USA > Connecticut > Encyclopedia of Connecticut biography, genealogical-memorial; representative citizens, v.2 > Part 3
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The public life of Mr. English was be- gun in 1836, when he first took part in the municipal government of New Haven. After that he served in the State Legisla- ture, first in the General Assembly, and afterwards for several years as a member of the Senate. He was elected a member of Congress in the first year of the Civil War, and served until its close, when he refused renomination, though President Lincoln expressed his personal desire that the Republicans endorse his nomination and make it unanimous in his congres- sional district. In Congress he was con- spicuous as a bold and consistent war Democrat, voting early in his term for the bill relating to the District of Colum- bia which united the emancipation of the slaves with compensation to the masters, and later advocating general emancipa- tion. In 1867 he was elected Governor of Connecticut, by his personal popularity carrying the election at a time when nearly every State in the Union was under the domination of the Republicans, and he was reelected in 1868, and again in 1870. In 1868 he was nominated as one of the Democratic presidential elec- tors for the State-at-large, and was a con- spicuous candidate before the Democratic National Convention for the presidency of the United States. As Governor, he attained the title of "Father of the Free School System," through his strenuous efforts to establish a system of education which would open the schools to every child in the State, without distinction, and free of all charge or expense. Four years after the expiration of his govern- orship he was elected to the United States Senate, in which he sat in 1875-77.
Governor English was deeply interested in the advancement of education, and in several projects for the improvement of his native State. He donated the sum
of $20,000 to lay out the English Drive in East Rock Park, New Haven, and was liberal in his gifts to Yale University. with which he was connected as council- lor of the Sheffield Scientific School. In 1873 he donated a large sum to establish a library for Yale Law School, which was of inestimable benefit at that time, the library being in a very incomplete state.
He was married, January 25, 1835, to Caroline Augusta Fowler, daughter of Timothy Fowler and a descendant of one of the earliest New Haven settlers. Four children were born to them, one of whom, Henry, lived to maturity. Governor Eng- lish died in New Haven, Connecticut, March 2, 1890.
ALCOTT, Amos B.,
Educator, Reformer.
Amos Bronson Alcott was born at Wolcott, Connecticut, November 29, 1799. He began his education in the "Cross- roads school house" near his humble home. Hungry for knowledge, he visited on Saturday afternoons the farmhouses for miles around to read the few books he might find there. In 1813 he went to Cheshire as errand boy for his uncle, and had opportunity to attend the district school which, as its teacher, he after- wards made famous. From 1818 to 1823 he was employed as a canvasser in the Southern States.
In 1823 he opened an infant school, and gained quite a reputation by his innova- tions in discarding textbooks and teach- ing by conversation. The school attracted so much attention that in 1828 he opened another in Boston, where he met with the opposition of the press, and his methods were held up to ridicule. This dis- couraged him and he gave up his school. But, as has been well said. "he achieved what was probably his greatest success in life by marrying, in 1830, Miss Abby
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May." All reports concur in extolling her patience, endurance and placid good nature under much privation and serious perplexity. She reflected Mr. Alcott's own beautiful spirit, and their home, however humble, was a very happy and attractive one. For about three years after his marriage Mr. Alcott endeavored to establish a school in Germantown, Pennsylvania, and it was in this place that his talented daughter, Louisa May, was born. Not meeting with the success he desired, Mr. Alcott returned to Boston with his family and undertook a school in the old Masonic Temple, in Tremont street, with Margaret Fuller and Eliza- beth P. Peabody as his assistants. The school had a wide reputation, and for several years good success, but finally lost caste and failed. His views, as set forth in "Conversations with Children on the Gospels," then just published, induced some of his patrons to remove their chil- dren from his school, and others were seriously annoyed when he received a colored girl as a pupil. A second time the school was closed, and Mr. Alcott removed to Concord, Massachusetts, at the instigation of Ralph Waldo Emerson. Mr. Alcott pursued his studies in reform, in social economics, and in theology, making a very humble living by lectures and conversations. Mr. Emerson said of him: "I think he has more faith in the ideal than any man I have known;" and his daughter, in her grand way, referring to his reputation, and knowing the close poverty his home had witnessed, gave the definition of a philosopher as, "a man in a balloon, with his family and friends holding the ropes which confine him to earth, and trying to haul him down."
