USA > Connecticut > New Haven County > New Haven > Historical sketches of New Haven > Part 4
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She is beside clear-headed, eleventh president of Yale. And i 11 this neighbor - hood death is the grave of Noah Web- ster, 1758- 1842. Veri- ly, he “ be- ing dead, yet speak- eth," for do not millions of us im- plicitly obey TO MARY CLAP WOOSTER. his orders given in the famous spelling-book, and in the " Unabridged," inspired by him with a life which keeps it in vigorous growth while generations pass away ? The speller attained a sale of sixty-two million copies long ago; and although his royalty was only a cent a copy, that supported his family for years.
Webster was a typical son of Connecti- cut in his versatility. Of Hartford birth, a graduate of Yale, he was teacher, lawyer, TO TIMOTHY DWIGHT. judge, politician, magazine editor, author of text-books, one of the founders of Amherst, and lexicographier, as occasion de- manded. The renown of his dictionary perhaps causes us to forget that his words were a prime mover for the call for the convention which gave to the
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The Grove Street Cemetery.
United States their revered constitution. He lived in sight of his final resting- place.
On the opposite side is the grave of Joel Root, the model of high-bred integrity, whose adventures in a business voyage of three years around the world in the first years of the century read like a second Robinson Crusoe.
Turning to another avenue, we find an educator of a later generation, but of wide influence, John Epy Lovell, "founder and teacher of the Lancasterian school." He was born in 1795, and lacked but three years of a century of life when he died in 1893. For years he carried out in New Haven his peculiar ideas of methods of instruction, and although the "monitor system" is an educa- TO THEODORE DWIGHT WOOLSEY. tional fashion long since laid aside, the memory of the genial and talented teacher is still green. In 1889, Mr. Lovell appeared in the procession which celebrated the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the town. Every eye was turned on the veteran, who, in his ninety-fourth year, was already in the halo of the past. He sleeps beneath granite blocks picturesquely piled, a monument given by an associa- tion of his pupils.
These stones commemorate the Clap family, "The. Reverend and learned Mr. Thomas Clap, late President of Yale College," in days so far away (1740-1765), that he could show his enterprise by caus- ing the first cata- logue to be prepared TO PROFESSORS LOOMIS, TWINING, AND HADLEY. for the library, that library so asssociated with the foundation and continued life of the college, by compiling the college laws (in Latin), the first book printed in New Haven, and by securing the new charter with the style, "the President and Fellows of Yale College in New Haven ;" Mrs. Clap, and their daughter, Mary Clap Wooster, "widow of Gen. David Wooster, of the Revo- lutionary Army."
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The Grove Street Cemetery.
She was the "Madam Wooster" whose namesake is the New Haven Chapter of the Daughters of the Revolution.
Another Yale president is in this scholastic ground, the first President Dwight. Of all the praiseworthy acts of his able career not one was more laudable than begin- ning the work of breaking down the old-fashioned bar- riers which separ- ated classes and 2 faculty. His "reign " naturally trebled the number of students.
Six headstones in a row, each one bearing the name of Olmsted, tell of death's ravages in one family of sons.
The father,
Denison Olmsted,
TO DELIA BACON AND LEONARD BACON.
the loved professor of Natural Philosophy and Astronomy, before the days of specialists, and five sons, lie here.
Of the sons, all but one Yale men, one died at twenty-two, two at twenty-five, one at thirty, and one at thirty-five.
Near the rear wall is the burial-place of another revered Yale president, Theodore Dwight Woolsey. Perhaps the extent of his fame as a scholar was never better seen than when one of the Chinese embassies brought over as a gift to him his work on International Law translated into Chinese. Most pathetic is the inscription over the graves of the two daughters who died of Syrian fever in Jerusa- lem, only two days apart. "In their deaths they were not divided."
Three great scholars repose together in death even as they labored together in life, Professor Twining, Professor Hadley, Pro- THE GERRY MONUMENT. fessor Loomis. Professor Twining made the first railroad survey in the state, and therefore one of the first in the country. It was in 1835, for the Hartford and New Haven railroad. The books which Greek and mathematical students have pored over
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for so many years have been the best monument for Hadley and Loomis. After the latter's burial, there came warning telegramns from the chief of the New York police, and a strict guard was necessary every night until the heavy base of the monument was laid, and there was no further opportunity to pry into the secrets of that powerful brain.
Alfred Bou? Urru
TO GENERAL TERRY.
