USA > Connecticut > Hartford County > History of Hartford County, Connecticut, 1633-1928, Volume I > Part 33
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corted by the First and Second regiments of the National Guard, the Governor's Foot Guard and Horse Guard, the Putnam Pha- lanx military companies from Bridgeport, Providence, R. I., and Troy, N. Y., the selectmen, Mayor Bulkeley and the common coun- cil, with Col. William E. Cone as marshal. It was an earnest re- minder of Battle-flag Day in 1879.
An institution which was designed to do much good for dumb animals in particular throughout the state owed its inception to a high school girl who in later years was in charge of the Winsted Hospital. Gertrude O. Lewis, daughter of Dr. John B. Lewis, eminent surgeon in the Civil war and medical director of the Travelers' Insurance Company, loves animals. She persuaded George T. Angell of Boston, who later was to become a leader in the work of prevention of cruelty to animals throughout the coun- try, to come to Hartford to make an address. Enlisting the clergy in her cause, she had a large audience for the speaker at Park Church Sunday evening, November 13, 1880. The immediate result was the organization of the Connecticut Humane Society with Rodney Dennis as president and Henry E. Burton as secre- tary, its scope soon to be broadened to include uncared-for chil- dren and its years of usefulness and generous public support to continue through the years indefinitely.
At the same time something of great national import was be- ing observed by students of government and international affairs. Dr. Yung Wing, one of the most advanced Chinese of his times, was bringing selected Chinese boys here for an education. Regret- fully, his noble undertaking still stands unique in the world's his- tory. With nothing revolutionary in mind but purely with the advancement of his own people and the basis of a better under- standing between the races, Doctor Wing, himself a graduate of Yale in the class of '54, had finally succeeded in bringing his gov- ernment to take his view of the subject. In a childhood given over to severe toil in the rice-fields, he had acquired from missionaries a knowledge of English and was brought to America in 1847, after intensive study, by William A. Macy, a Yale man who had had a school in China. While pursuing his studies he made the acquaintance of Prof. David E. Bartlett of East Windsor, Yale '28, an instructor at the present School for the Deaf till his death in 1879. Wing was an importer when his government commissioned him to buy arsenal machinery at Pratt & Whit-
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ney's in 1864, and since that time, it may be said, China has continued to buy at various times in amount running into the millions. Gaining in prestige, Doctor Wing boldly and success- fully proposed reforms in China. One resulted in the establish- ment of the China Merchant Steam Navigation Company and another was the sending of prospective leaders in national affairs to this country for instruction.
He was appointed commissioner and was made a mandarin of third rank. Headquarters were established in a building erect- ed on Collins Street, and in 1872 youths to the number of 120 finally began to arrive. Yale gave him the doctor's degree, he married the granddaughter of the Rev. Bela Kellogg of the East Avon Church and the sister of Dr. Edward W. Kellogg, by whom he had two able sons, Morrison B. and Bartlett G. Wing. He was a member of the Asylum Hill Congregational Church and for many years president of the Congregational Society of New Eng- land. From 1874 to 1878 he was on special duty investigating the condition of the Chinese in Peru. The boys were sent to vari- ous schools around the country. The direct government represen- tative at the mission here was Chin Lan Pin, afterwards minister to the United States, and Doctor Wing was associated with him in Washington.
The wisdom of the doctor's plan was being demonstrated, the students were achieving much in scholarship and popularity when suddenly in 1881 they were recalled and the commission discon- tinued. The cause is said to have been dissatisfaction with our immigration law, disbarment of the students from the govern- ment academies of the army and navy and discrimination in fa- vor of the Japanese. Some of the boys failed to return to China, others came back here and several of them were put into govern- ment positions where they attained high place. Among the stu- dents in Hartford were Liang Tun Yen, later confidential adviser and secretary of Li Hung Chang, then successively taotai of Tientsin, head of the Tientsin Railway, controller-general of cus- toms and president of the Board of Foreign Affairs and named for minister to the United States, an honor he declined because of duties at home; Mun Yew Chung, who became a member of the Chinese legation ; Wong Kai Kah, the vice-commissioner at the St. Louis exposition (both Wong and Liang received their degrees of B. A. in later years, on petition of their classmates of '82 and
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'83 at Yale) ; Chin, Lon, Tong, Jeme, Ye, Lee, Woo, Yang (a nephew of Yung Wing), Chu Chun Pan, Chu Kee Yung, and Tsai Shou Kie who established the University of Tientsin and became taotai of Tientsin. Wong and some of the others in their high school days lived in the family of Professor Bartlett. In college where Mun Yew Chung won fame as coxswain of the university crew and all the boys were popular, college slang classified them as "the Hartford Christians."
