History of New London county, Connecticut : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Part 57

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton)
Publication date: 1882
Publisher: Philadelphia : J.W. Lewis & Co.
Number of Pages: 1317


USA > Connecticut > New London County > History of New London county, Connecticut : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men > Part 57


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Mr. Haven was an eminently religious man. He was early impressed by his mother's dedication of him in baptism to her covenant God. The conversion of Miss Caulkins in 1831, emerging from a deep sense of sin and need of Christ to the light and peace of the new life, touched the boy of sixteen to the quick. He received a note in which was the single word eternity. That mighty thought was with him till he found and confessed the everlasting Son of the Father. But doubt succeeded faith. He went to the superintendent of the Sunday-school and laid bare his heart. "Go to work," was the counsel received. " Where ?" "In Waterford," was the reply. "A man is coming in to get some one to start a Sunday- school there this very day."


In Waterford, therefore, he began to conduct that Gilead Sunday-school, which was his joy and crown for forty years. To-day a tasteful chapel marks the


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spot where the young soldier of the cross began the good fight against rum and unbelief. By his invin- cible perseverance and heroic faith he won more than a hundred souls as trophies of his Redeemer. So tenderly did he plead with little children to accept Christ that one young woman, once hearing him through the partition, saw the glory of God and sur- rendered herself to His service.


In his admirable volume, " A Model Superintend- ent," Henry Clay Trumbull has portrayed Mr. Ha- ven's originality in this rural school. What manner of man was he who, unaided and uneducated, estab- lished a uniform lesson and a teachers' meeting from the start ? His thoroughness crystallized in records, his reverence breathed out in the exercises of wor- ship. There his liturgical fondness-the heritage, per- haps, of the English gentry of Chester-showed itself in Psalms printed expressly for responsive reading. There his Puritan tenacity kept open the school, four miles away, in the dead of winter, though but one teacher and two scholars should attend. Side by side with the Gilead School, Mr. Haven carried on the school of the Second Congregational Church from 1858, inspiring all its exercises and membership with his own energy, breadth, order, courtesy, cheerful- ness, and charity.


In teachers' Institutes and in international Con- ventions his love of God's Word and his zeal for Christ's little ones became known. As the first mem- ber from the Congregational body on the Committee for the International Lesson, he won the admiration and affection of his associates for his devout regard for inspired truth and his gentle deference to views at variance with his own. Traveling in the rail- car at home, or seated on the banks of beautiful lakes abroad, his familiarity with and delight in Holy Scripture were traits of his single-minded, pure-hearted, rock-ribbed piety. He could recite whole chapters of the Bible by heart. He wrote down every text preached from by his pastor.


Mr. Haven was a Christian who, like his Master, " went about doing good." You marked the absence of even a mild selfishness. He would travel one hundred miles to attend a merely formal meeting of some trust fund. He refused to have wine on his table when it was prescribed by a physician, and turned down his glass at a dinner on the Pacific coast, where drinking customs were wellnigh universal. He was a friend to the school-boy black and ragged, to the clerk needing capital and cheer, to the widow unable to bury her beloved dead, to the seamen exposed to perils of body, property, and soul. He began the day with secret prayer in his watch-house, looking out on sea and sky. Even so frankly and grandly looked out his whole consistent Christian life as a steward of God's grace to men. As a vice-president of the Ameri- can Bible Society, he planned to introduce the Russian Bible into Alaska. As a corporate member of the American Board, he bestowed the wisest thought and


the most self-sacrificing patience on the problem of the world's redemption. To see him in the prayer- ineeting or at the communion-table you would say, " Here is a pillar of the church, a deacon of honest re- port, full of faith and of the Holy Ghost." He was a planet, not a meteor. A heaven-born tact and tender- ness made him a fisher of men, both young and old. To see him in the community or in the conference you would say, " Here is a pattern of philanthropy, a mine of benevolence, pouring forth without ostenta- tion and without weariness, even to the third of his in- come, a systematic stream of tribute to his fellow-men." Said an eminent lawyer, " His will was unique, per- petuating giving, the effort of a man after death to let his works follow him, crystallizing in legal phra- seology the very heart of the gospel of the Son of Man." Said a fellow-officer of the church, "He was a model to us all in faith, hope, and charity." Faults he had, and lamented. Enemies might call him proud, opinionated, arbitrary, domineering, for a leonine temperament and a commanding personality are not slain by grace. But his fellow-citizens in city and State, now that he is gone, are beginning to recognize the quality and the reach of his Christian intellect, the sweetness and loveliness of his Christian affections, the magnitude and minuteness of his Chris- tian service up to the hour when, suddenly, in the morning of the Lord's day, April 30, 1876, the cloud received him out of their sight.