Mr. Alcott visited England in 1842 at the invitation of James P. Greave's, of London, an educational theorist and friend of Pestalozzi. Mr. Greaves died before his arrival, but he was cordially
received by his friends, and on his return was accompanied by two of these, Charles Lane and H. G. Wright. These gentle- men, impressed with Mr. Alcott's enthusi- asm, went with him to Harvard, Massa- chusetts, where Mr. Lane purchased a farm, which was called "Fruitlands." Here it was proposed to gather a com- munity that should live in the region of high thought on a vegetable diet. The farm was sold; his English friends re- turned home; and Mr. Alcott returned to Concord. Here he remained, eking out an often-time scanty living by lectures and conversations in public halls or private homes throughout the country. The topics he presented were largely of a transcendental character, although in- cluding a wide range of purely practical questions. It was with difficulty that Mr. Alcott could write. Emerson said of him : "When he sits down to write, all of his genius leaves him-he gives you the shells and throws away the kernel of his thought." In fact, his first book, "Tablets," was published as late as 1868, when he was sixty-nine years old, al- though from 1839 to 1842 he had con- tributed frequently to the "Dial" in a series of papers called "Orphic Sayings." He was a man of courage and indomit- able resolution. When Garrison was dragged through the streets of Boston, Alcott was close beside him, and, when one remonstrated, said, "I do not see why my body is not as fit for a bullet as any other." His publications include : "Con- cord Days" (1872) ; "Table Talk" (1877) ; "Sonnets and Canzonets" (1877) ; and many magazine articles. He died March 4, 1888.
WAITE, Morrison R.,
Legislator, Jurist.
Morrison Remick Waite was born in Lyme, Connecticut, November 29, 1816,
Conn-2-2
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son of Chief Justice Henry Matson and Maria (Selden) Waite, and grandson of Colonel Richard Selden. He was gradu- ated from Yale College, A. B. 1837, A. M. 1840; studied law in his father's office and with Samuel M. Young, of Maumee City, Ohio, with whom he entered into partnership after his admission to the bar in 1839.
In 1850 he removed to Toledo, Ohio, where he was joined in 1852 by his part- ner, the firm of Young & Waite continu- ing until he established a partnership with his youngest brother Richard. He was elected a Whig representative to the Ohio Legislature in 1849, and was defeated as a Republican candidate for the Thirty- eighth Congress in 1862. He subsequently declined an appointment on the supreme bench of Ohio, and with Caleb Cushing and William M. Evarts, acted as counsel for the United States in the arbitration at Geneva, Switzerland, 1872-73, submitting an argument on the question of the liability of Great Britain for permitting the Anglo-Confederate steamers to take supplies of coal in her ports, the argu- ment being subsequently published. He was admitted to practice in the United States Supreme Court in January, 1873. In May of the same year he was a delegate from Lucas county, Ohio, by nomination of both parties, to the State Constitutional Convention, and was chosen president of that body. In January, 1874, he was nominated by President Grant and unanimously confirmed by the Senate, Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, succeeding Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase, serving with great ability until his death. In 1876 he refused the urgent demands of his friends to become the Republican candidate for the presidency. He received the honorary degree of LL. D. from Yale University in 1872; from Kenyon College in 1874; from the Ohio State University in 1879; and
from Columbia University in 1887. He was a trustee of the Peabody Education Fund, 1874-88, serving on the standing committee of southern education and on the special committee of three appointed to request aid from Congress. He was a fellow of Yale University, 1882-88.
He was married, September 21, 1840, to Amelia C. Warner, of Lyme, Connecticut. He died in Washington, D. C., March 23, 1888.
STOWE, Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher),
Authoress.
Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe was born in Litchfield, Connecticut, June 14, 18II, daughter of the famous Dr. Lyman Beecher and his first wife, Roxanna (Foote) Beecher, and sister of the cele- brated Rev. Henry Ward Beecher.
Her mother dying when she was four years old, she was taken by relatives to Guilford, Connecticut, and there received her early education. At the age of ten she entered Litchfield Academy where she began the writing of compositions, one of which, at a school exhibition attended by a highly intelligent audience, was read by the principal of the academy. The topic was, "Can the Immortality of the Soul be Proved by the Light of Nature?" "Who wrote that?" asked Rev. Dr. Beech- er, sitting by. "Your daughter, sir," was the answer, and the juvenile author many years afterward declared that that was the proudest moment of her life. This production, which is preserved in Mrs. Stowe's "Life and Works," has always been considered an extraordinary article viewed as the work of so young a person. In that same year the girl entered the school of her sister, Catherine, at Hart- ford, Connecticut, and to which she re- turned in 1828 after a brief absence in which she prepared herself for giving instructions in drawing and painting.
