USA > Connecticut > Hartford County > History of Hartford County, Connecticut, 1633-1928, Volume II > Part 15
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Charles A. Goodwin is president and Dr. George C. F. Williams, Wilbur F. Gordy and Robbins B. Stoeckel vice presidents.
This kind of a list-of utmost importance in the considera- tion of the community's history-in addition to those organiza- tions which have been mentioned previously, could be greatly added to. To get at a glance the widening scope since the early days already described, one may consider the Warburton Chapel on the one hand and the Children's Museum on the other. The chapel was established in the era of awakening in 1851, by "Father" Hawley, the first city missionary. Rev. Dr. Henry Clay Trumbull was the first superintendent. Miss Elizabeth Hamersley was one of the first and most faithful promoters. And there are other names which count for much in history as really made. It was a Sunday School work in character, adopted in 1869 by the old town's First Church, whose pastor, Dr. Joel Hawes, inspired the broader missionary features. Mrs. Mary A. Warburton built the chapel: Daniel R. Howe, business man, banker and in his quiet way interested in all of this kind of work, was superintendent for fifteen years, and on the board of trustees have been some of the city's leading men of affairs, in- cluding George Roberts, Governor Henry Roberts, Francis B. Cooley, Newman Hungerford, Col. Francis Parsons, Maynard T. Hazen and others. John P. Gavitt was the first superintend- ent to give all his time to the work and Oscar A. Phelps' name is a worthy one on that list.
The Children's Museum, the second of its type in the country to be independent and incorporated, was first suggested by Mrs. Florence Paull Berger, general curator of the Wadsworth Athe- neum, and was taken up by the newly organized Friends of Hart- ford, in 1927, rooms being obtained at the Pond House at Eliza- beth Park through the interest of Archibald A. Welch, president of the park board. Thence, needing more space, the museum moved to the former Sumner residence on Farmington Avenue which now in turn is outgrown. For under the direction of Miss Delia I. Griffin, of wide experience, hundreds of children and adults are attracted by the exhibits in natural history, including some of the finest collections in New England, in botany and in ethnology. Classes are formed with all out-doors as the text book. Teachers and pupils from the schools make excellent use of the institution. It is of a nature somewhat similar to that
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of the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, Hartford membership in which is large.
The comparatively recent organization of the Community Chest, to enable the charitably inclined to give to one source of supplies for approved charities, was not spontaneous in Hart- ford. A suspicion that this generally popular modern method throughout the land meant making charity easy for the giver and therefore robbed it of uplifting sentiment had to be over- come. The worthiness of several institutions and the inability of the average individual to apportion among them caused the inauguration of the institution four years ago. It was oppor- tune. The Charity Organization Society, in need of more room, only shortly before had moved into the Webster Memorial, a beautiful colonial structure near the park end of Trumbull Street. It had been built with a fund left by the late John C. Webster. Mr. Webster, who was born in Kingsfield, Me., in 1839, had been a publisher in Concord, N. H., and then general agent for the Aetna Life Insurance Company. He had come to that company's office in 1873 as superintendent of agencies. In 1879 he was made vice president and organized the accident de- partment which he supervised till his death. Martin Welles is treasurer. The funds collected in the annual drives of the Com- munity Chest are dispensed through the Charity Organization Society, the Diocesan Bureau of Social Service and the United Jewish Charities. Atwood Collins-president of the society thirty years at his death in 1926, when he was succeeded by George G. Williams of Farmington-was greatly interested in the Community Chest plan and rooms were assigned to its work- ers in the memorial building, where also were rooms for the Hartford chapter of the Red Cross under the leadership of Capt. William H. St. John. The chest collects about half a million dol- lars each year. William Conning is the president this year.
Exceptional local calls for aid in 1927 were met with char- acteristic promptness by the Red Cross and other organizations. The November floods carried the river to a point by adjusted measurement slightly exceeding that of the flood of 1854, or to 29 feet 6 inches, present standard. There was much suffering in the homes along the water fronts both sides of the river. For the sufferers by the floods in Vermont Hartford contributed
1
BILDER MAN
KAHN
LEAF
(Courtesy of the Hartford Times. )
IN THE FLOOD OF 1927
Junction of Connecticut Boulevard and State and Commerce streets, Hartford, before river reached its height
--
...