Wednesday afternoon, May 3d, Mr. Haven's funeral took place at the Second Congregational church. The members of the Sunday-schools assembled at two and a half P.M. in the chapel which he had planned. Then they filed into the church, leaving the desk bound with sheaves. Through the opened doors waiting crowds surged in till every part of the house not specially reserved was thronged. The relatives then entered, preceded by Dr. Daggett, pastor, and Dr. G. Buckingham Wilcox, the former pastor. Fol- lowing them walked the physicians in attendance, the pall-bearers, and the body-bearers,-the latter of the scholars of Mr. Haven's class. On the plate of the walnut casket was the simple inscription, " Henry P. Haven, aged 61." "Rest" was the message in violets of a pillow ; "Faithful unto Death" was that of a floral Bible. The pew of the departed was draped with black. His seat next the aisle held a sheaf of wheat and a sickle.


The great congregation listened then to the chant, " Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord." The Scripture lesson began with " But now is Christ risen from the dead and become the first fruits of them that slept." Choir and Sunday-schools gave responsively the psalm of Moses, the man of God. The pastor re- viewed Mr. Haven's career in tender and discrimina- ting words, portraying his rare service in home and school, in commerce and education, in church and State, in life and death. Over the peaceful face he then prayed for the circle of mourners on sea and


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land. The hymn "Forever with the Lord" ended the service. At the grave, under a cloudy sky, the sympathizing throng sang "I know the promises of God lie open in His word." After the benediction the Sunday-school children passed round the grave, throwing in little bouquets.


His funeral, like his death, was one he would have chosen. It was from the church of granite so asso- ciated with his property and prayer. It was amid the tears and tributes of old friends and young, sorrowing that they should see his face no more. It was to the grove of cedars, where lay the sleeping dust of dear ones gone before, in the sure hope, with them, of the resurrection at the last day.


Frances Manwaring Caulkins, second child of Joshua Caulkins and Fanny Manwaring, was born in New London, April 26, 1795. On the maternal side the ancestry of Miss Caulkins can also be traced back to the first settlers of the country. In England the family have long been prominent, with many titles and large landed estates. Sir Ranulphus de Mainwaring, or, as the name was then spelt, Mesnil- warin, was justice of Chester in the reign of Richard 1. (1189-1199). Sir William Mainwaring was killed in the streets of Chester, defending it for the king, Oct. 9, 1644. Sir Henry Mainwaring, who died in 1797, among other large estates possessed the manor of Peover, the seat of his ancestors, which is one of the estates described in the Doomsday survey as belonging to Ranulphus. In the church at Over Peover are sev- eral monuments, with arms and numerous implements of the Mainwarings, among them an altar-tomb to Randal Mainwaring, who died in 1456, and to Mar- gery, his wife. Over Peover was the residence of the family for thirty generations. In 1615, "Sir Henry Mainwaring was at Newfoundland with five good ships."


The first record relating to the Manwarings in this country of which we have knowledge bears date Nov. 3, 1664, when Joshua Raymond purchased house, home-lot, and other land in New London belonging to " Mr. William Thomson, missionary to the Indians near New London," for Oliver Manwaring, his brother- in-law.


Whether Oliver Manwaring had then just arrived or had previously been an inhabitant of the colony is unknown. His wife was Hannah, the daughter of Richard Raymond, who was made a freeman of Salem, Mass., 1634, afterwards removed to Norwalk, and thence in 1664 to Saybrook. Hannah was baptized at Salem, February, 1643. The date of their mar- riage is unknown. She united with Mr. Bradstreet's church in New London in 1671, and four of their children, all daughters, were baptized September 10th in that year. They had ten children. Oliver Man- waring died Nov. 3, 1723, nearly ninety years of age. Hannah died Dec. 18, 1717, aged seventy-four. His will was dated March 15, 1721, and all his children were living at that time. He bequeathed to his grand-


son, John Richards, among other things, "that bond which I had from my nephew, Oliver Manwaring, in England." The Manwarings who settled in the vi- cinity of New London are said to have been noted for a sanguine temperament, resolution, impetuosity, and a certain degree of obstinacy. They were lovers of discussion and good cheer. A florid complexion, piercing black eyes, and dark hair were personal traits, which are still represented in their descendants.