" Leonard Bacon !" What memories his name brings up of work and inspiration for more than fifty years of pas- toral life in New Haven. Some one said of him that while really a man of low stature, he always gave the impression of being of commanding height. Such was the effect of his master- mind.
"After life's fitful
fever," here sleeps his gifted and disappointed sister, Delia Bacon, the prophetess of the Baconian theory of the authorship of Shakespeare's plays. A cross is the symbol above her, with these words, ""'So he bringeth them to their desired haven.' In grate- ful remembrance, this monument is erected by her former pupils."
Rest, now, perturbed spirit, in that realm where perplex- ities are resolved into glad cer- tainty.
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Here is Charles Good- year, the great inventor, one of America's bene- factors. He was preëminent in the TO ADMIRAL, FOOTE. talent which is a chief characteristic of Connecticut men, and his struggles for nearly thirty years with poverty and debt and injustice while he wrestled with
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The Grove Street Cemetery.
the problem, the solution of which transformed caoutchouc into vulcanized rub- ber in its hundreds of useful forms, border on heroism. Like many other great inventors, he was rudely treated by Fortune, who bade him take fame and foreign medals, while she poured the earnings of his brain into the hands of those who borrowed his ideas.
General Terry and Admiral Foote, our heroes in the civil war, are here ; and reminders of the Rev- olution are not lacking. The days of aların and dis- tress when the rough "redcoats" were maraud- ing in the streets of the JURAIT E S. S. . F . I- quiet little town, are brought to mind by the time-worn monument of the great-grandfather of ex-Gov. English, bearing the words, "Benjamin TO JOSEPH EARL SHEFFIELD. English, died 5 July, 1779, aged 74. He was stabbed by a British soldier when sitting in his own house."
In another part of the ground is the grave of another aged man who met death in a similar way during the same raid, Nathan Beers, the father of the Revolutionary soldier, Deacon Nathan Beers. Let us be thankful that the days of arbitration are at hand.
Here, too, rests Colonel David Humphrey, the trusted aid-de-camp of Washington.
The old New Haven families, the Trowbridges, the Ingersolls, the Hillhouses, have come here for their long home ; of governors who have honored the old state, such as Governor Dutton and Gover- nor Baldwin, the defender of the famous Amistad captives ; of learned professors, such as TO ROGER SHERMAN. Thacher, the Latin scholar, and Eaton, the botanist ; of men eminent in all professions, such as Dr. Levi Ives, "the beloved physician," Henry R. Storrs, the jurist and orator ; of benefactors, of patriots, the list grows as fast as one walks about. William Dwight Whitney, whose fame as a philologist and Sanskrit scholar is world- wide, and who was a member of so many learned foreign societies that a whole
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alphabet seemed to follow his name, has taken his place among the illustrious dead. Joseph Earl Sheffield lies in sight of his home on Hillhouse avenue and of the buildings of the lusty, ever growing Scientific School which was his noble gift to Yale. His example of bestowing what he had to give while he was alive to watch the growth of his plan ought to be followed by millionaire philanthropists who wish to secure his success. The grandfather of President Cleveland, the Rev. Aaron Cleveland, was buried on Linden Avenue, in 1815.
The bones of New Haven's first governor lie near the Center church, where the earliest interments were made, but the monument is here with this inscrip- tion :
" THEOPHILUS EATON, ESQ., GOVERNOR. Deceased Jan. 7, 1657, Aetatis, 67. Eaton, so famed, so wise, so meek, so just, The Phoenix of our world here hides his dust, This name forget, New England never must."
Wherein the sentiment is more laudable than the poetry.
Is there a name more honored in Connecticut's revolutionary history than that of Roger Sherman, one of the immortal five who presented the Declaration ?
He is buried here. The lines on his monument show that his fellow-citizens left him little time for private life. He was "Mayor of the city of New Haven, and senator to the United States." "He was nineteen years an Assistant and twenty-three a Judge of the Superior Court, in high Reputation.
He was Delegate in the first Congress, signed the glorious Act of Inde- pendence, and many years displayed superior Talents and Ability in the National Legislature. He was a Member of the general Convention, approved the federal Constitution, and served his Country with fidelity and honor in the House of Representatives and in the Senate of the United States."
We know that there is no flattery in the quiet eulogium that follows :
" He was a man of approved Integrity, a cool, discerning Judge, a prudent, sagacious Politician, a true, faithful, and firm Patriot."