...
(Photograph by W. B. Fothergill.)
THE FLOOD OF NOVEMBER, 1927
View of Connecticut River from Windsor line North to Wethersfield line South. Height by United State Gauge, twenty-nine feet on November 6. Sub- merged, from left to right: North Meadows; railroad yards; Riverside Park; East Hartford Meadow District; Brainard Flying Field. Railroad bridge parallel with and north of stone bridge-held down by loaded flat cars. Flow through causeway east of stone bridge (East Hartford Church seen near end of causeway). Residences, stores, "Automobile Row," and boating clubs in East Hartford Meadow District. Main plant of Hartford Electric Light Com- pany to the South, isolated-close by Brainard Field. (Main Street Shopping district, left hand corner). Greatest flood in the city's history.
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much, and especially for the namesake Hartford. The gratitude shown by the recipients has brought the two communities into closer relationship, cemented now by the library the Vermont citizens have built with the residue of what was sent in money.
The trust fund of John J. Corning, whose gifts previously have been mentioned, was released on the death of Mrs. Corning in 1922. It amounted to over a million dollars to be shared equally by the Hartford Hospital, the Connecticut Humane Soci- ety, the Children's Village and the Y. M. C. A. In 1927 Thomas F. Garvan, president and treasurer of the Garvan Company, Incorporated, left $600,000 for St. Francis Hospital, $200,000 for St. Agnes Home and $50,000 for other charities. The same year Daniel C. Perkins of the firm of Downing & Perkins left $425,000 for the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving.
To paraphrase an old saying, for accuracy's sake: Familiar- ity may breed lack of proper credit. The best judges of the Hart- ford press are those who have had to live elsewhere for a season. For those at home, reading a morning and evening paper every day and weekly or monthly publications suited to their tastes, the sense of realization of what they mean in maintaining the high community standard is sometimes dulled. The purpose for which they are read is seldom for analyzing their relationship to and influence upon that standard, and there is little thought of the long and hectic hours required of each man to produce what such a fastidious community demands. The public here insists upon its right to be a stern judge; only the fittest can survive or, from out outside, keep its place on the newsstands in any part of the city ; it is "thumbs down" for the rest. The only criticism on the part of the reader (never of the publisher) is one that is not exceptional in these days; it has to do with the evidence of the business world's over-appreciation of a "circu- lating medium" and its under-appreciation of the forests that have to go to make paper.
The spirit of keeping in the van of mechanical and mental progress is reflected in the press by a keen public, and in the pub- lic by a keen press. There can be no "old school"-no old type. Willie O. Burr of the Times was an illustration of that fact. Mr. Burr kept a good pace ahead of "progress," however, meticu- lous he was about close application for himself. The final "press
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hour" for him, no less than for his father, found him at his desk, despite his almost four-score years and his abundant right to and means for leisure. The call came in November, 1921, sixty- one years after he entered the office and learned to set type in the stick; to his last days he counted it among his important duties to supervise the mechanical "make up" of the now numer- ous pages; callers on important political or other matters, what- ever their station, must sit by his editorial desk and wait for that. Unassuming almost to bashfulness, never seeking more than his right, a phase of his character was evidenced when he gave to fellow-workers who had grown up under him the larger part of the financial interest in the Burr Printing Company, implicitly trusting them to carry on. He had a faculty for drawing strong men and then leaving them to their own ways, whether in the mechanical departments, the counting room or the sanctum. With Clifton L. Sherman in the editorial chair this act was like saying well done to all in every department. Mr. Sherman, a graduate of Amherst and practiced in experience with the best associates, in Hartford and New York, had been recognized by Mr. Burr as one of those born to his calling. While Mr. Burr had rounded out in one office newspaper work of 121 years by father and son, a record unparalleled in the newspaper world, he was active in the outside work of citizenship. He shrank from holding public office, recognizing in journalism a jealous mistress, but he gave of his best as a state prison director from 1897 to the last, was a commissioner for the building of the State Library and a director in banking, insurance and char- itable institutions, withal a lover of horses and a supporter of athletic games. His progenitors on both paternal and maternal sides were of the earliest settlers, Burr and Olcott.
