History of New London county, Connecticut : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Part 86

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 86


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the noble hospitality, and the large munificence of her husband, Gen. William Williams, recounted else- where in this volume, and more fully in the Congre- gational Quarterly for July, 1872. She was the dangh- ter of Capt. Bela Peck, some of whose high qualities of character she reproduced in her own life, and whose memory she loved to honor.


The death of her husband in 1870 left her the last survivor of her family. All her three children, the last of them in the strength of manhood, had pre- ceded her husband to the grave. With what stately courtesy, bright wit, and true benevolence she minis- tered the hospitalities and charities of the bereaved but cheerful honse there are multitudes, both rich and poor, to testify.


At the time when her husband was among the lead- ers in the founding of the Free Academy, she of her- self instituted various prizes for scholarship, and founded the library of the new institution, naming it, in honor of her father, "The Bela Peck Library." It was in her widowhood that the building of the Park Church was undertaken, and to that enterprise she gave earnest thought and prayer and liberal benefac- tions. The lot for the church, immediately opposite her window, the chime of ten bells, the clock," the great window in the west transept were among her gifts. But generous as she was in public charities, it was in acts of private and personal beneficence that she most abounded. . In her last will she bequeathed the greater part of her fortune for the foundation of a high school for girls at New London, in memory of her son, Thomas W. Williams, who at the time of his death was a citizen of that place.


She was born at Norwich Town, March 17, 1795, was married May, 1812, and died Oct. 14, 1880.


Charles Johnson3 traces his ancestry to Capt. Ed- ward Johnson, who was born at Herne Hill, near Canterbury, Kent, England, in 1599. He came to America with Governor Winthrop, and was his inti- mate friend. He was a founder of Woburn, Mass., and was one of the most prominent men of his time. For many years he was a captain in the colonial army, and was also a deputy to the General Court for the colony of Massachusetts, and served on many impor- tant committees. He died at Woburn, April 23, 1672. He was the author of the first history of New England ever published. It was printed in London in 1654, entitled "Wonderworking Providence of Sion's Sa- vior in New England." This is now a very rare work, and commands a high price. Only a few copies of this antique publication are in existence, one of which is


2 The gift of the tower-clock was made in the closing year of Mrs. Wil- Jiams' life. Soon after it had been put in place, at a church festival, a series of conundrums on the clock was proposed, among which was this : " Why is it like its giver? Because it is full of good works." When the old lady heard of this she remarked that a better answer would be, " Be- cause it bears the marks of time on its face." Her friends will recognize the quick wit of the answer as characteristic of the dear old lady.


3 The following sketch is taken principally from the Norwich Duily Bulletin.


1 Contributed by Rev. Leonard Woolsey Bacon, D.D.



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Photo by Web-ter


Charles Johnson 1


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owned by Mr. C. C. Johnson, of this city. The an- cestral line from Capt. Edward Johnson to the subject of this sketch is as follows: John Johnson, fifth son of Capt. Edward Johnson, was born in England in 1635 or '36 ; Obadiah Johnson, third son of John, was born at Woburn, Mass., Jan. 15, 1664; Obadiah John- son, second son of Obadiah above named, was born at Canterbury, April 10, 1702. For wealth, religion, and political influence he was one of the first men in that part of the colony.


Obadiah Johnson, grandfather of the subject of this sketch and son of Obadiah, was born in Canterbury, Feb. 18, 1736, and died Oct. 27, 1801. He was con- spicuous during the Revolutionary war, and held the office of lientenant-colonel and colonel in the Conti- nental army, and was a brave and gallant officer. His commission, signed by John Hancock, president of Congress, is in the possession of Mr. C. C. Johnson.


John Johnson, fourth son of Obadiah and Lucy Cady Johnson, was born at Canterbury, Sept. 26, 1774. They had nine children, of whom Charles Johnson was the eldest son.


Charles Johnson was born in Jewett City, April 29, 1806, and spent the earlier period of his life in that thriving village. When about fourteen years of age he began working in the cotton-mill at that place, where he remained two years, at the expiration of which time, says the "New England Official Directory and Handbook," "he was taken into the factory-store and office, remaining there until the mill was sold to Samuel and John Slater. From 1823 to 1824 he was employed as accountant by the Hopkins & Morse Ma- chine Company, of Norwich ; as book-keeper in the Griswold Woolen Company, by Trumbull, Breed & Co., from 1824 to 1827."