Full of pathetic suggestions is the "college lot," where, in days gone by, those who died in the midst of their course, away from home, were laid, having found their long home in the town to which they came with aspirations for lay- ing the foundations of great careers.
Most of these monuments are of like pattern and have been placed there by classmates. The inscriptions nearly all express in Latin the regret of these class- mates, and have dates of long ago, when it was necessary that death and burial should occur in the same place ; but one is recent, 1892, and is the memorial of Kakichi Senta, Japan. An ocean and a continent separate him from his gentle, dark-eyed friends in that wonderful West of the Orient. On the tombstone of little Susie Bacon, who died in Switzerland in her fourth year, are her touching last words, "Der liebe Gott liebt Susie, und ich soll Ihn sehen."
There are not many of the mirth-provoking epitaphs which one sometimes
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The Grove Street Cemetery.
sees in old churchyards. Sidney Hull and his five wives may draw a sigh from some, a smile from others.
But one of the most interesting features of this burial ground is the long line of ancient headstones resting against the wall. A great part of two sides is occupied by these memorials of the colonial dead, brought hither in 1820, when the graves in the Green were leveled. Here we read history by fascinating hints and snatches. The stones are sometimes of slate, but oftener of sandstone, which has proved in many cases a treacherous record-bearer by flaking off in layers, thus leaving a painful blank where once appeared the name and station of him "To the Memory " of whom the stone was raised. Many of them are bordered by scrolls and vines, and are surmounted by cheerful death's heads and cherubim. Some are the rude efforts of unaccustomed hands, trying to preserve the memory of dear ones, when it was difficult to carve even a few letters, and some show that, as years passed, the stone-cutter had taken his place as a recognized work- man. By the irony of fate the date for which a curious visitor looks most eagerly is often the very part of the inscription which is illegible, but the stones belong to the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.
In those days they were strenuous to insist on the social standing betokened by "Mr." and "Mrs." as,
" MR. DAVID ATWATER,
A noted apothecary, and a firm advocate for his country, in defense of which he fell a volunteer in the battle at Gumpo Hill, 1777."
Another shows that phonetic spelling had its adherents,
"JOSEPH ALLSUP Deseased in ye 42 yeare of his age, January the 12, 1691."
There are many double stones and almost all have rounded tops.
Here is a "doleful sound " from the stone of Mrs. Betty Colt, who died in 1765, aged twenty-two :
" Passenjers, as you pass by, Behold ye place where now i lie, As you are now, so once was i, As i am now, so you must be, Prepare to die & follow me."
Sometimes the words proved too much for the sculptor and he was forced to divide such a word as "dyed," placing one part on one line and the other on another.
Allings and Atwaters and Mixes and Bradleys and Beechers abound, and the military titles of those who died in the early part of the eighteenth century remind us that peaceful homes were not secured withont fighting. A glimpse of the loyalty to the old home is seen in the following :
"In memory of Mr. Josiah Woodhouse, who was born in ye city of London, in old England, and died in New Haven, Sept. 7, 1761, in his 43d year."
Some of these old stones have been broken in half lengthwise, and when one portion has entirely disappeared, the remaining half gives tantalizingly partial
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record. For example, of some nameless one, we have yet this tribute of aching hearts :
" Aged 19 years Beloved in life And much bemoaned in death." The sole legend on another is, "A. B." On another, "R., 1686, F. P."
These alphabetical memorials were full of meaning once to some fond ones ; now they only say that some one died, and some one lamented. One, like a part of a puzzle, gives us an opportunity to guess the whole :
JAMES RICE friend of nd religions order emed and useful in his life death sincerely lamented. He died the yellow fever September 29, 1794. 65th year of his age.
Happy the man, who, when his life's records are shattered, can leave frag- ments that point to such a whole !
The sexton's bell rings, the gates will close, and we leave the honored dead to their eternal peace in the midst of that city which they blessed by their lives.
HILLHOUSE AVENUE.
New Haven
JAMES HILLHOUSE. From the painting by Vanderlyn. " But in those hours when others rest, Kept public care upon his breast."-Sachem's Wood.