Doctor Wing was given an important position in China in 1882 but could not remain there on account of his wife's health. He was made noble of the first rank, in order that he might take part in the peace conference after the Japanese war. Persisting in his reform work during the reign of the dowager empress, a price of $100,000 was put on his head. From 1900 to 1902 he was under British protection at Hongkong and then returned to Hartford where he died in 1912.
This period of the beginning of the last half of Hartford's third century was marked by comfortable taking account of the recent past, with none of that feverish discounting of the future achievements to be noted in later days. There was the old-time free-handedness on the part of those who had acquired money and the obvious willingness of the characteristically high class of working people to earn a good wage and to enjoy what they got. Bicycles were adding greatly to this enjoyment. Even adults were utilizing them to get ten or twenty miles into the country- at closing hours in the factory districts the streets were congested with them; the races by the state association at Charter Oak Park were said by the press to be fully as enjoyable as the time-honored horse races, and George B. Thayer, merchant, student, writer, soldier, lawyer and for the years since then an iron-muscled pedes- trian to all parts of the world when not doing his part in the wars that came, was attracting national attention by his pedaling to the Pacific coast and back.
Time was being saved and freighting promoted by improved transportation and hours were being added to each day by better light at night. Already it was plain that New England's more dense population was commanding the attention of promoters of railway passenger traffic, the lines built at costly venture were ex- periencing readjustment and paralleling was to become a craze
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which only the fiercest fights in the Legislature were finally to curb. The Poughkeepsie, Hartford & Boston, bought by the Con- necticut Western which had leased it, was sold under foreclosure for $60,000. The New York & New England, into which so much Hartford County capital had gone, was put into the hands of Receiver Charles P. Clark in 1884, and the Legislature was grant- ing the charter of the Hartford & Harlem from the New Britain point of the New England to the New York state line, with the Olmsted parallel to the New York, New Haven & Hartford in the southern part of the state making a desperate fight against the "New Haven"-which, better established, was to come out the great victor, eventually the monopolist of all, including water and trolley lines; was almost to sink under its load, with loss of many thousands to stockholders, and then, in this present era, was to be rehabilitated under the presidency of E. J. Pearson.
It was in those exciting days of 1884 that Hartford citizens went to the Legislature for relief from grade-crossing conditions at the local station where great gates checked traffic through Asy- lum Street, the main artery to the west. The ancient ropewalk station just north of the street served for both the New Haven and the New England trains. The plan was to drop the tracks below street level and put a station on Spruce Street, a bit west of the old one, filling in Asylum Hill to make a grade upward to its peak from half a block east of the tracks. The New England being too utterly poor and city property owners far from unani- mous, the struggle assumed various phases till at last the present iron and masonry overhead structure for the tracks and an upper- deck stone station on the site of the old one was adopted, the city paying one-half, $200,000, in 1892. As in the matter of the post office, it was practicality, not adornment, that was attained, and both problems are awaiting future generations. The public was further agitated over rail service inasmuch as the Sunday laws prohibited transportation on Sunday except as demanded by "pub- lic necessity," so that for a time business was limited to milk trains.
New form of artificial light came not without heated opposi- tion by the company long occupying the field. Lanterns and torch- bearers had given place, in city streets, to oil lamps at public ex- pense in 1821. The Hartford City Gas Light Company-to use its original fully descriptive name-chartered in 1848, had kept
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pace with inventions in device. There had been some experi- ments with the electric arc and that year, 1881, the Hartford Electric Light Company was chartered. Austin C. Dunham, in- terested in industries in various parts of the state and one of the most progressive of electricity geniuses, was back of it. The com- pany applied for a charter in 1881. In 1884, its proposition to the city was to furnish thirty lights around the central streets, one light to replace four mantle gas lights. Alderman Harbison, in devotion to the gas company, fought bitterly, but the proposi- tion won a majority vote finally, with condition, however, that the price of electricity for the six months' trial should not exceed the price of gas-which the gas company had cut. Mr. Dunham and his associates cheerfully bore the heavy expense of installation. In two years Hartford boasted of being the best-lighted city of its size in America.
