History of Litchfield county, Connecticut, Part 145

Author: J.W. Lewis & Company (Philadelphia, Pa.)
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Philadelphia : J.W. Lewis & Co.
Number of Pages: 1532

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604

HISTORY OF LITCHFIELD COUNTY, CONNECTICUT.

and whose oldest daughter, Anne Dudley, he married in 1628. For reasons common to many of the cmi- grants at that period,-" the constraints of the English laws and the severities of the English hierarchy,"- Simon Bradstreet, Thomas Dudley, with many others with similar feelings and purposes, came over to this country, to the young settlement at Massachusetts Bay, in 1630. Dudley and Bradstreet both took a prominent part in the affairs of the new settlement, and held many positions of trust and honor in the Massachusetts colony,-positions, it should be re- membered, very onerous in the establishment of a new form of government that should give to all the greatest freedom consistent with security and needed protection. Thomas Dudley was one of the distin- guished Governors of the colony. He died July 31, 1653, aged seventy-seven years. His virtues are portrayed in an epitaph written in poetry by his daughter Anne. His wife died Dec. 27, 1643, aged sixty-one; and her character, in all her family and social relations, her benevolence and piety, is also commemorated by her daughter in verse.

Simon Bradstreet first settled in Cambridge, and remained there for several years ; afterwards he was for a short time a resident of Ipswich, Mass., then of Andover, Mass., and also of Salem, Mass., as most convenient, probably for the discharge of his public duties. In 1639 he received from the court a grant of · five hundred acres of land. He was the first secretary of the colony. In 1641 he traveled on foot, with the famous Hugh Peters, from Salem, to New Hampshire, with a commission from Massachusetts to learn the cause of a quarrel among the people in that colony. When the confederacy of the colonies of New Eng- land, formed in 1643, and its affairs were intrusted to a board of commissioners, Bradstreet was appointed one of the two from Massachusetts; and in 1653 his inde- pendence and conservatism appear in his successful opposition to his fellow-commissioners, who were anxious to declare war first against the Dutch, and then against the Indians.

In 1662 the Massachusetts colony, alarmed at the apparent intentions of Charles II., commissioned Bradstreet and Norton, a highly-esteemed and popular minister, to proceed to England and plead their cause. This was regarded as a perilous mission, for which they were promised indemnity in case of detention or loss. This mission was reasonably successful, but did not secure all the people desired. A storm of abuse arose, too severe for the delicate sensibilities of Nor- ton, who was overwhelmed by the unreasonable charges, and soon died of grief. Bradstreet, more experienced in the inconsiderate charges of political opponents, with his usual balance, outrode the storm, and again rose to public favor by his strenuous op- position to the arbitrary measures of Andross, and was elected Governor of Massachusetts in 1689, an office he had previously held. This office he held till Sir William Phipps arrived with a new charter, 1692,

when Bradstreet retired from public life, in his nine- tieth year, and died at Salem, 1697, aged ninety-four years. By annual election he is said to have been in public office for more than sixty years. He is credited as having been one of the first of the magistrates of the colony to come out for toleration ; and in the case of Elizabeth Morse, of Newbury, condemned by the court in 1680 to die for witchcraft, Governor Brad- street, by his prudence and firmness, undoubtedly saved an innocent victim from the violence of that popular delusion. Simon Bradstreet had several sons and daughters ; liis fourth son, John, settled in Tops-

field, on a portion of the land granted to his father. He was succeeded by his son Simon, who married a daughter of Rev. Joseph Capen, of the same town. Their son John, the grandfather of T. J. Bradstreet, also a farmer, married Elizabeth Fisk, of Wenham, Mass., March 2, 1718. They had several daughters and one son, Dudley,-a name that has been well preserved among the Bradstreets, while Simon has ceased to be a family name. Dudley Bradstreet was born Oct. 8, 1765 ; he married Mary Porter, of Dan- vers, Mass., Sept. 29, 1789. When young, Dudley Bradstreet commenced the study of Latin, with the intention of going to college; but his father, who was forty-seven years older, and now well advanced in years, needed him at home on the farm. By these considerations he was induced to relinquish the higher object of his ambition to follow in the humbler but more independent employment of several generations of his ancestors; he, however, retained a great fond- ness for reading-besides his weekly newspapers-the standard works of the best English authors.

