USA > Connecticut > Hartford County > History of Hartford County, Connecticut, 1633-1928, Volume I > Part 27
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45
If there is need of further reminder that for seventy years after the city was incorporated it still was rural in character, it lies in the fact that the first sewers were laid in 1835. The city limits were extended a second time in 1859, four years after West Hartford had been set off.
A
(Collection of Martin Welles)
HARTFORD DURING THE GREAT CONNECTICUT RIVER FLOOD OF 1854 Looking down State Street from the old State House
XXV
THREE GREAT INSTITUTIONS
ATHENEUM, SEMINARY FOUNDATION, HARTFORD HOSPITAL-MADE AND MAINTAINED BY CITIZENS-SIGNIFICANT RECOGNITION OF CHARAC- TER OF ANCIENT COMMUNITY.
The worth-while study of the towns should not be in the ab- stract. To get the true measure of sequences after the framing of the Constitution, the object has been, and should be, to observe phases simultaneously and in conjunction with each other. That a constitution was made is one thing, but how, why and by what kind of persons is as much worth knowing; the individual facts of remarkable insurance companies and of original, ingenious industries and of the home work of the first master of the na- tional school system are in the series of world-known, abstract incidents, but the conception formed cannot be reasonably accu- rate, fair or satisfying without the blending of other and all phases. In towns standing forth from the beginning as the Con- stitution Towns, the world would expect evidence of something still higher than the product of toil, genius and brains.
Up to the '40s there had been the continual struggle for exist- ence, in manner typical of the colonies and young states, but this story has revealed glimpses of social features along with the eco- nomic, of the art and of the literature. In this particular period there was to be a gathering-up of scraps of the past in a way which, unconsciously to the beginners thereat, was to provide the worthiest evidence of the soul of the towns of Hooker and his General Court-the evidence in the Atheneum and its affiliated institutions and in the Hartford Hospital which followed the founding of the country's first school for the deaf, in the first institution for the insane, and also in the Hartford Theological Seminary, Trinity College and Berkeley Divinity School.
And it always must be considered as the "towns," for there
377
378
HARTFORD COUNTY, CONNECTICUT
were the two besides Hooker's, and their territory covered nearly all the present-proposed Municipal District of which Hartford, historically, has been the center. The force of the fellowship has continued as potent as it was in 1639. What those towns con- tributed, after the beginning, is properly reviewed in their indi- vidual sections of this study.
The foundation stone of this particular development was spontaneous appreciation of history and books, the development of what is now the Connecticut Historical Society, today again outgrowing its confines. The organizers were the men of multi- farious activities whose names the preceding story has made familiar. A word or two from the press and letters of the time furnish the background. Millhands who had worked from sun- rise to sunset were of an especially skilled type who had just naturally formed their circles not for social pleasure only, but for readings and the exchange of ideas. The store clerks worked through the evenings. In 1847 they were heard inquiring in the press why they should not be given two evenings a week; they said the objection raised had been that it would lead to dissipa- tion, but it seemed not to have done so in New Haven, and there were many who wanted time to read and to enjoy music. Inci- dentally there were biting sarcasms on the rule of women's fash- ions for very light clothing in winter and fur decorations in summer.
The Wadsworth Atheneum corporation came to be the aggre- gation of the Connecticut Historical Society, the Hartford Public Library, the Watkinson Library and the art galleries now mostly accommodated in the Morgan Memorial. Taken individually :
Interest in historical matters culminated in the incorporation of the society in 1825 "for the purpose of discovering, procuring and preserving whatever may relate to the civil, ecclesiastical and natural history of the United States and especially of the state of Connecticut." Judge Trumbull was president, Rev. Dr. Thomas Robbins corresponding secretary and Bishop George W. Doane (then a professor at Washington College) secretary of the standing committee. Bishop Brownell, Timothy Pitkin and John S. Peters were other incorporators.
The inception of the library was on the eve of the Revolution. In February, 1774, the call was issued for "the subscribers for a
MRS. FLORENCE PAULL BERGER General Curator of Morgan Memorial
FRANK B. GAY Curator-Emeritus of Wadsworth Atheneum
-
CHARLES A. GOODWIN
President of the Atheneum, as Doge of Venice in the Venetian Fete in 1928
DANIEL WADSWORTH
First President of Society for Savings, the oldest and largest savings bank in Connec- ticut. Founder of Hartford Orphan Asylum
381
HARTFORD COUNTY, CONNECTICUT
public library" to assemble for organization, and the Courant extolled books for "their smiling aspect on the interests of soci- ety, virtue and religion." This, the Librarian Company, in 1799 was incorporated as the Hartford Library Company by Jeremiah Wadsworth, Rev. Dr. Nathan Strong and others.
