USA > Connecticut > Hartford County > History of Hartford County, Connecticut, 1633-1928, Volume II > Part 12
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Miss Porter's widely known school in Farmington continues of the character with which it began in 1844. Sarah Porter, who died in 1900 at the age of eighty-six, was the daughter of Rev. Noah Porter (pastor of the Farmington Congregational Church from 1806 to 1866), and the sister of President Noah Porter of Yale. She began teaching in the local academy at the age of six- teen, attended Dr. E. A. Andrews' School in New Haven, taught in Springfield, Buffalo and Philadelphia and then opened her school in the "stone store" where Joseph R. Hawley and John
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Hooker had their law office. She appreciated the original charm of the village and contended against commercial intrusions, thus contributing largely to making Farmington what it is today. Mrs. J. R. Keep, mother of Robert P. Keep, who for many years and before coming to the care of the Farmington School was principal of the Norwich Free Academy, was Miss Porter's sis- ter. Mrs. M. E. Dow, a well known educator, relieved Miss Porter of her burdens in her later years and continued till Mr. and Mrs. Keep came in 1903. A marble chapel in memory of Miss Porter was erected in 1902 near the historic church by for- mer pupils of the school. The main building of the present group was built by Major Cowles and in the days of the Farmington canal accommodated many guests as the Union Hotel.
Another successful school for girls, back in the hills of Sims- bury, was established in later years. It bears the name of its founder, Miss Ethel Walker, now Mrs. E. Terry Smith of Hart- ford, who continues her interest in the institution.
Loomis Institute, of remarkable origin and speedily going far beyond the conception of its generous founders, is located on the semi-"island" in Windsor. Though Windsor, with all its natural beauties, wisely glories in its history, nowhere are the proud traditions better maintained than in this institution. James C., Hezekiah B., Osbert B., John and Abby S. Loomis and her husband, H. Sidney Hayden, all being childless, determined in 1871 to leave their residuary estates for the founding of a school on the site where their ancestor, Joseph Loomis, settled in 1639, the Constitution year. While there was incorporation in 1874, no further steps were taken during existence of life in- terests in the estates. In 1912, the fund then amounting to $2,000,000 and increased by the bequest of $300,000 from Wil- liam H. Loomis of Brooklyn, N. Y., building began and the school was opened in 1914, for selected pupils, tuition free according to charter provision. Much of the useful work around the school and on the farm was to be done by the pupils, and to them, by council, was entrusted a large part of the management. There are 290 acres, of which one-half is farmed scientifically; the re- mainder is devoted to the quadrangle and athletic grounds. The school group of buildings ultimately will consist of twelve, colonial in design and of brick and limestone. Of these nine are now in use, including Founders Hall, the headmaster's residence,
COURTYARD, CAMPUS AND INFIRMARY, WESTMINSTER SCHOOL, SIMSBURY
OXFORD SCHOOL, PROSPECT AVENUE, HARTFORD
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the gymnasium and Gwendolen Sedgwick Batchelder Memorial Infirmary. The dormitories bear the names of Windsor found- ers. The three courses are college preparatory, agricultural and business. A limited number of day pupils are admitted.
It being tested and found that the charter required instruc- tion for girls as well as boys, more Windsor history is respected and more created by providing a separate location for them-on the site of the old palisado and in buildings that are cherished. The Abigail Sherwood Chaffee School, named after the mother of the founders of the institute, was opened in 1927 in the home- stead of James Hooker of the firm of Hooker & Chaffee of the West India trade and later by Edward Roland Sill the poet, the building to be known as the Sill House, and in the Dr. Hezekiah Chaffee homestead which stands next to the Sill House. The girls' department which was suspended in 1923 had been re- sumed in 1925 in a house on Poquonock Avenue till the new quarters could be provided. Robert W. Huntington of Hartford is president and James Lee Loomis of Hartford vice president of the trustees; Nathaniel H. Batchelder, Harvard '01 (A. M. '02 and honorary Trinity 1918), formerly English master at the Hotchkiss School, is headmaster, and Paul S. Parsons, Trinity '20, A. M. '24, is resident director at the Chaffee School.