As a politician, he was of the Jefferson school. As soon as he was of sufficient age he joined a cavalry company of the State militia, in his native town, and was early promoted to its highest office, and ever after went by the name of "Captain Dudley." He was not a professor of religion, and had not much respect for a profession that was contradicted by practice ; yet he was very familiar with the Bible, helieved in it, and made it the text-book of the family, and was regu- larly in his seat on the Sabbath, in the Congrega- tional church, with a well-filled pew. In 1809, Dud- ley Bradstreet left his farm in Topsfield-which he in- herited from his father, still retaining the ownership of the same, and which has been in the Bradstreet family from the time of the grant to Simon Bradstreet to the present time (1881)-for a larger farm in the adjoin- ing town of Danvers. Here he remained, an indus- trious and successful farmer, where his large family of seven sons found plenty of room and labor so long as they remained at home. In April, 1813, his wife, Mary P., died,-a much-loved wife, mother, and friend, -leaving, besides her seven sons, four daughters to lament their loss. After a few years, Mr. Bradstreet married Hannah Prim, a maiden lady of Marblehead, Mass., who survived her husband for several years. He died April 23, 1833.

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THOMASTON.

Thomas G. Bradstreet, the sixth son of Dudley strength. Having partially recovered, he engaged to supply the pulpit of the Congregational Church in Meriden for four months. At the close of this engage- ment he found himself about as he was the previous spring, and spent most of the summer in the same struggle for health, attended with about the same success. The following winter-1838 and 1839-he preached in the Second Congregational Church, in New London, Conn. These labors, with the confine- ment of the study-room, were followed in the spring by enfeebled health. By this time the subject of health began to assume a serious aspect ; stern neces- sity suggested a more stirring life as the only hope of recovery. After much deliberation, with many re- grets, he gave up his chosen profession. The next autumn, Nov. 4, 1840, he was married to Amanda Thomas, daughter of the late Seth Thomas, and en- gaged in his employ the next spring as superintend- ent of his cotton-factory. In this occupation he con- tinued for fifteen years, when he gave up his position to travel for the Seth Thomas Manufacturing Com- pany. In this employment he continued till the commencement of the late civil war. Since then he himself: improving land near the village, condueting farm-work, doing such business as is usually connected with house-building, running a saw-mill, grist-mill, feed- and flour-store, ete. Bradstreet, was born April 7, 1807, on the old farm at Topsfield, and removed with the family to Danvers in April, 1810. As soon as old enough to be of any service on the farm, he worked summers and went to school winters until he reached his eighteenth year; he then worked for his father until well advanced in his twentieth year, when he entered the academy at East Bradford, now Groveland, for the purpose of better qualifying himself for whatever might be his future condition and fortune. In the following spring he returned to the homestead and its toils. The next autumn he again went to the same school for one term. During this term an aged physician invited bim to his house, and during the interview advised him to go to college. The subject opened a new and more advanced view of life. It looked like an up- hill journey ; and then there was that large farm and that aged father, his strength and vigor diminishing year by year, his sons all gone from him but one: how could he leave him ? Not only was his consent to be obtained, but from him the means must come to pay his way. He left the academy, and took a school for the winter; went home in the spring, laid the : has been engaged in various kinds of business for subject of going to college before his father, and urged his motives for so doing. He was nearly one and twenty : an education was what he wanted. His course of life depended upon the decision ; the con- ditions of a farmer's life were not very inviting to him. Mr. Bradstreet has not been much of a politician, but his sympathies on all public questions have been on the side of Whigs and Republicans, and he has uniformly voted for their nominees. For one year he has been a member of the board of selectmen of the town of Plymouth, and represented that town in the House of Representatives for one term, and has served on the board of education in the towns of Plymouth and Thomaston for thirty-seven years. In the educa- tion of the young for many years he has taken an active part; served several years as chairman of the district school committee, chairman of a private school association, and president of an academical association till merged in a public high school. In the Congregational Church at Thomaston, of which he is a member, he has been connected with the Sab- bath-school most of the time for nearly forty years,- twenty-five years as superintendent. He has also for a few years been a member of the board of directors of the Connecticut Home Missionary Society. His father, now passed sixty years, offered him one- half of his farm if he would remain with him so long as he lived. To this proposition it was replied "that that would be an unequal distribution of property, and would justly entail upon him the ill-will of the rest of the family." The interview resulted in the as- sent of his father, the son promising to help him through his haying season, which he fulfilled till the season he entered college. In the fall of 1830, Mr. Bradstreet entered Yale College, with the intention of studying law on the completion of his college course. During the winter of 1830 and 1831 he became inter- ested in the subject of religion, changed his plans, and after graduating in 1834, he entered the theolog- ical seminary in New Haven to study for the minis- try. At the elose of the usual term of three years he received an invitation to preach to a church and soci- ety just organized in that part of Plymouth that is now Thomaston. After laboring here for about two months his health began to fail, and he left for sey- Mr. Bradstreet has reached his seventy-fourth year with such a degree of strength and vigor that he feels authorized in recommending to health-seekers regular, temperate habita, plenty of out-door exercise, and an open fireplace in winter. cral weeks, after which he returned and renewed his labors, assisted for a short time by a young man who had supplied his place during his absence. These two men, fresh from the seminary, full of hope, en- couraged by the earnest co-operation of many of the members of this young church, prosecuted their la- bors with ardor. A powerful revival attended them, DR. WILLIAM WOODRUFF. and in due time large numbers were added to the church. Mr. Bradstreet's health again failed, and he spent the following summer in trying to restore his

