USA > Connecticut > Hartford County > History of Hartford County, Connecticut, 1633-1928, Volume II > Part 11
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Further in Insurance-The life history of Morgan G. Bulke- ley (1837-1922) has been woven into the general history of the community. There were many sidelights, as when he estab- lished Hartford's first baseball club and became president of the first national association; and again in his last days he enabled his employees of the Aetna Life to take a million and a half of Liberty bonds on monthly payments. His wife, whom he mar- ried in 1885 and who survives him, was Fannie B. Houghton of San Francisco.
E. V. Preston, general manager of agencies of the Travelers, had been with the company fifty-five years when he died in 1921, aged eighty-four-or ever since his discharge from Civil war service in the paymaster's department. Capt. Francis B. Allen, vice president of the Hartford Steam Boiler Inspection and In- surance Company, was a Civil war naval veteran who died in that same year, aged eighty. Lieut .- Col. Charles E. Thompson, prominent in earlier military days, in the Asylum Hill Church and in the Y. M. C. A., had served in the financial department of the Connecticut Mutual forty-five years when he retired in 1921; he died three years later. Howell W. St. John (1834-1924), born in Newport, R. I., was one of Hartford's most remarkable insurance men, continuing his duties with the Aetna Life fifty- seven years till killed at a grade crossing. All these years he was actuary and was one of the founders of the Actuarial Soci- ety of America, for a time its president. He was the father of Capt. William H. St. John, financier, who was prominent in State Guard and Red Cross work during the war and is an ener- getic Yale graduate. Silas Chapman, Jr. (1845-1925), head of one of the earliest and most successful insurance agencies, was interested in several of the city's large corporations.
Two life insurance presidents were taken in 1926, one a vet-
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eran and the other still young. John M. Holcombe (1848-1926), son of James H. Holcombe, was born on Lord's Hill in the house in which he died. He was given the degree of B. A. at Yale in 1872, A. M. in 1872 and honorary A. M. in 1900; from Trinity, LL. D. in 1920. His wife was Emily Seymour Goodwin, who also has figured in this history. Mr. Holcombe was the first actuary of the Insurance Department, leaving in 1874 to go with the Phoenix Mutual Life of which, as has been seen, he became president in 1904 and chairman of the board the year before his death. He likewise was president of the Mechanics Savings Bank and director in several institutions. He had been presi- dent of the Common Council and of the Board of Aldermen and was a member of the City Plan Commission. His son Harold G. Holcombe is senior partner in a large insurance agency and his second son John Marshall Holcombe (both Yale men) is the head of the Life Insurance Research Bureau which he estab- lished.
Henry S. Robinson (1868-1926), son of Henry C. Robinson and a graduate of Yale, class of '89, was practicing law when he went as secretary with the Connecticut Trust and Safe De- posit Company in 1895 where he continued till called to the vice presidency of the Connecticut Mutual Life in 1905; thence to the presidency in 1918. He was director and officer in other in- stitutions and president and trustee of the Wadsworth Athe- neum and Watkinson Library, of the Watkinson Farm School and of Loomis Institute.
George M. Lovejoy, vice president of the Phoenix Fire, Con- necticut Fire and the Equitable Fire and Marine, died in 1926. Joel English, who had been with the Aetna Life for sixty years and was senior vice president at the time of his death in 1927 at the age of eighty-three, like his colleague, Actuary St. John, was another of those possessed of tremendous power, wisdom and longevity. And of them, it must have been noted, Hartford County has had a goodly number.
Further in Public Life, Business and Industries-E. B. Hatch, aged 59, twenty years president of the famous Johns- Pratt Company, now the electrical department of the great Colt's institution, water commissioner and director in several concerns, died in 1921. Henry J. Eaton, so long the picturesque head of the fire department, was ninety and active in his busi-
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ness when he died in 1922. Col. William C. Skinner (1855- 1922), a native of Malone, N. Y., a direct descendant of John Alden, had lived here since his graduation from Trinity in 1876. His connection with the woollen business has been mentioned. In 1909 he succeeded L. C. Grover as president of Colt's and in 1911 became chairman of the board when Charles L. F. Robin- son came to the presidency. On the death of Mr. Robinson in 1916 the colonel was again made president, in the hour of tre- mendous strain in meeting the demands of the Allies and the next year the still greater demands of America in addition. Both of his sons, Robert K. and William C., Jr., were in the service overseas and also his son-in-law, Walter S. Turnbull of New York. In 1921 he again became chairman of the board. He was colonel on Governor Bulkeley's staff. Mr. Robinson, Yale Sheffield Scientic School 1895, married Elizabeth H. J. Beach of Newport, who survives him, and was widely known as a yachts- man as well as a manufacturer. He was officially connected with banking institutions here and in Rhode Island, was a mem- ber of yacht clubs in foreign countries and in America and wrote "Twenty Thousand Miles in the Wanderer." Lieut. Caldwell Colt Robinson, who was killed overseas, was his son.
