USA > Connecticut > Hartford County > History of Hartford County, Connecticut, 1633-1928, Volume I > Part 19
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Commemorated by a bronze tablet in the Capitol by order of the Legislature, John Fitch, born in South Windsor in 1743, was the first man to apply steam to the propulsion of watercraft, using therefor a condensing engine before he knew of the Watt engine. The honor is sometimes still given to Livingston and to Fulton who launched his Clermont in 1807, but the official rec- ords of New Jersey show that Fitch's invention was recognized in 1786 and he given rights to run his steamboat. Delaware, New York, Pennsylvania and Virginia granted him similar rights in 1787. In 1788 he had a boat making regular trips at Philadelphia, and in 1791, Washington, Jefferson and Knox signed the letters patent given by Congress after it had received jurisdiction over the navigable waters of the nation. In 1824 the New York Gen-
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eral Assembly officially confirmed this priority after an investi- gation of the claims-never pushed by Fulton but by those who sought to make the honor his. Admiral Bunce Section of the National Navy League was instrumental in collecting still more evidence in 1909 and in having the memorial tablet placed. Fred- eric Knapp, chairman of the legislative committee, caused to be published a valuable monograph of the evidence at that time. As a farmer's boy, Fitch worked for Timothy Cheney, the East Hart- ford clock maker. After his marriage he left home because of domestic infelicity and thereafter led a life of most romantic wanderings, as clock tinker, button maker, surveyor, map maker, gun maker and peddler, before he turned his thoughts to the use of steam in 1785 at Philadelphia. While making maps of the Middle West he was taken prisoner by the Indians and was held by them and in Quebec, finally winning his exchange by his clev- erness in carving metal. In the Revolution he was a lieutenant from New Jersey till his skill as a gunsmith caused him to be sent back to open a shop. Later all his machinery was destroyed by the British and for a while he was an army sutler at Valley Forge. In 1793 he went to France to get rights and build a boat, but the Revolution there preventing, he left his designs with the American consul (who loaned them to Fulton for some months), came home discouraged, went to Bardstown, Kentucky, and there shot himself in 1798. A monument given by Hon. S. E. Elmore was erected in 1914 to mark Fitch's birthplace in South Windsor.
ORIGINAL MODEL OF JOHN FITCH'S STEAMBOAT Presented by Fitch to the American Philosophical Society of Philadelphia, now in the Smithsonian Institute, Washington, D. C.
The fire department had its origin five years after the incor- poration of the city. Every citizen had to keep a supply of buck- ets which were enumerated yearly. Water was supplied from
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cisterns, nearly all of which were within the lines of present streets, their number being increased by one a year as territory extended. There was a large one near the State House. They were built substantially of brick or stone. Every citizen had to respond to the cry of "Fire" and take buckets with him. A double line would be formed from wells or cisterns, one for passing along the buckets, the other for returning them. Most of the water for the cisterns came from adjacent roofs, the eaves of which connected with the cisterns by channel or wooden pipes. The largest cisterns held 1,200 gallons. The first engine house was provided in 1790, for housing a cart in which buckets and axes could be kept. Fire limits were established in 1799, with regula- tions that all chimneys within the limits must be of brick or stone. Prior to that, chimney sweeps had been required.
Great improvement in traveling was inaugurated when the Hartford, New London, Windham and Tolland turnpikes were chartered in 1795. They were under the control of commis- sioners. Gates were about ten miles apart. Tolls were 25 cents for a stage, or carriage, 61/4 cents for a one-horse wagon and 1 cent for each animal driven.
The county sheriff, the two city sheriffs and the constables constituted the police force till in 1797 the city was divided into four wards each with a "ward and watch"-James Pratt, Ezekiel Williams, Ashbell Wells and Richard Butler respectively.
Through committees the town had managed the classical school, the inception of which has been told. In 1798 it was incor- porated as the Hartford Grammar School. The Second North School was started in 1793, occupying rented quarters till a build- ing was built at the junction of Ann. and High streets.
