USA > Connecticut > Litchfield County > Norfolk > History of Norfolk, Litchfield County, Connecticut, 1744-1900 > Part 40
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Soon after his death she wrote to her sister: "My life is desolate without my brother. I do not suffer myself to think of my loss, if I can help it, and to avoid it, I wander in mind and body into any occupation, seeking to be absorbed, until it seems as if all power of thought or action had vanished. But when I think of our blessings; that I have you and all the others; that you are in com- fortable health, with food and raiment, friends and home,-I can see how wrong it is to complain."
"During the winter of 1877 Mrs. Larned's condition of health caused her friends serious anxiety. The silver cord was indeed loosening, but that to which the anchor within the veil was se- curely fastened, grew brighter and stronger day by day. Errands of mercy were the last interests that drew her from her house. After she had become so enfeebled that her friends remonstrated against her attempting any effort, she would still steal away on some mission of love. In one instance she walked a long distance to visit an intemperate man whom she had befriended, and who she feared would again yield to temptation if he missed the re- straining influence of her sympathy and encouragement. On the 5th of May, 1877, she breathed her last blessing and farewell.'
Next to the youngest son of Esq. Joseph Battelle was Robbins, born April 19, 1819; graduated at Yale in 1839, and spent much the larger part of his life in this, his na-
ROBBINS BATTELLE.
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HISTORY OF NORFOLK.
tive town, being through life a very prominent man in all the interests and affairs of the town and state, and doing a great number of things of a public nature which showed his ardent attachment to his native place and the people.
From a memorial of Mr. Battelle, published soon after his death, we are permitted to make some extracts, as follows:
"Mr. Robbins Battelle attended Dr. Hall's famous old school at Ellington, Conn., fitting for College there, and was graduated from Yale College in the class of 1839. He and his classmate, Mr. Richard Storrs Willis, took great interest in the music performed at the college chapel, Mr. Battell always playing the flute at divine service.
After the death of his father he resided at the ancestral home at Norfolk, caring for the interests of his brothers and sisters, call- ing himself a farmer, studying and experimenting to improve the live stock of the region with an interest that remained with him to the end. His larger abilities were early recognized, and he was called upon for counsel and service in many lines. He became a settler of disputes and healer of breeches. In time larger honors and titles came to him. He was the last Colonel of the Litchfield County militia who succeeded in keeping the organization alive.
"He several times represented the town in the State Assembly, and once was the Senator from this district. He was for a time State Comptroller; for many years a trustee of the State Hospital for the Insane; was the representative of this part of the state on the corporation of the A. B. C. F. M., and for a time President of the Connecticut Historical Society. In all of these positions he acquitted himself with high honor.
"In 1874 the death of his oldest brother brought to him new responsibilities, as the head of the family and trustee of a large property. This necessitated his breaking away from his old man- ner of life, and compelled him to spend most of his time in New York, though he kept his legal residence where his heart was, here in the hills. Though coming to these new cares late in life, he man- aged them with a skill and success that evoked admiring com- ment from those experienced and eminent in such affairs. August 15th, 1849, he married Miss Ellen R. Mills of Newark, N. J., and after only nineteen months of married life he was widowed for all his remaining years.
"He was for a long period Judge of probate for Norfolk, treas- urer of the town and of its church, and trustee of the cemetery, which he greatly beautified.
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In 1861 he was a delegate to the Peace Convention at Wash- ington, just prior to the breaking out of the civil war.
"During the years of the civil war he was offered by Gov. William A. Buckingham, military rank and honors, but from family necessities and councils he refused them; yet through those terrible years he served the country, being Governor Buckingham's confi- dential adviser and aid, in the gathering of troops and appointment of officers throughout the county.
"His musical talents were early developed and carefully culti- vated. He gave his services freely in the teaching of singing . schools and the training of the church choir, of which he was for more than forty years, and until his last sickness, the chorister.
