- ness, his life lightened up with a sense of humor, a plain, approachable, straightforward man of the best New England type, reverent, God-fearing, as- sociated in a helpful way with many institutions and interests, very useful in his day and gener- ation, a man of unusual wisdom and judgment, a lover of truth in speech and in writing, and a lover of righteousness-having large if quiet part in many movements which make for religion and for common good. * * * He kept his interest in life, and he worked on to the end: no break in his usefulness or his work, having the reward of temperate, orderly, godly living and high think- ing.
The foregoing is cited from the address of Rt. Rev. Bishop Edwin S. Lines, D. D., on the occasion of the presentation to the New Haven Colony Historical Society of a portrait of Dr. Beardsley, November 19, 1902. Dr. Lines was then president of this society. Dr. Beardsley was its vice- president 1862-73, and its president 1873- 84, and to him the society owes much of its importance and possessions. He died December 21, 1891.
Dr. Beardsley published: "Historical Address at Cheshire" (1844) ; "History of the Episcopal Church in Connecticut," of
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which a second edition was published in 1869 in two volumes; "History of St. Peter's Church at Cheshire" (1837) ; "Life and Career of Samuel Johnson, D. D." (1874) ; "Life and Times of William Sam- uel Johnson" (1876) ; and other works. He contributed a number of papers that are published in the proceedings of the New Haven Colony Historical Society.
He married, in Cheshire, Jane Margaret Matthews, born at St. Simon's Island, Georgia, March 20, 1824, died August 30, 1851, daughter of Rev. Edmund Mat- thews, of St. Simon's, Georgia ; her father was born at Charleston, South Carolina. Mrs. Beardsley was the only daughter. She had a brother, Dr. Henry W. E. Mat- thews. Mrs. Matthews and daughter came north to live among friends in the village of Cheshire. The only child of Dr. and Mrs. Beardsley was Elisabeth Margaret, born at Cheshire, March 16, 1844, living at New Haven, and well known in church and society.
SEYMOUR, Edward Woodruff, Lawyer, Legislator, Jurist.
Edward Woodruff Seymour was born August 30, 1832, at Litchfield, Connecti- cut, son of Origen Storrs and Lucy M. (Woodruff) Seymour. He was a member of a most illustrious family which for hun- dreds of years traced its descent in this country and in England.
Judge Seymour passed practically his entire life in his native town, but spent a part of his boyhood in Farmington, Con- necticut, where he attended the Classical School of Simeon and Edward L. Hart, preparing himself for a collegiate course, and later spent four years at New Haven while a student in Yale University. At the latter institution he was a member of the class of 1853, famous for the many notable men it contained, and graduated
in that year with the degree of Bachelor of Arts. He took up the study of law in his father's office, and in 1856 was admit- ted to the bar in Litchfield county. He at once began practice in association with his father, and from the outset was suc- cessful. In 1870 his father was elected a judge of the Supreme Court of Errors in Connecticut, and three years later became Chief Justice. All participation on the part of the elder man in the practice of law was cut short by this election, and his son conducted the work alone for five years, when he formed a new partnership with his younger brother, Morris W. Sey- mour, the two making their headquarters in Bridgeport, where a very large prac- tice was built up.
Following in the footsteps of his father and of many of his ancestors, Judge Sey- mour early turned his attention to poli- tics and the conduct of public affairs. He was chosen judge of probate ; in 1859 was elected to represent his native town in the State Legislature, serving in that year and the next, and again during the term of 1870-71 ; in 1882 he was elected a State Senator, and was continued in that office until 1886; in 1889 became an asso- ciate of the Supreme Court of Errors, and he served but three years therein when death interrupted his brilliant and useful career, while still his powers and facul- ties were in their very prime. As a mem- ber of the Supreme Court of Errors, by his conduct on that high tribunal, Judge Seymour worthily crowned a reputation already most enviable, yet there seems but little doubt that had his life been spared him through those maturer years when, as a rule, the chief laurels of the jurist are won, he would have reached even higher dignities and honors. Of his services on this bench Judge Augustus H. Fenn said at the time of his death : "While of his services upon that court,
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this is neither the time nor place to speak with fullness, it has been the privilege of the writer to know them somewhat thor- oughly, and because of such knowledge he can the more truly bear witness of the rare spirit of fidelity to duty, to justice, to law, as a living, pervading and benefi- cent rule of action, with which, whether upon the bench listening to and weighing the arguments and contentions of coun- sel, in private study in the consultation room, or in the written opinions of the court which bear his name, the high duties of that great office were faithfully discharged."