The First Baptist Church was organized in March, 1790, and four years later its first edifice was built at the corner of Dorr, now Market Street, and Division, later Theater and now Temple Street. Rev. Eahanan Winchester, a Universalist minister best known in Philadelphia and London, died here in 1797 and the Gen- eral Convention of Universalist churches erected the monument over his grave.
Indicative of the times, the Charitable Society of Hartford was organized in 1792 to furnish relief for those not provided for under the poor-laws. This the first charitable organization in the
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city has been well maintained ever since, its funds being dis- tributed by almoners. The Missionary Society of Connecticut was organized in 1798, with headquarters later at the Congrega- tional Home on Garden Street.
Chastellux in his "Travels," 1780, wrote that Hartford was "one long street parallel with the river" and "did not merit atten- tion." Brissot de Warville, the French traveler, wrote in 1788: "The environs of Hartford displayed charming cultivated coun- try, neat, elegant houses, vast meadows, covered with herds of cattle of enormous size. To describe the neighborhood of Hart- ford is to describe Connecticut. Nature and art have here dis- played all their treasures; it is really the paradise of the United States."
"Wethersfield," he wrote further, "is remarkable for its vast fields, uniformly covered with onions, of which great quantities are exported to the West Indies. It is likewise remarkable for its elegant meeting-house or church. On Sunday it is said to offer an enchanting spectacle by the number of young, handsome persons who assemble there, and by the agreeable music with which they intermingle the divine service." This was one of the churches where individual and disputatious sentiments were giv- ing place to united effort to restore the pre-war standards of morality among the people and to promote toleration of sects. From Washington's impression and de Warville's, the beautiful church in Wethersfield must have been a leader, but there is evi- dence of lingering traditions in this extract from the records of that church in 1790: "Whereas there have been great distur- bances in this church and society on account of the seating of the congregation, therefore be it resolved that here after the seating committee shall place people 'first' with regard to their wealth, 'second' with regard to their position in society, and 'third' with respect to their piety." Sittings by decree of a committee in churches in general was not superseded till later; the custom of selling pews auctionwise to raise funds was inaugurated in Nor- wich in 1791.
New England's colonial relations with the mother country from the beginning had not been of a kind to foster regard for the Church of England. In many places bitterness added to an- tipathy during the Revolution, but in the federation, what with
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Washington and other leaders being members of that church, and in Connecticut loyal men like William Samuel Johnson of the Constitutional Convention, and in Hartford, such citizens as Wil- liam Pitkin, John Morgan, Jacob Ogden and William Imlay, there was a sense of what was, under the circumstances, very notable toleration. America's first bishop was consecrated in Connecticut, as has been said, the first year after the war in which he had served as a chaplain of a British regiment.
The first William Pitkin in 1664 was one of the complainants against being deprived of personal preferences and having to contribute toward the support of ministers of other faith than theirs. Ninety-eight years later John Keith and others of the parish which had been formed bought a church site where now stands the cathedral of the diocese and began to build but aban- doned their plan and sold the lot because of the general unsettled conditions. After litigation over the sale, the property was re- stored to the parish, in 1772, by the Superior Court.
Two years after the consecration of Bishop Seabury, there was reorganization and Mr. Imlay and Mr. Morgan were chosen war- dens. By 1792 a fund had been raised for building the church. Some of the contributions were in the form of "pure spirit," some in molasses, and that of Noah Webster, Jr., was seven dozen of Webster's spelling books. The edifice, of frame construction, was consecrated in 1801. The present one replaced it in 1829. At the semi-centennial celebration Bishop Clark said of it, referring to more pretentious churches which had been built: "None of them is as far in advance of Christ Church, Hartford, as this was of all others that existed at the date of its consecration." In the earlier days services had been held under direction of the English missionary organization. Calvin Whiting was lay reader in 1795. The first of the distinguished list of rectors was Menzies Rayner, 1801 to 1811. The work of the Episcopal Church always has been hand in hand with that of those of the faith of the colony's founders.