Some of these same promoters, convinced that individual use of fuel was ridiculously expensive, introduced a community plan for heating by steam from a parent plant. The Hartford Steam Company went to the undertaking confidently in 1881, but troubles in transmission caused abandonment.
Politics were gathering such impetus as had not been felt since war times. The morning Courant and the evening Post carried the republican gospel, the evening Times the democratic. It was divined that there was room for a morning democratic paper, and the Telegram was started by D. C. Birdsall in 1883-to run a course of several hectic years. There were two Sunday papers, the Journal, established by Joseph H. Barnum in 1867, and the Globe, established by C. W. Griswold in 1876. Editorial style re- maining constant, make-up and local handling had changed with the hour and, while doings of corporations were still unobtainable, kindly attention was being given to social events. How this latter was received in more conservative and classical sets was thus viv- idly set forth in a card in the Courant by Miss Sarah Porter, sis- ter of Yale's president and head of a noted school for girls in Farmington :
"Not many years ago no journal would have wished or have dared to report any gathering not professedly open to the public, but sentiment has been so rapidly debased that the reporter pries into the most sacred scenes of domestic and social life and helps to desecrate them to occasions of mere
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ostentation. I know that the press is the mouthpiece of the public, but the tone of the press greatly forms the sentiment of this public. Many reluctantly submit to the intrusion out of fear of very false reports, but not the less the degrading influence works, and unless this practice is checked, the heartiness and simplicity of society will be more and more eaten out and tyranny of the idlest curiosity be established over us all. Those who, in coming years, are to be teachers of young girls, will find it far less easy than I have found it to cherish the finest instincts and to develop the truthfulness and noble simplicity which belong to good womanhood. All these, I am sure, will be in accord with my views, and in their name I protest against the practice of reporting the incidents of private life and urge its suppression."
In the presidential election of 1880, Hartford County gave Garfield 13,917 votes and Hancock 12,988; in 1884, Blaine 13,695 and Cleveland 13,966. The latter was the "mugwump" year, but the local republican papers remained steadfast. The contest of 1884 was like an echo of 1860. The republicans revived the Wideawakes of that day, some of the founders of which were still active. Judge George S. Gilman was the original permanent pres- . ident. Maj. Julius G. Rathbun was the commander of the new organization, with its capes and torches. Men of such prominence as Rev. M. B. Riddle, James G. Batterson and Rowland Swift spoke for Blaine. At each rally, the names of the vice presidents and secretaries took up much of the newspaper space. The result in the county was : Blaine, 13,695; Cleveland, 13,966; Cleveland's majority in the state was 1,284. Hartford gave a majority of 670 for Cleveland. The republican towns in the county were Avon, Canton, Enfield, Farmington, Granby, Hartland, Manches- ter, Newington, Plainville, Simsbury, Suffield, West Hartford, and Wethersfield-thirteen out of twenty-nine. John R. Buck, who for his work in the Committee on Naval Affairs had won the title of "Father of the Modern Navy," was returned to Congress by the republican vote. Governor Thomas M. Waller of New London, democrat, got a plurality but not a majority; hence by the old law, not repealed till some years later, the election of gov- ernor was thrown into the republican Legislature where the re- publican candidate, Henry B. Harrison of New Haven, was chos-
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en. In the subsequent years, till Wilson's vote in 1916 was nearly a thousand more than Hughes', the county continued in the repub- lican column-with special strength when Bryan was running and the democratic Times repudiated him. In the '80s Miss Fran- ces Ellen Burr and Mrs. Isabella Beecher Hooker were exerting themselves strenuously for woman suffrage.
Congressman Buck (1836-1917) was brought up ruggedly on his father's farm in East Glastonbury. After attending school and teaching, he studied law and became a partner of Julius L. Strong. He served through the legislative clerkships, held muni- cipal offices, was treasurer of the county and as senator assisted in important legislation relative to the court system. He was first sent to Congress in 1880, and was succeeded there, prior to this re-election, by former United States Senator W. W. Eaton. When Mr. Buck retired to private life, he was in partnership with A. F. Eggleston. He retained the famous old homestead in East Glastonbury and delighted to go there for recreation. William E. Simonds of Canton was the congressman from 1889 to 1891.