PERHAPS the charm of Hill- house Avenue may lie in the very limitations of space which give it an air of daintiness and finish. Not more than a quarter of a mile long, it lies between the Hillhouse grounds at the head, and the Historical Soci- ety's building, the gift of Mr. Henry English, at the foot ; and the eye, at one glance, takes in the whole arcade of the graceful, shadowy elmis that lift their glorious crowns to the
sky. In 1792, Senator James Hill- house laid it out, one hundred and five feet wide, through the "Hill- house Farm," and he planted the elins which for all these years have made a royal canopy. A young man in the employ of Mr. Hillhouse drove the stakes and helped to set out the trees. That young man was proud to recall the fact when he walked beneath those elms as President Day, of Yale. Time has justified the foresight of the owner of the land; the homes of wealth
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Hillhouse Avenue.
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THE HILLHOUSE PLACE, SACHEM'S WOOD. With the kind permission of the Elm City Nursery Co.
and of learning are on either hand, and in this "cathedral city, whose streets are aisles," there is no street more beauti- ful than this.
Just as his early home, the house of his uncle, James Abraham Hillhouse, was at the head of Church street, so Mr. Hillhouse's own dwelling, now gone, was then at the head of Temple street, and he moved away a part of it, so that the street could be extended to join the Hartford turnpike where Temple and Church meet in Whitney avenue. From that house, when an angry mob threatened to tear down the Medical School, then in what is now Sheffield Hall, because the body of a beautiful young woman, stolen from her grave, was supposed to be secreted there, Mr. Hillhouse went forth in the majesty of the trusted and trustworthy citizen-and the surging, infuriated crowd was still.
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HISTORICAL SOCIETY'S BUILDING.
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Hillhouse Avenue.
For the mansion of his son, James A. Hillhouse, the poet, he selected the high ground, which rose among the oaks, and there were spent
-
Pal at
THE SHEFFIELD PLACE.
the declining years of his own life. Hillhouse avenue, which was first called Temple avenue, was private property, and, until 1862-when the city assumed jurisdiction-Mayor Skinner and Mr. William Hillhouse, the nephew whose house is near the gate, used annually, on some October night,
THE RAILROAD CUT.
to stretch the chain across the entrance, in compliance with the law.
On one corner,
as you approach, is the picturesque
"Cloister," a build- ing not wholly con- secrated to ascetic vigils ; on the other, the vacant space, which was the old Botanical Garden, is dignified by the
"Nathan Beers " elm, the tallest and mightiest of all New Haven elms. It was
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Hillhouse Avenue.
planted by the noble man whose name it bears. In front of the "Garden " is a well, now covered by the turf that borders the sidewalk, and it probably be- longed to the old house with long, sloping roof which was near the present Sheffield house. The old house was the home of Nathan Beers himself, who was one of the characteristic men of the revolutionary period. A son of the Nathan Beers who was killed in his own house by the "redcoats" in their attack on New Haven, he had himself gone with Arnold at the outbreak of figliting, and later was one of the guards of the unfortunate André during the last night of his blighted life. What were the thoughts of the young men during those solemn hours, we know not.
Beers described André as outwardly calin, except for the nervous rolling of a pebble under liis foot. Before his execution he gave his gentle- faced keeper a pen and ink portrait of himself, which lie had made by the aid of a mirror the day before. That sad lit- tle bit of paper is now in the Yale College library. Mr. Beers was a lieutenant and paymaster in the army, and so saw much of Washington. One still living re- members that he often spoke of seeing the harassed commander withdraw into the forest, before a battle, to invoke the Lord of Hosts. After the THE BEERS ELM. war, Mr. Beers, who had abundant means for those days, was persuaded by the first President Dwight to purvey for the college commons. Alas ! there was a lamentable discrepancy between the appetites of college boys and their ability or willingness to pay- debts rapidly accumulated and Mr. Beers was left a poor man, unable to meet his obligations. After so many years had passed that the claims against him were several times outlawed, he succeeded in getting a pension ; but, instead of
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Hillhouse Avenue.
applying it to personal needs, he spent it all in paying his creditors or their descendants, whom he sought out with great pains. Such a man deserved the love and respect which attended him even to the extreme age of ninety-six. Well for the old North Church that it kept him as its deacon for many years ! He became extremely deaf in old age; and on one of the occasions when the Governor's Guard marched to his home to salute him, he acknowledged the compliment by : "Boys, I can't hear your guns, but your powder smells good !" He was noted for that unfailing courtesy and gracious dignity which his admirers called Washingtonian. Why are we not ashamed to speak of good manners as "old fashioned ?" With all the present revival of the past, let us bring into vogue the "old school " of high breeding and true culture.