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Three years more were passed in Bos- ton, Guilford and Hartford. In 1832, the two sisters with their father and his family went to Cincinnati, Ohio, where Dr. Beecher had entered upon the presi- dency of Lane Theological Seminary. Later she entered into competition for a fifty-dollar prize for the best short maga- zine story, the offer of a publisher, and which was awarded to her for "Uncle Lot," republished in her subsequent col- lection under the title of "The May- flower." In 1833 she made a trip across the river from Cincinnati into Kentucky where she visited an estate where she had opportunity to witness the workings of the slavery system, and met one whom she figured as Colonel Shelby in her "Uncle Tom's Cabin." In January, 1836, she married Professor Calvin E. Stowe, Professor of Sacred Literature in Lane Theological Seminary. He soon made a voyage to Europe, she remaining in Cin- cinnati, writing short stories, articles and essays for the "Western Monthly Maga- zine" and the "New York Evangelist," and also assisted her brother, Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, in his temporary position as editor of the "Cincinnati Daily Jour- nal."
During the troublous days of the slavery agitation, Lane Theological Semi- nary was a hot-bed of abolition. The office of "The Philanthropist," an anti- slavery paper, having been wrecked by a mob, she used her pen industriously in deprecating such lawlessness. However, her letters indicate that at this time, while anti-slavery in her sympathies, she was not a declared Abolitionist. In 1839 she engaged as a servant a colored girl from Kentucky, one who had been a slave, but, having been brought into Ohio and left there by her mistress, became under Ohio law a free woman. The girl's master, however, undertook to take her back into slavery, whereupon Professor Stowe and
Henry Ward Beecher, both armed, took the girl in a wagon by unfrequented roads, far into the country, and left her with an old anti-slavery Quaker, John Van Zandt. Upon this incident Mrs Stowe constructed the episode of the escape of the girl from Tom Soker and Marks, in "Uncle Tom's Cabin."
In September, 1849, Professor Stowe accepted the Collins Professorship of Na- tural and Revealed Religion at Bowdoin (Maine) College, and about this time one of the best known of the minor books of Mrs. Stowe was written-"Earthly Care, a Heavenly Discipline." In February, 1851, at the communion service in the col- lege church at Brunswick, a scene came to Mrs. Stowe's mind which suggested her description of the death of Uncle Tom. On reaching her home she at once wrote it out and read it to the family. The first chapter of her great story was sent to the "National Era," in April, of the same year, and was announced to run in the paper for three months, but it was begun in the paper in June, and was not completed until April 1, 1852. From its early chapters it was hailed by competent critics as the most powerful production ever contributed to the magazine litera- ture of the country, placing the writer in the foremost ranks of American authors. The price she received for it as a serial was three hundred dollars. John P. Jewett, a Boston publisher, contracted to publish it in book form, Mrs. Stowe was to receive a ten per cent. royalty on sales. The agreement was signed March 13. 1852, and March 20 the first edition of five thousand copies was issued, three thousand being sold that day. A second edition was issued the following week, a third on April Ist, and within a year more than three hundred thousand had been sold in the United States. The first Lon- don edition of seven thousand copies was printed in April, 1852, and from that time
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to December, 1852, twelve different edi- tions were published, and within the year no less than eighteen different London publishing houses were engaged in sup- plying the demand. The aggregate num- ber of copies circulated in Great Britain and the colonies up to the year 1889 was estimated by Sampson Low, the English publisher, at over 1,500,000. In August, 1852, "Uncle Tom's Cabin" was drama- tized in the United States without the knowledge of Mrs. Stowe, and in Septem- ber, of the same year, it was the attrac- tion at the Royal Victoria and the Great National Standard theatres in London. Nineteen translations of the work have made their appearance, which arranged in the alphabetical order of their languages, are as follows: Armenian, Bohemian, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Flemish, French, German, Hungarian, Illyrian, Italian, Polish, Portugese, Roman or modern Greek, Russian, Servian, Spanish, Walla- chian and Welsh. "Dred, A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp," was issued in 1856, and "The Minister's Wooing," in 1859. The full list of Mrs. Stowe's publications numbers thirty-two volumes.