Becoming of age in the last-named year, he invested the savings of this period of labor in a mercantile en- terprise in which he was associated with his father, under the firm-name of John Johnson & Son, and which he pursued with a profit which thus early in- dicated his possession of shrewd business talent. Later he conducted a store at Norwich Falls under the firm- name of Cobb & Johnson.


When the Jewett City Bank was organized in 1831, Mr. Charles Johnson was chosen its cashier at the modest salary of two hundred dollars per annum. Three years afterwards, when the late Newton Perkins, of this city, resigned the corresponding position in the old Norwich Bank to accept the treasurership of the Ohio Life and Trust Company, Mr. Johnson was offered and accepted the vacant position at a salary of one thousand dollars, beginning his services in January, 1835, and being succeeded in the cashiership at Jewett City by his father, who retained it until within a year of the close of his life, a period of some twenty years. In the year 1847, upon the death of the late Jabez Huntington, Mr. Johnson was chosen president of the Norwich Bank, and held that position until his de- mise.


At the time Mr. Johnson came to this city the busi- ness of the young Norwich Savings Society was con- ducted in the same edifice with the venerable Nor- wich Bank, and Mr. Johnson assisted in transacting its then diminutive business. In June, 1840, he was made a trustee, and about the same time a director, and in 1865, on the death of the late Joseph Wil- liams, he was chosen its president.


It was in connection with these institutions that Mr. Johnson was most prominently known in the community, and in his relations with both his duties were ever performed with a scrupulous precision and honesty that are worthy of the widest imitation. The Norwich Bank is one of the three oldest banks in Connecticut, and has a record of which those who have been connected with it have always been pecu- liarly and justly proud. Since it was founded, some eighty-three years ago, it has not once failed to pay its regular semi-annual dividend, and it is largely due to the discretion and virtue of Mr. Johnson that it has stood so well and proved so successful for the past forty-five years. During his connection with the Savings Society the deposits have swelled from less than one hundred and fifty thousand to nearly eight million of dollars, and more than fifty thousand per- sons have availed themselves of its privileges. With the principal share of the grave responsibility of judi- ciously investing this money, and of protecting the loans when once made, Mr. Johnson was charged for many years.


In addition to his regular banking business, Mr. Johnson conducted extensive brokerage operations for many years, and was called upon to administer several public and private trusts. In the first-named capacity, and in connection with the Savings-Bank, he probably placed more money than any other gentleman in Nor- wich. His management of estates, as of all other trusts, was marked by exactness, even to the minutest details, and by universally recognized fidelity to the interests of his clients. Never was it suggested that he had misused a cent that was not his own. The office of treasurer of the Otis Library ever since the first meeting of the trustees, twenty-nine years ago, and of the local fund for the benefit of the soldiers' fami- lies during the late war, were only two of several re- sponsibilities imposed upon him and borne with satis- faction to the community.


Among Mr. Johnson's other public relations may be mentioned his share in the directory of the Nor- wich and Worcester Railroad from 1848 to 1869; he was the only member of the board who openly asserted his disapproval of the lease to the New York and New England management, believing that negotiation to be detrimental to Norwich interests. For more than six years prior to his death he had been engaged in reorganizing the affairs of the Southern Minnesota Railroad, in the interest of the first mortgage bond- holders, having been elected first director in the new company, and having had the most prominent share


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HISTORY OF NEW LONDON COUNTY, CONNECTICUT.


in the undertaking, The interest involved was some six million dollars ; and inasmuch as Mr. Johnson had been one of the several who had marketed those bonds here, it was a great consolation to him that, after their depreciation, they had been again brought up to or above the price at which they were origi- nally taken. The work of reorganization had been very nearly consummated before his death ; but it was a matter of regret that he could not make just one more trip to New York to arrange a few remaining details. Mr. Johnson was one of the originators of the Norwich City Gas Company, in which he was a director until the time of his death. From 1845 to 1851 he was president of the Norwich Fire Insurance Company, now defunct. Of all the old directors of this corporation, as also the original directors of the Norwich Bank and the trustees of the Otis Library, he was the last to be taken away.