Edward C. Frisbie (1852-1924), member of the wholesale drug establishment of Talcott, Frisbie & Company and founder of the Hartford Business Men's Association, devoted most of his time to promoting the city's interests. Franklin G. Whitmore, dying in 1926 at the age of seventy-nine, was at one time pri- vate secretary of Mark Twain and was secretary of the park board from 1896 till his last days. James M. Plimpton, presi- dent and treasurer of the Plimpton Manufacturing Company, died in 1926, aged seventy-two. Gen. Wallace T. Fenn, presi- dent of Kellogg & Bulkeley and a member of the staff of Gover- nor Bulkeley, twice representative from his home town, Weth- ersfield, died 1927. Eli Herrup, from his youth a promoter of Jewish charitable and religious organizations and an officer in several of them, a founder of synagogues and owner of much real estate, was deeply mourned at his death in 1927 at the age of seventy-three. A. B. Gillett, who since his retirement from mercantile business had done much to advance worthy causes, was eighty-one at his death in 1927. E. B. Bennett (1842-1927), born in Hampton, Yale '70, representative, judge of the City
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Court for thirteen years, postmaster twice, connected with in- dustrial concerns and president of the Hartford Gas Company since 1904, died that same year, aged eighty-four. Ira H. Spen- cer (1872-1928), inventor of organ-blowers and central vacuum cleaners, holder of over a hundred patents and president of the Spencer Turbine Company, died in 1928. Robert H. Lewis, of · Rockville birth, with Foster E. Harvey in 1890 founder of Har- vey & Lewis, optical supplies, conducting branches in several cities, and president of the Hartford store, also developer of choice real estate, died in 1928, aged sixty-two. James Brewster Cone (1836-1918), at one time vice consul at Lyons, France, and by his wide education and culture deeply interested in the war, was a descendant of Elder Brewster. As life-long secre- tary of his class of '57 at Yale, he was among the most earnest workers after the Civil war to promote national harmony. Much of his time was devoted to the literary, historical and art insti- tutions of Hartford.
XLV
REMARKABLE POST-WAR PERIOD
ANARCHISM SQUELCHED-GENERAL ACTIVITY-WIDENING STREETS- SCHOOLS AND EXPENSES-COUNTY'S NOTED PRIVATE SCHOOLS- ROMAN CATHOLIC EDUCATIONAL ACHIEVEMENTS.
So suddenly has come the culmination of changes beginning before the war and so thrilling are the frequent indications of other changes that one stopping anywhere today, in the heart of the city or in the remote borders of the county, noting surround- ings and thinking back a dozen years, must rub his eyes in amazement. And above all-was here the wilderness that Hooker, Warham and Oldham knew?
Relaxation there could be none after the soldiers had re- turned from overseas and training camps. Nerve tension con- tinued as after no other war. "Reds" inspired by Russian sovi- etism improved the abnormal moments and the Government seemed lenient with them. The night of March 26, 1920, after the red flag had been prohibited, local tension was increased by the explosion of a time-fuse bomb in the armory itself just after the close of a battalion drill by the State Guard; but for a flaw in the heavy brass shell of the machine a corner of the great building might have been wrecked and many killed instead of the destroying of only the basement kitchen. This had followed the pasting of communist posters on the Capitol and other state buildings. But none of these things could shake the confidence . of citizens or of industry, relying as always since 1639 upon the free self-government that year inaugurated.
Of veteran organizations Rau-Locke Post No. 8 and Jane A. Delano Post No. 7 of the American Legion, Lieut. Caldwell Colt Robinson Post No. 254 of the Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States, and Leonard Wood Camp No. 1 of the Veteran Soldiers, Sailors and Marines Association had been formed in 1919. There is also Meeghan-McKenna Chapter No. 1 of Dis-
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abled Veterans of the World war to encourage men most of all discouraged. For them Lieut. Aubrey L. Maddock, late of the air service and air-craft production branch of the service, was direc- tor of a summer camp on the state's reservation at Niantic, maintained by funds provided by private citizens, and to which 200 veterans from the four northern counties (First Veterans Bureau) came. For the second camp, in 1923, three buildings were erected for them there. This year, 1928, the camp was postponed pending arrangements which may be made for use of the city's abandoned grounds at old Reservoir No. 4. The chapter in 1923 was given a charter without capital.