In 1838, Dr. Barnard and others organized the Young Men's Institute for literary culture and to avail themselves of the lec- tures then being delivered before lyceums the country round. To this organization, the Library Company delivered its 3,000 vol- umes, making a total of 5,620 in the institute's first catalogue. Leaders in the institute included George G. Spencer, Gustavus F. Davis, William N. Matson, Erastus Collins, Junius S. Morgan, James D. Willard, Amariah Storrs, Edward W. Coleman and Al- fred Gill.
In 1839, interest in the historical society revived and the charter was renewed with Thomas Day as president till his death in 1855; subsequently Henry Barnard till 1860; J. B. Hosmer to 1863, J. Hammond Trumbull to 1889 and since then Robbins Bat- tell, George J. Hoadly, Rev. Samuel Hart, Morgan B. Brainard and Dr. George C. F. Williams. The original incorporators in- cluded William W. Ellsworth, Isaac Toucey, Roger M. Sherman, Thomas S. Williams, T. H. Gallaudet, Samuel H. Huntington, Benjamin Trumbull and Walter Mitchell. Those in 1839 in- cluded Charles Hosmer, Erastus Smith, Noah Porter, Leonard Bacon, Nathaniel Goodwin, R. R. Hinman and Henry Barnard. In 1840 the society arranged the bicentenary celebration of the adoption of the Constitution and entertained delegates from simi- lar societies in other states. Noah Webster delivered the address.
December 1, 1841, Daniel Wadsworth formally announced that he would give the property of his father Jeremiah Wads- worth from Main Street east to his own premises on Prospect Street as a site for a building for an art gallery and, in the two other separate and fireproof divisions, the institute and the his- torical society. The subscribers to the fund for the building and gallery formed an association, incorporated in 1842 as the Wads- worth Atheneum, every subscriber of $25 or more to be a mem- ber-shares for $25 to expire on the death of the holder; shares for $100 or more to be assignable and transmissible. A total of $31,730 was given by 133 subscribers, headed by Mr. Wadsworth
382
HARTFORD COUNTY, CONNECTICUT
with $6,500. The building which was completed in 1844 was of castellated design, after plans by Ithiel Town of New Haven and was made of cream-colored granite from a quarry in Glaston- bury, now exhausted. The cost was $3,600 more than the sub- scriptions; the society contributed $1,605 toward the deficit. An additional $3,000 was raised to engage George Platt, a London and New York decorator, to finish the interior in kalsomine, a process "known only to the discoverer and to Mr. Platt." A total of nearly $40,000 was paid in. The estimated value of the land and old buildings was $16,200. Mr. Wadsworth's gifts in money amounted to $25,276, exclusive of his donations to the gallery. The old Wadsworth mansion, so long the center of social and public life, built by Jeremiah Wadsworth's father, Rev. Daniel Wadsworth, in 1730, was removed to Buckingham Street where it stood till 1887.
The historical society took the Connecticut Society of Natural History's collection which had been a part of the Hartford Mu- seum , the successor to Steward's previously mentioned. The natural history society had been organized in 1835, with Rev. Dr. Samuel F. Jarvis of Washington College the president and Erastus Smith secretary. This collection was removed to Trin- ity College and the Hartford Hospital in 1873. The art gallery opened with an exhibition of Colonel Trumbull's five large paint- ings of Revolutionary subjects and paintings bought of the de- funct New York Academy of Fine Arts by David Watkinson, Mr. Wadsworth, J. B. Hosmer and other subscribers to a fund. The basis of the statuary collection was bought of the estate of Edward S. Bartholomew, James G. Batterson going to Rome for it after the sculptor's death.