Mr. Johnson was a large contributor to the Second Congregational Church of this city until the forma- tion of the Park Church and society, towards which he subsequently held a similar relation. Of the for- mer he was more than once treasurer. He was promi- nent and enthusiastic in the movement for the erection of a new place of worship on the Plain, though re- luctant to have a distinet organization effected. No one gave more largely than he, in proportion to his means, to the new enterprise. Mr. Johnson was also one of the incorporators of the Free Academy. It might be remarked in this connection that Mr. John- son was not only a liberal giver, but was also gifted with the public spirit, the tact and the energy which made him prominent and successful in all sorts of movements for raising money.


A large part of Mr. Johnson's life is recorded only in the grateful memories of those whom he has pecu- niarily and otherwise befriended. He was a man of large and varied though quiet benevolence. Although he lived in a very unostentatious way and died with- out any accumulation of wealth, it has been esti- mated by one who knew him well that he scattered during his life nearly one hundred and fifty thousand dollars for religious and benevolent purposes and per- sonal charities. Never anything of a politician, and not always hopeful in his views, he nevertheless took a decided interest in national affairs, and was fond of discussing them with his friends. In the days of the old Whig party he was a devoted admirer of Daniel Webster, whose funeral at Marshfield, in 1852, he at- tended as an act of personal reverence. In the days of the anti-slavery agitation he was a strong Aboli- tionist, and later an ardent friend of the Union cause and of the universal brotherhood of mankind. The eagerness with which he watched the progress of material civilization amounted almost to a passion, and he took pride in relating the circumstance that he sent the first paid telegram over the wire from Baltimore to Washington. Another of his traits was his singularly clear memory, which retained events


and dates of even trifling importance with rare accu- racy, and which was often of great assistance to his associates in business.


Though well fitted to enjoy domestic happiness and to confer it, Mr. Johnson's life was clouded by signal bereavements. He was thrice robbed of the conjugal partners of his joys and sorrows by death, and lost two promising children also. The only surviving child is Mr. C. C. Johnson, of this city. Mr. John- son was a consistent Christian, and the advancement of the religious interests of the city found in him an earnest advocate. A former friend and pastor speaks of Mr. Johnson as "one who was such a signal em- bodiment of every noble, unselfish, and generous trait as to give a new significance to the word friend. He was a representative of everything that was noble, and his life was a river of help and cheer to all who knew him."


For his varied and prolonged business activities, his faithfulness to large responsibilities, his quick re- sponse to the demands of charity or public weal, his modest voluntary generosity, and his cordial and gentlemanly bearing, Mr. Johnson will be long held in kindly rememberance by the community of which for so long a period he was so useful and worthy a member, and prove a wholesome model 'to a rising generation. He died April 16, 1879.


Charles Osgood .- A man who entirely by his own efforts rose to affluence and social position, and through all the changing events of a remarkably active business life preserved his integrity unim- peached, well deserves the pen of the historian. Such an one was Dr. Charles Osgood, of honored memory. Without the advantages of inherited aid, he worked the problem of his own fortune and lived to enjoy the fruition of a successful business career.


He was born in Lebanon, Conn., in February, 1808. He was graduated at the Plainfield Academy, and having decided upon the medical profession as a life-work, he commenced its study in the office of his father, the late Dr. Erastus Osgood, who for nearly half a century was a successful practitioner in this section.


In 1833 he graduated from Yale College, receiving a medical diploma from that institution. In the same year he went to Providence, R. I., and became associated with Dr. Arnold in the practice of medi- cine. Here he remained but a short time, and re- moving to Monroe, Mich., at once entered upon a large and successful practice. In 1840 he returned to his native county, locating in this city, and in the following year, 1841, established his drug business, which subsequently made his name familiar in the business circles of the East. He commenced business in this city, in the building now occupied by the Henry Bill Publishing Company, on Shetucket Street. Here was located his first drug-store and laboratory. He pursued his business with energy and tact, and came to be ranked among the millionaires of Connecticut.


