USA > Connecticut > Hartford County > History of Hartford County, Connecticut, 1633-1928, Volume II > Part 31
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By no means is all of Father Bojnowsky's work confined to New Britain. In 1924, having seen evidences of distress of immi- grants in New York, he purchased a building on West Forty- fourth Street, where he has equipped eighty rooms for shelter of young women of any nationality or denomination who may need a temporary home-free if they are without funds. The nuns of the Children of Mary have this also under their charge.
Father Bojnowsky has vision of the future. He himself has agrarian tastes as evidenced by his beehives where he spends his moments of relaxation; he sees the day when there shall be a farm school on the acres that have been acquired and, before many years, a well equipped hospital. Recognition of his remarkable work comes from many sources both sides of the ocean. Twice he has been commended by the Vatican, once by Pope Benedict and again by Pope Pius, he having been elected a doctor of the Pontificae Academae Tiberna. There being today 12,000 souls in the parish, making it the largest in the diocese, ecclesiastic
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sanction has been obtained for a division of it and the new Church of the Holy Cross soon will be erected. On the anniversary of his ordination in 1928, the father was surprised by an outpouring of the parish and citizens of other parishes and creeds to do him honor. Last-minute warning of it aroused his pugnacity as he never had anything of that sort, and he yielded only when told that it was too late to cancel the invitations. He took this occasion to emphasize his appreciation of the aid he had received through his career from Judge of Probate Bernard F. Gaffney, Charles F. Smith, chairman of the board of directors of Landers, Frary & Clark, and other citizens of New Britain.
An event of great historical import is that of this year 1928 when Alix W. Stanley is giving to the city the old Stanley prop- erty, including the original grant and a large part of what has been known as Stanley Quarter since the earliest days. The Stanley family was one of the most prominent in the founding" of the colony of Connecticut. Timothy came from England with the Hooker party and was one of those who accompanied Hooker to Hartford in 1636. John Stanley was an original proprietor in Farmington in 1644 and in the distribution of land received a portion which was the beginning of the "Quarter." In King Philip's war in 1675 he served as a captain. As a reward for what he did he received by vote of the General Court a grant of land in addition to one that had been given the year before the war. The total was 380 acres. His descendant, Col. Gad Stanley, was an officer in the Revolution, also a civil magistrate of note. His house, in good state of preservation, is still standing on the land now given to the city. The Stanleys had been influential in securing the setting-off of what is now New Britain as a separate parish of Berlin in 1754 and in selecting what was then the center as the site of the first meeting-house, at the southeast corner of what is now called "Paradise Park," a small triangle at the corner of Elm and Smalley streets. It was central for the three hamlets which then comprised New Britain-Stanley Quarter, East Street and Hart Corner in the southwest corner of the town. Stanley Street today runs from the Berlin line almost due north to the Farmington line, part of it connecting
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Hartford Road to the north with Hartford Avenue near the heart of the city.
In 1850 when the town was incorporated, the colonel's son, of the same name and living in the ancestral home, was one of the first board of selectmen. He was the father of Frederick Trenck Stanley (1802-1883) who left the farm at the age of sixteen and went to New Haven as a clerk but returned in 1823 and as has been seen became one of the most notable pioneers in all phases of New Britain industries. At his death, his interest in the estate passed on to Alix W. Stanley, the city's benefactor, who after retiring from the presidency of the Stanley Rule and Level Company has traveled much in Europe. Meantime he has greatly beautified the estate with gardens, trees and shrubs; portions that had been sold he has been buying back the past twenty years, having in mind that some day all should belong to the city. Fred W. Gale, who has occupied the old Gad Stanley house just off Hartford Road, has been the superintendent. Back from this is the highest land thereabouts. At the top of the hill, commanding an extensive view, is "Tiponittin," the residence of Mr. and Mrs. Stanley when they are in this country; this will continue to be their residence till the city takes over the 380 acres for park purposes.