The Mayor's Americanization Committee was appointed in the fall of 1917, with Archibald A. Welch chairman, in accord with a vote of the Board of Aldermen. This was an outgrowth of the wonderful work that had been going on since 1869 under the direction of the Evening School Committee of the Board of Education, conspicuous in which had been Solon P. Davis, Capt. John K. Williams, Superintendent Thomas S. Weaver, Alida B. Clark and others. Various organizations were in hearty cooper- ation and what with a graded system, assistance from the state and the devotion of many people of foreign birth, expectations of good results for aliens who had not understood English and our American systems were more than fulfilled. The coming of the war revealed the need of something still more personally appealing. Hence this committee, suggested after a meeting with the Chamber of Commerce, of the Educational Committee of which Mr. Welch was chairman. Vice Principal W. C. Holden of the high school was a chief promoter. Dr. Jane F. Robbins as director was succeeded, when she went to Italy in 1918 on Red Cross duty, by Howard Bradstreet who had had experience else- where in this line and who today is director of the Bureau of Adult Education, the form which the movement has taken since the war. A racial census in 1914 had shown 46,737 Americans, 15,278 Russians, 14,753 Irish; 12,741 Italians and thirty-six other nationalities. Mayor Kinsella, honorary chairman of the Americanization Committee (followed by Mayor Stevens), city departments, manufacturers and others gave much assistance in the difficult work of the committee through the war and after.
There was, for the time, new interest in elections, the mark
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of 90 per cent of the vote being attained in the 1920 national and state elections when Everett J. Lake of Hartford was chosen governor and Warren G. Harding President. Women were using the ballot along with the men for the first time and were holding elective offices. The prohibition Eighteenth Amend- ment to the federal Constitution had been adopted (though on principle of state rights Connecticut had not voted for it as it had done-in special session-for woman suffrage) ; secret dis- tribution of doctored liquors was an evil soon mitigated and suc- ceeded by illicit traffic ("bootlegging"), accompanied by enor- mous expenditure for law enforcement, by a period of corrup- tion and by formation of bootlegger "gangs" battling with each other in large cities. Crime was increasing as after previous wars.
Streets were being widened at heavy expense (over a million now appropriated for upper Main Street), foliage cut away, highways straightened, landscapes changed, trolley tracks torn up, all at great cost paid partly in the country by motors rev- enue, to make way for the swift automobiles and to try to keep down the excessive mortality therefrom since the motor car and jarring trucks were indispensable adjuncts of the new era of pleasure, rush and prosperity, by and for all the people. Dis- tances on the earth being minimized, by air flight they were being negatived, and Connecticut was the first in making regu- lations therefor and foremost in providing facilities. The war fever to provide housing for more and more workers on war material, after subsidence, came back with new force; one year's record was followed by another the next. Withal there were the public structures like the schools, and new business blocks replacing the old, while remote countrysides were dotted with picturesque new homes of those for whom distance was no longer a deterrent. The cost of living, 105 per cent higher than in 1914, was to drop to 54 per cent midway in the cycle and was to work back to 64 per cent in 1927. For the gold of the world which had been drawn in unprecedented amount to America was beginning to follow the investment-dollars back to European countries where recuperation was being encouraged by the oper- ation of the plan of Dawes, the American, for Germany's paying requirements under the treaty of Versailles. The federal bank- ing system was curbing speculative tendencies in Wall Street,
THE MORGAN G. BULKELEY HIGH SCHOOL, HARTFORD
THE THOMAS SNELL WEAVER HIGH SCHOOL, HARTFORD
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at times unsuccessfully, yet enough, with the aid of solid founda- tions, to preclude panic.
Amidst it all, industry was resuming its steady course on a new scale, wages continued high, life insurance was increasing from ten to fifteen times faster than population (kept down somewhat by immigration laws and falling birthrate), church membership was larger each year and savings bank accounts were passing the bounds of boldest prophecy. "Daylight- saving," a war measure to allow workingmen more outdoor life by setting timepieces an hour ahead in summer, has been ad- hered to in cities, deprecated in rural districts, unauthorized by legislation and finally forbidden for public clocks; it is some- thing to mention for historians to puzzle over after it comes about again that there shall be the same kind of time for all, whichever kind it may be.