Dr. William Woodruff is the third and youngest son of Dr. Gideon Woodruff and Sarah Heation, of Plymouth, Conn. He was born in New Haven, and

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HISTORY OF LITCHFIELD COUNTY, CONNECTICUT.

traces his lineage to Matthew Woodruff, who came to Farmington from Hartford in 1641; was one of the original proprietors of the town, and is the ancestor of the various branches of the Woodruffs of Connec- ticut. The names Woodruff, Woodroffe, and Wood- row (originally the same) first appear in English history early in the fourteenth century, in the reign of Edward III. In his infancy the parents of Dr. Woodruff returned to Plymouth, where they had previously resided, and remained till the death of the elder Dr. Woodruff, who for many years was a medi- cal practitioner in the town. The subject of this sketch, after completing his academical studies, be- came the pupil for several years of the late Rev. Luther Hart, and enjoyed the benefits of his training and scholarship. About the year 1824 he commenced the study of medicine under the care of Dr. Jonathan Knight, and subsequently of Dr. Nathan Smith, names known and honored by all who hold medical science in esteem. He was graduated from the Med- ical Department of Yale College in 1826, and began professional life in Waterbury, but was soon and ur- gently invited to return to Plymouth, where for many years he controlled a large practice. In 1838 he mar- ried Martha, the oldest daughter of Seth Thomas, an extensive manufacturer, by whom he had four chil- dren, of whom but one survives. About ten years ago he relinquished the profession to a large degree, and in travel sought to restore the health of an inva- lid daughter (since deceased), visiting Europe, Cali- fornia, and the various latitudes of our own country and Canada, from Montreal to Jacksonville, Fla. The variable, and to an invalid the most trying, seasons of the year have been spent at various sanitary re- sorts South,-St. Augustine, Aiken, and others. At present he is enjoying the otium of life, without much of the dignitate, and, with such philosophy as favor- ing circumstances will permit, rests from the more exacting labors of the profession, and in trusting patience awaits the twilight.

GEORGE W. GILBERT.

George W. Gilbert, son of George Gilbert and Sylvia Colton, and grandson of John Gilbert, of Bel- chertown, Mass., was born in Belchertown, Mass., March 3, 1821. His father was a practical farmer, and was born in Hebron, Conn., and at seventeen years of age settled with his parents in Belchertown, Mass., where he married Sylvia Colton, and had six children, four sons and two daughters, only two of whom-Charles and George W .- are living.

George Gilbert and wife settled in Thomaston Sept. 8, 1859, and lived with their son, George W., till their death. He died Aug. 27, 1862, and she died March 20,1865. Mr. Gilbert was a captain in the war of 1812, and was familiarly known as "Captain Gil- bert."

Mr. and Mrs. Gilbert were members of the Congre-

gational Church. John Gilbert, the grandfather of George W. Gilbert, was a farmer by occupation, and a lineal descendant of the Gilberts, who were among the earliest settlers of Hebron, Conn. He was born Feb. 26, 1749, and died April 16, 1817. He was the father of sixteen children. He was a major in the Revolutionary war, and a member of the Congrega- tional Church.

George W. Gilbert remained at home, working on his father's farm summers and attending school win- ters, until he was nearly eighteen years of age.

On the 20th of October, 1838, he came to Thomas- ton and entered the employ of Seth Thomas as clerk, and soon after was clerk for Seth Thomas & Sons, and remained nine years, during which time he mar- ried Elizabeth, daughter of Seth Thomas, Dec. 3, 1845. They have had two children, viz .: Mary E. .(deceased), who married Dr. A. G. Heaney and left one son, Harry Gilbert ; George Colton, married Eliza W., daughter of Garwood Judd, and is a farmer. After the death of Seth Thomas, Jan. 28, 1859, the Thomas Bros. Cotton Company was formed, with G. W. Gilbert as its agent till the war of the Rebellion put an end to their enterprise, and the factory was changed to the Seth Thomas Clock Company, of which he was its secretary and treasurer for a short time, and at one time one of its directors. Since the war he has not been very much engaged in any kind of business. He owns a fine farm, which is in a good state of cultivation. In politics he is a Republican. He has been selectman of the old town of Plymouth. Mr. and Mrs. Gilbert are members of the Congrega- tional Church.