Westminster School, on Williams Hill in Simsbury over- looking the wonderful Farmington River valley and not far from the ideal New England "street" which for generations has been the home of some of the county's most efficient and re- spected citizens, can boast of a rare location. There are 200 acres of land, much of it wooded but with extensive gardens, athletic fields and lawns which set off the buildings, themselves suggestive of ancient Eppingham in England, with which this school can be compared in character and purpose. William L. Cushing, one of the most popular members of the class of '72 at Yale and captain of the crew-a teacher for a time in the high school in Hartford and later headmaster of the Hopkins Gram- mar School in New Haven-had in mind precisely such a school as this of today when he first secured a building at Dobb's Ferry in 1888. Two years later he obtained this location in Simsbury, with purpose of having a limited number of boys so that he might keep personally in touch. Physical condition compelled him to resign in 1920 and after a year abroad he died. In 1921,
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Mr. Cushing, who was born in Phippsburg, Me., left the name of being one of the foremost headmasters in the United States. Raymond R. McOrmond, Yale '07, who had taught at Woodberry Forest School and at Choate and had had other experience of value, took the school in 1923 and at once began to give expres- sion to his deep admiration of Mr. Cushing. It is evident not only in the curriculum but in athletics and in the new buildings. Conspicuous among the buildings as a group is the Hay Memo- rial Chapel given in 1895 by John Hay, Lincoln's secretary and later secretary of state in the administrations of Mckinley and Roosevelt, in memory of his son Adlebert S. Hay, a graduate of the school; the Memorial Building erected in 1927 to honor the memory of Mr. Cushing and of the ten boys who gave their lives in the World war; the headmaster's residence; the gymnasium; Fearn Hall and the infirmary. A summer school is conducted with full teaching staff for those who are particularly ambitious.
The Oxford School, for girls, was opened on Oxford Street, Hartford, in a modest way in 1909 as a boarding school, by Miss Myra I. Billings and Miss Mary E. Martin. After the second year Miss Billings withdrew to become assistant superintendent of public schools in Atlantic City. In 1919, the school having outgrown its quarters, it was moved to Farmington Avenue where it was conducted along the lines of a day school. After five years, there was need of still more adequate location and, with the aid of the patrons, the present building and grounds at No. 695 Prospect Avenue were obtained. Miss Ruth E. Guern- sey became associate principal in the fall of 1923.
Kingswood Academy, for boys, has pushed forward rapidly under George Nicholson into the front ranks of preparatory and general schools. In 1916 a small group of Hartford citizens, de- sirous of having boys get a high quality of secondary education without being removed from home influences, invited Mr. Nich- olson, of English birth, education and experience, to undertake a "country day school." The first quarters at No. 274 Farm- ington Avenue proving too small at the end of the second year, and the opportunity offering, the school was removed to the re- cently vacated Mark Twain house on the avenue. The next year, the promoters having found their experiment a success, it obviously was essential that the school have its own plant. After it had been incorporated, Rev. Dr. Melancthon W. Jacobus do-
AVON, OLD FARMS, AVON
Junior College and Preparatory School for boys, founded and designed by Theodate Pope Riddle in memory of her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Alfred Atmore Pope
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nated a most desirable tract of twenty acres in West Hartford on condition that money be raised for the buildings, about which there was no trouble. The buildings were occupied in 1922 by eighty-five pupils and a faculty of eleven. The new plant fur- nishes excellent accommodations, buildings and athletic grounds for 120 boys. Doctor Jacobus is president of the Board of Trus- tees; Dr. Thomas N. Hepburn vice president, R. S. Williams treasurer and Rev. W. S. Archibald secretary.
Avon, Old Farms, secondary school and junior college, located in Avon on extensive property covering a section known as Old Farms since long ago, has been drawing attention from abroad as well as in this country through the years it has been building and since it was ready to receive pupils in the fall of 1927. It is the conception of Theodate Pope, daughter of Alfred Atmore Pope, one of the country's leading manufacturers who lived in Farmington after his retirement, dying in 1913. She became the leading woman architect of the country, contributed gener- ously to the fund for the psychological department at Harvard and added a salary for a fellow in psychical research, a chair that was given to her friend, Dr. Leonard T. Troland. Among the buildings she has designed are Westover School in Middle- bury and the restored Roosevelt birthplace in New York. In 1916 she was one of the passengers saved from the sinking Lusi- tania. That year she married John Wallace Riddle, an intimate friend of Admiral Cowles of Farmington-Harvard '87 and Co- lumbia Law School '91; secretary of legation to Turkey (1893- 1900), secretary of embassy to Russia (1901-1903), consul- general to Egypt (1903-1905), diplomatic representative to Roumania and Servia (1905-1906), ambassador to Russia (1906-1909) and to Argentina in 1921 where he continued till he resigned in 1925. This school was designed by Mrs. Riddle as a memorial to her parents.