The property, which adjoins on the north the original Stanley Quarter Park west of Hartford Road, itself already being beau- tifully developed, is divided by highways into three sections. The "west farm" extends from the present park northerly, includes the family residences and the high hill with a fine forest running west to the stream which flows through the park. The central section lies between Stanley Street extension and Hartford Road to the east, which form almost a U at this point-beautiful roll- ing country with a stream running through it. The third parcel is east of Stanley Street and Hartford Road, toward Newington. Golf architects, called in by Mr. Stanley, declare this to be an ideal place for a course. There also is ample territory for a nucleus for an airport. In relation to New Britain proper, the whole will be more even than Central Park is to New York. Fur- ther, it will aid in preserving colonial history and the memory of the beginning of the city's prestige.
The city already was fortunate in possessing Walnut Hill Park of seventy acres in its choice residential section out West
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(Courtesy of Chamber of Commerce)
THE "TRIANGLE," NEW BRITAIN Soldiers' memorial at farther end and City Hall in left background
SOLDIERS' MONUMENT, NEW BRITAIN
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Main Street, and its South End or Willow Brook Park. What with a number of playgrounds in addition there are abundant facilities for outdoor recreation summer and winter, and as for golf, the Shuttle Meadow Club is not far away from the center -near the foot of Lincoln Street, on the town's southern line.
Thought for public welfare has been well proportioned with the material increase. The recently dedicated Children's Home on Rackcliffe Heights, at the foot of Linwood Street, under the supervision of Dr. J. E. Klingberg, is the latest evidence. The Day Nursery of Winter Street is another. Similar institutions date back to the turn of the century when the industries were beginning to draw their thousands. The General Hospital was established on Grand Street at the time of the Spanish war and soldiers stricken with disease at Camp Alger, Va., were the first patients. The first building was the John B. Smith house. A building was put up west of this and then the operating building, the building for the nurses and the general building followed in rapid sequence, funds being cheerfully provided. Dr. T. Eben Reeks is the superintendent. The Erwin Home for Worthy Indi- gent Women, on Bassett Street, was established with a mainten- ance fund bequeathed by Cornelius B. Erwin, president of Russell & Erwin, who died in 1874. The care of it is in charge of the pastor and a committee of the South Church. It consists of a series of cottages.
Mr. Erwin also gave $10,000 of the $25,000 required to erect the fine monument in the park in the Triangle in the center of the business district, designed by Carl Gerhardt, in memory of the soldiers of the Civil war.
The Young Men's Christian Association's building on the corner of Main and Court streets and the Young Women's Chris- tian Association's on Main Street are growing faster than ample quarters can be provided. The Salvation Army, always well supported, has its temple on Arch Street. The Young Men's Christian Association was organized in 1867, succeeding a union which dated from 1856 but was interrupted by the war. The rooms were in Miller's building, David N. Camp the president. A secretary was first employed in 1883. The present building was erected in 1886, after a fire and incorporation.
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The New Britain Chamber of Commerce, of which Ralph H. Benson is the secretary, with its offices on West Main Street, can look in any direction these days and see what exceeds its highest hopes of a comparatively few years ago, but it only redoubles its energy. The New Britain Club has long been a potent factor in the community. It was organized in 1882. John B. Talcott was the first president. Its first quarters were over the New Britain Savings Bank whence the club removed in 1885 to larger quarters in the new Russell & Erwin building. Today the quarters are in the new Burritt Hotel. Mr. Erwin bequeathed $5,000 to the clubs. The Masons have their temple on West Main Street, awaiting the early completion of their new and sightly temple out West Main Street; and the Odd Fellows their hall on Arch Street. The Elks have recently dedicated their new home on Washington Street. The building of the Knights of Columbus is on Franklin Square.
The steps which have led to New Britain's having its insti- tute and library betoken the character of the people who have made the city what it is-first, the kind of people who desired such things, amid all the activities of industrial and commercial life, and second, the kind of people who supplied them. Miss Greta Brown, the librarian, can furnish the details of the inter- esting story from the wealth of material which she has. Before the Revolution the boys at a meeting in a horse shed arranged to assemble books and pass them around so that all might read them. After establishing the First Ecclesiastical Society a parish library was organized, the books to be kept at a private house for circulation among members, of whom there were fifty-six in 1792. The Julian Society, for more formal work, was organized in 1825 with a fair supply of books, and meetings were held for debates, on the lyceum plan. The name was changed to Lyceum in 1836. But, discussions having become heated, the organization was dis- solved and the books distributed. With the formation of the South Congregational Society in 1842, a parish library was estab- lished and when the first Normal School was opened in 1850, it had a library, largely of reference books. This increased the desire for a general public library and reading room. With a few hundred dollars of subscriptions in 1853, rooms were opened
JOHN B. TALCOTT (1824-1904)
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LIBRARY OF THE NEW BRITAIN INSTITUTE, NEW BRITAIN
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in the Miller building by the newly organized New Britain Insti- tute and Library Association. In 1856 the books of the South Church were transferred to the institute as a loan and eventually became part of the library. Meantime rooms were arranged in Hart's Block.