MARCUS PRINCE.

Marcus Prince, son of Truman Prince and Phebe Thomas, sister of Seth Thomas, Sr., was born in Plym- outh, Litchfield Co., Conn., Dec. 11, 1808. His father was a native of Woodbridge, Conn., and settled in Litchfield Co., Conn., when a young man. He was twice married, first to Emma Lounsbury, and had one son, Castle; second to Phebe Thomas, by whom he had three children, of whom Marcus Prince was the second.

Truman Prince was a farmer and teamster by occu- pation. In politics he was a Democrat. Mr. and Mrs. Prince were members of the Baptist Church. He died May 23, 1840, aged fifty-seven years. She died on the 3d of March, 1869, aged eighty-eight years.

Marcus Prince worked on his father's farm summers, attending the district school winters, till March, 1829, when he settled in Thomaston, which has ever since been his home. He immediately commenced to work for Seth Thomas as an apprentice to the manufacture of clocks, and after some fifteen years of close appli- cation, having become thoroughly acquainted with his trade, and having made in 1842 the first brass clock, he

Randal T. andrews

Marcus Prince

Benjamin Platt

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THOMASTON.

assumed the entire control of the manufacture of the movements of Seth Thomas' clocks, in 1844 or 1845, and was made superintendent of this department of the clock-factory, which position he held for more than twenty-five years, since which time he has con- tinued to work in the factory till the present time, January, 1881. During these years he has made many valuable improvements in the way of better tools to use in the manufacture of brass clocks. He was one of the earliest stockholders in Seth Thomas Clock Company, and for several years one of its di- rectors. He is decidedly Republican in his political convictions. He has been twice married, first to Harriet W., daughter of Austin Blakeslee, of Plym- outh, April 29, 1835. They had three children, viz. : (1) Charlotte D., who was the first wife of Geo. B. Pierpont, and to them were born two daughters, viz .: Mary E. and Lottie P. Mrs. Geo. B. Pierpont died Jan. 23, 1867. (2) Phebe T., who is the second wife of Geo. B. Pierpont, of Thomaston. (See sketch of his life.) (3) Truman, who died at fifteen years of age, April 15, 1854.

Mrs. Prince died Oct. 22, 184I, aged twenty-eight years. She was a fine Christian lady, and a member of the Episcopal Church. Mr. Prince married for his second wife Sabra E., daughter of Otis Parsons, of Granville, Mass., Jan. 2, 1844. Mr. Prince has been" a member of the Congregational Church of Thomas- ton for many years.

RANDAL T. ANDREWS.

Randal T. Andrews, only son of Randal T. Andrews and Philena Blakeslee, was born in Thomaston, Conn., May 13, 1831. Randal T. Andrews, Sr., was a son of Luther Andrews, who was of English descent, and was born in Woleott, Conn., in 1797, and died at his resi- dence in Plymouth, Conn., Jan. 28, 1830. His wife was a daughter of Micah Blakeslee. Their children are as follows : Philenda, Harriet, and Randal T.

Mr. Andrews settled in Plymouth, now Thomas- ton, when a young man, and was engaged in the manufacture of clocks for Seth Thomas till his death. Although he died in the prime of manhood, he was very proficient as a workman.

Mrs. Andrews was a member of the Episcopal Church at Thomaston. She died in 1876, aged seventy- six years.

Randal T. Andrews received the advantages of a common-school education till he was fourteen years of age, when he commenced as an apprentice for Seth Thomas, in the manufacture of clocks, with Marcus Prince as foreman. In 1853 or 1854 he went to Cin- cinnati, and was there engaged as a clerk in a clock- store for an uncle by the name of Garret Blakeslee. He returned in about a year, and was again engaged for Seth Thomas as an engineer, and upon the organi- zation of Thomas' Sons & Co. he had charge of the setting-up department, and was chiefly engaged in

making models for the company, which is his principal business at the present time. Is known as a master- · mechanic, and has been a stockholder in the company for many years. He is also one of the directors in the savings bank at Thomaston. In politics a Demo- crat. He has been selectman two years, and member of the State Legislature, besides holding other town offices. He is a member of the Episcopal Church, has been a vestryman many years, and at present is junior warden. Mr. Andrews is ingenious, industrious, patient, cool, and calculating, and is well fitted for his particular business.

BENJAMIN PLATT.