William H. Bulkeley (1840-1902) was lieutenant-governor from 1881 to 1883. He came of a distinguished colonial family and was a son of Eliphalet A. Bulkeley, first president of the Con- necticut Mutual Life Company and organizer of the Aetna Life. After a mercantile career in Brooklyn, N. Y., he organized in 1871 the lithographing firm of Kellogg & Bulkeley (still a very prosperous concern here) and also was proprietor of the enterprising Bee Hive drygoods store. At one time he was vice president of the Aetna Life. In the Civil war he was a captain in a New York regiment. With rank of general he was a member of the staff of Governor Bigelow of this state. In 1882 he was nominated for governor but Thomas M. Waller of New London received a majority, with, however, enough "black" ballots to throw the election into the republican Legislature. General Bul- keley declared he would not accept office under a technicality. It remained for the Legislature to pass a healing act for the ballots.
The Sunday earthquake, August 9, 1884, which rang bells, stopped clocks and raised waves on the river, might have been taken as indication of high disapproval of such election laws and may have had something to do with the reform that was worked out after a little.
George G. Sumner (1841-1906) was lieutenant-governor from 34-VOL. 1
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1883 to 1885. Coming from Bolton where he was born, he en- tered the law office of Waldo & Hyde. At different times he held the offices of city attorney, recorder of the city court, chairman of the democratic state committee and state senator. James L. How- ard (1818-1906), a native of Windsor, Vt., was lieutenant-gover- nor from 1887 to 1889. With his brothers, he created the very successful concern for the manufacture of car trimmings, James L. Howard & Co., and in 1846 built the Howard building on Asy- lum Street. One of the earliest life insurance agents, he was among the organizers of the Travelers. For many years he was presi- dent of the gas company and held large interests in Springfield. When the present site of the Hartford Public High School was se- lected he was chairman of the school committee. To the cause of various Baptist organizations he gave much of his best thought and was long a trustee of Brown University.
Among other men prominent in public affairs was Charles M. Joslyn (1849-1920) who was born in Tolland and coming here to practice joined the firm of Hyde, Gilman & Hungerford-today Gilman & Marks. He served two terms in the Legislature, was on the staffs of Governors Hubbard and Morris and judge advo- cate on the staff of the Putnam Phalanx. He organized the Hub- bard Escort in 1880, which for many years was a prominent social and political organization. He was president of the Hart- ford Library Association, vice president of the Hartford Trust Company, and for ten years chairman of the high school commit- tee. Maj. E. Henry Hyde (1848-1920) was the son of Lieutenant- Governor E. H. Hyde of Stafford. Prior to his becoming a mem- ber of the firm of Hyde, Joslyn, Gilman & Hungerford, he was associated with Samuel F. Jones, one of the foremost lawyers. Major Hyde served through the clerkships in the Legislature, was prosecuting attorney, first president of the Board of Charities and major of the First Company, Governor's Foot Guard, for seven years.
William Waldo Hyde (1854-1915) was born in Tolland, a de- scendant of Elder Brewster and grandson of Congressman Loren P. Waldo, who came to Hartford in 1864 to open a law office with his son-in-law, Alvan P. Hyde (William W. Hyde's father) and with Richard D. Hubbard (governor 1877-1879). Mr. Hyde, graduating from Yale in 1876, became a member of this firm in 1881. The firm name was Hyde, Gross & Hyde when Charles
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E. Gross entered into the partnership, later Hyde, Gross & Ship- man (Arthur L.), of which firm Charles Welles Gross and Alvan Waldo Hyde, sons of partners, became members, latterly Gross, Hyde & Williams-always one of the leading offices in the state. William Waldo Hyde was mayor from 1885 to 1891 and served as superintendent of schools, corporation counsel and as member of the committee to revise the city charter. For twenty-five years he was general counsel for the water board, one of the five trus- tees to take over the Connecticut Company from the New York, New Haven & Hartford road on arrangement brought about by the federal government, and held other positions of trust, public and private. He belonged to many patriotic and social organiza- tions.