The historical society (whose first book, bought in 1839, was "Farmer's Genealogical Register") was the fortunate recipient in 1844 of Rev. Dr. Thomas Robbins' library, one of the finest in New England, rich in early folio editions of the Bible, the classics and pamphlets relating to local history. In 1893 the antiquarian and genealogical library of D. Williams Patterson was added. In addition to its wealth of books, periodicals and pamphlets, it has the only complete file of the Courant since it began in 1764, the Connecticut Gazette (1760-1838) and the Middlesex Gazette (1785-1834). Among the manuscripts are the letters of several
-----
ALBERT C. BATES Librarian of the Connecticut Historical Library
MISS CAROLINE M. HEWINS (1846-1926) Librarian of Hartford Public Library
TRUMAN R. TEMPLE Librarian of Hartford Public Library
385
HARTFORD COUNTY, CONNECTICUT
colonial governors and agents in England, rosters of the early wars, letters and diaries of soldiers, minutes of the Council of Safety and the like. The Trumbull papers by themselves are a treasury, and with them is the correspondence of Colonel Wads- worth. The diary of Nathan Hale carries up to a few weeks be- fore his execution. In the Deane collection is the agreement signed by Lafayette when he came to America. An item of the collection is the original of Morse's first telegraph message, May 24, 1844: "What hath God wrought." Its pictures, furniture and relics of the great men in Connecticut history in particular are invaluable. A considerable part of the belongings, now in the care of Librarian Albert C. Bates, is unavailable for the gen- eral public because of the present lack of space.
To see these relics, the general public was willing to pay a small admission fee, but the art gallery languished. An associa- tion of women interested themselves in it in 1877 and when it seemed imperative that the gallery be closed, they organized as the Hartford Art Society in 1884. Mary D. Ely was the president and Mary Collins the secretary. The gallery then was opened free for two days each week. The list of incorporators in 1884 bore the names of Miss Ely, Elizabeth H. Colt, Eliza T. Robin- son, Sarah J. Cowan, Mary Collins, Alice Taintor, Harriet G. Jones, Gen. Joseph R. Hawley, Francis Goodwin, J. G. Batter- son, Rev. Dr. E. P. Parker, F. L. Burr, Charles Dudley Warner and Henry C. Robinson. After several years in the art gallery section, the society moved to a large room in the Prospect Street Annex, thence to a building of its own across that street and eventually to its present quarters on Collins Street.
David Watkinson, who had been one of the most enthusiastic supporters of the Atheneum, died in December, 1857, and by his will left $100,000 to establish a reference library in connection with the historical society. Mr. Watkinson (1778-1857) and his brothers Edward and Robert had been proprietors of the cotton factory in South Manchester and of the Union Manufacturing Company of Marlborough and Manchester, with Watkinson & Arnold their agents in this city. Also he had been partner with Ezra Clark and Ezra Clark, Jr., in the hardware business, re- tiring in 1841 to give his attention to his private business and public affairs. He was a leader in many of the most important
27-VOL. 1
386
HARTFORD COUNTY, CONNECTICUT
undertakings from 1800 on. He left $40,000 to the hospital and a fund which made the Watkinson Farm School possible in 1862. Of the bequest to the historical society, $5,000 was for the en- largement of the society's quarters to make room for the refer- ence library. To that end the land and Daniel Wadsworth resi- dence east of the Atheneum were bought, an addition to the Atheneum was built in 1864 and the Wadsworth home was rented to the Hartford Theological School which had moved from East Windsor Hill; on the school's removal to Broad Street, the old home was rented to the Hartford Club. When the rearrange- ment was made in 1890, the reference library took the second floor of the addition and the public library the first floor. It was the intention of the donor that the reference library should supple- ment the other libraries in general literature, and sixteen other trustees were incorporated, the governor and the presidents of the historical society, Atheneum and the institute to be trustees ex-officio. By this means there was provided for the city a library of greatest value, largely added to by Director Frank B. Gay of these later years. The first president was Alfred Smith who served till 1868 and was succeeded by George Brinley, who gave valuable books, and he by William R. Cone. J. Hammond Trum- bull was librarian till 1891 when he was succeeded by Mr. Gay.
The development of the public library and the making free are a part of the history belonging to a future period. More than ever and more than could have been dreamed of in this period of getting established, the whole is the "people's university."
cos
An international and interdenominational university of re- ligion, the Hartford Seminary Foundation, is universally known as one of Hartford's noblest ideas and ennobling assets, training men and women for all forms of Christian service. The seed from which it grew was the Theological Institute of Connecticut, established at East Windsor Hill nearby, and not far removed from the birthplace of Jonathan Edwards, with a brick building pretentious for its day but latterly the unkempt hovel of those from other lands seeking America's opportunities. The purpose of thirty-six Congregational ministers assembled in convention
- -
- -
AVERY HALL-CASE MEMORIAL LIBRARY Temporary Home of School of Missions, Hartford Seminary Foundation
ACADEMIC PROCESSION AND HOSMER HALL, HARTFORD SEMINARY FOUNDATION
389
HARTFORD COUNTY, CONNECTICUT
September 10, 1833, was to counteract the recrudesence, in cer- tain quarters, of dangerous views on depravity and regeneration. The Calvinistic creed was made the basis of the Pastoral Union formed at the same time, the trustees of the institute to be ac- countable thereto and to guard the consecrated funds. Dr. Ben- nett Tyler was the first president and Dr. Jonathan Coggswell and Prof. William Thompson were associated with him. When Miss Rebecca Waldo of Worcester, Mass., gave $11,000 there was hope that in time subscriptions would not have to be depended upon, a hope that was to be better fulfilled than they could have imagined. A classical school under Professor Thompson was made an adjunct in 1851.
