USA > Connecticut > New Haven County > New Haven > Historical sketches of New Haven > Part 3
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In such places, one seeks the oldest stone. In this case, it is a low, time- eaten slab, marking the death of "Mrs. Sarah Trowbridge, Deceased January the 5th, Aged 46, 1687."
Not far away lie the grandfather and grandmother of President Hayes, and here is the first wife of Benedict Arnold, of whom it is said that her influence might have kept him from his dastardly act. Still it was probably a happy fate that carried her away early, before the world had seen those traits which were undoubtedly quite too evident to her.
The early members of the Trowbridge family were clustered close in death. Of the one hundred and thirty-nine persons buried here, twenty-five are Trow- bridges. He whose gravestone reads thus :
"Here Lyeth Intered The Body of Thomas Trowbridge Esquire Aged 70 Years Deceased The 22ª of August Anno Domini 1702."
was the son of the Thomas Trowbridge who, born in Taunton, England, was one of the original settlers of New England, and his name is perpetuated to this day in his lineal descendants. He married Sarah Rutherford in 1657. Near him is the Thomas Trowbridge of the next generation. He "departed this life " in 1711, and his wife, Mary, did not rest beside him until thirty-one years later.
And here is "Mr. Caleb Trowbridge who departed this life Septem" ye 10th Anno Do. 1704."
At a little distance is a curious stone, repeating in the warning " sic transit gloria mundi," the lesson of a faintly sculptured sun-dial. Beneath lies "Capt. Joseph Trowbridge," who died in 1749.
A very plump and happy cherub smiles from the stone over Mrs. Sarah Whiting, the daughter of Jonathan Ingersoll, of Milford ; and it seems to show the glad contrast between her "wearisome pilgrimage" and her "joyful hope of a glorious immortality."
Everyone who examines old gravestone inscriptions must be struck by the evidence that the next world seemed very near to the people of those times, that its joys grew real in proportion as the discomforts of the present life were pressing.
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A New Haven Church.
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Several of the monuments are in the table form and bear long inscriptions. One commemorates the active career of Jared Ingersoll, a man of distinguished position and ability, who died in 1781, " having been judge of the Court of Vice- Admiralty, twice Agent for Connecticut at the Court of Great Britain. He was a Man of uncommon Genius, which was cultivated by a liberal education at Yale College and improved by the Study of mankind." Of these means of men- tal and spiritual advancement, certainly the third, perhaps demanding the least outlay of money and yet often the most costly, is open to us all.
Here is another table, with delicately carved legs, bearing an inserted plate of finer stone on which are the names of James Abraham Hillhouse and his wife, " Madam " Hillhouse, the uncle and aunt of Senator James Hillhouse.
In this quiet place is the dust of three of the early, historic pastors of the church ; Pierpont, "an eloquent man and mighty in the Scriptures, who being fervent in spirit ceased not for ye space of 30 years to warn every one day and night wth tears," the whole ending quaintly with "Anag. Pie repone te ;" Noyes, "patient in tribulation & abundant in labors ;" and Whittelsey, who, like Goldsmith's parson, "exemplified the more excellent way."
It is interesting to note the difference between the inscriptions on these tables of stone which breathe the feelings of the contemporary friends and recount those acts and qualities which were important in their eyes ; and those words in the church above, where, on tablets of brass, is recorded the calm judgment of the men of to-day. In the first, we feel the sense of present and personal loss, caused by the removal from the community of an acknowledged power ; in the second, we read the verdict of time on what each has done for the world's progress.
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A New Haven Church.
Below the lines in memory of Mr. Pierpont are the following :
" Also Mrs. Mary the 3rd wife of the above Rev. Mr. James Pierpont, who died November Ist, 1740 Atatis Suæ 68."
She was the daughter of the Rev. Thomas Hooker and the mother of Mrs. Jonathan Edwards. Although Madam Noyes was buried in Wethersfield, she has an epitaph beneath that of Mr. Noyes. She was a rare woman. The daughter of the Rev. James Pierpont and Sarah Haynes, she had many advantages of inherited respect and of education, and she was, withal, so wise and gracious, so absorbed in well-doing, that she was revered throughout her life, even by those who dis- liked Mr. Noyes. She was so much interested in the education of the young that she opened a free school in her own house, and left, by her will, a sum for the future instruction of children. She gave a farm of three hundred and fifty acres in Farmington, Conn., to the church, and the money derived therefrom forms part of the Ministerial Fund.