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XVIII
"HARTFORD WITS"
NATIONAL VALUE OF FIRST LITERARY CENTER-LAWYERS AND DOC- TORS - ENTERTAINMENTS - ALMSHOUSE - CEMETERIES - DISCUS- SION ABOUT "FIRST" CHURCH.
Founder Thomas Hooker would have been known for his the- ological treatises even if he never had been known as builder of free government. Jonathan Edwards' writings gave him a name more enduring than that for his "Great Awakening." Roger Wolcott of Windsor (1679-1767), soldier, jurist and statesman, became the leading poet of New England in his later days. He laboriously mingled colonial scenes with landscapes of the an- cients, and Indian chiefs with dwellers on Parnassus. The "Hart- ford Wits" were the first to make of Hartford a national literary center. They were Yale graduates who had chosen Hartford for their rendezvous in the strife of Washington and federalism for closer union of the states, against Jefferson and anti-federalism for greater independence of the states and French democracy. They "hung up the sword in Hartford, and grasped the lyre." France was seeking America's aid in her wars; mobs were doing violence under Shay of Massachusetts and other leaders; a cer- tain element were refusing to pay taxes and denouncing Wash- ington and his officers as aristocrats, hundreds of orators were appealing to the masses to rise and prevent a new monarchy. Among the literary authorities, Barrett Wendell says of the Wits : "An heroic, patriotic effort they stand for, and one made with enthusiasm, wit and courage." And Carl Halliday: "Undoubt- edly they helped to an appreciable degree in the preservation of the nation."
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John Trumbull* (Watertown, 1750-Detroit, Mich., 1831), was a tutor at Yale where he was graduated at the age of 17 and a student of law, a dashing writer there and in Boston who, it is said, would have been another Pope or Dryden had not the cause of liberty called him to the field of political satire. His "Progress of Dulness" and "McFingal" gave him fame that seems to flash out periodically with new glamor. The former was a satire on college systems, on worthless boys of wealth in college and on not giving women opportunity for higher education. The latter and stronger is the still fascinating story of a Scotch orator who stood for submission to Parliament, as against "Honorius," a patriot. "McFingal" was completed in Hartford and ran into scores of editions-mostly pirated-both here and in Europe. In Hart- ford he became state's attorney, member of the Assembly, judge of the Superior Court, judge of the Supreme Court and treasurer of Yale for many years. Some of his writings in 1775 were ap- pearing in the Courant and no doubt the character of that paper was one of the reasons for the Wits' choosing Hartford for their abode.
Another reason was the divergence of Yale and Harvard sen- timent in the field of religion, Harvard having a spasm of unor- thodoxy while Yale thinkers were firm for the old faith. Timothy Dwight, Sr., chaplain in the war, and later, as president of Yale, the inspirer of the second great religious revival, was directing his humor along with his preachments against the ungodly, as shown by this quotation from one of the more famous poems, referring to a Harvard cleric:
* the smooth Divine, unused to wound The sinner's heart, with hell's alarming sound. No terrors on this gentle tongue attend ; No grating truths the nicest ear offend."
* Joseph and Judah Trumbull were settlers in Suffield. Each had a son John. Joseph's son John (the elder of the two), born in 1670, was great-grandfather of John Trumbull, LL. D., the writer and jurist and state treasurer. Joseph, another son of Joseph of Suffield settled in Lebanon and was the father of Governor Jonathan Trum- bull. The latter's eldest son Joseph was commissary-general early in the Revolution; his widow married Col. Hezekiah Wyllys. Another son, Jonathan, was governor 1798- 1809 and a third son, John, was the artist and the personal friend of Washington. A fourth son, David, was father of Governor Joseph Trumbull, 1849. Dr. Benjamin Trumbull, state historian, was also a descendant of the Suffield Joseph.