On May 12, 1864, Judge Seymour mar- ried Mary Floyd Talmadge, a native of New York City, born May 26, 1831, a daughter of Frederick Augustus and Eliz- abeth (Canfield) Talmadge, of that place. Mrs. Seymour was a member of an illus- trious New England family which has re- sided there since about the year 1630, and numbers among her ancestors the re- nowned Colonel Benjamin Talmadge, of Revolutionary fame. Judge Seymour died October 16, 1892, when but sixty years of age, and in the midst of a bril- liant career.
WAINWRIGHT, William A. M., Eminent Physician.
Peter Wainwright, immigrant ancestor of Dr. William A. M. Wainwright, was an English merchant, and settled in Boston, Massachusetts, after the Revolution ; after his marriage to Elizabeth Mayhew he went to Liverpool, England, but returned to Boston in 1801. His son, Rev. Jonathan Mayhew Wainwright, was born in Liver- pool, England, February 24, 1792, died in New York City, September 21, 1854; came to the United States in 1801 ; gradu- ated at Harvard College in 1812; was ad- mitted to the priesthood of the Episcopal
church in Christ Church, Hartford, Con- necticut, August 16, 1817, and became as- sistant minister of Trinity Church, New York, in 1819, rector of Grace Church, New York, 1821, and of Trinity Church, Boston, 1834; became assistant minister of Trinity Church, New York (St. John's Chapel), 1838, and was consecrated bishop of the Diocese of New York, No- vember 10, 1852; he married, at Hartford, 1818, Amelia Maria Phelps, born in New Haven, January 24, 1797, and they were the parents of Dr. Wainwright, of this review.
William Augustus Muhlenberg Wain- wright, M. D., son of Rev. Jonathan May- hew and Amelia Maria (Phelps) Wain- wright, was born in New York City, Au- gust 13, 1844, and was the youngest of fourteen children.
He received his name from Rev. Wil- liam Augustus Muhlenberg, the founder of St. Luke's Hospital, New York City. His earlier education was at a private school, and he graduated from Trinity College, Hartford, 1864. He began the study of medicine under the tuition of Doctors Alexander Hosack and Henry B. Sands, of New York, and after success- fully passing his examination in Decem- ber, 1866, went into the New York Hos- pital. He was interne there from March to December. 1865, and received his di- ploma after two years' service in the hos- pital. He settled in Hartford, where he afterwards made his home. In 1890 he was elected a member of the board of medical visitors to the Retreat for the In- sane in Hartford. In 1872 he was elected attending physician and surgeon of the Hartford Hospital, and later a visiting surgeon. He was appointed assistant sur- geon of the first company of Governor's Foot Guards under the command of Ma- jor John C. Kinney, and held that position for ten years. He was appointed medical
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supervisor for the State Mutual Benefit Life Insurance Company of New Jersey, the Union Mutual Company of Maine, and the United States Life Insurance Com- pany of New York, and one of the medical examiners of these companies and of the Mutual Life Company of New York. He was medical examiner of the Charter Oak Life Company, and after the death of Dr. Jackson was made medical director, and filled that position until the company be- came insolvent. He was a member of the American Medical Association and of the State Medical Society. For several years he was clerk of the Hartford County Medical Society, that being the only offi- cer whose duties continued from year to year. He was president of the society in the one hundredth year of its existence, and made a brilliant presiding officer through all the exercises of the Centen- nial celebration. He was a forceful and pleasing speaker. He was a member and vestryman of St. John's Church, Hart- ford, and was several times a delegate to the State Diocesan convention, and was sent as delegate to the general convention of the church at New York in 1889 and at Baltimore in 1890. At the first dinner and annual meeting of the Church Club of the diocese of Connecticut, in January, 1893, he was chosen president of the club, which was a marked compliment. In 1865 he became a member of Holland Lodge, No. 8, Free Masons, of New York City, and on removing to Hartford joined the St. Johns Lodge. He was also an active member of the Connecticut Chap- ter of the Sons of the American Revolu- tion, and a member of the board of man- agers. His contributions to medical liter- ature have been able and carefully pre- pared. He wrote the medical history chapter for the "Memorial History of Hartford County," and had reported sev- eral cases and read various papers before
the State society. At the centennial an- niversary of the Connecticut Medical So- ciety, his paper was "Medico-Legal As- pects of Chloroform." It was a consider- ation of a surgeon's accountability when his patient dies under the effects of the anesthetic given for an operation. He died at Hartford, September 24, 1894.