During the year 1806, Miss Caulkins became the pupil of Rev. Joshua Williams, who taught a select school for young ladies on the green in Norwich Town, and though only eleven years of age, she appreciated and improved the advantages enjoyed under this ex- cellent teacher. He was an accomplished Christian gentleman of fine tastes and literary culture, and she always retained the pleasantest recollections of him, and, indeed, revered his memory. As an illustration of that untiring industry and love for valuable infor- mation which characterized her entire life, we may mention that while attending this school, and before she had entered her twelfth year, she patiently wrote out from memory a volume of educational lectures as they were delivered from week to week. The elements of science which she acquired at this time were the foundation of all her future knowledge and attain- ments in literature; for, with occasional opportunities of instruction from the best teachers, she was yet in a great measure self-taught, and when once aided in the rudiments of a study or language would herself make all the progress she desired. She was an in- satiable reader, and it might almost be said that when very young she devoured every book that came within her reach. While she enjoyed fiction and works of a lighter character, her taste for solid reading was early developed, and at eleven years of age she was familiar with the English translation of the Iliad and Odyssey, and the thoughts of the standard English writers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries entered into and gave a cast to her expanding mind. The germ of the strong love for historical literature which char- acterized her later life was seen occasionally in her


early years. At one time, when only about ten years old, she was missed while visiting at the house of a relative, and after much search was found seated on an unused loom in the garret, deeply absorbed in reading the history of Connecticut. As might be ex- pected, such a young person was a great favorite, not only among her juvenile acquaintances, but with older persons, who could appreciate her talents and matu- rity of mind. Often would her young friends gather around her and beg her to tell them a story; and then, with a sweet and animated countenance, she would commence the recital of some tale of romantic interest, reproduced perhaps from her reading, or not unfrequently drawn from her own imagination. These recitals carried captive her youthful audience, and invariably won their admiration, and frequently their boisterous applause.


FT Stuart B. stan


Frances M. Caulking


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In 1811 and '12, Miss Nancy M. Hyde and Miss Lydia Huntley, afterwards Mrs. Sigourney, were teaching a young ladies' school in Norwich, and she enjoyed the superior advantages thus afforded for a time, entering their school in September, 1811. A book written in that school and preserved by her contains her first composition ; the subject was "An- tiquities." These ladies were both persons of su- perior literary taste and culture, and doubtless exer- cised a very favorable influence on her mind. Miss Huntley removed to Hartford in 1815, and married Mr. Charles Sigourney, June 16, 1819, and until her death, June 10, 1865, remained a very warm friend and frequent correspondent of Miss Caulkins. Miss Hyde died March 26, 1816. A volume of her letters, etc., published after her death, contains a poetical tribute to her memory from her former pupil.


Frances evinced a remarkable aptitude for the ac- quisition of languages. She enjoyed the advantage of instruction only a short time, but with patient pri- vate study she acquired a thorough knowledge of Latin, and was able to read and teach both that lan- guage and the French with facility and acceptance. She spent some time in the family of Rev. Levi Nel- son, of Lisbon, in 1825, for the special purpose of advancing her knowledge of Latin, and took lessons in the French language of M. Roux, a native and ac- complished teacher of that tongue, who then resided in Norwich. Later in life, while living in New York, she pursued the study of German, and under the in- structions of Maroncelli, an eminent political exile, gained such a knowledge of Italian as enabled her to read Dante and Tasso in the original.


Never having been permitted to look upon the face of her own father, her knowledge of parental affection came only through her step-father, and to him she was tenderly and deservedly attached, and her affec- tion was thoroughly reciprocated. His death, which took place Nov. 12, 1819, left her mother again a widow, with three young children and limited means. Having before this been occasionally employed in teaching small schools, Frances now determined to support herself, and if necessary aid her mother. On the 4th of January, 1820, she opened a select school for young ladies in Norwich Town. As her talent for teaching was developed her scholars increased, and the school acquired an excellent reputation, and was well sustained for nine years. In 1829 she accepted an invitation from the trustees of the female academy at New London to take charge of that institution. She was invited back to Norwich City, or Chelsea, as it was then called, in 1832, and was principal of the academy there, with a large number of pupils, until the close of the year 1834, when she relinquished finally the duties of a teacher.