Incorporation was effected in 1858, D. N. Camp, C. B. Erwin, F. T. Stanley, G. M. Landers, Oliver Stanley, Lucius Woodruff, T. W. Stanley, John B. Talcott, William A. Churchill and W. B. Smythe, the incorporators. The income then was $6,000. The war interrupted but in 1869, aided by a town appropriation of $500 a year, the corporation reopened its rooms and interest revived. A legacy of $10,000 from Dr. Lucius Woodruff enabled the directors to increase the facilities. When Cornelius B. Erwin in 1885 left $30,000 for the cause, quarters were taken in the Russell & Erwin building. They were ample for the time but in the '90s there was need of more room. The response was gener- ous and the ideals were realized when the present building at the corner of West Main and High streets was opened in January, 1901, fine in architecture, beautiful in interior, carefully adapted for student or chance reader of books or periodicals, a room for the children and an assembly hall for such uses as the institute would promote. In circulating and reference sections there were then over twenty thousand volumes. The president was John B. Talcott; vice president and chairman of the Library Committee, D. N. Camp, principal of the Normal School; secretary, W. F. Walker; treasurer, A. J. Sloper ; directors, E. H. Davison, J. H. Eddy, R. G. Hibbard, G. M. Landers, F. L. Hungerford, E. N. Stanley, W. H. Hart, H. E. Russell and F. G. Platt; librarians, Anna G. Rockwell, Greta E. Brown, Corrine Bacon, Lilla F. Crab- tree and Elizabeth M. Eggert. The treasurer's report showed that the funds had been further increased by a legacy from Mr. Erwin of $133,333 in 1891 and that the permanent fund amounted to $165,000; that $2,500 a year had been set apart for a building fund-an amount more than doubled because of the Erwin investments. The cost of land (the Hicks and Guion prop- erties) and building was $105,000. Davis & Brooks were the architects. President Talcott died in 1904 and was succeeded by Professor Camp. Charles F. Smith, a leader in all public and financial affairs as well as in the industries, is the president
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today. The Talcott art fund of $25,000 was established in 1903, the Darius Miller fund of $50,000 in 1919, and the William H. Hart fund of $10,000 in the same year. The Benjamin A. Haw- ley bequest of 1927 was $150,000.
Since the epochal date of 1850 there always has been a press which has put devotion to community interests above all else. James M. Phelps began with the Advocate in 1850 which was replaced by the Journal, published by O. P. Brown, Mr. Phelps the editor, the next year, and that, in 1852, by the Connecticut Organ and New Britain Journal of which Orville H. Platt of Meriden, later the distinguished United States senator, was editor. In 1860 Valentine B. Chamberlain began publishing the New Britain News but dropped it to go to the war. L. M. Guernsey in 1861 brought out the weekly True Citizen. Five years later J. N. Oviatt bought that plant and printed the Record, adding a daily edition in 1876 under the management of Samuel Baker. The same year the Weekly Observer was founded by Robert J. Vance and J. O. Stivers. Adkins Brothers launched the Herald and absorbed the Times in 1880 and sold both to C. E. Woodruff the next year. For a while the Herald was published as an eve- ning daily and the Observer was merged with it. The Herald Publishing Company was established in 1887, by F. L. Blanchard of New York, R. J. Vance and James Cochrane, which continued to publish the Herald with Mr. Vance conducting it till his death in 1901. He was succeeded by his two sons, Johnstone and Robert C. Vance. Mr. Vance was one of the most prominent newspaper men in the state and a leader in democratic politics. He was a member of Congress in 1887-89. Born in New York, of Scottish ancestry, he came to New Britain with his parents when a youth and was in the employ of the Stanley Rule and Level Company and then with the New Britain Knitting Company. When he started the Observer he was only twenty-two years old. After his term in Congress he was labor commissioner of the state (1893-95), mayor in 1896 and member of the Constitutional Convention in 1902. He died at his winter home in North Carolina.
