USA > Connecticut > Hartford County > History of Hartford County, Connecticut, 1633-1928, Volume I > Part 23
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There were also the publishing houses of O. D. Cooke, H. & F. J. Huntington, Hamersley & Belknap, William J. Hamersley, Brown & Gross, the house of Bliss, Lucius A. Stebbins whose con- cern adopted the well known name of the American Publishing Company, though not organizing as such till 1865, and became the foremost of subscription-book houses, publishing many widely sold books, Mark Twain's earlier ones among them; Hurlburt & Kellogg, Hurlburt & Williams who cleared over $80,000 in one year on the "Nurse and Spy" and established the Hartford Pub- lishing Company; O. D. Case & Company, publishers of Greeley's "History of the Civil War;" S. S. Scranton & Company, J. D. Burr & Company, J. B. Bretts and E. Gately & Company. Case, Tiffany & Company, predecessors of the present Case, Lockwood & Brainard Company, were the first publishers of Webster's "Unabridged Dictionary." Engraving and lithography were developed to a high degree. The house of Kellogg, original of the present Kellogg & Bulkeley, was famous for its lithographs and in the war time was producing in color pictures now highly prized by collectors. In the experimental stage of this great dis- covery, a soldier in black and white appeared sometimes to be jumping out of his colored uniform of blue or brown. The whole industry of book binding, formerly so laborious, was revolution- ized by the machinery devised and made by the Smyth Manufac- turing Company of Hartford.
The writer of the Comstock textbooks referred to in a previ- ous paragraph was Dr. John Lee Comstock of New London who began practicing here after having served as surgeon in the war. Among the most celebrated of all his many books, on every branch of science, was "System of Natural Philosophy."
William Watson in 1828 turned his store on Main Street into a repository of books and pamphlets in the cause of universal peace and in 1834 published the American Advocate of Peace which was taken by the national society as its organ. Some of the prominent citizens joined earnestly with him in this move- ment.
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If the abundant flow of printers' ink after the war was a sign of turning energy in new directions, so too was the increase in the number of taverns around the county. One cause for there
(Drawn by J. W. Barber, Engraved by A. Willard)
HARTFORD, FROM EASTERN BANK OF THE CONNECTICUT RIVER, 1838
MAIN STREET, HARTFORD, EARLY NINETEENTH CENTURY
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being so many on the Albany pike between here and New Hart- ford was the development of trade inland. Doctor Russell in his "Up-Neck" enumerates twenty-one: Beginning near Asylum Street they were Joseph Pratt's, Joseph Pratt, Jr.'s, Dan St. John's, Daniel M. Cooley's, Samuel Moore's, James Goodwin's (west of Gully Brook), Lemuel Howlertt's, Elisha Wadsworth's (corner of Prospect Avenue), Barney Collins' (West Hartford four corners), Aaron Goodman's and Major Whiting's (the same), Erastus Phelps' (toll gate), Major Marshall's (at the foot of Avon Mountain), Francis Woodford's (Avon), Obed Higley's, Hosford's (Canton), Zenos Dyer's, Samuel Merrill's (Satan's Kingdom), Wilcox's (Pine Meadow), and General Cowles' (New Hartford, where breakfast was served for those leaving Hart- ford for Albany at 2 in the morning). The store of E. and R. Terry at the corner of Windsor Avenue was a transportation center, a constant procession of vehicles passing it night and day, including not a few wagons of Ohio-bound emigrants. It was a "filling station" in accord with the ideas of that day. But on Sundays no traffic or labor was permitted in the vicinity.
The increase in social festivities may have had something to do with the tavern increase. A favorite form of entertainment was a dinner at an inn a good sleigh-ride distant. The Philo- sophical Literary Society began a series of reading entertain- ments in 1826 in the old Circus Building on the east side of State House Square. This developed into "performances" which drew such crowds that the law interfered and the participants were punished. In 1852 the law was passed permitting local option in the matter of entertainment, and the next year theaters and circuses were licensed. "Election Day" had survived the troublous period as the one especially festive occasion. Perhaps not so much cooking of " 'lection cake" was done weeks in ad- vance, but the hospitality, to friend and stranger, was unlim- ited. All forms of musical instruments were requisitioned, both before and after the parade from the State House to Church to hear the sermon and then back to the State House to hear the announcement of everybody who had been elected. Aside from the bareheaded sheriff at the head of the parade, bearing a sword, and the military, there were in this period over 200 of the clergy. The last sermon was preached in 1830, for the expense of the dinner for the clergy, sometimes as high as $100, had become more than the state treasurer could allow. With that the pomp
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and splendor was gradually discontinued, even to the cockade in the chief executive's hat. By 1836 the Legislature had ceased to march and since 1852 the ceremonies have been much simpler, though the governor's ball, sponsored by the Foot Guard, is main- tained and likewise the inauguration military parade.