The least obscured of many connecting links with the past, in every town in the county, was the development of school facili- ties, attendant with an expense at the present moment to cause a gasp. The attempt at consolidation in Hartford, previously re- corded, had failed largely because of fear of suspected political infection from some of the larger districts, and now there is the dread of the possibilities in the accumulating bonds of separate districts which the city would have to assume. And yet the needs of increasing pupilage are not yet met. In the matter of school facilities to be paid for by the city as a whole, further and ade- quate enlargement of the high school plant on Hopkins and Broad streets was not advisable. The manual training addition had been made in 1896 and the capacity of the main building (which George Keller designed in 1882) had been greatly in- creased by the additions, with enough land left for more. Appre- ciation of the spreading out of the city caused the building of the Thomas Snell Weaver High School near Keney Park at an ex- pense of $2,000,000, ready for occupancy in 1924, and of the Morgan G. Bulkeley High School on Maple Avenue, dedicated in 1927, at an expense considerably higher. Both are elaborate structures and are under most capable management education- ally. Principal William Cross Holden, born in Casco, Me., in 1867 and educated in the schools there and in the University of Maine, teaching all the time he was following the courses, and
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through his subsequent life taking extension courses of leading institutions in science, law and religious pedagogy, came here as director of manual training in 1902, was made vice principal, was given charge under Principal Hyde of the new building which he had been instrumental in planning, and was assigned to be principal of the Weaver School, with the equipment of which also he had much to do. Gustave Feingold, born in Russia in 1883, has the degrees of B. S. and M. S. from Trinity and of A. M. and Ph. D. from Harvard. He was instructor in the high school from 1917 to 1923 when he was appointed vice principal and then in 1926 principal of the Bulkeley School. In the orig- inal high school, Principal Clement C. Hyde, who was born in Gardner, Mass., in 1871, got his A. B. at Harvard in 1892, hon- orary L. H. D. and M. A. at Trinity and Yale respectively in 1912 and 1924. He was assistant in physics at Harvard and Radcliffe from 1892 to 1924 when, as has been said, he came here. In 1925 appropriations were voted for two more high school sites.
There are twenty-three elementary schools in the city. The South District is the largest. Over 200 children from all dis- tricts receive special instruction at the Outdoor School on Ston- ington Street. The ungraded school is on Widsor Avenue. An academic summer school was inaugurated by Superintendent Fred D. Wish, Jr., in 1927. A trade school is to be built immedi- ately on Washington Street.
The dean of teachers in the state is Charles L. Ames, super- visor of the Brown or First District School, who in 1928 is in his eighty-first year. He was born in Killingly and taught there, as had his parents, and in other places till he went to the Plantsville district of Southington where he was principal for seventeen years or until he came to Hartford. Here he suc- ceeded, in 1891, Frederick F. Barrows who had been principal of the Brown School forty-one years. He continues his early custom of going into the street and summoning his pupils by blowing a whistle before each session. Being an excellent mu- sician, he seats himself at the piano in the assembly hall and leads the children in their singing, and as a member of the State Board of Education he gives valuable advice in matters pertain- ing to musical education. Twenty-five years ago the most of his pupils were Jewish; today about 90 per cent are Italian. In
SUFFIELD SCHOOL, SUFFIELD
FOUNDERS' HALL AND HEAD MASTER'S GARDEN, LOOMIS INSTITUTE
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1902 there were 2,700 enrollments in the school, which is on Market Street; today, by reason of the encroachment of busi- ness and crowding out of residences, the number is only about 1,800. Some of the most distinguished men of the city gradu- ated at this the most central of all the schools.
With a population of 167,500 in 1927, and 36,143 pupils enumerated, the city receives about $80,000 from the state. Hartford's education-cost that year was $4,076,198, an increase of nearly $253,000, for the nine districts and the three high schools, represented in twelve agencies. By the equalization plan, each district receives a proportionate share (four and one- half mills) in the city's tax rate, and eight of the districts that year levied extra taxes. The aggregate average cost for each registered pupil in the districts was $105, the portion for teach- ers varying but with an average of $63.30.
By the figures of the Department of Commerce for the year ending March 31, 1927, the city's total payments for operation and maintenance of the general departments was $7,186,824 or $43.50 per capita, an increase from $40.79 in 1926 and from $25.20 in 1918; including public service enterprises, interest and outlays, covering schools, a total of $11,133,726. The school item (for the year up to that early date in 1927) was $2,803,819. Including schools, the total revenue receipts were $10,433,570, or $63.46 per capita, population 165,200; of this, $1,025,061 was for the school districts. The increase in the amount of property taxes from 1918 to 1926 was 135 per cent. The per capita tax levy for city, school, state and county revenue was $44.84 in 1927, $40.01 in 1926 and $25 in 1918.