Availing itself of the possibilities of its new building, previ- ously described, the paper in 1926 installed a press 141 feet long, unequalled by any in the eastern states, to facilitate the handling of its 60,000 edition and provide for the future. In January, 1928, it published the announcement that the com- pany had been sold to Frank E. Gannett of Rochester, N. Y. Mr. Gannett was born in Bristol, N. Y., in 1876, was graduated in 1898 at Cornell of which he is now a trustee and president of the Cornellian Council, and has been in newspaper work most of
WILLIE O. BURR (1843-1921) Editor of the Hartford Times
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his life, owning today several prosperous papers in New York and New Jersey. President Farrand of Cornell in speaking of the type of journalism Mr. Gannett represents says it is "proof that the American public is fundamentally sound and that many of the disturbing manifestations noticeable in our national life today are only surface currents." Most of the former owners retired and the stock in the new company was sold to the public. In making its announcement the Times said that the reason for the change was that it was felt that management would best be responsible to only one head and that a year had been taken to satisfy the owners that there would be no departure from the established principles of the paper. Frank E. Tripp is the local manager, Mr. Sherman continuing as editor, Charles C. Hemen- way associate editor, and the other editorial positions unchanged.
What President Farrand said about the type of journalism that is proof of the public's soundness was exemplified by the Courant in 1764 and is today. It is of historical importance that it was born in an hour of revolt, in England as in America, against the reckless hand of George III-what proved to be a decidedly "surface current," most serious while it lasted. In New York the editor of the Weekly Journal had been arrested for criticising the royal-colonial government. By the law the judge should decide his fate but, by a jury, the colonists took matters into their own hands and acquitted the man. This was the first popular assertion of freedom of the press consistent with public rights. Gouverneur Morris says: "It was the dawn of that liberty which afterwards revolutionized America." The Courant's first issue had mention of the Government's effort to get its hands on John Wilkes, member of Parliament, and of how he was consulting with friends on the Continent. That was the erstwhile malodorous Wilkes whose final achievements in be- half of personal liberty were to make him beloved of the people. The golden period of journalism is what Historian Grant calls the years 1760 to 1770. Samuel Johnson, Edmund Burke, Sir Joshua Reynolds and Oliver Goldsmith, in the Courant's natal year, were forming their famous club for progress at the Turk's Head, and names equally well remembered were of that day, in the cause of Anglo-Saxons, Pitt's among them. Colonel Barre, taking Pitt's place when the great leader was sick, replied in
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these word to one who had referred to the colonies as planted, nourished and protected by England :
"They planted by your care! No! Your oppression planted them in America. Nourished by your indulgence? They grew up by your neglect of them. They prospered by your arms? Those sons of liberty have nobly taken up arms in your defense."
This was the origin of the name "Sons of Liberty" in Amer- ica and the Courant unfalteringly represented them when it was perilous so to do-the hour of the birth of free newspaper speech in the interests of the public. After the death of Mr. Clark, con- nected with the paper fifty-five years, the few proprietors of the Courant, headed by Henry H. Conland who was to succeed Mr. Clark as president, took time to select an editor who, like his predecessors, would adhere to the principles which had caused a contemporary to print one day: "The world knows that Hart- ford people hold the Courant next to their Bible." Maurice F. Sherman of Springfield was the choice and he came in 1926. He was born in Hanover, N. H., in 1873 and was graduated at Dart- mouth in 1894 with the degree of B. S. His newspaper career had included editorship of the Springfield Union, the Springfield Republican and the Congregationalist. As a member of the Springfield Chamber of Commerce and in other capacities he had tied in his newspaper work with personal civic endeavor. George B. Armstead is managing editor. Prior to Mr. Clark's death the paper began the publication of a Sunday issue with rotogravure section, thus furnishing the news every day in the year. In politics, it is not an organ in the old-time sense but it lives up to its republican inheritance.