The need of a larger market than that on the square caused Mayor Terry to suggest that in building a new one accommoda- tion should be made for town meetings which were still being held in the State House. Accordingly when the city bought the Lee homestead on present Market Street and put up a building 60x110 feet, rooms were provided on the second floor for the Common Council and also for the four "night watch," together with cells. Then on the third floor was an auditorium. It was there that Daniel Webster spoke in 1837 and Lincoln in 1860.
Be it said in way of distinction that even thus early Hartford appreciated the need of security for its town records. The cry for it was heeded in 1839 when a one-story building was put up on Pearl Street on land bought of Robert Watkinson, and there was additional land in the rear for fire apparatus and watch- house. More room being needed, land was bought in 1853 of George W. Corning at the corner of Pearl and Trumbull streets and the Hall of Records was built at a cost of $22,384, to serve admirably till the Municipal Building was erected. The Corning homestead adjoining has passed from the estate only in this pres- ent year.
In 1829 the town voted to call what is now Asylum Hill sec- tion "Tower Hill District" and present Asylum Street to Thomas Chester's house, at the corner of Ann, Tower Hill Street. The location of any tower on former "Brick Hill" is not known.
The present stone edifice of Christ Church was dedicated in 1829, in the regretted absence of Bishop Thomas C. Brownell who had been rector from 1819 to 1821. Other rectors who be- came bishops were Philander Case (1811-1817), Jonathan M. Wainwright (1817-1819) provisional bishop of New York, George Burgus (1834-1847) bishop of Maine, and Thomas M. Clark (1851-1857) bishop of Rhode Island. Rector N. S. Wheaton (1821-1831) became president of Trinity College. The first expansion of the church was in 1841 when St. John's was organized with Rev. Arthur Cleveland Coxe as rector. Of this church, Rector W. C. Doane (1863-1867) became bishop.
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THE REV. ARTHUR CLEVELAND COXE, D.D.
First rector of St. John's Episcopal Church. Installed in 1842
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A number of prominent women in 1825 organized the Widows' Society, to distribute aid from a fund by selected almon- ers. At his death in 1856, Senator Niles left $26,000 as a fund which, when it reached $40,000, should furnish income for this society and the Charitable Society in Hartford which does such good work today.
Lafayette, when he came in 1824, beheld a very different Hartford from that he had known in the days of the Revolution. Nothing was spared in the way of decorations and plans for en- tertainment to make him appreciate the sincerity of the applause for him. He was expected on the evening of September 2 but ovations along the way delayed his arrival till the 3d. The throngs remained in the illuminated streets till after midnight despite a heavy rain. A large military escort, headed by the Governor's Horse Guards under command of Maj. J. E. Hart, went out to meet the general. The Foot Guard also were in the escort in the city. The general was accompanied by his son, George Washington Lafayette, and a few personal friends. Breakfast was furnished at Bennett's Hotel by the city corpora- tion, including John Trumbull and John Caldwell who had at- tended when Lafayette was given the freedom of the city forty years before. Governor Wolcott welcomed him at the State House where about one hundred officers and soldiers of the Revo- lution attended the reception. Brig .- Gen. Nathan Johnson com- manded the provisional brigade in the review under an arch in front of the State House, and the reporter said that "the guest discovered much satisfaction at the elegant appearance of the troops." School children with appropriate badges, followed. In their behalf, Dr. John Lee Comstock, the scientist and writer, presented a gold medal wrapped in a paper on which were writ- ten verses by Lydia Huntley Sigourney. At Daniel Wadsworth's he saw the sash and epaulettes he had worn as major-general, stained with blood at the time he was wounded at the battle of Brandywine. (In the corridor of the Capitol today is the gen- eral's camp cot.) He sailed for New York in the afternoon on the Oliver Ellsworth.