The 3,000 acres, mostly on high ground, have meadows on the east sloping down to Farmington River at one of its most romantic points. The forest on the southern portion has been left in its natural state as a haunt for deer while that in the vicinity of the school has been cleared, several acres of it being left for forestry study. A great quarry of exceptionally beau- tiful stone has furnished the material for the massive buildings which it has required a large force of men several years to build,
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and not yet are all of them complete. Old Farms is the name of the village which embraces the school. There are offices, cot- tages, library and hall, cloister, chapel, bank, guest house, post office and other typical town buildings grouped around a village green-for the pupils are to learn citizenship. There are seven stone dormitories and common rooms for students, forming the Pope and Brooks quadrangles adjoining the "village." Exten- sive farm buildings with smithy and carpenter shop make a group apart. A power house is located on the bank of a trib- utary of the Farmington. The buildings are suggestive of the best in European classical Gothic, with huge oak beams showing in the larger rooms, doors of long-weathered oak, and nooks and fireplaces that are a study in themselves. Stone carvings and arabesques on every side add to the effect. The scenic carving over the entrance to the Pope quadrangle is symbolic of the spirit of the institution-training in agriculture, the mechanical arts, in science and in citizenship. The secondary school prepares boys to enter the universities; the junior college prepares them to enter the higher classes, and for those who do not go to the universities there is two years of postgraduate study. A cul- ture basis is provided for all and special attention is given to the fine arts. A charter is granted to the village by the Board of Regents, and thus the boys are encouraged to acquire the habits of self-government. The device is a beaver with the wings of an eagle. The name of the corporation is the Pope-Brooks Foun- dation. Mr. Riddle is the president; Charles Francis Adams, Charles Francis Choate, Jr., George C. Lee, Jr., Henry Francis Pope, Mrs. Riddle, Barnard W. Trafford and Harris Whittemore are the directors. Stephen P. Cabot is the executive regent, and Francis Mitchell Froelicher is the provost, George F. Cherry the Dean.
The remarkable development of parochial schools since the early times of which note has been made redounded to the credit of the parish and the diocese. These latest ones of the Cathedral School north of the Cathedral and of St. Augustine's on Clifford Street are symbolic of the liberality and the progress, and the quality of instruction is in keeping with the character and equip- ment of the structures. There are now nine of the schools. To get at the beginning of all this one must go back to the previous
KINGSWOOD SCHOOL, WEST HARTFORD
MOUNT ST. JOSEPH ACADEMY, HARTFORD
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mention of Father Brady and St. Patrick's Church. The first four Sisters of Mercy, led by Mother M. Xavier Warde, who came here in 1852, immediately opened a school on Allyn Street. Sister M. Paula Lombard was the first superior of St. Cather- ine's Convent. Father Brady secured larger quarters on Trum- bull Street. Rev. James Hughes in 1855 erected next to St. Peter's the first convent building in the state-for boarding and day pupils. Sister M. Pauline Maher was assisted for a time by the gifted writer, Sister M. Teresa Carroll, founder of many convent schools. With the coming of Bishop McFarland and his decision to build first of all a school on the present cathedral grounds, the purpose was to meet the demand for teachers in the parochial schools of the state. In 1874 the original academy was transferred from Church Street to Farmington Avenue as Mount St. Joseph. In 1908 there was removal from the over- crowded building to the fine new structure on Hamilton Heights in West Hartford, under a teaching staff which included nine who had had their training at the Harvard Summer School. A number of the pupils go from here to the Catholic University in Washington. In 1922 the academy was approved and placed on the list of registered secondary schools of the state and in 1925 received a charter as a college.
The Sisters of St. Joseph of Chambery, who first had come to America in 1885 and had located in Danielson in 1889, re- moved to Hartford to establish their American novitiate. Their mission is to train teachers and nurses and they have been given the care of St. John's Asylum at Deep River, one of the most im- portant of the institutions in the diocese, supported by St. John's Industrial School Improvement Association, a laymen's organi- zation of which Hon. Patrick McGovern has been president since the beginning in 1913. Their motherhouse is now on South Prospect Avenue, in the Parkville section, and it is the headquar- ters of the sisterhood in the United States. The adjoining con- vent and chapel of Mary Immaculate was dedicated in 1913. They furnish the teaching staff of ten of the parochial schools in the state. What they have done for St. Francis Hospital already has been noted, and there is like work in other cities.