For betterment of location and finances, overtures for amal- gamation were made to Yale in 1856; Yale replied that because of "very obvious personal relations and sympathies" she felt com- pelled to wait "till Providence should seem to dictate." The pos- sible dictation of the Almighty came in 1864 but by that time the sturdy trustees had decided on Hartford and in 1865 opened in the former Daniel Wadsworth residence on Prospect Street, where the school remained till handsome subscriptions, including that of President James B. Hosmer of the Society for Savings and trustee of the school from 1841 to 1878, made possible the fitting structures on Broad Street and the removal thither in 1879. Invitations were received later from other institutions but the school was wedded to Hartford.
Hosmer Hall completed and filled, and the name changed to the Hartford Theological Seminary, two men came into the his- tory at a time suggestive of the Providence Yale had relied upon -Newton Case and Chester D. Hartranft, brother of the great Pennsylvania soldier and governor. Mr. Case (1807-1890), a farmer's boy, had come here at the age of twenty-one to work at copper-plate printing. In 1830, he set up for himself and reaped the benefit of the flood-tide of publishing. Six years of success in the Mitchell Building and he, with E. D. Tiffany, had bought out J. Hubbard Wells, the firm of Case, Tiffany & Company was formed, L. C. Burnham was taken into partnership, the old jail was bought for a building and the publishing house which for years has been known as Case, Lockwood & Brainard (James Lockwood coming in on the death of Mr. Burnham in 1853) was
390
HARTFORD COUNTY, CONNECTICUT
launched. Leverett Brainard was invited into partnership on the retirement of Albert G. Cooley and Mr. Tiffany. Mr. Case re- tired in 1875. In his intimate association with Doctor Hart- ranft, he recognized the needs of the seminary, gave the splendid Case Library, spent "untold thousands"-to quote Doctor Mac- Kenzie-for most valuable collections of books from Europe, some of them unique in America, and in his will "left an estate which so largely underlies the secure structure of the seminary financially."
Doctor Hartranft came in 1878 and was chosen president in 1888 in which office he remained till 1903 when as president emeritus he went to Wolfenbüttel to continue his researches into the works of Kaspar Schwenkfeld, the 1520 reformer for a demo- cratic system of church government. He died there in 1914. The doctor was born in 1839 and was pastor of the Second Dutch Re- formed Church of Brunswick, N. J., when called here. He con- ceived the idea of having a group of religious schools without re- gard to denomination.
In the progressive year of 1902 a school for workers which had been started in Springfield in 1885 came here and is now known as the Hartford School of Religious Education. In 1911 the Kennedy School of Missions was added, after the seminary with the cooperation of Trinity had worked up a course of missions, after a fund had been subscribed by friends and had been named in honor of Rev. Dr. Charles M. Lamson of the First Church and former president of the American Board, and after Mrs. John S. Kennedy of New York had generously endowed it. To secure unity of body while preserving independence of func- tion, the Hartford Seminary Foundation was incorporated in 1913. The original Pastoral Union continues as a voluntary association and elects nine of the thirty-six trustees; the alumni elect three and the trustees themselves elect the others. Women were admitted to the seminary in 1889 on equal terms, and there is a women's board.
Melancthon W. Jacobus, who had been professor here since 1891, was offered the presidency after Doctor Hartranft's retire- ment but accepted instead the deanship. He was born in Alle- gheny City, Pa., in 1855, son of Rev. Dr. Melancthon W. Jacobus, was graduated at both the academic and theological departments
391
HARTFORD COUNTY, CONNECTICUT
of Princeton, was honored by degrees at Lafayette and Yale, has been a trustee of Princeton since 1890, and is the author of a number of theological treatises. At the time of coming here he was pastor of the Presbyterian Church at Oxford, Pa. He mar- ried Clara M. Cooley, daughter of Francis B. Cooley of this city.