The city has had the pleasure of paying honor to many dis- tinguished men, including Washington and Commodore Macdon- ough, as mentioned, to Generals Sherman and Sheridan and to Presidents Monroe, Jackson, Polk, Johnson, Grant, Roosevelt and Taft.
XXII
EDUCATION, CANAL, BANKING
FOUNDING OF TRINITY-BARNARD'S WORK-HIGH SCHOOL AND PRIVATE SCHOOLS-CATHERINE BEECHER, LYDIA HUNTLEY-STEAM ON THE RIVER-BANKS AND THE NEEDS.
The birth of an Episcopal college in a typical Congregational community is, despite the pains attendant, a mere individual item to enliven history, for one who has not read consecutively the tale of the Three Constitution Towns. But for him who has marked the weaving and interweaving since the period of the Constitution and before, and has taken each incident in the light of others of its particular decade, the incident stands out as a notable part of that motif in nation-building which will run through indefinite periods. It must be remembered that whatever worth while had been gained, from the beginning back in Eng- land, had been at the cost of sacrifice and pain; the hand that had had to guide had been hard, firm. Joy in doing had been negatived by the wilderness and by the absence of simplest facili- ties. It was duty that impelled and allegiance was essential not to the traditions of the ancestors but to God and to this new thing they had made on the remote river bank-this free government of theirs. The makers thereof and their descendants perforce had to instill reverence and protection or lose. Let sects murmur as they might, pressure was resisted till the form was set. Not till then could further human compatability be freely approved and the old Constitution be dressed up with the new.
The Episcopalians who had struggled to maintain their Cheshire Academy since 1792 found little difficulty in getting their charter for a college through the Legislature in May, 1823. It is notable that a third of the corporators were not church- men; in Hartford in particular there was hearty cooperation, and all was done that could be done to give the college a good start. For one thing they removed the religious test which lat-
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BISHOP T. C. BROWNELL, D. D. First president of Trinity College. Elected in 1824
EASTERN VIEW OF WASHINGTON COLLEGE, NOW TRINITY, 1840
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terly had come to stir criticism for Yale. The effect was consid- erable since conservative Yale saw the light and removed that test-the day before the petition went to the Capitol. Hartford cannon and bonfires celebrated the passage of the legislative act. Of the $50,000 subscribed for the college the first year, three- fourths was from Hartford. By town vote the selectmen raised $5,000 by conveying to William H. Imlay, Charles Sigourney, Samuel Tudor and Cyprian Nichols, for the college, all of the town's lands then under lease on the banks of Little River, and two small lots in the Ancient Burying Ground. The town won in the competition for location. Seabury Hall, designed by S. F. B. Morse, and Jarvis Hall, designed by Samuel Willard of Boston, were ready for occupancy in 1825. Meanwhile Bishop Thomas C. Brownell, who had been a professor at Union College, his alma mater, had been elected president and studying had been begun in city rooms in September, 1824. The first seven students were increased to twenty-eight in number during the year. Special courses were provided for those who could not remain four years. Rev. Dr. S. F. Jarvis came to the college faculty in 1828 and when he gave the use of his library, the institution was unex- celled in this particular by any college except Harvard. This was an impetus which has been enjoyed to the present time.
The name chosen was to have been Seabury but out of re- spect for the number of non-church corporators and to disarm lingering prejudice it was made Washington. Bishop Brownell, whose statue, the gift of his son-in-law, will always adorn the campus, resigned in 1831 to give his time to his diocesan duties, and Dr. N. S. Wheaton succeeded him. In the administration of Dr. Silas Totten, after Brownell Hall had been built, the name was changed, in 1844, to Trinity; the Board of Fellows was formed and graduates outside the corporation were organized into the House of Convocation. Dr. John Williams' presidency began in 1848. In 1851 he created a theological department which in 1854 was chartered as the Berkeley Divinity School and located in Middletown where it remained till 1928 when it re- moved to New Haven. In 1853, two years after having been elected assistant bishop, Doctor Williams (who later succeeded Bishop Brownell) resigned the presidency which went in turn to Dr. Daniel R. Goodwin, in 1860 to Dr. Samuel Eliot, in 1864 to Dr. John B. Kerfoot who was elected to the bishopric of Pitts-
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burgh, in 1867 to Dr. Abner Jackson (then president of Hobart), and in 1874 to Dr. Thomas R. Pynchon when the present era began on the new campus, as will be seen in following the course of the city's development.