There are children here, too ; three little baby Sybyl Trowbridges ; and there is a singular group of four Sarah Lymans-one seventy-five years old, one twenty-seven years, one one year, and one one month-and all dying within two years.
Next to the Trowbridges, the Whittelseys were brought here in greatest number, eight in all, while there are many Allings and Ingersolls, and members of the family of Hays, or Hayz. Two sisters, daughters of Samuel Broome, rest beneath one table-stone, which bears twin epitaphs; and near by is the stone of Mrs. Katherine Dana, the wife of the Rev. Dr. Dana, marked by a slab of fine slate with a relief of an urn with drooping handles, all very delicately carved, and as fresh as if placed here yesterday instead of more than a hundred years ago.
It is hard to find poor spelling, and the epitaphs are almost without excep- tion refined and dignified. The last burial was in 1812, that of Mrs. Whittelsey, widow of the Rev. Chauncey Whittelsey.
One unobtrusive stone brings to mind a woman whose expressed wish has been felt in ever deepening and widening circles-Hester Coster, who is so curiously connected with the establishment of Yale in New Haven.
It was Davenport's original intention to devote the land at the corner of Chapel. and College streets to the college which they wished to have speedily. In the vicissitudes of the seventeenth century, it was sold and used for a building lot ; Joshua Atwater, a merchant from London, and one of the first settlers, had it ; then William Tuttle bought it ; and after his death it was sold to the widow Hester Coster. She died in 1691, and, by her will, left the property to the "First Church of Christ, New Haven, to be improved toward the maintaining of
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A New Haven Church.
a lecture in New Haven in the spring and fall of the year." For a few years, the church leased the property, but in 1717, under a power given by her will, sold it to the "trustees, partners, and undertakers for the Collegiate School."
For, in 1716, a decision was made as to the situation of the college which had such a struggle for its infant existence ; in choosing New Haven, a condition was made that the "Coster lot" and the " Hooke lot " should be acquired by the college ; the condition was granted, and that inducement prevailed over those held out by other aspirants for the honor, and thus Yale was placed in the City of Elms rather than in Wethersfield or Saybrook. Thus did the wishes of the English divine and the country dame unite in producing results greater than they could have even dared to hope for. One wonders how Hester Coster looked, talked, and lived, whether she was a forerunner of the strong-ininded woman, wishing to enforce herself on the coming generations, or one of the gentle ones who become inspired with the desire of throwing their all into the treasury of the pressing public need. Just this one flash-light is thrown on her, and then all is dark. The inscription is :
Mrs Hester Coster Aged 67 Deceased April ye 6th 1691.
It would be hard to speak of this church without referring to its intimate connection with Yale University. Among their grand plans for the future was always the darling hope of the pastors and people that the colony should be a college town. A college lot was set aside from the first, and in spite of many vicissitudes and disappointments, it was that which was finally used. Davenport was full of zeal for education, wishing "all children in his colony to be brought up in learning." He would have rejoiced to know that Connecticut was to have the first school fund. For a long time the project seemed doomed to disappoint- ment for reasons both external and internal, but Davenport never gave up hope or effort. In the fifth year of the colony the settlers began to send contributions of corn to Harvard, and Eaton gave money toward the buildings required at Cambridge. In 1647, the attempt was made to start the college in the house offered by Deputy-Governor Goodyear, who is commemorated by the tablet on the rear of the church, but a remonstrance came from the Cambridge people, who said that they could not support their young institution if the New Haven assistance should be withdrawn.
New Haven yielded for a time, but the matter was annually discussed in public meetings, and was always near the heart of the people. The impulse given by Davenport's fixed purpose was felt long after his removal and death, and well has it been said, " As long as the college stands, the name of John Davenport, that pioneer in the promotion of the higher education, should be remembered by its alumni with reverence and gratitude."