During these fifteen years she had under her charge nearly four hundred different young ladies, many of whom are still living and retain a very pleasant re- membrance of their school-days and a strong personal


attachment to their instructor. Among her pupils were the lamented wives of Senators Jabez Hunting- ton and William A. Buckingham, and three daugh- ters of Charles Lathrop, afterwards missionaries to India. Very many of her pupils became themselves teachers, and others, as wives of clergymen and lay- men in positions of respectability and honor, have so conducted themselves that, as a teacher, we may say of her, in the words of Scripture, " Let her own works praise her." .


The year following the close of her school she spent in visiting her friends and in recreation. In the spring of 1836 she went to New York, and resided in the family of her cousin, David H. Nevins, until May, 1842, when she removed to New London, and found a home in the family of the late Henry P. Haven, where she re- mained until the day of her death.


She early manifested an unusual talent for versifi- cation, as well as for prose writing, and although en- couraged by the advice and approbation of friends, she declined to thrust herself forward into notice by offering the productions of her pen to the public prints. Among her manuscripts are many fugitive pieces of poetry without date, but evidently written in early life. The first, in apparently the oldest book, is entitled the "Indian Harp," and would do credit to her later years. The fourth in order in this book is a long poem on "Thanksgiving," and the only one dated. This is stated to have been written in 1814. One earlier piece only has been found, and that is on a loose sheet, dated Oct. 26, 1813, and entitled "The Geranium's Complaint."


A considerable portion of the time from 1812 to 1819, while her mother resided in Norwich, she spent pleasantly in the family of her uncle, Christopher Man- waring, at New London. He had recently erected a fine mansion on the beautiful grounds which he had inherited from his ancestors, and was a gentleman of literary taste and cultivation. He was a great ad- mirer of Pope, Johnson, and the old English authors. He had a good library, and being of kind and win- ning manners, it is not strange that a strong mutual attachment grew up between them, and that he be- came very fond of the society of his niece and proud of her talents. He was a great friend of Madison and an early admirer of Gen. Jackson. The first of her writings now known to have been printed ap- peared in the Connecticut Gazette, April 17, 1816, ad- dressed to the hero of New Orleans. The contributor acknowledges that he stole it from the "fair tyro," and no author's name is attached.


Her contributions to the local papers of New Lon- don have been very numerous, and with any striking event in the domestic history of the place, or with the decease of any aged or distinguished persons, its citi- zens were sure to be favored with an interesting article, in which passing events were so interwoven with pre- vious history as to command the attention of all classes of readers. During the past twenty years quite a


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number of inhabitants of this city have been able to notice the fiftieth anniversary of their marriage. She was sure to be a welcome guest at all such gatherings, and her congratulatory lines were ever regarded as a golden present. Holding the pen of a ready writer, choice thoughts flowed in chaste and beautiful words, whether in prose or poetry, and it is not too much to say that only her own modesty and humility prevented her from coming before the world and claiming a position among the distinguished writer's of the day.


It will be proper, in this connection, to speak of her published works and contributions to the religious and historical literature of the country. During her resi- dence in New York she was intimately acquainted with Rev. Messrs. Hallock and Cook, secretaries of the American Traet Society. In 1835 that society pub- lislied a premium tract, entitled, "Do your Children Reverence the 'Sabbath ?" and the following year, " The Pequot of a Hundred Years," both from her pen, and of which they have issued 1,058,000 copies. She next prepared for them, in 1841, "Children of the Bible," all in verse and original, and in 1846, " Child's Hymn-Book," partly a compilation. In 1847. she fur- nished the "Tract Primer," one of the most popular and useful books ever published by that society. They have printed 800,000 copies of it in English, and 246,000 have been published in German and other European languages. The society, at a meeting of their publishing committee, April 23, 1849, by vote invited her to prepare a suitable series of books for children and youth, to follow the Primer. In com- pliance with this request, she furnished six volumes of " Bible Studies," forming an illustrative commentary on the whole Scriptures, and showing accurate schol- arship and Biblical research, interesting to the young, but full of valuable information for all who love the Word of God. She was five years (from 1854 to 1859) in preparing this series, and contributed to the society, in 1861, one more work, entitled " Eve and her Daugh- ters," being sketches of the distinguished women of the Bible in verse. She was also, up to the close of her life, a frequent contributor to their " American Messenger," furnishing them, but one week before her death, "The Aged Emigrant," a few verses of poetry, the last line being " A stepping-stone to heaven."