One has to clear his mind thoroughly of the modern public school system to get a conception of the hiatus in public educa- tional matters (the country over) between the 1770s and the 1830s. To pick up the thread where it was dropped in Chapter VIII, it is noted that interest in the higher-grade "grammar" school revived in 1798 when Judge John Trumbull secured the in- corporation of the institution which seemingly could have done so much more for the community. But that school was for boys only and there continued unexplainable neglect of all the children of intermediate grades, on the part of people who in the begin- ning had been so strenuous. The district schools amounted to but little for elementary work. The result altogether was a crop of private schools chiefly for girls, for which it is said more money was paid by those who could afford it than was paid for the sup- port of the classical school. Moreover, attention was drawn away from that school. Ebenezer Whiting was among the first to ad- vertise for pupils.
Prof. Thomas A. Thacher who attended seven public and pri- vate schools here at his birthplace before starting in 1831 for a degree at Yale, where in due time he became one of the most widely known instructors of his generation, wrote a reminiscent letter in his later days. The teachers impressed him. He never forgot one woman who reveled in such punishments as preparing the paraphernalia to open a pupil's arm and let the bad blood run out and another who carefully strung a cord over a beam and ad- justed the noose for hanging one of the boys. Noah Webster in 1794 was one of the first to try to introduce something or other in the way of elementary education. Struck by the daily evi- dence of the evil in grammar and rhetoric, he held classes in his rooms at the northeast corner of Main and Mulberry streets, whither he had come from his father's home still standing in West Hartford; but the shocking situation as to spelling soon drove him to making fortunes for various publishers (down even to 1900) with his world-famed spelling books. This was before
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(Photo by Aerial Camera Corporation)
TRINITY COLLEGE, HARTFORD Campus and Athletic Field. Entrance to Summit Park in foreground
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laborious work in New Haven preparing his no less needed dic- tionary.
George Jeffrey Patten, son of Rev. William Patten of the First Church, had struggled along on the pittance of preceptor- ship of the grammar school for six years when in 1798 with his wife and sisters he opened a private school in the old State House which, as said, had been moved to a spot next west of Christ Church. His wife Ruth was the daughter of Rev. Eleazer Wheel- ock, the teacher of Indians at Lebanon who founded Dartmouth College. Later Mr. Patten established the Literary Institute on Main Street above Asylum, for boys only. Thacher attended the girls' school conducted by the ladies of the family, an exception being made in his case because of his Lebanon ante- cedents. He lingeringly describes the homelike atmosphere with the aged mother sitting by the fireplace and he quotes as from the advertisement: "The time was divided between study, paint- ing, embroidery, and some needle work." (The daughters kept the school till 1825.) The most he could remember of the insti- tute which he attended later was that Mr. Patten appeared very much bored.
Lydia Huntley, the poet, was called here from Norwich by Daniel Wadsworth in 1815 to conduct a girls' school. Her charm won Charles Sigourney, eminent man of affairs, and they were married in 1819, after which she was mistress of his new man- sion near the present railroad station. Mrs. Kinneer in 1827 had a school at the corner of Arch Street for Episcopalians. She was succeeded in 1843 by the Misses Draper who continued till 1850. The Misses Watson in 1836 had a school on Main Street and in 1858 T. W. T. Curtis one at the Brinley House on Asylum Street.
A strong rival of the school of the Misses Patten was that of Mrs. Lydia Bull Royse, dating from about 1800 and, after her retirement, carried on by her daughter, Mrs. Eliza Lydia Shel- don, till 1818. Mrs. Royse, a native of Hartford, a descendant of Capt. Thomas Bull, had returned here after the death of her husband, John Royse. In this "finishing school" for girls barred from the grammar school and for many from out of town, in- cluding Emma Hart of Berlin (Mrs. Willard), one accomplish- ment in which pupils prided themselves was the embroidery of
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groups of classical heroes with faces painted in-but no paint on the faces of the painters in those old days. The school was dis- continued on the death of Mr. Sheldon who was a partner of "Peter Parley" in publishing. The school's first location was at the corner of Main and Belden streets and the second in the Whitman house at the corner of Main and Capitol Avenue. Sub- sequently Mrs. Sheldon opened a school in association with Mrs. Grosevenor. In 1819 and for several years Dr. Lyman Strong had a school for girls.
