USA > Connecticut > Windham County > Historic Gleanings in Windham County, Connecticut > Part 5
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A very conspicuous instance of this failure to gain a place in history and remembrance of one very noted in his own generation, is that of Rev. Joseph Howe, the beloved and popular pastor of New South Church, Boston, 1773-1775. One letter of his that has come down to us gives us a vivid picture of Bos- ton under the administration of the famous Port Bill :
"Aug. 2, 1774. Boston it is true is a very different place in some respects from what it was when you were here last. Then trade flourished ; our harbor was whitened with canvass ; our wharves and quays resembled a forest-a forest I mean of masts
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and sail-yards ; and our common, that beautiful lawn to the west, was made more beautiful by the people that walked, and the herds that fed on it. But now to see our harbor and our com- mon-how different ! In the former nothing is seen but armed ships ; in the latter but armed men. . . It is true we have not yet felt the force of either the one or the other, and I pray God we never may. But yet to be threatened with it-to be in- sulted in various ways of a more private nature ; to have four regiments of troops in the heart of a large town ; to have all these evils brought upon us for our laudable and virtuous strug- gles in behalf of our just rights and liberties-is certainly to a mind of the least feeling, irritating and painful. And were you to come to Boston, I make no doubt that on these accounts your visit must be somewhat disagreeable to you.
However, in another view, these very evils would be the means of affording you pleasure ; while you saw with what calmness, with what patience, with what fortitude and firmness, with what persevering prudence and spirit the people endure them. And when I say the people, I say all but a few, a very few, and a particular class of men. It is not true that we are much divided. The Tories made their grand push about a month ago. And what was the effect of it ? Only to convince them and us that their whole number consisted of only about one hundred and twenty persons, inclusive of some who have since retracted. The Bostoniaus acquire courage every day. How can it be otherwise, when all the Continent are pitying and supporting them, and, above all, when we have that God to go to who heard our fathers when they cried unto Him, and who we trust will hear us also, their immediate descendants."
Joseph Howe, son of Rev. Perley and Damaris (Cady) Howe, was born in Killingly, Conn., 1747,
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fitted for college by his step-father, Rev. Aaron Brown; was graduated from Yale 1765 as the vale- dictorian of an exceptionally able class. His towns- man, Manasseh Cutler, the father of the "North West Ordinance," Theodore Sedgwick, Berkshire county, Mass., judge and United States Senator, and many lesser lights, were included in this famous class. Not one of them made his mark in the world so early as Joseph Howe. First as teacher of the public school at Hartford, then the most important educa- tional institution of the kind in Connecticut, he won immediate success and popularity. Accepting a tutorship at Yale College, "his literary accomplish- ments, especially his remarkable powers of elocution, not less than his fine social and moral qualities, ren- dered him a general favorite." Through his instruc- tions the standard of public speaking and familiarity with polite literature in the college was very con- siderably elevated, and to say of a successor that he was " like Tutor Howe," was the maximum of praise. Though frail in body he pursued theological studies during his tutorship, and prepared to enter into the ministry. His oratorical powers brought him at once into notice-his exercises in the pulpit as reported by admirers were of "the most impressive and fascina- ting kind." Wherever he went hearts, homes, and pulpits were open to receive him. He received calls to settlement from the leading churches of Connecti-
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cut, in Hartford, Norwich, and Wethersfield. Visit- ing Boston for his health, he preached at the New South Church, and was invited to become its pastor upon one day's hearing-the church giving as its ground for such phenomenal indiscretion-" the char- acter which Mr. Howe had received from the voice of mankind." After a year's delay Mr. Howe was ordained pastor of this church May 19, 1773, Presi- dent Daggett of Yale College preaching the sermon, Dr. Chauncey of the First Church, Boston, giving the right hand of fellowship. In this brief pastorate Mr. Howe fully sustained his high reputation. The magnetic charm of his address was at once recog- mized. He was the idol of the hour, the popular preacher. The local rhymster sings :
"At New South now, we'll visit Howe, A Genius it is said, Sir ; And here we'll hail, this son of Yale ; There's not a wiser head, Sir. May his fame soar like one of yore Who Cromwell's court did grace A better man, we trow, he can See Lord's day face to face."