Benjamin Platt, second son of Benjamin Platt and Nancy Bristol, of Milford, Conn., was born in Pros- pect (formerly Waterbury), Conn., Feb. 22, 1806. His father was born in Milford, Conn., in 1782, and died Ang. 3, 1870, in East Hampton, Mass. He mar- ried Nancy Bristol, and removed to Prospect in 1805. They had seven sons and five daughters, all of whom except one grew up to be men and women. Names of children are as follows : Mark, Mary A., Benjamin, Nancy B., Henry, Henry P., Adelia, Harris, William B., Jane E., John R., and Augusta A. Benjamin Platt, Sr., was a fariner and drover by occupation. His wife died in Prospect, October, 1862, aged eighty- two years.

Benjamin Platt, the subject of our sketch, had very limited advantages for an education. He remained at home, working on his father's farm, till he was twenty-one years of age, when he removed to Water- hury, Conn., and was there engaged in the employ of Mark Leavenworth & Co. as a teamster for six years. In 1828 he settled in Thomaston and entered the employ of Seth Thomas, and continued for more than forty years, performing faithfully whatever he had to do. Some twenty years of the forty he had charge of the packing department, and a portion of this time he worked on contract. Hle has been a stock- holder in the Seth Thomas Clock Company, and at the present time (December, 1880) he owns an inter- est in the Cheshire Manufacturing Company. In pol- ities a Republican, he has been a member of the board of relief for many years, and is at the present time.

During 1876 and 1880 he was a member of the State Legislature. He married Agnes, daughter of Willard Welton, of Hamilton, N. Y., May 1, 1839. Their children are as follows:

(1) William Benjamin, horn May 23, 1841; was a soldier in the Union army, of the Fourteenth United States Infantry band; served some two years, sickened, and died Nov. 27, 1863, at Mine Ford, Va.

(2) Helen E., born Sept. 7, 1845, married Jonathan M. Peck, a farmer of Bristol. They have three chil- dren, viz. : Mary C., Arthur B., and William J.

Mr. and Mrs. Benjamin Platt are members of the Congregational Church of Thomaston.

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HISTORY OF LITCHFIELD COUNTY, CONNECTICUT.

GEORGE B. PIERPONT.

George B. Pierpont, second son of Edward Pier- pont, and a descendant of the Rev. James Pier- pont, one of the founders of Yale College, was born in the town of Plymouth, Nov. 1, 1818. While very young his parents removed to the town of Litehfield. He received a good common-school education, and at the age of twenty-one engaged in teaching, in which occupation he was employed a greater portion of the time until 1850, when he purchased an interest in the American Knife Company and returned to his native town (that part now lying within the limits of the town of Thomaston), where he has since resided. In 1851 he was chosen secretary and treasurer of the American Knife Company, which position he held until the following year, when he was chosen president and treasurer. These offices, as well as that of active manager of the company, he has continuously occu- pied up to the present time. Mr. Pierpont has held several positions of public trust in his town ; for six years he has been a member of the board of educa- tion, and in the general interest which he has taken in all matters pertaining to the welfare of the town, has made himself a respected and much-valued citizen in the community where he has so long resided.

MILES MORSE.

Miles Morse, second son of Miles and Charlotte (Wood) Morse, was born in the present town of Thomaston (formerly Plymouth), Conn., Sept. 22, 1816. His father was a native of Litchfield, Conn., and settled in Plymouth, Conn., where he continued to reside till his death, October, 1847. He was a farmer and manufacturer. He married Charlotte, daughter of James Wood, of East Windsor, Conn. Five of their children lived to grow up, four sons and a daughter, of whom Miles Morse is the second son. Mr. and Mrs. Morse were members of the Con- gregational Church of Plymouth. Mrs. Morse died June, 1862. Miles Morse, Jr., worked upon his father's farm summers and attended school winters until he was sixteen years of age, when he commenced pre- paring for college, entering Yale in 1839. Ile taught school while obtaining his education. In the fall of 1841 he began the manufacture of brass clocks where the American Knife Company now do an extensive business, with Jeremiah Blakeslee as his partner, under the firm-name of Morse & Blakeslee. They continued till 1849, when the factory was transferred to the American Knife Company for the manufacture of pocket-cutlery.

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History of Litchfield county, Connecticut, Part 145

Author: J.W. Lewis & Company (Philadelphia, Pa.) Publication date: 1881 Publisher: Philadelphia : J.W. Lewis & Co. Number of Pages: 1532

Author: J.W. Lewis & Company (Philadelphia, Pa.)
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Philadelphia : J.W. Lewis & Co.
Number of Pages: 1532