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THE COLONIAL TOWN MEETING
From the poem "McFingal" (1795) by John Trumbull of Hartford. Engraved by E. Tisdale, suggesting Old South Church, Boston.
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Joel Barlow (1754-1812), educated at both Dartmouth and Yale, admitted to the bar in Hartford in 1785, founder of the American Mercury, one of the vehicles for the Wits, and winning fame in Europe for his great work, the "Columbiad" (America's history in verse from discovery till the end of the war and after), but most popular through the generations for "Hasty Pudding," descriptive of the simplicity of New England life (published in Paris!), extolled by Jefferson in 1805, then dweller in magnifi- cence in Washington, minister to France in 1811 and dying in wretchedness in trying to answer the call for a conference sent him by Napoleon who was retreating from Moscow and whom Barlow condemned in his last breath, was counted among them till he left in 1788.
Col. David Humphreys (1753-1818), born in Derby, the aid whom Washington sent to Congress with Cornwallis' surrendered colors and long and frequent guest at Mount Vernon, recipient of a sword from Congress for bravery at Yorktown, secretary of the French legation, member of the Assembly in 1786, and brigadier- general in the War of 1812, was another of the group.
Theodore Dwight, Sr. (1764-1846), native of Northampton, Mass., was a later comer. He and his brother-in-law, Richard Alsop, Hartford bookseller, helped write the "Echo" series, in 1791, in the Mercury four years after Barlow had resigned from that periodical. The publication continued till 1805, ending with a burlesque on Jefferson's inauguration. Dwight was congress- man in 1806 and secretary of the Hartford Convention in 1814. After that he conducted the New York Daily Advertiser. His hymn on Washington's death was widely printed. Doctors Mason F. Cogswell of Hartford and Elihu H. Smith of Wethersfield and Litchfield also contributed some lines to the "Echo."
Dr. Lemuel Hopkins (Waterbury, 1750-Hartford, 1801), emi- nent as a surgeon, wrote much for the group's "Anarchiad" and the "Political Green House" as well as for the "Echo." When Ethan Allen spoke for infidelity, Hopkins replied :
"All front he seems like wall of brass, And brays tremendous as an ass ;
One hand is clenched to batter noses, While t'other scrawls 'gainst Paul and Moses."
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Of the many attacks by anti-federalists upon the Wits, the fol- lowing from a Philadelphia paper, in 1793, signed "Mirabeau," is a sample :
"Hartford! curst corner of the spacious earth ! Where each dire mischief ripens into birth * Hartford, detested more by faction's race
Than hardened sinner hates the call of grace."
The Hartford County Medical Society was established in 1792 to assist in securing "incorporation of the faculty throughout the state." Dr. Elihu Tudor was chairman of the meeting. The Con- necticut Medical Society held its first meeting in Middletown the next month. Among its early members were: Dr. Mason F. Cogswell who in 1803 ligated the carotid artery for the first time in America and was influential in establishing the asylum for deaf mutes; Dr. Elihu Todd of the Retreat; John L. Comstock, writer of valuable scientific works; William Tully, "most learned and scientific physician in New England;" Amariah Brigham, super- intendent of the Retreat 1840-42 and afterwards of the asylum in Utica, N. Y .; Dr. Archibald Welch of Wethersfield and Hart- ford, prominent in the early days of life insurance as medical director of the American Temperance Life, the present Phoenix Mutual Life Insurance Company, who was killed in a railroad accident in 1853; Dr. Samuel B. Beresford, educated in Edin- burgh and London, with his father, Dr. James Beresford, who also was a member of the Royal College of Surgeons in London; Dr. George B. Hawley, founder of the Hartford Hospital and its leading spirit till his death in 1863; Dr. Charles W. Chamberlain, authority on public hygiene, who assisted in establishing the State Board of Health of which he was first secretary, and a long list of surgeons in the Civil war. Also there was the Hopkins Medi- ical Society, 1826-1844, named after Doctor Hopkins. The Hart- ford Medical Society was established August 27, 1846.