A Boston blue-stocking reports :
" He in refined, pathetic sermons shone ; His diction pure, his methods all his own ; While his melodious voice his audience blest And roused each noble passion in the breast."
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According to Dr. Sprague his mind was "fitted perhaps alike for rigid and profound investigation on the one hand, and for the imaginative and rhetorical on the other." And when to other merits was added apparent unconsciousness of his great attractions and an unusually liberal and catholic spirit, it is not strange that he inspired enthusiastic attachment.
The breaking out of open hostilities closed the churches of Boston and this successful ministry. Worn out with labor and excitement, Mr. Howe re- turned to his old home in Connecticut, and after visit- ing his friends, succumbed to complicated disease, dying in Hartford, August 25, 1775, at the house of Rev. Elnathan Whitman, whose daughter, Elisabeth, he ex- pected to marry. Amid all the stirring events of that anxious summer his death made a deep impression throughout New England. An elegy composed by his Boston admirer depicts in deepest shades the funeral solemnities :
"The fair Eliza's anguish who can paint, Placed near the corse of our ascended saint : Though his blest soul ascends the upper skies Her gentle bosom leaves with tender sighs."
The obituary notice in the "Hartford Courant," after the extravagantly eulogistic fashion of the time, enshrines Mr. Howe among the lights and benefac- tors of the world, the beauty of whose mind was
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without a parallel ; whose life was a treatise of ethics and theology ; a great and universal genuis. By the generation that had honored him his memory was fondly cherished, and years after his decease he was again recalled to notice as the model hero in the first pages of the "Life and Letters of Eliza Wharton."
And after all these eulogies he was forgotten !
" His leaf had perished in the green."
No reporter was there to note down even a frag- ment of those thrilling discourses. No one paused in those busy years to compile even a brief biog- raphy of the popular favorite, and so he slipped from sight and memory. In our modern standard " Cyclo- pædia," of America Biography, of those bearing the honored name of Fitch there are fourteen notices, but never a "Major James " among them. There are Paines, small and great, of almost endless num- ber and variety, but no Rev. Elisha ; and from the brilliant array of Howes our Joseph is excluded, and by a remarkable fatality his burial place at Hartford is unmarked and unknown.
Quickly occurring losses were in part the cause of this omission. His step-father died on the way back from his funeral, and the bereaved wife and mother soon followed, and amid the pressure and burdens of Revolutionary years the brother's grave was overlooked. Sketches in "Yale Biographies" and
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"Sprague's Annals of the American Pulpit," and the obituary notices in "The Hartford Courant," com- prise the most that can be learned of one who held so high a place among his contemporaries, perhaps the most brilliant young man of his generation.
In reviewing the life of Joseph Howe we are struck with the praise accorded to the fine manners and gra- cious bearing of this young minister and their influ- ence upon his career. Even higher praise was called out in the case of his townsman and classmate, Ma- nasseh Cutler, whose success in winning the favor and votes of southern chivalry for his immortal Or- dinance was largely attributed to their admiration for his agreeable manners, excelling any previous specimens from New England. It is certainly re- markable that this rough old border-town of Kil- lingly, with its wrangles and church feuds, should send out such gracious and elegant young men. Were these fine manners a heritage from distant an- cestry, a residuum of that rare old English polish brought over by the better class of our first settlers, and taking on even a brighter lustre in the changed conditions of the new world ? Class distinctions, as we know, were very strongly marked in the old colo- nial days. The common people were very common, rude and boorish in speech and manner. So much the more necessity that the upper class, those allied however remotely with noble families at home, should
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hold tenaciously inherited, social traditions, and keep aloof from those of lower social grade and rougher manners. We fancy that the application of these traditions was largely due to woman.