When, after all the discussions with other towns, the efforts of Davenport and Hooke and Street and Pierpont resulted in the three-story building on the Coster lot, facing the rector's house on the Hooke lot, it was natural that the
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A New Haven Church.
little band of students should form part of the pastor's flock, that the meeting- house should be the scene of all public occasions for the college, and that the growth and prosperity of one institution should be linked with those of the other.
Since the removal of the college to New Haven, until 1895, all commence- ments, all inauguration of presidents, besides many other ceremonies, have been celebrated within the First Church walls. So, for nearly a century and three- quarters, the Center Church and its predecessors "have been like college build- ings in the memory of the alumni." Before even the venerable elms began to cast their shade over the scene, successive processions have marched to the same place, each class to be, in its turn, the absorbing interest, and each to take one step farther on in the world's progress, each to add one more to the accumulat- ing associations of the college.
Cominencement days have swung from September through August and July to June, the speakers have run the scale of the learned languages, there have been classes small and large, but until two years ago the tide of diploma-seekers has never failed to flow in and out of those church doors.
Hither came the proud parents, and hither flocked the pretty girls of suc- ceeding generations, decked in all the summer finery of each passing fashion, and here for more than a hundred years these descendants of the boys and girls who giggled on the pulpit stairs of the old first church, whispered composedly and outrageously straight through the long seasons of oratoric display, until the disturbance became so intolerable that the fiat went forth that men and women should sit on opposite sides of the church. Thus, and thus only, was the irre- pressible loquacity, aroused by listening to so much eloquence, repressed.
Music was not introduced to relieve the proceedings until 1819, and it was not until 1846 that it ceased to be sacred in its character. What would the fathers have said to the sound of opera airs within those walls !
Great has been the change, too, in the intellectual part of the programme. We hear of an early commencement called "splendid" by President Clap, and from that time on, the desire to secure places in the audience has been such that spurious tickets have been sometimes offered. To obviate fraud of that kind, the mysterious characters since seen on commencement tickets were adopted. For a long time, until 1868, these eager spectators and listeners patiently sat through two sessions in one day. In 1781, the walls of the predecessor of this building echoed to a Greek oration, an English colloquy, a forensic disputation, and an oration by President Stiles, in which he announced his opinions in Hebrew, Chaldaic and Arabic, followed by an English oration, all in the mori- ing. In the afternoon, the indefatigable and polyglot Dr. Stiles pronounced a " Latin discourse," and a syllogistic dispute, a dissertation, a poem, and an oration gave the finishing touches to these learned feats. These syllogistic dis- putes, which had their day for sixty years, do not appear on the records after 1787. They must have afforded something of that excitement which modern students find in the ball games. We learn that in 1730, they were given from the side galleries of the church, the disputants hurling the polished missiles of
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A New Haven Church.
their logic from side to side with all the ardor of a struggle for life. The orators stood in the front gallery, and the "audience huddled below them to catch their Latin eloquence as it fell."
Just forty years ago, in 1857, there were twenty-three speakers in the morn- ing and nineteen in the afternoon. All this speech-making proved a weariness to the flesh, and the male portion of the audience was often seen reclining on the grass outside in the shade of the elms, until such time as the sergeant-at-arms of the city should muster his forces on the Green, ready for the supreme moment of taking the degrees.
Then all the hundreds from the different departments of the university into which the " collegiate school " has grown marched into the time-honored build- ing, up the steep steps of the temporary platform, each squad to decorously receive the sheepskins with the Latin speech, and each to divide and descend the side steps, at great risk of collision between heads and gallery beams, all to be instantly replaced by the next oncoming squad, until all were transformed from "seniors " to "educated gentlemen.". All that has yielded to the varied array of caps and gowns.
Long may the old church stand on the Green, to remind us of its part in history, to symbolize the character of New England, inspired by the past, stand- ing firmly in the present, and ready to go forward to the future !
THE
GROVE STREET
CEMETERY, NEW HAVEN.
ONE hundred years ago, in July, 1796, that public-spirited citizen, James Hillhouse, caused the purchase and preparation of the burial ground known as the Grove Street Cemetery. His own body was laid there when his work was over ; and before him and after him have come to keep him company so many gifted and noble ones that with truth we read that "it is the resting-place of more persons of varied eminence than any other cemetery on this continent."
The roll of honored names on its stones represents brain-power that has stirred the world and has done much to make the nineteenth century what it has been1.