Of all these schools the one of widest repute was the Hart- ford Female Seminary, incorporated by several prominent men in 1827, with Catherine E. Beecher, daughter of Rev. Dr. Lyman Beecher of Litchfield, for the head of it. Previously Miss Beecher and her sister Mary (later Mrs. Thomas C. Perkins) had had a school on Asylum Street which in the four years since 1823 had increased in membership from seven to over a hundred. The cor- poration built near the corner of Main and Kinsley streets where the school remained till it removed to a new and still more suit- able building on Pratt Street. Harriet Beecher was a pupil and remained as a teacher. So earnest were Catherine Beecher's efforts in behalf of education for women that her health failed and she resigned in 1831, leaving her assistants to carry on her ideas in many parts of the country. John P. Brace, who after- ward had a school in Litchfield, succeeded her. Subsequent teach- ers included Helen A. Swift, Mary M. Parker, Maria Jewell, Frances M. Strong, Anna Maria Parker, Miss N. S. Ranney, Mr. and Mrs. M. S. Crosby, William T. Gage and M. Louise Bacon. Miss Beecher, who had been unconscious of the similar work of Mrs. Willard (of Berlin) at Waterford and Troy, started another school in Cincinnati and, penetrating the Middle West with her methods, offered support and teachers for a number of towns where the seed she sowed yielded rich harvest. The trus- tees sold the local academy building to the Good Will Club in 1888.
The times were more than ripe for a Henry Barnard. Special efforts were put forth in the '30s to improve conditions and to have a public high school, but it was almost a decade before the
LYDIA HUNTLEY SIGOURNEY (1791-1825)
SIGOURNEY MANSION, HARTFORD, 1820
Home of Lydia Huntley Sigourney, the poetess. Still used for special school purposes. Located west of present railroad tracks, south of Asylum Street. Was model for the Connecticut Building at the St. Louis Exposition
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efforts were rewarded. The grammar school had improved but it was woefully wanting. Though a new building in 1828 had been a welcome sign, there still was lack of correlation. By 1838, however, Doctor Barnard's great work for schools in Connecticut and eventually in the United States had begun to bear fruit; he had brought about the opening of legislative eyes, and in 1838 his State Board of School Commissioners had evinced an interest in Hartford which was to culminate in 1847 in the opening of the Hartford English and Classical High School, the present Hart- ford Public High School.
The doctor had been a member of the local Board of School Visitors since 1840. He had advocated consolidation of the three districts into one; proper gradation; several schools for the youngest, with ample playgrounds; two or three secondary schools; two free high schools or two departments in one-one for the boys and one for the girls; admission on examination, and a preparatory classical course-the whole to be entrusted to an elective board, two-thirds to be elected annually, and to a super- intendent who should devote all his time to overseeing and who should employ the teachers and "meet with them for instruc- tion." This plan had the hearty endorsement of Rev. George Burgess and Dr. Horace Bushnell, but when it went to the elec- torate politics and selfish considerations entered in, especially in the South District (according to Doctor Barnard), and that dis- trict's adverse vote was prohibitive.
In 1845 the agitation was resumed and two years later James M. Bunce, A. M. Collins and D. F. Robinson devoted most of their time to reorganizing in connection with the high school, the pur- pose being to bring about all the proposed changes most desired. Of these, consolidation was not one; there was a sentiment that the political evil in any one district might do the "leavening" for the whole three, and districts which were improving would be pulled down. It was a vigorous campaign the expense of which was borne by Mr. Bunce, and he gave $1,000 toward the comple- tion of the new building erected at the corner of Ann and Asylum streets. By arrangement the Hopkins Grammar School, as it was then known, became the classical department of the new school, limiting its pupils to thirty-five; Rector William Capron removed to the new building and continued till 1853 when he was
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succeeded by his brother, S. M. Capron. Joshua D. Giddings served briefly as principal of the high school and was succeeded by Thomas K. Beecher, son of Dr. Lyman Beecher, who remained till 1850. His successor was H. A. Pratt, previously head of the Suffield Literary Institute. When S. M. Capron became princi- pal in 1865, the trustees and the High School Committee ar- ranged that he should have sole control of both schools-a prin- ciple which has been followed ever since. Joseph Hall succeeded Mr. Capron on the latter's death in 1874 and carried the history on till the era to be studied later. The second high school build- ing, on the site of the present buildings on Hopkins Street, was built in 1869. This building was burned in 1882 and a new one was erected and ready for occupancy in 1884.
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