There are other names than those that have been given of men and women who have done much to make New Britain's history.
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Among them is that of Charles M. Jarvis (1856-1902), born in New York and coming as engineer to the Berlin Iron Works in East Berlin (then known as the Corrugated Metal Company) after graduating at the Sheffield Scientific School. His achieve- ments caused him to be chosen president on the death of S. W. Wilcox and to be vice president of the American Bridge Company when twenty-seven such companies combined under that title in 1900. In 1902 he left to go with P. & F. Corbin and succeeded Andrew Corbin as vice president. He was largely responsible for the formation of the American Hardware Corporation, the greatest hardware concern in the world, succeeding Philip Corbin as president on Mr. Corbin's death in 1910. In 1913 he resigned and became associated with the Connecticut Computing Machine Company of New Haven. Then having assumed the financial management of the Federal Adding Machine Company of New York, he removed in 1919, selling his fine residence and celebrated farm property in Berlin, in connection with which he had done much to promote agriculture throughout the state. He was director in leading financial and insurance companies here and in Hartford, was a member of the Constitutional Convention, president of the Hartford County League and represented Berlin in the Legislature. The title of colonel came to him through membership on Governor Woodruff's staff. As president of the American Hardware Corporation he was succeeded by Henry Czar Merwin Thompson, of New Haven birth and of wide exper- ience there and in New York and Chicago. He was graduated at Yale in 1883 and had traveled extensively. On his death in 1926, George T. Kimball was chosen president.
Charles E. Mitchell, a native of Bristol and with a residence in Canton, was distinguished as a lawyer and a legislator. He was appointed commissioner of patents in 1889. Morris C. Webster, retaining his residence in Harwinton but engaged in business here, represented his town in the Legislature several times and was speaker in 1913, later building and loan commissioner, and in 1915 he was elected comptroller. He died in 1926.
In the aviation wave of 1910 New Britain was conspicuous. Nils Nelson in that year made a machine differing from the Wright and Curtis planes; it had a four-cylinder, thirty-horse- power engine and weighed 500 pounds. Charles K. Hamilton was the Lindbergh of that day. His first great exploit was on
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June 13, 1910, when with Wright and Curtis he demonstrated the practicability of the heavier-than-air machine by carrying the first mail, from New York to Philadelphia. Then he took up the challenge for the first cross-country flight and won the $10,000 prize. Capitalizing the great fame acquired from this, he flew to various parts of the country and in prizes and exhibitions ac- cumulated over $250,000 before his health failed. He died in 1923.
Arthur Goodrich, born and bred in New Britain, while still a young man, had displayed a versatility which was to bring him international fame. In the high school he started the school paper. Continuing his studies at Wesleyan he was graduated with highest honors in 1899, more than paying his way by out- side writing and by singing. As managing editor he assisted Walter Hines Page in getting out the first number of the maga- zine, World's Work. In 1904 he was in London as associate editor of Outing Magazine and doing special writing while at the same time attracting more attention by his wonderful voice. On his return to New York two years later, he was asked to accept a good position in light opera, but, his father having died, he returned to New Britain in 1906 as manager for his mother, Mrs. Eva (Emmons) Goodrich, of the Taplin Manufacturing Company which his father had conducted. At this he remained eight years or until the factory was sold to Albert L. Pope of Hartford. Meantime he was writing novels which were proving very popular. He was giving his time to this in New York when the World war broke. Commissioned a captain in the army, in 1918 he was appointed to the General Staff and at the end of the war was made major in the Reserve Corps. Turning to the writ- ing of plays, he produced "So This is London," for George M. Cohan, a still greater success than his first production, "Yes or No," in 1917. There also were seven popular novels to his credit. Soon after, on the suggestion of Walter Hampden (Cosmo Ham- ilton, the actor), whose sister he had married, he wrote a rendi- tion of Browning's The Ring and the Book which, bearing the title Caponsacchi, was awarded the gold medal of the Theater Club for being the best American play of the season 1926-27.