Among the Courant men of the past who have been conspicu- ous in journalism, in addition to those who have been named in previous chapters, was Charles Hemmenway Adams (1845- 1915), Yale '66, of Fairfield (Conn.) birth, who was an editorial writer on the New York Sun, the New York Evening Post and the Springfield Republican before coming here in 1888 as asso- ciate editor-a man of eminent attainments. Stephen A. Hub- bard, who came to the paper with the Evening Press, was man- aging editor for twenty-three years till his death in 1890. Wat- son R. Sperry, Yale '71, formerly managing editor of the New
FREDERIC C. PENFIELD
Late Ambassador to Austria. Photographed when he was City Editor of the Courant
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York Evening Post, was an editorial writer for many years after returning from his position as minister to Persia and up to the time of the World war. William A. Graham, a native of Salis- bury, Md., for a long period city editor, at the time of his death in 1920, like his associates E. Hart Fenn and Thomas S. Weaver, was interested in many city affairs and was a member of the City Plan Commission. Frederic C. Penfield, who died in 1922 aged sixty-seven, was born in Moodus. He was appointed city editor in 1878. In 1885 he began a long diplomatic career as vice consul in London. In Cleveland's administration he was an adviser on consular affairs. While minister resident in Egypt, 1893-97, he compiled volumes that are of great historical worth. As ambassador to Austria from 1913 through the war period he performed most difficult tasks in a way which won him high commendation. He studied diligently and received degrees from several American colleges, including Princeton, and from foreign universities. He died in New York in 1922.
Both of the daily papers give unstintingly of their space and influence for all worthy public causes. Each of them has a sub- scription fund for children's welfare. The Courant maintains Camp Courant, in West Hartford, a children's resort with a swimming pool given by appreciative citizens, and the Times, at Alamada Lodge in the Coventry hills, provides for selected groups of children most in need of fresh air and nourishment.
That also is a reflection of public sentiment in a community 'which is conservative in character and refuses to be disturbed by "surface currents," however freely individuals are permitted to express their personal opinions. For 300 years the com- munity has seen too many victories over "disturbing manifesta- tions" to become pessimistic. There are hundreds of people hereabouts, even as has been indicated in these pages, bearing the family names of the makers of the Fundamental Orders, whose presence and prosperity are evidence that this is a good locality to dwell in and a good Government to live under, praise be to the judgment and foresight of founders of colony, state and nation and to their victories over "disturbing manifestations" to which the Cornell president referred. By no means all of the changes that have come by enactment have received the approval
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of the state or county electorate, but there has been full acqui- escence and renewed faith that good will prevail.
From the beginning full credit has been awarded the women of every creed for what they have done in advancing the cause of civic righteousness and improving conditions which men with great problems occupying their minds might neglect. There are women back of most of the "uplifts." Yet the traditional con- ception of woman in relation to home was with difficulty modi- fied enough to accept in full the principle of equal suffrage, de- spite the fact that this was one of the national centers of such agitation. One fear had to do with the quality of the increased electorate, yet at the same moment, editorially, fear was being expressed because such a large percentage of the male electors did not exercise their privileges-absolutely neglected their duty as citizens. Woman suffrage came, with reluctant approval by the Legislature as also by Hartford sentiment. Immediately the women organized campaigns of education for those of their sex. Not all was harmonious, but the work went on. It is several gen- erations too early for history to do more than chronicle-in this and other innovations, like the liquor legislation-but as in the past the community is making note of facts and its judgment will count for something, as through all the past, however large the nation. Its present note, on the suffrage question, is that women are voting and are participating in legislation. The note also is that, except on special occasions, there is still apathy in all but national elections on the part of voters in general, still alarming indifference to this first duty of citizenship; likewise, still a shrinking from accepting burden of office on the part of many who are qualified but are absorbed in personal or corpo- ration affairs, or cannot afford the expense, or are deterred by political villification during campaigns. There is other note to the effect that those who have come through to the more impor- tant offices have won approbation sufficient, at least, to make party lines somewhat indistinct. Of this also one finds whole- some reflection in the local press. And as for anxieties on any score, one purpose of this history has not been fulfilled if it has not presented chronologically material for comparison with the entire past. Inasmuch as many times there have been "disturb- ing manifestations," history must record worthy achievement over them.