Charles E. Perkins (1832-1917) was the son of Thomas C. Perkins of Hartford and grandson of the eminent lawyer Enoch Perkins who came here from Norwich. Mr. Perkins took his son Arthur into partnership after his admission to the bar, so that the office of Perkins is continued in these days. Mr. Perkins filled the positions of city attorney and member of the Legislature and was president of the County Bar Association. E. Spicer Cleveland (1825-1903) came to Hartford from Hampton as a clerk. At the outbreak of the Civil war, he had been a congressman, elected on the democratic ticket, but he was an ardent Union man, went to several states as a speaker for Lincoln and was postmaster for eight years. After the war he returned to the democratic party and was elected to the Legislature from Hampton, where he re- tained a summer residence. Again residing in Hartford, he was chosen senator, was nominated for governor in 1886 and received 58,818 votes against 56,920 for Phineas C. Lounsbury, the repub- lican candidate. Under the old rule, neither candidate having a majority, the election went to the Legislature where Mr. Louns- bury won. He served more terms in the Senate and did not agree with his party leaders in the deadlock session of 1891.
Charles E. Gross (1847-1924) came of ancestors who were among the earliest Massachusetts pioneers. After graduating at Yale in 1869 he took a law course and was admitted to the firm of Waldo, Hubbard & Hyde, changes thereafter taking place as al- ready mentioned. Mr. Gross was general counsel and director in the Phoenix Mutual Life, a director in the Aetna (Fire) and the New York & New England Railroad, president of the Society of
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Savings and of the Holyoke Water Power Company, vice presi- dent of the Atheneum, president of the Connecticut Historical Society, of the park board and of the Board of Trade. He was ad- ministrator for several large estates. Arthur F. Eggleston (1844- 1909) was a descendant of one of the town's original settlers. Though only a mere lad, he served in a Massachusetts regiment during the war. Graduating at Williams College in 1868, he be- gan law practice in the office of Hon. John R. Buck in 1872 and entered into a partnership with him which continued till Mr. Eggleston retired in 1908. That was at the expiration of his long term as state's attorney. Gen. Thomas McManus (1834-1914) was a veteran of the Twenty-fifth Connecticut Volunteers and was instrumental in having the site of the old rendezvous camp here marked by the erection of the statue of General Stedman. He was judge of the City Court and of the Court of Common Pleas and chief of divisions in the treasury department at Washington (1887-89). He was a general on the staff of Governor Waller. Dr. James McManus and Robert McManus were brothers of his.
Henry C. Robinson (1832-1900) was the most eminent corporation lawyer of his day. He was a direct descendant of the earliest Puritans and ever was an earnest worker in the South Church. On graduating at Yale in the class of '53, he studied law and became partner of his brother, Lucius F. Robinson, con- tinuing alone after his brother's death in 1861 till 1888 when his son, Lucius F., present head of the firm, became a partner, and soon after, his second son, John T. Two sons of Lucius F. (sec- ond)-Lucius F. and Barclay-also are now with the firm. Dur- ing Mr. Robinson's term as mayor Hartford was made the sole capital of the state. He was a member of the Legislature and four times was nominated by acclamation by the republicans for governor of the state, declining the fourth. It is understood that he also declined appointment as minister to Spain and the presi- dency of the New York, New Haven & Hartford road. Service was rendered as director in foremost public institutions and in banking and insurance corporations, yet withal he found time to be a lecturer in the Yale Law School and to contribute to the liter- ature of the day, especially law literature. His oratory was of high order. Eliza Niles Trumbull, a descendant of Elder Brew- ster of the Plymouth colony, was his wife. Mr. Robinson's son
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Henry S. went from law practice into banking and became presi- dent of the Connecticut Mutual Life Insurance Company.
John C. Day (1832-1899) was the son of Calvin Day of Hart- ford. He was graduated at Yale in 1857 and received the degree of M. A. in 1865. He retired from law practice here and in 1888 lived abroad for seven years. In 1864 he was private secretary to Governor Buckingham. He was a director in banks and insur- ance companies and in Landers, Frary & Clark of New Britain. Mrs. Day was a daughter of John and Isabella Beecher Hooker. Mrs. George P. Bissell of Hartford, Mrs. Joseph Cooke Jackson of New York and Miss Caroline Day of Hartford were his sisters. Harrison B. Freeman (1838-1913) graduated with the class of '62 at Yale. From 1887 till he reached the age limit in 1908, he was elected judge of probate. He was the father of Harrison B. Freeman, a prominent lawyer of today.
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