The place seems dedicated to the fame of learning and of noble lives, and as it is still in use by the descendants of the original owners, the crumbling Past and the well-kept Present meet there very strikingly.
It was the first burial ground in the world to be divided into " family lots," and every visitor must notice the prominence of the family feeling. Parents, children, and grandchildren are together ; those whose lives have been spent elsewhere have sought burial with their kindred, while the families that enjoyed sweet intercourse in scholarly pursuits and social courtesies are still neighbors in death.
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The Grove Street Cemetery.
The wall and gates are severely Egyptian in style, but over the massive pylons at the entrance, the words, "The dead shall be raised," testify that to the ancient yearning for a life beyond the grave has succeeded the triumphant faith of Christianity. Within is the mortuary chapel, and the golden butterfly on its front again points every passer to the soul's release from the burden of the body.
The cemetery is a quiet little square of seventeen acres, separating college halls on the one hand from the stir of business on the other. It is a cheerful city of the dead, with tall trees, high-trimmed, and with evidences of scrupulous care. Thoughtful visitors are always wandering along its avenues, peering here and there for tokens of the olden time, or for memorials of revered instructors and loved classmates.
Let us walk down Cedar avenue, the "famous row." Here are pioneers of American scholarship, such as Benjamin Silliman, the elder, a man whose priv- ilege it was to be indeed a Nestor in science, to open the way to the wide fields we traverse freely. The little, low, gray laboratory has disappeared from the face of the Yale campus, but does not every one wlio sends a telegram owe thanks to Silliman and Morse that within its humble walls they persisted in the experi- ments which resulted in the great invention ? Professor Silliman was a keen observer, a delightful writer, a noble man ; his name honors the stone on which it is inscribed. His son and successor, Benjamin Silliman the younger, is in
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THE HILL,HOUSE LOT.
another part of the ground; but in the same inclosure rests a Revolutionary dame, Mrs. Eunice Trumbull, " relict of Jonathan Trumbull, late Governor of Connecticut." She was the widow of the second governor of that illustrious family which contributed so much to the success of our war for independence,
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The Grove Street Cemetery.
and she was the mother of Harriet Trumbull, who was the wife of Professor Silliman, and who lies here, too. Thus two families bearing the American patent of nobility, valor and learning, were united.
The mantle fell on no less a man than James Dwight Dana, the great geolo- gist, who searched the secrets of the coral groves. His slight form and pure face, a presence seeming more spiritual than material, were a part of New Haven for many years. Now he rests here.
Next is the grave of Jedidiah Morse, the "Father of American Geography." A shaft bears aloft a globe, commemorating the service that Morse did in placing geography in the realm of systematic knowledge. Any one who has seen a copy of Morse's first edition, two stout octavo volumes bound in calf, will be apt to deem it at least as far removed as a great-grandfather from its modern descend- ant, the floridly embellished and tersely written school geography.
His work, which may have been called for by the needs of the girls' school which he had in New Haven the year after his own graduation in 1783, is many
TO JEDIDIAH MORSE, BENJAMIN SILLIMAN, AND JAMES DWIGHT DANA.
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The Grove Street Cemetery.
times amusing when the author least intends to afford diversion. The title page runs thus -
" The American Universal Geography or a View of the Present State of all the Empires, Kingdoms, States, and Republics in the known1 WORLD and of the United States of America in Particular."
Some of the "particulars " are not un- pleasing reading for Connecticut people ; as for instance-" Connecticut is the most populous in proportion to its extent, of any of the thirteen states. A traveler, even in the most unsettled part of the state, will sel- dom pass more than two or three miles with- out finding a house or cottage and a farm under such improvement as to afford the necessaries for the support of a family."
Again, "In no part of the world is the education of all ranks of the people more attended to than in Connecticut."
The high regard in which the legal pro- fession has always been held here finds an explanation in its pages. "The people of Connecticut are remarkably fond of having all their disputes settled according to law. The prevalence of this litigious spirit affords. employment and support for a numerous body of lawyers." But the lawyers were TO THEODORE WINTHROP. not to be left in undisputed possession of legal mysteries, for Morse says that, "In 1672 the laws of the colony were revised, and the general court ordered them to be printed, and also that every family should buy one of the law. books ; such as pay in silver to have a book for twelve pence, such as pay in wheat to pay a peck and a half a book, and such as pay in peas, to pay two shillings a book, the peas at three shillings the bushel."