The first to start a school for clerical training were the mis- sionaries of the Society of La Salette who received a welcome from Bishop McMahon in 1892 and brought from Grenoble,
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France, five missionaries and a few students who for a time utilized the old Bishop McFarland residence on Woodlawn Street and then removed to New Park Avenue where their pres- ent building was erected. It stands close beside one of the hand- somest churches in the city, Our Lady of Sorrows. On comple- tion of their classical studies here the students go to Rome and to the Gregorian University, after which they serve as mission- aries in all parts of the world. This became the motherhouse of the Fathers of La Salette. A novitiate school was opened in Bloomfield. Five foundations in other dioceses have been made. There is also a band of trained preachers to conduct missions and retreats. Rev. Thomas J. Conlon, M. S., is the present presi- dent; Rev. Thomas Gooley director.
St. Thomas Seminary was founded in accord with Bishop Tierney's idea that, especially with the oncoming of immigrants of varied nationalities and tongues, there should be a college or seminary for the training of young men for the clergy. Taking in 1898 the former headquarters of the Chinese educational com- mission, there was early removal to a seemingly adequate new building on Collins Street, adjacent to St. Francis Hospital. That already outgrown, land for ample buildings and a large campus was bought on Bloomfield Avenue in Bloomfield where at the present time noble buildings of granite are being erected to accommodate 400 students. The main building is 482x58 feet. The central portion will be a chapel and the two wings will be dormitories. The bishop placed at the head of the seminary at the beginning Right Rev. John Synnott (1857-1921), a theo- logian trained in Paris and ordained there at the College for Missions in 1881, and with him Rev. Dr. Robert F. Fitzgerald as vice president. When Father Synnott was made vicar- general in 1900 (and in 1905 he was to be made domestic prelate by the pope), he was succeeded by Right Rev. Maurice F. Mc- Auliffe, now auxiliary bishop, a graduate of St. Peter's School, the Hartford Public High School, St. Mary's at Emmitsburg and a student at foreign universities, who ably has maintained the high standards. The five years' course is strictly classical. The benefit of the institution to the diocese and beyond its borders is universally acclaimed. There is also a novitiate school in Bloom- field.
St. Augustine's Novitiate and Normal School, an off-shoot of
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Mount St. Joseph's Academy, finely located on Quaker Lane in West Hartford, was opened in September, 1913. It furnishes a two years' course of training for the Sisterhood of Mercy and is the motherhouse.
There is educational work at the House of the Good Shepherd on Sisson Avenue where there are many children requiring care- ful attention.
The Sisters of the Holy Ghost, driven from France, were in- vited here by Bishop Tierney in 1902. Outgrowing their Hart- ford home, their Provincial House was established in Putnam. They conduct schools in Hartford and elsewhere.
A moving power in all this educational work has been Right Rev. Dr. Thomas S. Duggan, vicar-general.
XLVI
"METROPOLITAN DISTRICT"
STILL GREATER DEMANDS-FIRST MUNICIPAL AIRPORT-LARGEST AIR- PLANE-ENGINE PLANT, DEVELOPED OVER-NIGHT-"FLYING GOVER- NOR"-NEW CANAL DAM-TROUBLE WITH MASSACHUSETTS-KIND OF WORKMEN WHO KNOW NO DULL TIMES.
It is a fitting approach to the tercentennial of the Constitu- tion Towns, divided and redivided since 1635, that a movement has been inaugurated to bring parts of them back into closer union, each of course retaining its independence but all united in a "metropolitan district" as to their common interests. Such dis- trict is distinct from that of the same new name which the Cen- sus Bureau uses in asking for data on those communities which are closely allied and yet may lie outside the county, like Middle- town. The real Metropolitan District would embrace only a por- tion of the territory acquired by the first settlers. That portion would be the three Hartfords, Windsor, Bloomfield, Wethers- field and Newington-which have developed to an extent to re- quire common solution of public utility, sanitary, police and tax- ation problems. Hartford itself has widely overflowed its bounds. With modern transportation, its people have built homes far out in territory exceptionally attractive. There is much community of interest in water supply, ample for all that do not have their own. The sewage question is menacing. Hart- ford hoped to settle it in the '90s when it built trunk sewers emptying into the Connecticut, but the present condition of that river, in common with other rivers and the Sound, is demanding state attention following surveys that are being made slowly. Some of the outskirts connect with the Hartford system. New Britain, which may have to have a municipal district of its own before long, thought to get relief with its sewer beds only to find them now inadequate. Boundaries where already there has been nominal merging can cause confusion in the matter of fire
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Capitol Avenue looking east from Park River Bridge. Left, Hartford Machine Screw Company, Pratt & Whitney and Pratt & Whitney Aircraft Company, and Hart & Hegeman Plant. Capitol dome in the distance
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HEART OF MANUFACTURING DISTRICT, HARTFORD
Capitol Avenue looking east from Laurel Street. Left, Office of County Manu- facturers Association, in East Plant of Arrow Electric Company, Pratt & Cady's foundry, Hartford Machine Screw Company. Right, Original corner of Underwood Typewriter Plant
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and police protection, and economies could be effected in the care of highways and bridges.