NATHAN BEERS.
The portrait by Jocelyn, of which a copy is given, was painted in the old age of Mr. Beers and belonged to his grandson, Dr. Levi Ives, being now in the possession, of the latter's son, Dr. Robert Ives.
The imposing front of St. Mary's Roman Catholic church, and, opposite it, the Shef- field house, recall us to modern times. That house was built by the distinguished architect, Ithiel Town, for his own use. Then, after Dr. Peters had lived in it, Mr. Sheffield bought it and added the extremities of the wings, which were not in the orig- inal plan. Many can re- member the handsome old man in the window, peace- fully enjoying the evening of life. He completed his noble gifts to Yale by be- queathing to her his house and grounds, and so a biolog- ical laboratory adds the asso- ciations of science to those of patriotism, art, and philan- thropy, already connected . with the place.
A little north of the spot where North Sheffield Hall is, but facing the ave- THE CLOISTER. nue, was the old Mansfield house, that, to the day of its downfall, bore the bullet
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Hillhouse Avenue.
marks left by the British ; four maps, now in the New Haven Historical Society, were in the house then and were pierced by the shots. The story goes that Mrs. Mansfield, whose husband was a Tory, while her sons were patriots, had just bowed to hear her little one say his prayers, when a bullet passed immedi- ately over her head. The old building standing where Sheffield Hall now is was occupied as a gnard-house by the British, whose appreciation of Mr. Mans- field's tory principles did not prevent them from stealing from his house a silver tankard which was secreted in one of the beds.
The famous Farmington Canal passed diagonally across the avenue, and the cut was used by the Canal railroad, when it was built. Children used to linger on the bridge to look at the boats as now they do to see the trains. The railroad station was, for a year or two, near Temple street, at the rear of the place of Mr. William Hillhouse. Senator Hillhouse was interested in the opening of the canal, which, in the world's ignorance of the railroads that were soon to be, prom- ised well. He gave éclat to the enterprise by breaking the earth, and the spade which he used, now adorned with his portrait, is in the rooms of the New Haven Historical Society.
Many eyes have turned to the house behind the rho- dodendrons, on the corner of Trumbull street and the ave- nue, because for nearly forty years, it was the home of the famous geologist and miner- alogist, Professor Dana. His books and his teachings have made him a light in the path RESIDENCE OF WILLIAM HILLHOUSE. of science ; his enthusiasm and success in his chosen pursuits, combined with his spotless character, inade his presence a power, and his going has left a sad vacancy.
The home of the elder Professor Silliman, a man of high position in the scientific and the social world, was once on the corner of that street and the avenue. It was built by the Hillhouses, and was for a long time a solitary house. Professor Silliman bought it in 1809, and he was regarded as living far out of town. To it he brought his bride and in it he died in 1864.
The house had several additions, which were taken away or changed when it was moved to Trumbull street. A low, arched opening could be seen at one side in the thick stone wall of one of those wings. Although only a prosaic means of access to the kitchen, the students of the day persisted in connecting it
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Hillhouse Avenue.
with the novel and profound scientific investigations of the famous and learned professor, and looked on it as a mysterious entrance to occult and questionable rites which were not divulged to the outside world.
Had he lived five hundred years earlier, Silliman might have shared the fate of Roger Bacon. This arch, as well as a canal boat and a canal bridge, belonging to the Farmington canal, can be seen in the accompanying cut, taken from an original drawing by Mr. Robert Bakewell, a New Haven artist of note in his generation. The drawing is in the possession of Professor Silliman's daughter, Mrs. James D. Dana, who, with her sister, is represented in the fore- ground.
Once, to light the carriages bearing guests to the wedding of one of his daughters, he hung a lantern on a tree at the entrance of the avenue. The staple remained, was forgotten, and years after, when the tree was cut down,
HOUSE OF PROFESSOR SILLIMAN, THE ELDER, ABOUT 1836.
was found imbedded within the trunk. It was the cause of great bewilderment, until Professor Silliman explained the mystery.
His first wife was the daughter of the second Gov. Jonathan Trumbull. Madam Trumbull passed the last nine years of her life in the house of her son-in-law, and for her, Trumbull street, at first called New street, was named. Here it was that Lafayette, in his triumphal last visit to us, in 1823, paid his respects to her as a survivor of the friends of his brilliant youth. We can fancy the procession arriving with all civic and military parade, and onlookers and
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