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The first woman to go to the Legislature from Hartford, nominated on the republican ticket, was Mary Turner Hooker, granddaughter of Roland Mather and wife of former Mayor Edward W. Hooker, and her continued service, begun in 1921, was gratifying to the constituency. Mary S. Wiedman was elected to the session of 1927. Mrs. Alice P. Merritt was sena- tor from Hartford's Second District in the last two sessions. The other woman legislator from the county is Miss Marjory Cheney of South Manchester.
Reverting to the press, it was a newspaper revelation in 1924 that Connecticut was being made a victim of certain improper "medical colleges" in the Mid-West which led to the summoning of a literally most extraordinary body for Hartford County, an "extraordinary grand jury." In Hugh M. Alcorn of Suffield the county for several years has had an eminently efficient state's attorney. The evidence having been investigated by him, in con- nection with the state authorities, for the whole state was con- cerned, the jury was called and Benedict M. Holden, a lawyer indefatigable in research, was made foreman of it. What Mr. Holden unearthed was amazing but it required three years to rid the state of those who fraudulently had secured license from the state authorities to practice in Connecticut.
Crimes of the major class have not increased disproportion- ately, but crimes of the minor sort have. In large measure this is due to violation of traffic laws and of federal liquor laws. The police force has to be enlarged from time to time, its quarters and the quarters of the court are overcrowded and relief must be furnished. Chief Garrett J. Farrell is at the head of a force of 250 officers and men on regular duty every day. The city's first precinct station was ordered in 1928 and the building is being built on Capitol Avenue near Arbor Street.
Under Chief John C. Moran the Fire Department continues to be one of the best in New England, in equipment, housing and man-power. Consequently insurance rates are low. The de- partment building on Pearl Street is a model in practicability.
Further regarding the press-into whose thousand channels one is bound to digress-mention of it cannot be complete with- out including the most outstanding of the other publications.
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The Connecticut Staats-Zeitung long has represented the Ger- man citizens throughout the state. The Catholic Transcript has grown stronger each year since the period when it was last re- ferred to herein. It now has a building of its own near the cathedral parochial school on Asylum Avenue. Hartford of the Chamber of Commerce, gives monthly pictures of history-in-the- making. The Financial Digest, conducted by Seymour Wemyss Smith and Payson Jones, a monthly now in its seventh volume and with circulation throughout the state, has demonstrated that an elaborate periodical devoted to business and finance finds a good field here.
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THIRD CENTURY'S CLOSING
BUSHNELL MEMORIAL, COUNTY COURTHOUSE, AND CAPITOL HILL- HILL GROUP ENLARGEMENT-TRIBUTES TO MRS. STOWE AND MARK TWAIN-ATHENEUM THE SYMBOL OF HISTORIC HARTFORD.
In an historical sense, review of the history of any community in the world the past ten years must be inadequate. In the hurly- burly of civilization's readjustment since the war, in the rush of new and revolutionary inventions and discoveries, proportion and appraisement cannot be established. Much might be cited that will have been relegated in another generation, much be omitted that will have its place in history at the end of a fourth century. If history teaches anything it teaches that.
What one likes to believe, in present appraisement, will con- tinue among the established contributing forces are the better forms and opportunities of entertainment, like the Robert B. Kellogg concerts, the Philharmonic (or Roberts) concerts of which mention has been made, the Parsons Theater on a scale which must improve with the country's scale, the further devel- opment of the Travelers radio station and the better class of moving picture houses; for recreation, the park system to which abandoned Reservoir No. 4 in Farmington with its surrounding 160 acres is now being added, making a total of over 1,500 acres in parks; and for preserving and up-building, the Friends of Hartford, incorporated in 1927, Dr. George C. F. Williams the president with sub-committees of loyal and appreciative men and women.
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