It is a common complaint that we see so little of the mothers, wives, and sisters of our ante-revolution fathers, but none the less were they a power behind the throne. With little outside to occupy or distract them they could consecrate their time and energies to the care of their households. And while the men were out in the world building up towns and institu- tions, these insulated women were impressing them- selves upon the minds of their children, and so train- ing them that they were fitted in turn to bear their part in shaping the institutions of the new republic. How the character of these unseen, unobtrusive women shines out in their sons. From Washing- ton downward, it would seem that every man promi- nently connected with the American Revolution and establishment of Federal Government was favored with a mother of superior excellence and intelligence. We have the privilege to-day of intimate acquain- tance with such noble specimens of womanhood as Abigail Adams and Merey Warren. We have the letter written by Lydia (Dyer) Gray to her son at Boston after the battle of Bunker Hill. And we know there were many others equally alive to the situation and wise in counsel. Here in Windham
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county we had Rachel Mcclellan planting " trees of Liberty " on Woodstock common, and the wife of Dr. David Holmes, held in such high respect for " excellence of character and noble bearing." Still earlier we hear the praises of the mother of Manas- seh Cutler " adding to beauty and strength of mind, an education in advance of her time." And while no special record comes down to us of the mother of Joseph Howe, we know that from her position as the wife of ministers and daughter of one of the found- ers of Pomfret library, that she must have ranked among the cultured gentry, the true nobility of early New England.
Across the Quinebang in the neighboring town of Pomfret, contemporary with Howe and Cutler, a young man grew up who attained eminence in early life and whose name and memory are still held in honor, but who failed to gain credit for what in his life's work he valued most. A descendant of the old Waldensian stock, bearing the honored name of Al- bigence Waldo, he enjoyed the usual advantages of education, pursuing general studies under his minis- ter, Rev Aaron Putnam, and medical studies under the most noted physician of the county, Dr. Elisha Perkins of Plainfield. Entering into practice in his native town, he won immediate success and popular- ity. But the critical condition of public affairs ab- sorbed much time and energy. He served as clerk
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to Mcclellan's famous "troop of horse " and upon the first news of the battle at Lexington "he joined his neighbors and marched to Cambridge where he tarried till they came home together." He soon re- turned to the field as assistant surgeon of Col. Jedi- diah Huntington's regiment, and for four years suc- ceeding continued almost constantly in service. His inoculation for and treatment of small-pox at Mon- mouth and Valley Forge, "gained him much reputa- tion," and the journals kept by him throw much light upon the condition of the army. The demoralized cur- rency-" three months wages barely paying a thirty shilling debt "-and the suffering condition of his family-" on the point of famishing with mere want of food and every other necessary "-compelled Dr. Waldo in 1779 to resign his position in the army and resume his medical practice in Pomfret.
The valuable experience gained in army practice with his native quickness and dexterity, placed Dr. Waldo at the head of his profession in northeastern Connecticut, especially in surgical practice. He be- came at once the popular physician of the day, his services in constant demand over a large section of country. His wide popularity is indicated by one unfailing test-the number of children named for him, rivaling those of any prominent presidential candidate or successful military leader. But with this flush of practice he was able to carry on exten-
HISTORIC GLEANINGS.
sive investigations, not only in his own profession, but in those varied scientific questionings then ex- citing so much interest. An associate for a time with Dr. Elisha Perkins, the famous inventor of the " Me- tallic Tractors," he shared his interest in the theory of magnetic and electric currents, experimenting in those mysterious agencies. His quick mind perceived the benefits that might accrue from professional and scientific association, and he promoted and carried out a monthly meeting of the physicians in Windham county as early as 1786. A formal county Medical Society was formed in 1791, Dr. Albigence Waldo, clerk, and in the following year he assisted in the organization of the State Medical Society.
With this extensive professional practice and sci- entific investigations, Dr. Waldo retained his interest in all the living questions of the day, and was ever ready to bear his part in all public and social enter- prises. His literary accomplishment and fluency of speech were highly esteemed, and he was called to take a prominent part on many important occasions. Among thousands of brother Masons he was selected to pronounce the eulogy on behalf of the Masonic order at the grave of Gen. Putnam, and he was ac- credited with valuable aid in the preparation of Humphrey's " Life of Putnam." His literary aspira- tions and pursuits were shared by his second wife, Lucy Cargill. She was the daughter of Capt. Benja-
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min Cargill, a shrewd and genial Scotchman, propri- etor of the Quinebaug mill privilege (now embraced in Putnam city), a very noted and influential person- age. He had a patriarchal family, whose names he delighted to jingle in rhyme something in the style of the late Hutchinson family, viz. :
" Here's my good health to children dear, All in a row they jine Collected here, from far and near ; And, lo, they are called mine.