The Massachusetts undertaking to divert the Ware and Swift rivers from the Connecticut to the Boston water supply interests Hartford County more than any other part of Con- necticut ; Governor Trumbull, by consent of the Legislature, has begun action for the state, but the local communities must be organized for any effective opposition, as in the days of inter- colonial contentions. There is an increasing number of ques- tions to be considered federationwise. The commission from the towns, of which Charles A. Goodwin is chairman, is drafting a plan to lay before the Legislature, the draft committee being Mr. Goodwin and Senator Edward N. Allen of Hartford, John L. Havens of East Hartford, H. T. Meech and Col. Clarence W. Seymour of West Hartford, Insurance Commissioner Howard P. Dunham of Wethersfield, and Edgar D. Clark of Windsor.
The suddenness of the need of conference brings home more closely than anything else can the sense of swift change since 1915, due more to skill and ingenuity, financial and mechanical, and to public spirit than to manufacture of munitions, extensive though that was. Factory additions that fell silent after the Kaiser abdicated are beginning to enlarge. It is like the situa- tion of 1900, previously set forth, but on a larger scale. And it is being met as effectually. Enough is in evidence to attest that.
The population of the three Hartfords is 210,000 and of the full proposed Metropolitan District of the few towns named, 231,000. Hartford with its 176,000 ranks second in the state without having taken in anything outside its original bounds. The grand list is $355,000,000, a gain of $15,500,000 in one year, with city tax of 20 mills; the number of dwellings 15,000, assessed at $153,000,000; stores and office buildings, 1,300, at $128,000,000; mills, 143 at $23,000,000. The form of govern- ment-the mayor, the Board of Aldermen and the departments -is efficient when in the hands of capable men willing to give of their time. In the state election of 1926, only 69 per cent of a possible Hartford County vote of 118,000 was cast, and in the state 72 per cent-one of the disturbing signs of the time. Hiram Bingham was sent back to the Senate after one term on appointment. E. Hart Fenn was elected congressman for his fourth term, and John H. Trumbull was elected governor after
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one term; being lieutenant governor he had succeeded Governor Bingham after the governor's having served one day and then having resigned to accept the senatorial appointment to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Frank B. Brandegee of New London. (Congressman Fenn, Governor Trumbull and Senator Bingham were reelected in November, 1928.)
Congressman Fenn was born in Hartford in 1856, the son of Edward Hart Fenn, a prominent business man, and Frances Pitkin Talcott Fenn. After a course at Yale in the class of '79, he took up newspaper work and was city editor of the Post in its period of success. Later he was on the staff of the Courant. His home is the Silas Deane residence in Wethersfield, from which town he was sent to the Legislature in 1907. His service there and in the Senate was continued till 1913. His first elec- tion to Congress to represent the First District was in 1921.
Governor Trumbull, born in Ashford of Scotch ancestry in 1873, and early removing to Plainville, worked on his father's farm and attended the public schools. Fascinated with elec- tricity, he found employment with the Eddy Electric Company in Windsor where he made opportunities to study. After a short time as an electrical contractor in Hartford, in 1899 he estab- lished the Trumbull Electric Company in Plainville and his in- dustrial achievements are told of in the Plainville section of the history. In war time he served on a number of national and state committees and was captain of a company in the First In- fantry, Connecticut State Guard. His recreation he finds in big-game hunting and in aviation. He is nationally known as the "Flying Governor." As has been told, he was instrumental in perfecting Hartford's airport and in organizing the first com- pany for commercial air traffic. In addition to the presidency of the Plainville Trust Company which he helped establish, he is officer and director in several financial and philanthropic insti- tutions. He married Maude Usher, daughter of Plainville's first town clerk, and has two daughters, Florence and Jean.
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