In 1853 Mrs. Stowe visited Scotland, England, France, Switzerland and Ger- many, returning home in the autumn, when she published her "Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin," containing the original facts, anecdotes and documents upon which that story was founded, with stories parallel to those told of Uncle Tom. During her absence in Europe her husband had become Professor of Sacred Literature in the Theological Seminary (Congregational) at Andover, Massachu- setts, where the family made their home until 1863, when a final removal was made to Hartford, Connecticut. In 1867 Mrs. Stowe purchased "Mandarin." : winter home in Florida, and divided her time between the residence in Hartford
and "Mandarin." Professor Stowe died in Hartford in 1886, and Mrs. Stowe died in the same city, July 1, 1896.
HAWLEY, Joseph R., Soldier, Statesman.
Joseph Roswell Hawley was born in Stewartsville, North Carolina, October 31, 1826; son of the Rev. Francis and Mary (McLeod) Hawley. His father, a Baptist minister, returned to Connecticut, his native State, in 1837, and in 1842 removed to Cazenovia, New York.
Joseph R. Hawley prepared for college at the Hartford High School and at the seminary in Cazenovia, and was gradu- ated at Hamilton College, A. B. 1847, A. M. 1850. He taught school, studied law, and was admitted to practice in 1850 in Hartford, Connecticut. He entered political life as a Free Soil Democrat, opposed the Know-Nothing party, and called the first meeting assembled in Con- necticut for the organization of the Re- publican party, in his office, February 4, 1856, and canvassed the Northern States for three months in behalf of John C. Fremont, the first presidential candidate. He edited the "Charter Oak." an abolition journal, 1852-56, and in 1857 abandoned the law for journalism and assumed the editorship of the "Hartford Evening Press," in which was merged the "Charter Oak." in partnership with William Faxon.
At the outbreak of the Civil War he aided in recruiting the first company in the First Connecticut Volunteer Regi- ment, was commissioned first lieutenant, and was its captain in the first battle of Bull Run, July 21, 1861. He returned home with the regiment and helped to recruit the Seventh Connecticut Volun- teers for three years' service, and was its lieutenant-colonel. The regiment was with the Port Royal (South Carolina) ex-
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pedition, and the first to land on South Carolina soil; it engaged in the four months' siege of Fort Pulaski, and gar- risoned the fort on its surrender. Colonel Hawley succeeded Colonel Alfred H. Terry in command of the regiment, and led it in the battles of James Island and Pocotaligo, and in the Florida expedition. He commanded the port of Fernandina, in January, 1863, and made an unsuc- cessful attempt to capture Charleston in April of that year. He commanded a brigade in the siege of Charleston and the capture of Fort Wagner, and in Feb- ruary, 1864, his brigade, in the division of General Truman Seymour, took part in the disastrous battle of Olustee, Florida. He commanded a brigade in the division of General A. H. Terry, Tenth Corps, Army of the James, 1864, and was present at the battles of Drewry's Bluff, Deep Run, and around Bermuda Hundred. He commanded a division in the battle of Newmarket Road, and took part in the siege of Petersburg. He was promoted to brigadier-general of volunteers in Sep- tember, 1864, and in January, 1865, when General Terry was sent to lead the oper- ations against Fort Fisher, North Caro- lina, General Hawley succeeded to the command of the division, and on General Terry's return he became his chief-of- staff. He commanded the district of Southeastern North Carolina as military governor, with headquarters at Wilming- ton, February 22, to June. 1865; and was chief-of-staff to General Terry, in com- mand of the Department of Virginia, with headquarters at Richmond, till October, 1865, when he returned to Connecticut. He was brevetted major-general of volun- teers and mustered out of the service, January 15, 1866.