He married, January 14, 1869, Helena Barker, daughter of Thomas Grosvenor and Sarah A. (Jones) Talcott. Children : Mabel Wyllys, born December 9, 1869; John Howard, June 15, 1871, died same day; Talcott, May 22, 1872, died July 3, 1876; Jonathan Mayhew, February 20, 1873; John Ledyard, May 10, 1875, died August 29, 1875; Helena Talcott, March 28, 1877, died December 30, 1878; Eliza- beth Mayhew, April 16, 1878; Katherine Grosvenor, December 28, 1880, died July 15, 1881; William Talcott, August 24, 1883, died July 29, 1884; Philip Stanley, May 12, 1885 ; Margaret, October 26, 1887, died February, 1888.
HAMMOND, Henry,
Anti-Slavery Advocate, Legislator.
The ancestors of Hon. Henry Hammond were prominent in the French and In- dian wars, and whether as mechanics or farmers fulfilled their destiny as able and conscientious members of their respective communities. Eleazer Waterman Ham- mond, father of Hon. Henry Hammond, was born in Johnston, Rhode Island, May 12, 1772, and died at Pomfret Landing, Windham county, Connecticut, March 23, 1855. He learned the trade of printing, and found employment in New York, Bos- ton and New London. He married Ann M. Brown, born in Pomfret, Connecticut, November 6, 1783, died June 21, 1847.
Hon. Henry Hammond was born at Pomfret Landing, Windham county, Con- necticut, October 15, 1813, and died at his
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home in Danielson, same State, April 3, 1895. After acquiring a meagre education he went to Brooklyn, Connecticut, where he worked at the trade of blacksmith, and during his leisure time he improved his mind by careful reading, having access to the library of Judge Robinson, of that town. After leaving Brooklyn, Mr. Ham- mond lived for a time in Dudley, Massa- chusetts, and in 1840 returned to his native town, and later opened a black- smith shop which he conducted until 1851, in which year he removed to Danielson, and for the following two years was em- ployed as bookkeeper in the store of Wil- liam Humes. He assisted in forming at Brooklyn, Connecticut, the first anti- slavery society in the State and also founded a similar one in Dudley, Massa- chusetts, in company with his brother, Stephen W. Hammond, and the Rev. Jo- seph D. Merrill and Mr. Hammond were sent as delegates to the memorable con- vention in Boston, where was first agitated the question of a political anti-slavery plank; in this meeting all phases of the subject were exhaustively discussed, and such men as the Rev. Mr. Phelps, who died in prison, charged with assist- ing fugitive slaves to reach Canada, were among the forceful and impressive speakers. In 1840 Mr. Hammond organ- ized the Windham County Liberty Asso- ciation, and in 1847 the first general Na- tional Anti-Slavery Convention was called at Buffalo, New York, to which Mr. Ham- mond and Sherman M. Booth were sent as delegates from Connecticut. Mr. Ham- mond was selected as one of the members of the committee on resolutions, and was thus associated with Salmon P. Chase, of Ohio; Gerritt Smith, of New York ; Thad- deus Stevens, of Pennsylvania, and others who became prominent in the great strug- gle, and the resolutions adopted by this convention became the memorable Buffalo
platform. Mr. Hammond was active in the affairs of the Liberty party. He cast his first presidential vote for Hon. James G. Birney, the candidate for the Liberty party, and afterward for Hon. John P. Hale and Martin Van Buren, candidates respec- tively of the Free Soil and Free Democracy parties, and in 1852, in Baltimore, where the American party was born, Mr. Ham- mond entered that organization for the purpose of controlling in it the interests of anti-slavery, and upon the birth of the Republican party he began a career of hard work, and was afterward one of the most prominent leaders of the State. In 1854 he was a member of the House of Representatives ; in 1865 a member of the House; represented the Sixteenth Dis- trict in the Senate during 1881-82; was appointed collector of internal revenue for the Third District of Connecticut by President Johnson, and held many other prominent positions of trust. He was president of the First National Bank of Killingly, and an active trustee of the Windham County Savings Bank, and an active director of the Danielson Cotton Company.
Mr. Hammond married, April 8, 1840, Emma Dorrance, born in Brooklyn, Con- necticut, April 4, 1813, daughter of Sam- uel and Amy (Kenyon) Dorrance.
MORRIS, Luzon Burritt,
Legislator, Governor.
Luzon Burritt Morris, thirty-seventh Governor of Connecticut (1893-95), was born at Newtown, Fairfield county, Con- necticut, April 16, 1827, son of Eli Gould and Lydia (Bennett) Morris.