A deep sense of religious obligation pervaded her entire life, and was never lost sight of in her literary labors. An ardent thirst for knowledge, so deep as to amount to an almost insatiable craving, early took possession of her soul, and she could only be satisfied as she gathered and stored up the wisdom of the past. With a deep veneration for the piety and principles of our Puritan forefathers, she loved to linger among the graves and written records of their lives and deeds ; and, like " Old Mortality," she recovered many an almost obliterated tombstone and preserved its story from oblivion. Nearly every burial-place in the county was personally examined, and any stone of great age or special interest was faithfully transcribed. Doubt-


less all these researches into the records of the past, whether in town or church books or on tombstones, were in accordance with her natural tastes; still we believe that something of the feeling which animated Walter Scott's hero was ever present with her. She would not let the worthy and pious dead pass out of mind, nor allow the good deeds of our ancestors to be forgotten, so far as any labor that she could perform might prevent it.


Something from the mass of historical and genea- logical information which she had accumulated was first given to the public in the form of a history of the town of Norwich in 1845. It was a book of 360 pages, with some local illustrations, and was well re- ceived and appreciated by the public. In 1852 she published a larger work, " The History of New Lon- don," of 672 pages. This was very carefully and thoroughly prepared, and won many commendations from distinguished scholars and antiquarians. In 1860, some of the volumes of this history being still in sheets, twenty pages were added and bound up with the original book, thus giving eight years' additional records. Her materials having greatly increased since the issue of the first history of Norwich, and the edi- tion being out of print, she rewrote the entire work, and a new volume of 700 pages was given to the pub- lic in 1866.


Miss Caulkins was a consistent Christian, and a member of the Congregational Church. She died Feb. 3, 1869.


Acors Barns .- The genealogical record of the family of Acors Barns is very readily traced back to the first members of this family in this country, who landed in Salem, Mass., about 1638, coming from the vicinity of the city of Norwich, England.


Their names were Joshua, William, and Charles, probably three brothers. Joshua's name appears among the nine original proprietors of the town of East Hampton, L. I., where he was soon after joined by William and Charles, and they all owned farms.


This township was bought in the spring of 1651, from Governor Edward Hopkins, of the colony of Connecticut, and Governor Theophilus Eaton, of the colony of New Haven, for the sum of £30 48. 8d. sterling. In 1675 Isaac Barns was born, and tradi- tion says he was the son of William Barns, who died at East Hampton, Dec. 1, 1698. Isaac Barns died Aug. 20, 1769, aged ninety-four years. He left a son Isaac, born Jan. 29, 1704, died April 22, 1772. He was the father of six sons and six daughters. The oldest son, Isaac, born July 1, 1738, died in command of a company of provincial troops, at Cape Breton, N. S., during the French and Indian war so called. The next son was Nathaniel, the grandfather of the subject of this sketch. He was born at East Hamp- ton, March 18, 1740. Early in life he moved to Westerly, R. I., leaving behind him unsold his real estate. When the Revolutionary war commenced he owned and commanded a privateer, and was fairly


Acor Ban


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successful in his career. He married Elizabeth Brown, of Westerly, R. I. She was born in 1741, and died March 5, 1826, aged eighty-six years. Her husband died in Charleston, S. C., but the exact date of his death is not known. He had two sons and three daughters. The oldest son, Nathaniel, the father of Acors Barns, was born Sept. 12, 1769, and died Oct. 15, 1819. He was a mariner, doing busi- ness in the West Indies. He married Miss Nancy Pendleton, of Westerly, R. I., in 1791. She was born July 22, 1771, and died April 30, 1835. They had four sons and four daughters. The oldest child, Na- thaniel, was drowned off Lisbon, Portugal, Oct. 15, 1811, in the nineteenth year of his age, leaving no descendants. Of the remaining seven children, Acors was the oldest. His pedigree was through the line of the oldest male heir of the Barns family, as is evident from the fact of this family having had handed down to it the original coat of arms, from which they derive the manner of spelling their name as found thereon. The subject of this sketch was born in Westerly, R. I., May 13, 1794, and died, the first of the seven, on the 18th of November, 1862.




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