General Hawley was elected Governor of Connecticut in 1866, and was defeated
for reelection in 1867. He consolidated "The Press" with "The Courant" and edited the paper in the interests of the Republican party. He was president of the Republican National Convention of 1868; secretary of the committee on reso- lutions in 1872; and chairman of the com- mittee on resolutions in 1876. He was a representative in the Forty-second Con- gress to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Julius L. Strong, and was re- elected to the Forty-third Congress, serv- ing 1872-75. He was defeated as a can- didate for representative in the Forty- fourth and Forty-fifth Congresses, but was elected to the Forty-Sixth Congress, serving in 1879-81. He was president of the United States Centennial Commis- sion, 1873-77, and gave two years' service in promoting the exposition at Philadel- phia, 1875-76. He was elected a United State Senator in 1881 by a unanimous vote of his party, and was reëlected in 1887. 1893 and 1899. In the Senate he was chairman of the committee on military affairs, and a member of the committees on the coast defences, inter- oceanic canals, coast and insular survey, railroads, and the select committee on industrial expositions. In the Republican National Convention of 1884 he was a candidate for the nomination for Presi- dent of the United States, and received the unanimous vote of the delegates from Connecticut on every ballot. He was elected a member of the American His- torical Society and of other learned so- cieties. He became a trustee of Hamil- ton College in 1876, and received the honorary degree of LL. D. from Hamil- ton in 1876, from Yale in 1886, and from Trinity in 1894. He was the author 01 "The Battle of Olustee," in "Battles and Leaders of the Civil War" (1884-88). He died in Washington, D. C., March 17, 1905.
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TUTTLE, Bronson B.,
Man of Character and Enterprise.
The name of Tuttle is one of the most ancient purely English names to be found on the records of the kingdom of Great Britain, and for its derivation goes back to that period when history is merely legendary in England. The Tothills of England were mounds, natural and other- wise, dedicated to the worship of the Thoth, or Tot. Later they became the wathc or loot-out hills, and in the adop- tion of surnames, Tothill, the first form of the present orthography Tuttle, was first assumed by residents in the vicinity of the Tothills. The first authentic rec- ord of the Tothills is found in the pedi- gree of the Tothills of Devon, headed by the name of William Totyl, and taken from Meyrick's "Heraldic Visitations of Wales." From this visitation, from Eng- lish country histories, and from genea- logical and historical works, have been gleaned facts, which, though of a frag- mentary nature, are sufficient to establish beyond a doubt the fact that the family is one of the most ancient in England, of the landed gentry, entitled to bear arms, and allied through marriage with the nobility of the kingdom. Tuttles have been found in great numbers high in the councils of the church and State, prominent in the professions, and leaders of the industries.
The arms of the Tuttle family are as follows: Azure, on a bend doubly cotised, a lion passant sable. Crest : On a mount vert, a bird, proper, in the beak a branch of olive. Motto: Par.
The first mention of the name on early Colonial records in America occurs in 1635, when Richard, John and William Tuttle, with their families, came to New England, arriving on the ship "Planter," Nicholas Travice, master, having sailed from England, April 2, 1635. They were
all natives of the parish of St. Albans, in Hertfordshire.
(I) William Tuttle, progenitor of the branch of the Tuttle family herein treated and direct ancestor of the late Bronson Beecher Tuttle, is recorded in the passen- ger list of the ship "Planter" as twenty- six years of age. Elizabeth Tuttle, his wife, was twenty-three years of age at the time of their coming to America, and their chil- dren, John and Thomas, were aged. three and one-half years, and three months, respectively. He settled at Charlestown, and became a proprietor there in 1636, during which year also he was granted the right to build a windmill. His wife joined the church at Boston, August 14, 1636. On September 8, 1639, she was dismissed to the church in Ipswich, and it is thought from this fact and from his business connections with Zebulon Tut- tle, of that place, that they resided there for a time. He was part owner of a ketch "Zebulon" of Ipswich, and was associated in business with John Tuttle there, with whom he was part owner of a parcel of land deeded to them by George Griggs for debt. He also held a mortgage on the house and land on Beacon street in Bos- ton, given him by George Griggs on Octo- ber 8, 1650, after his removal to New Haven. He removed to New Haven, in 1639, and there was given a house lot on the square bounded by Grove, State, Elm and Church streets. In 1656 William Tut- tle purchased from Joshua Atwater his original allotment, with mansion house, barn and other lands, and on this property made his home until his death, willing it to his widow who resided in it for twenty- eight years thereafter. This property was appraised at one hundred and twenty pounds. William Tuttle became a man of prominence in the community at New Haven. In 1640 and several times there- after he shared in the division of public
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