The story of the life of Elihu Burritt (1810-1879) has long been familiar throughout the world. Briefly summarized here: He was the son of Elihu Burritt, of Stratford nativity, a shoe-
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ELIHU BURRITT (1810-1879)
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ELIHU BURRITT MONUMENT, FRANK- LIN SQUARE PARK, NEW BRITAIN
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maker and farmer who married in 1793 Elizabeth Hinsdale of an old New Britain family. On the death of the father the son was apprenticed to a blacksmith. With the aid of his elder brother, who had made his way through college, Elihu studied Latin and Greek, carrying his books to his work in order that he might im- prove odd minutes at the forge. He mastered modern languages while working as a smithy in New Haven. His small wages which he saved with hope of going to college were lost in the panic of 1837. Undaunted, he resumed his work in the dingy shop and removed to Worcester, Mass. Again, in the night hours, he took up his studies till he had mastered "upwards of fifty languages" -to quote from a reminiscent letter of his. He became known as the "Learned Blacksmith." By 1846, his fame was such that he was invited to Europe where for three years he was a lecturer in many cities and universities. The harm done by war to civil- ization so impressed him that he threw himself into the cause of peace and in 1848 he was vice president of the world's first Peace Congress, at Brussels. The next year he was secretary of the congress at Paris and he was a member of the fourth congress at Exeter Hall in 1851. He traveled constantly and wrote many books. In 1870 he returned to New Britain and lived with his sister, Mrs. Stephen Strickland. Concerned to the last in public welfare, he established a mission in his own building on Burritt Hill and another on Maple Street in a building which he built largely with his own hands.
Ethan A. Andrews, whose Latin textbooks were in use in all the schools and colleges up to modern times was a native of the town.
The City Hall building on West Main Street, as the Russell & Erwin building is now called, looks out upon what within a few years has become a congested mercantile and financial center. The Triangle and the loop of trolley tracks running to all neigh- boring towns are in the foreground, stately churches, the Central Junior High school and ever increasing business establishments on each side, as far as the eye can reach. The present plan of annexing the Maple Hill and Elm Hill communities of Newing- ton, they being drawn by better school and public service conveni- ence, carries the mind back to the beginning of this chapter, when New Britain was a humble unit in these original settlements.
LVI FRONTIER PARISH CONFUSIONS
NEWINGTON, BERLIN AND KENSINGTON IN THE PECULIAR TURMOIL ALONG WETHERSFIELD AND FARMINGTON BOUNDARIES-PARK-LIKE SUBURBS OF HARTFORD AND NEW BRITAIN-THE ORIGINAL "YANKEE TIN-PEDDLERS" AND THE HONOR NOW PAID THEM-EMMA HART WILLARD AND OTHERS OF DISTINCTION-AGRICULTURE AND INDUS- TRIES.
Newington, suburb of New Britain, is much like a park of 8,794 acres lying between New Britain and Hartford, remark- able for its fertile fields and a choice residential section, as time goes on, for both of the industrial cities. It is adjoined by five other towns-West Hartford, Wethersfield, a little of Rocky Hill, Berlin and Farmington. Its natural eastern boundary is the Cedar Mountain ridge. In the geographical center is an oval of water set in trap-rock basin. The stream from this flows into Piper Brook, a tributary of the south branch of Hartford's Park River. It is the latest of the county towns to gain inde- pendence, incorporation having been attained in 1871 after a tempestuous civic career. Only the curious trace the intricacies of the formation of Berlin, New Britain and Newington.
It was the "West Division" of Wethersfield's far-flung west- ern frontier at the point where it struck the frontiers of Farm- ington. Confusion began in 1668 when the General Court granted Sergt. Richard Beckley, recently of New Haven, 300 vague acres on this frontier, he having squatted near the Meri- den or New Haven County frontier. Thenceforth he was con- spicuous in the restlessness of the settlers along all these fron- tiers. He, John Nott and Hugh Wells, were to buy of Sachem Turramuggus who had removed hither from the more populous eastern section and were to lay out the land. The ex- perience with the natives was peaceful. The first and only trouble was when two of them stole a gimlet and six gallons of cider on a Sunday. They were ferreted out and compelled to
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pay Beckley almost £4, half as much to the constable and to each of the searching party the rate of three shillings a day during the hunt, by order of the General Court.
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