Here's William, Lucy, Asenath, too, And Ben, and Rhoda, five : Here's Phila, Ithael, Sall and Poll. And James and Charles, alive.
And here are two adopted ones, I love you as the rest, And pray the Lord to smile on you And evermore be blest.
And two are dead, I hope at rest, You living ones I call, And pray the Lord to smile on you And ever bless you all."
Mrs. Waldo's literary style was very unlike that of her straightforward, Methodist father, being fashioned after the sentimental Johnsonian then in vogue. It was she who declined an invitation to a supper be- cause of the illness of " her babe, that tender blossom,"
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and her hand is evident in the epitaph upon a Revo- lutionary soldier, " who having worn his life out in the service of his country, had gone to wave the Palm of eternal Peace." But in spite of these little man- nerisms she was a woman of good intellect, and held with her husband a leading position in the best so- ciety of the day. This happy and triumphant period of her life had but a short continuance. Dr. Waldo died suddenly in 1794, in the prime of life and height of professional eminence. Few deaths excite a wider sympathy or leave a deeper void. He was borne to the grave by members of the medical society, accom- panied by the Masonic brethren and a great concourse of weeping friends and admirers. Newspapers winged his praises all over the land as " endowed by the God of nature with the most brilliant and distinguished abilities, and with a heart susceptible of all those amiable and benevolent virtues which adorn the human breast ;" as one who "ranked among the highest order of his profession, whose manuscripts will doubtless afford great light and benefit to future ages ; who lived without an enemy, and died greatly lamented by all." A suitable monument erected by his fellow Masons testified to "their esteem and re- spect for the virtues, talents, and usefulness of their late worthy brother .. who attentively studying the works of God in the admirable frame of man rose to eminent distinction in the noble art of healing ;
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his name was Charity ; his actions, Humanity ; his intercourse with men, Benevolence and Love. Born 1750; died 1794."
And after all this public manifestation of grief and adulation came a long and wearisome struggle for permanent recognition. Dr. Waldo, like the later Agassiz, had been too much absorbed in professional and scientific labors to care for making money ; too busy, indeed, to collect what he had honestly earned. His accounts had been poorly kept and were found very difficult of collection, so that with all his ex- tensive practice and high reputation, very little was left for the support of his family. And just at this juncture the Cargill establishment was broken up and scattered. The remarkable manner in which a family after a long course of unbroken prosperity and ap- parently fixed stability suddenly falls to pieces, was again signally illustrated. Three sons died in rapid succession, the old captain's health gave way, his property greatly depreciated in value. Mrs. Waldo, even more Jolinsonian in affliction, thus writes to the widow of her brother, William Cargill :
"My father's baleful destiny reserved him the mournful spec- tacle of his dying eldest son, and who can express his affliction ? His weeping eyes are as the dropping clouds ; his melting breast as the thunder storm-clouds which break not away ; a tempest without knowledge of a calm. What is left of life seems 1111- supportable and is not really life but a lingering death."
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Giving up their pleasant home in the Quinebang valley-the old "Cargill's Mills " where they had en- joyed so much happiness and prosperity, the old people passed the remainder of their lives alternat- ing among the homes of the surviving children, un- der the especial care of Mrs. Waldo. But whatever other duties claimed her time and thought she stead- fastly pursued one great aim-to bring the knowl- edge of her husband's scientific researches to the world and secure public recognition of his services. Herself destitute of means for publication she was compelled to ask aid of others, visiting and appeal- ing to monied men in different parts of the land. Her letters-beautiful, pathetic, Johnsonian letters, with carefully hoarded copies at home-were sent to many distinguished parties. As tenderly and per- sistently as Evangeline sought her lost lover, so did Lucy Waldo seek the perpetuation of those memo- rials of her lost love-those precious manuscripts that were " to afford great light and benefit to future ages." How great their real value it is impossible now to estimate. Many things were lying round waiting to be discovered. Dr. Waldo had native quickness and keen insight, and his researches were in the line of those electric and magnetic forces that have transformed the world, and may have predated modern discoveries, but whether they did or not they were allowed to pass unnoticed. Again and again
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Mrs. Waldo seemed about to attain her object; en- couragement would be given ; hopes raised ; once a movement for publication was actually started; and then some obstacle would arise. Years passed on in reiterated effort and disappointment. The " tender blossom" drooped and faded; the old captain and his wife passed away ; a pupil of Dr. Waldo's, Dr. Thomas Hubbard, filled his place at Pomfret, and even surpassed the fame of his teacher : little " Albes " and "Waldos," grown up into manhood, scoffed at the odd name given them in honor of an old time doctor.