The first homeopath to practice in the county was Dr. Gus- tavus M. Taft who came to Hartford in 1842. He gave his life in the battle against yellow fever in New Orleans in 1847. His brother, Dr. C. A. Taft, became a partner with Dr. P. S. Starr. The society of these practitioners was founded by Dr. John Schué of Hartford and others in 1851. It became the Connecticut
(From the engraving by A. B. Durand after the painting by Waldo & Jewett) JOHN TRUMBULL (1756-1843)
TIMOTHY DWIGHT (1752-1817) President of Yale College, 1795-1817
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Homeopathic Medical Society. Doctors Gardner S. Browne and James D. Johnson were presidents of the state association. Dr. O. B. Freeman introduced homeopathy in Collinsville and George P. Cooley in Bristol.
Smallpox at times threatened to be as much of a scourge as it had been among the Indians. The doctors of the county fought it bravely. In 1797 Dr. Eliakim Elmer of Hartford was given right to build a hospital and practice inoculation. Previously, in 1792, Dr. Daniel Butler, Dr. Eliakim Fish and Dr. Lemuel Hopkins had been practicing inoculation under direction of the selectmen, and Starr Chester had taken the house of Col. Samuel Talcott in West Hartford for like purpose.
The period following the war and on into the next century saw a great increase in the number of capable lawyers. The Superior Court which had been first colonial and then the State Court be- came the County Court in 1798, with from three to five judges till 1819 when only one presided. Of the fifty-eight judges in that period seventeen were from this county and of them three were promoted to the Supreme Court. They were Stephen Mix Mitchell of Wethersfield, John Trumbull of Hartford, John T. Peters of Hartford. Of the nineteen chief judges of the Superior Court, five were from the county-Judge Mitchell, William Pitkin, Jr., of Hartford, Jesse Root of Hartford and Coventry (after whom General Grant's father was named; colonel in the militia and cap- tain of volunteers in 1777; member of the Legislature and mem- ber of Congress; again member of the Legislature and member of the Constitutional Convention of 1818; one who had fitted for the ministry and had decided he was unfit for it because he smiled when he saw a mouse in church) ; Governor Roger Wolcott, Sr., and Governor William Pitkin, 3d, of Hartford.
The Supreme Court of Errors was created in 1784. Till 1806 it consisted of the governor and lieutenant-governor and the twelve assistants. Of the total of thirty-nine such ex officio judges, eleven were from this county, namely, Governor William Pitkin, 4th, East Hartford; Governor Oliver Wolcott, Sr., East Windsor and Litchfield ; Governor Oliver Ellsworth, Sr., Windsor; Gen. Erastus Wolcott, East Windsor; Governor John Treadwell, Farmington; Col. John Chester, 4th, Wethersfield; Gen. Roger Newberry, Windsor; Col. Thomas Seymour, 4th, Hartford; Col.
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Jeremiah Wadswoth, Hartford; Jonathan Brace, Glastonbury and Hartford; Lieutenant-Governor Chauncey Goodrich, Durham and Hartford. Between 1807 and 1855, four of the twenty-four Su- perior Court judges who were ex officio of the higher court when sitting in banc were from this county-Judge Mitchell, John Trumbull, Hartford; John T. Peters, Hebron and Hartford; Thomas Scott Williams, Wethersfield and Hartford, Mitchell and Williams becoming chief judges. Beginning in 1855 Supreme Court judges have been commissioned as such. The earlier ones from this county-those after 1880 being named in their appro- priate periods-were Governor William Wolcott Ellsworth, Wind- sor and Hartford; Chief Justice William L. Storrs, Middletown and Hartford; Thomas B. Butler, Wethersfield; Dwight W. Par- dee, Bristol and Hartford, and Elisha Carpenter, Ashford and Hartford. In this earlier period, nineteen of the seventy-nine judges of the Supreme Court were from this county, and of the seventeen chief judges, seven.