William Douglas Mackenzie, born in Orange River Colony, South Africa, in 1859, of a distinguished Scotch family, gradu- ate of the Universities of Edinburgh and Göttingen, and now with honorary degrees from many universities, was ordained a Congregational minister in 1882 and was professor in the Chi- cago Theological Seminary when called to the presidency of the theological seminary in 1903. He continues to hold that dis- tinction.
On obtaining the charter of 1913 thirty acres of land at the corner of Elizabeth Street and Girard Avenue for a suitable home for the foundation were purchased. It was not till 1921 that the trustees could see their way clear to begin the great work. Mackenzie Hall, the residence hall for women, was begun that year with only a small part of the necessary funds in hand. Before completion the whole $200,000 had been subscribed by citizens of Hartford and vicinity. Then came a splendid gift and legacy from the late Samuel P. Avery (whose life and beneficen- ces are elsewhere noted) and Avery Hall for the Case Memorial Library was erected. Knight Hall for the School of Religious Education was built by the dean of the school, Edward Hooker Knight, his family and a few of his friends. The old Hosmer Hall and Case Library were sold and the new residence for men was named Hosmer Hall, while the building erected from the Case fund for the academic building was named Hartranft Hall, after "the friend who had inspired him for these great acts of wisdom and Christian philosophy." Then in 1924 came an un- conditioned gift of $250,000 from John D. Rockefeller, Jr., with commendation for the interdenominational university and the spirit of the students, faculty and trustees, the president of which board is Charles Welles Gross. The buildings, of Glaston- bury granite, were designed by Charles Collins, of a Hartford family. The physical evidence of the continuity of Hartford's interest is complete, but back of that is the development of the "Hartford idea." At the dedication dinner in May, 1927, Doctor
392
HARTFORD COUNTY, CONNECTICUT
Mackenzie dwelt upon the work of graduates in many fields and recalled the names of many other benefactors-John S. Welles, Jonathan Morris, Jeremiah M. Allen, Lyman B. Brainard, Charles M. Joslyn, the family of F. B. Cooley, Rowland Swift and Atwood Collins. "It is not the kind of institution that seems to have attracted enthusiasm, confidence, devotion, self-sacrifice, in the same way at other places. But here Hartford, long ago, somehow learned to do this."
Since the dedication there has been a bequest of $51,000 to the School of Religious Education, by the will of Rev. Henry S. Chapman of Glen Ridge, N. J. Doctor Knight retired from the deanship of that school in 1927 and was succeeded by Karl R. Stolz, a Methodist, a graduate of Northwestern University in 1909 and member of the American Association of University Professors. He was born in Traverse City, Mich., in 1884. This year (1928), after a long and most notable term of service, Dean Jacobus retired. The duties of the office were discharged by Prof. Curtis M. Geer for a few months, till the appointment of Rev. Dr. Rockwell Harmon Potter who thereupon terminated his long pastorate at the First Church. Professor Geer has been a member of the faculty since 1901 and previously was a Congre- gational minister in East Windsor and in Danvers, Mass., and a professor at Bates College,-an eminent authority on social serv- ice. He was born in Hadlyme and was graduated at Williams in 1887; after a course at the seminary, he studied abroad. Rev. Dr. Arthur L. Gillett, a native of Westfield, Mass. (and brother of United States Senator Frederick H. Gillett), a graduate of Amherst and of the seminary and a member of the faculty for many years in addition to other distinction that has been his in the field of philosophy, has resigned, as also has Prof. Charles S. Lane, another graduate of the seminary and likewise of Am- herst, and vice president of the school and secretary of the foun- dation faculty and of the Board of Trustees. A portrait of Dean Knight has been given for Knight Hall and a tablet in memory of President Hartranft, unveiled by his only son, Fred- erick B. Hartranft of this city, has been placed in Hartranft Hall. Death has claimed Rev. Dr. Alexander R. Merriam, pro- fessor emeritus in the theological school-a graduate of Yale and of Andover, at one time a teacher in the high school and always
---
(From the engraving by H. B. Hall)
.HORACE WELLS (1815-1848) Discoverer of Anesthesia
BRONZE MEMORIAL NEAR THE CORNER OF MAIN AND ASYLUM STREETS, HART- FORD, MARKING THE BUILD- ING WHERE DR. HORACE WELLS DISCOVERED
ANES THESIA IN 1844
395
HARTFORD COUNTY, CONNECTICUT
active in city interests. Edwin Knox Mitchell, professor since 1892, helpful also in the city's affairs, is made professor emeri- tus. These are men of the type Doctor Mackenzie referred to who have attracted enthusiasm, confidence, devotion, self-sacri- fice. To them and their like from the beginning Hartford is deeply indebted.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.