At the age of seventeen he was engaged in tool-making and blacksmithing to earn means to go on with his education, and at the age of twenty-one he entered the Connecticut Literary Institute at Suffield.
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He worked his way through Yale College with the class of 1854, but had not suffi- cient means to graduate with his class. He received his degree in 1858. In col- lege, notwithstanding the fact that his financial resources were extremely moder- ate, he received much attention from the faculty and students. He was an eloquent debater in the various societies and a popular member of the D. K. E. and Skull and Bones societies. He supported him- self in college by work done in vacations at the edge-tool factory in Seymour.
After leaving college, he began the study of law, was admitted to the bar in 1856, and meantime was elected a member of the Legislature from the town of Sey- mour, being reelected in 1856. In 1870 he was representative from New Haven; in 1874 he was State Senator from the old Fourth District, and president pro tem- pore of the Senate, and in 1876 and sub- sequently several times represented New Haven in the House. He was six times elected judge of probate for the district of New Haven. He was the candidate of the Democratic party for Governor in 1888, when he received a plurality of 1,475 votes, and again in 1890, when he received a plurality of 3,666 votes, which was a majority upon the face of the returns, but his inauguration in regular form at the opening of the legislative session follow- ing in January, 1891, was defeated by the Republicans on technicalities which long occupied the attention of the courts. Ac- cording to the State Constitution, a major- ity of all votes cast is required to elect. On his third candidacy, in 1892, he re- ceived a plurality of 6,100 votes, being a majority of 995, and his election was de- clared amid much enthusiasm.
In his own city he was a member of the Board of Education, president of the Con- necticut Savings Bank, and a director of the New York, New Haven & Hartford
Railroad. Judge Morris' career was one of uninterrupted success. He was chairman of the commission appointed by the Legis- lature of Connecticut to revise the probate laws. He was early admitted to the New Haven bar, and became one of its most distinguished members. His personal character and honorable record gave him a high place in the esteem of his associ- ates and fellow citizens. He was married, in 1856, to Eugenia L. Tuttle, who bore him six children. Judge Morris was stricken with apoplexy, August 22, 1895, and died a few hours later.
HARRISON, Henry Baldwin, Legislator, Governor.
Henry Baldwin Harrison, thirty-fourth Governor of Connecticut (1885-87), was born in New Haven, Connecticut, Sep- tember II, 1821. He studied at the Lan- castrian School at the same place, and afterwards went to Yale College, where he took the academic course, and was valedictorian of his class in 1846. After leaving college he began to practice law in 1848.
In 1854 he was nominated by the Whig party for Senator from the Fourth Dis- trict of Connecticut, and was elected by a large majority. He was chairman of the committee on temperance legislation, and in that capacity framed the Maine law of the State. He also drafted the personal liberty bill, which practically annulled the fugitive slave law. This bill imposed a penalty of $5,000 fine and five years in State prison for pretending that a free person was a slave, while similar pro- vision was made for perjurers, and strong provisions were inserted in order to secure the enforcement of the law. Upon the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska bill, Mr. Harrison threw himself warmly into the slavery question. He was one of the few
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men in Connecticut who assisted in the organization of the Republican party, and became its candidate for Lieutenant-Gov- ernor in 1856, Gideon Welles, of Hartford, afterwards United States Secretary of the Navy, being the nominee for Governor. Of course, these candidates were defeated, as this was the mere infancy of the party. During the period immediately preceding the Civil War, Mr. Harrison was an earnest and faithful Republican. While that struggle was on, he continued to be a strong friend of the party, but he would accept no office. He pursued his profes- sion steadily and made a reputation for himself, equal to that of any one in the State. It fell to him to conduct or assist in conducting a number of important cases, one of which, for instance, was that of the murderer, Willard Clark, who was acquitted on the ground of insanity. But Mr. Harrison was more particularly en- gaged in professional work as counsel for banks and corporations and in disputed wills, settlement of estates, and, in a gen- eral way, in financial matters. He was a very methodical and persistent worker, rather than what is commonly termed a genius ; yet he was not less successful on that account.
In 1865 Mr. Harrison was elected rep- resentative from New Haven to the lower house of the Legislature, and was made chairman of the committees on railroads and Federal relations. During the first session he made an elaborate speech in favor of amending the constitution by erasing the word "white" so as to allow colored men to vote. Mr. Harrison was very prominent and influential in debate, and he was frequently spoken of as a forthcoming candidate for Governor. He could have had the nomination in 1866, but he withdrew in favor of General Haw- ley, believing that the war-stained patriot deserved the preference. In 1873 he was
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