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Charly agood


amilyen & B ston


Conwell Bullan.


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NORWICH.


The history of the life of Dr. Osgood since his re- turn to Norwich is in a great measure a history of the town itself. He was identified with the city as but few men have been. In every enterprise that a large public spirit inspired his hand was always among those most potent, his practical wisdom most earnestly sought and prized, and his purse always ready.


He was connected with many prominent manufac- turing institutions and corporations, among which may be mentioned the Boston Rubber Shoe Company, located at Malden, Mass .; the Brown Cotton-Gin Com- pany, at New London; the Norwich City Gas Com- pany, etc. He was prominent in banking circles; was the founder of the Shetucket Bank, and was its presi- dent from its organization in 1853. He was also a director in the New London Mutual Fire Insurance Company, in the Norwich Water-Power Company, and was one of the vice-presidents of the Norwich Savings Society. Dr. Osgood also did much to ad- vance the interests of the New London Junction Rail- road, and was its president since 1873.


He not only labored to advance the business inter- ests of the city, but educational matters also found in him an carnest advocate. He aided in founding the Free Academy, and became one of its incorpora- tors.


Politically Dr. Osgood was a Democrat, but never a bitter partisan. He seemed content with the places of honor and trust won by his business achieve- ments, and had little ambition for public office. In 1876, however, by the carnest solicitation of his fel- low-citizens, he accepted the nomination for the may- oralty of the city and was elected ; but failing health compelled him to resign when his term had only half expired. He dignified the office as long as he held it, and his resignation evoked universal expression of regret from his fellow-citizens irrespective of party.


Dr. Charles Osgood was a good citizen, a gentle- man of superior culture, genial and social in manner, very popular with the masses, and was distinguished for his sterling integrity and business energy and tact. He died March 18, 1881, leaving a wife, two sons, Charles H. and F. L. Osgood, and a daughter (wife of A. C. Tyler).


Leonard Ballou .- After the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, in the early part of the seventeenth century, a large body of Huguenots, driven from their homes in the "sunny land of France" by the relentless persecutions under the reign of Louis XIV., fled to this country in search of religious liberty.


As a body they represented the most intelligent, industrious, and enterprising of her citizens, belong- ing principally to the nobility and middle classes. They brought with them to the American colonies characters and habits which were of more value than large amounts of money, together with the most use- ful industrial arts of their native land. Their de- scendants, in New England, New York, and the West,


have been among our most useful and honored citi- zens, and their names are blended with our national history. The most notable instance is seen in the life of our late President James A. Garfield, who inher- ited in a marked degree the characteristics of his ancestor, Maturin Ballou, the earliest of the name in this country, who settled on the shore of Narragansett Bay, and afterwards became identified with the Roger Williams colony. His son Nathaniel subsequently purchased a large tract of land in Cumberland, in the colony of Rhode Island, and engaged in its cultiva- tion. His eldest son, according to the law of primo- geniture, then in force, inherited all the landed estate of his father, but he, not recognizing the principle of the old feudal system, gave a farm to each of his brothers. Of these, Noah had ten children, many of whom, together with their ancestors and four succeed- ing generations, counting seven in all, lie buried in the old Ballou burying-ground, in Cumberland, oppo- site the old church long known as the Elder Ballou Meeting-house, its pulpit having been occupied for thirty-five years by Elder Abner Ballou, who died in 1806, in his eighty-first year. The old meeting-house, which was built in the seventeenth century, has long ceased to be a place of regular worship, but has be- come a sort of Mecca, to which the Ballous from all parts of the country make regular pilgrimages. The old house is built of wood, shingled on the outside, and has a gallery and pews, all hewn from solid oak, and put together with wooden pins. At the time of its construction there were no saw-mills in the country, and no nails were to be purchased, and even the floor was originally hewn from oak and fastened down with wooden pins. The pulpit was built with a solidity which was absolutely essential to its permanence under the eloquent and vehement fervor of the many Ballous who occupied it from generation to genera- tion.