" Thousands of times has the same tale been told ; The world belongs to those who come the last."
But still the faithful wife carried her precious treas- ures from East to West, from one great man to an- other.
" Fair was she and young when in hope began the long journey ; Faded was she and old, when in disappointment it ended."
Her last appeal was to Dr. Waldo's early friend and neighbor, Rev. Manasseh Cutler, D. D. "Care- fully copied, illustrated with well executed draw- ings " the manuscripts were placed in his hands, " but for want of means the enterprise was again defeated," and Dr. Waldo's valued papers never saw the light.
Mrs. Waldo passed her declining years with a sis- ter, and we may hope that the consciousness of hay-
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ing done all within her power to accomplish her ob- ject softened the bitterness of disappointment. And although her husband does not take a place among the lights and benefactors of the world, to be hon- ored in coming ages, the self-sacrifice and devotion of his faithful wife will help to keep alive his mem- ory.
IV.
REVOLUTIONARY ECHOES.
The American Revolution-the sequence of events through which thirteen insulated colonies severed connection with the government that had founded them, and established a federation of united states -can never lose its interest for the American people. Rather as time goes on and the marvelous outcome of that severance and affiliation is more clearly mani- fested, there is increasing interest in searching out and treasuring up every fact and incident connected with this momentous revolution. Leaving primal causes and underlying principles to be discussed by the philosophie historian, our special object of in- quiry is-What part did our own ancestors, the resi- dents of these Windham County towns, bear in this great struggle ?
Our county of Windham, it may be noted, bore a more prominent part in the revolutionary conflict than her present position in Connecticut would indi- cate. Her settlers were mainly of old Massachusetts stock, closely connected by family ties with towns in the vicinity of Boston. The main routes of travel from Boston to Hartford and New York, Norwich and New
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London; from Providence to Springfield and Norwich, ran through Windham County, bringing it into daily communication with business and political centres. The peculiar structure of the Connecticut town, its liberty to order and carry forward its own internal affairs, had developed in its inhabitants a spirit of inquiry and self-reliance. The money question was one that appealed with great force to these Wind- ham County farmers. Obliged to tax themselves for the support of minister and schoolmaster, as well as for town and military expenses, every item of expen- diture was most carefully scrutinized. The connec- tion between taxation and representation had been early instilled into their minds. No town presumed to send representatives to legislature till it was able to pay its proportion of public charges. Its request for the privilege of sending deputies was always ac- companied by lists of estates for assessments. Min- isters exempt by law from tax-paying were not ex- pected to vote. When, therefore, Great Britain's change of policy was indicated, when her claim to the right of enforcing direct tribute from every part of her dominions was made known, it roused imme- diate and intelligent opposition. The colonies rose as one in resistance to the Stamp Act. Prominent citizens of Windham County, Lawyer Dyer, Putnam, and Durkee, encouraged and abetted acts of open resistance. The liberties of the colonists were in
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jeopardy. When in the face of earnest remonstrance parliament persisted in its arbitrary course, imposing in 1767 taxes upon glass, paper, tea and other arti- cles, they were met by determined and organized opposition. The committee appointed at a public meeting in Boston, October, 1767, prepared and sent out an explicit "form " in which the signers pledged themselves to encourage the use of American pro- ductions, and refrain from purchasing articles of Eu- ropean manufacture. In response to this call a most enthusiastic meeting was held at Windham Green, which resulted in the adoption of the following votes and measures, viz .:
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