The list of prosecuting officers bears many distinguished names. Through the earlier period and from the beginning they are such as: William Pitkin, 1st, Richard Edwards, Jesse Root, John Trumbull, Thomas Y. Seymour, Isaac Toucey (governor and, under Buchanan, secretary of the navy), Thomas C. Per- kins (of the Pitkin family and recognized head of the bar), Gov- ernor Richard D. Hubbard, Horace Cornwall and William Hamersley.
The Hartford County Bar Association was founded Novem- ber 14, 1783. Among the lawyers of special note prior to 1800 and not mentioned in the preceding paragraphs were: Samuel Pettibone of Simsbury, Capt. Thomas Seymour, 3rd (father of Mayor Thomas Seymour, 4th), of Hartford, Bildad Phelps of Windsor, Silas Deane of Wethersfield, Gideon Granger, Sr., of Suffield, Maj. William Judd of Farmington, Gen. Roger New- berry, Jr., of Windsor, Tapping Reeve (founder of the celebrated Litchfield Law School) of Hartford, Capt. Daniel Humphrey of Simsbury, Alexander Wolcott, Jr. (founder of Jeffersonian school of politics in Connecticut) of Windsor, Noah Webster (the lexi- cographer) of Hartford, Gen. Samuel H. Parsons (who helped form Middlesex County) of Middletown, Ephraim Root of Hart- ford, Joel Barlow of Hartford, Gideon Granger, Jr. (postmaster general, 1801-1814) of Suffield, Gen. Nathaniel Terry (judge of
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Superior Court) of Enfield and Hartford, Gaylord Griswold of Windsor, Decius Wadsworth of Farmington, Hezekiah Hunting- ton of Hartford, Theodore Dwight, Jr., of Hartford, Timothy Pitkin, Jr., of Farmington, and Hezekiah Bissell, Jr. (judge of Superior Court), of Windsor and Hartford.
At the beginning of the 1800 period the number greatly in- creased. It continued to be that a large percentage were from the towns around the city. Again omitting the names previously mentioned, the more prominent of those admitted to practice in- cluded : Thomas Day (revisor of statutes, fifty years Supreme Court reporter, chief judge of county court and many years secre- tary of the state) of Hartford, Walter Mitchell (chief judge of County Court) of Wethersfield and Hartford, Joseph Trumbull, Jr. (grandson of the war governor, president of the Hartford Bank, congressman, governor in 1849) of Hartford, Samuel P. Waldo (writer of biographical volumes) of East Windsor, Elisha Phelps (congressman and judge of County Court) of Simsbury and Hartford, William Dixon (congressman and judge of County Court, father of Senator James Dixon) of Enfield, Martin Welles (son of Gen. Roger Welles, speaker of the House, chief judge of County Court) of Farmington and Hartford, Noah A. Phelps (sheriff and also secretary of the state) of Simsbury, Lorrain T. Pease (judge of County Court) of Enfield, Ethan Allen Andrews (author of Latin lexicon bearing his name) of New Britain, Henry L. Ellsworth (son of the chief justice, twin of Governor Ellsworth, commissioner of Indians in Jackson's administration and for ten years patent commissioner) of Windsor, John M. Niles (active in politics and newspaper work) of Hartford, Sam- uel H. Huntington (judge of County Court) of Hartford, Wil- liam Hungerford (one of the most learned) of Hartford, Royal R. Hinman (secretary of the state and compiler of history) of Southington and Hartford, James Dixon (congressman, senator and writer) of Enfield and Hartford, John Brocklesby, Jr. (pro- fessor and acting president at Trinity) of Hartford, Thomas M. Day (editor of the Courant) of Hartford, Aholiab Johnson (re- porter of the Supreme Court) of Enfield, Henry Howard Brown- ell (Admiral Farragut's secretary and writer of the famous "War Lyrics") of East Hartford, Lucius F. Robinson (student of Greek, Latin and Hebrew classics, brother of Henry C. Robin-
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