The second Noah, who was the son of the one be- fore mentioned, and the father of Leonard Ballou, the subject of this sketch, having enterprise, industry, and mechanical skill, engaged in the business of boat- building, quite an important industry at that period, in addition to his farming interests. In his sixteenth year he entered the Revolutionary army, and after- wards became a commissioned officer under Gen. Greene. He died in Cumberland, in 1843, in the eighty-fourth year of his age.


His eldest son, Leonard, was born in Cumberland, Feb. 23, 1794, and in his boyhood attended the com- mon school of the town. He afterwards pursued his studies in a private school preparatory to a classical course, working in the mean time in his father's shop and on the farm. When he had reached the age of sixteen the non-intercourse act and the embargo which preceded the war of 1812 entirely destroyed all the mechanical industries of the country connected with commerce, and the father was obliged to aban- don his plans for the higher education of his son.


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HISTORY OF NEW LONDON COUNTY, CONNECTICUT.


The next winter he taught acceptably the public school in his own district, and later had charge of a much larger school in another part of the town. Under these circumstances, finding that he must rely upon his own efforts for his future support, and hav- ing a natural taste for mechanical pursuits, as well as a facility in the use of tools, acquired in his father's shop, he sought and obtained work as a carpenter and joiner in building houses for the small manufacturing establishments just making their appearance on the Blackstone River. In 1819 he entered the employ- ment of Jason Tower, a millwright, engaged at that time in mill-work generally, and in building a water- wheel for Mr. Harris. The charge of constructing and placing the wheel, and arranging the shafting, with the gearing, pulleys, draws, etc., crude as they were in that carly period of manufacturing, devolved chiefly on Mr. Ballou, a great responsibility for a young man of so little experience in that specialty. At that time there were few competent mechanics, even in Rhode Island, where the first mills were erected.


He succeeded so entirely to the satisfaction of Mr. Harris that soon afterwards, when Watson, Tingley & Rathbone, of Providence, proposed to take up the water-power at the present important manufacturing centre, Willimantic, Conn., then almost a wilderness, he recommended the young Ballou as a competent man for that great work, involving, as it did, not only the construction of the water-wheel, shafting, etc., for the mill, but also determining the fall of the water- power by practical engineering, which had not then been reduced to an exact science.


Young as he was, diffident as to his ability to ac- complish the work, he yet saw that if he was to earn larger wages than an ordinary mechanic he must do what an ordinary mechanic could not do. Acting under the advice of his friend Harris, he went to Willimantic, surveyed the water-power, constructed the wheel, shafted the mill, and applied the water successfully, thus justifying the confidence of Mr. Harris as to his ability, and having the satisfaction of engineering the first water-power in a wild and almost uninhabitable section, which to-day teems with a large and thriving population, and whose immense and elegant mills represent the highest manufac- turing skill to be found in New England. On Mr. Ballou's return to Rhode Island his services were eagerly sought after as a millwright by the Wilkin- sons, the Slaters, and the Browns, who were the lead- ing manufacturers of that period.


In 1825, having accumulated a small property as the result of this hard labor, he decided he would have a mill of his own, however small it might be, and in November of that year he purchased a mill privilege on the Five-Mile River, in Killingly, Conn.


On this privilege was a small mill, built for the purpose of grinding rye to make gin, a business then very common in that part of the State. The power was so poorly applied that it was barely possible to


carry one run of stones, while to-day, known as the Ballou Mills, it runs twenty-six thousand spindles.


Here came in the value of the knowledge which he had acquired of the capacity of mill-sites, and which led to his future success.


In making this purchase his father-in-law, Jabez Amsbury, a practical machinist, was associated with him, under the firm-name of Amsbury & Ballou.


During the winter they built a part of the neces- sary machinery. The following spring they removed their families to Killingly, and with them came George Weatherhead, another son-in-law, and Mowry Amsbury, son of Jabez Amsbury.


The entire capital possessed by the parties was six thousand dollars, but cach was qualified to fill the position required in the running of a small mill, Mr. Ballou being the manager and leading spirit of the whole.


Their small capital necessitated their utilizing the old gin-mill, which was a small one-story building; but soon, under the impulses and labors of these earnest workers, it assumed the form of a factory, fifty feet long, thirty-two feet wide, and three stories in height. They started the mill in the following autumn, with only ten looms in full operation.




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