At the Hartford Seminary Foundation, whose new location and work have been described, announcement is made of the tentative merging of the Indianapolis College of Missions of the Disciples Church, the dean of which, Rev. Dr. George William Brown, has been a member of the Kennedy School faculty the past few months. He is to be joined by others who specialize in Chinese, Indian and Latin-American missions.
At Trinity, building has begun of the first unit of the new gymnasium, a memorial to Samuel B. P. Trowbridge of the class of 1883, the college architect. Next in order will be the new laboratory. The chapel given by William G. Mather, '77,
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of Cleveland, will complete the present building program, which hopefully will include a new dormitory toward which Charles W. Cook of Windsor has given $150,000. All the buildings will be of the Gothic style in harmony with the main buildings. Wil- liams Memorial given by J. Pierpont Morgan, LL. D., Jarvis Hall, Northam Towers and Seabury Hall, altogether a classic group set on a beautiful hill-the athletic field near by. At last Commencement a bronze tablet was unveiled in memory of Theo- dore Roosevelt; it bears in Latin the text of his address there in 1918.
§
PRIVATE SCHOOLS OF THE COUNTY
The private schools of the 1800s, it has been seen, were the result of insufficient and inefficient elementary district schools. In the mid-century, lack of schools of higher grade caused acad- emies to be established in various towns; as "academies" they disappeared with the evolution of the high school. During the latter decades the overcrowding of high schools and the distinct improvement in "boarding" and private day-schools, separately for the sexes, is one cause of the modern adaptation of the sec- ondary schools of which Hartford County has several of national repute. They should be grouped here, tersely, in the order of their seniority :
The Suffield School at Suffield, with its junior school for boys, was the Connecticut Literary Institution, under the auspices of the Connecticut Baptist Education Society, when in 1833 it was opened in the upper rooms of the Center School with Rev. Har- vey Ball as principal. The first building ("South") was built for $6,000 the next year and the trustees were the corporators, the last survivor of the first board being Albert Day of Hartford. The state gave aid with $7,000 in 1840 and a separate building for girls was erected in 1845. The first years were the story of the devotion of the Baptist clergy and the zeal of the laity throughout the state. Many men who became prominent in pub- lic life were among the graduates. With changing conditions, old ideals were retained, and the school continues to furnish high school service for the town, though girls are not now accommo-
SARAH PORTER (1813-1900) Established Miss Porter's School in Farm- ington
MISS PORTER'S SCHOOL, FARMINGTON
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dated in the boarding school. The location, the former Gideon Granger farm, near the typical village green, is ideal. There are seventy-five acres of land, including the fertile farm. In addition to the gymnasium and the faculty house there are three main buildings.
When in the 1880s many private schools were obliged to sus- pend because of the development of the high schools, the Suffield School, which had enjoyed high prestige under Dr. E. Benjamin Andrews, took on new life, in 1899 sold its first building to the town for a site for the splendid Kent Memorial Library, became interdenominational and, in the principalship of Ralph K. Bearce and with Charles C. Bissell chairman of the Executive Commit- tee, raised $50,000, about one-third of it in Suffield. The old Middle School, with ample provision for boarding pupils, was rededicated in 1908. More funds were forthcoming and in 1912 the present name was adopted. Benefit was derived from the extension plan of the Baptist denomination, including a $150,000 endowment and $50,000 for a new boys' dormitory, with $2,500 in scholarships from the Connecticut Baptist Convention. The Hartford County names appearing in the list of those who had given memorial funds are reminiscent of the history of indi- vidual towns, like E. C. Chaffee, Windsor Locks; E. C. Frisbie, James L. Howard and W. B. Clark, Hartford; and A. J. Sloper, New Britain; and of Suffield, Edward A., Charles S. and Wil- liam F. Fuller, Mrs. I. Luther Spencer, Miss Helen King (for Mr. and Mrs. Abel King), Cornelia J. Pomeroy (by Mrs. M. T. Newton), Alfred Spencer, Sara L. Spencer, Charles L. Spencer, James P. Spencer, together with several from other places, in- cluding Sidney A. Kent of Chicago. Hon. John M. Wadhams of Torrington is the present chairman of the board and Rev. Dr. Brownell Gage is headmaster.
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