How intimately the pursuit of agriculture and the book trade were associ- ated in those days ! Morse sagely remarks, "Perhaps it is owing to the early and universal spread of law books that the people of Connecticut are to this day so fond of the law."
This is his testimony for the state which had the first school fund : " A
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The Grove Street Cemetery.
thrift for learning prevails among all ranks of people in the state. In no part of the world is the education of all ranks of people more attended to than in Connecticut."
Now, in 1896, there comes a voice from a son of Connecticut, who has spent nearly half a century in the sunny land of cotton : "As I grow older, my opinion is stronger than ever that the ancient state has done more for the education and general advancement of all the people of this vast count- try than any other." Con- necticut educators have a great past to live up to.
The salutary influence of the clergy, described as "very respectable," is TO ELI WHITNEY. noted as having preserved a kind of aristocratic balance in the very democratic government of the state.
What do the members of the medical profession, and tobacco-raisers think of this " act of the general assembly at Hartford in 1647, wherein it was ordered, ' That no person under the age of twenty years, nor any other that hath already accustomed himself to the use thereof, shall take any tobacco until he shall have brought a certificate from under the hand of some who are ap- proved for knowledge and skill in physic, that it is fit for him, and also that he hath received a license from the court for the same.' All others who had addicted themselves to the use of tobacco, were, by the same TO LYMAN BEECHER AND NOAH PORTER. court, prohibited tak- ing it in any company, or at their labors, or on their travels, unless they were ten miles at least from any house, or more than once a day, though not in com- pany, on pain of a fine of sixpence for each time ; to be proved by one substantial evidence " ?
Oh ! the vicissitudes of time !
But the laws of Connecticut were again revised in 1750, and of them Dr.
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The Grove Street Cemetery.
Douglass observed, "That they were the most natural, equitable, plain, and con- cise code of laws for plantations hitherto extant."
Morse died in 1826, after a varied life, which brought him honors, among them a degree from the University of Edinburgh, and the office of U. S. Com- missioner to the Indian tribes. Here also is his wife, Elizabeth Anne Breese, granddaughter of President Finley of Princeton. So there is a family history in the names of Samuel Finley Breese Morse, Morse's illustrious son, whose first wife, Lucretia Pickering, took her place here at the age of twenty-five, not knowing what fame was in store for her husband.
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See this cross which bears the name of Theodore Winthrop-a name that summons the tragedy of the civil war, the blighting of a promising literary career, all too soon for achieving fame in battle. In that gifted man met the inheritance of the families that New England counts among her proudest possessions in the past, the Woolseys, the Dwights, the Winthrops. The call of Sumter roused the patriotism in the scholar's heart, and in three months promise and performance were alike ended. Much can be read between the terse lines, "Born in New Haven, Sept. 22, 1828. Fell in Battle at Great Bethel, Va., June II, 1861.''
College
honors, travel in lands, old and new, the love of friends, the unfolding of fame in letters, the glow of TO NOAH WEBSTER. patriotism, all led to that supreme moment, when, leap- ing up to urge on his men, he fell. The pathos of his death casts a spell over us when we turn the pages of "Cecil Dreeme" and "Edwin Brothertoft," of " Love and Skates," and of those descrip- tions in the Atlantic of that memorable first TO JOHN EPY LOVELL. inarch to Washington, which made him speak to the whole nation after his pen and sword were laid aside forever.
Next is a name no less famous, that of Eli Whitney, "the inventor of the cotton-gin, 1765-1825.
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The Grove Street Cemetery.
We all know what Horace Greeley has so strikingly set forth, that the United States and the civilized world are richer because the inventive genius and courteous helpfulness of that young Yale man offered a friendly hand to southern labor. What modern commerce would be without the cotton-gin, it is hard to say.
Lyman Beecher, great father of great chil- dren, lies near, beneath a block of stone bearing a cross in relief ; and next are the Taylors, Dr. Taylor of theological renown, and his daughter, Mary, the wife of Noah Porter. the kind-hearted, swift-footed,
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