"Few men possessed musical abilities of as high an order as Mr. Battelle, and he has given to musical literature that which will stand the test of time, his best known contribution to sacred music being a setting to the hymn, "Abide with Me." His com- position, "Evening," is a good reflex of a quiet summer evening among the Norfolk hills. His beautiful "German Trust Song" has been sung in many churches and homes.
"Mr. Battell's delight was to lift up the standard of music in his own town and vicinity. In the days of the summer concerts on Norfolk Green, given years ago by the 'Diller Octet,' his aim was not to charm people's ears for the moment, but to educate and elevate their musical appreciation.
"In matters of art it was the same as with music. When he built a picture gallery and library as an addition to his home, and opened it freely to the public, he remarked that he especially de- sired to cultivate the taste of his townspeople in matters of art, and adopted this method of doing it. For years his rare and costly collection of paintings was open to all comers.
"Years ago, in connection with Mr. Bradford, a surveyor, Mr. Battelle measured all of the higher hills in Litchfield County, and made the discovery that Bear Mountain, in Salisbury, has an eleva- tion of 2354 feet, making it the highest point of land in the state, and disproving the ridiculous statement made in the ninth edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, "that there is no land in Con- necticut over a thousand feet in height." On Bear Mountain Mr. Battelle had constructed a huge cairn of rough stone, which can be seen for many miles in all directions. The stone contains an inscription stating that it marks the highest point of land in Con- necticut. The discovery of the elevation about Norfolk led Mr. Battelle to call attention to its beauty and healthfulness as a summer resort, and boarders soon began to come. Almost the first was the late Rev. Doctor Gage of Hartford, followed by Rev. Doctor Burton, an enthusiast on the subject of Norfolk scenery.
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Since that time Norfolk's prosperity has been constantly growing. Mr. Battelle bought several tracts of land about the town com- manding extensive views, built roads to them, and gave a per- petual right of way over them to the public.
"When the observatory was built on the top of 'The Haystack,' which was one of the many deeds by which Mr. Battelle increased the attractions of the town, he caused to be placed upon it a granite tablet bearing an inscription which he trusted would be a perennial inspiration to all who climbed the mountain and looked out over the hillsides that many of us love so well. On that tablet you may read:
THOMAS ANTHONY THACHER OF BLESSED MEMORY WROTE THIS INJUNCTION, TO BE HERE INSCRIBED. DEO PATRIÆ FAMILIA MUNICIPIO TUO SEMPER ESTO FIDELIS.
TO THY GOD,
TO THY COUNTRY, TO THY FAMILY, TO THY TOWN, BE THOU EVER FAITHFUL.
"This inscription, so felicitous in its expression, so noble in conception, was the offspring of Mr. Battelle's own thought. There it stands, telling to all who will hear what this man, our friend and often benefactor, held to be the formative principles of a noble life.
"This inscription would be most fitting on his tombstone; for 'to his God, his fatherland, his family, and his town he was ever faithful.'
"This was a man to act, rather than to tell how he acted; to do without seeming, rather than to seem to be doing."
"Perhaps Mr. Battelle's greatest gift was in the line of music. Competent judges declared that had he pursued this art he would have become eminent in it. During the time of the civil war he set to music and published a number of negro melodies. His principal melodies were of a religious nature. He took pleasure in sending his compositions to his friends, not because they were his own, but because he believed they helped to elevate religious thought.
"His taste was of the nicest and his ear for musical sounds phenomenal.
He was greatly interested in church bells, and made a number of discoveries in their tones which puzzled even so eminent a mas- ter of acoustics as Helmholtz. His services as an expert on bells
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were frequently called for by intending purchasers, and he in- variably gave them without charge. He gave bells to several churches, and also gave a model chime to his own church at Nor- folk; also a chime to Williams College, Northfield College, and other institutions. In addition to the chime, Mr. Battelle gave largely to Williams College for other purposes."
Soon after his death, which occurred January 26, 1895, Mr. J. Cleveland Cady of New York wrote Mr. Battelle's daughter, in part as follows:
"I want to tell you how deeply I sympathize with you in the great loss you have experienced, a loss felt by the large number who admired and loved your father, and which is a calamity to you, who have been so much to him, and have cared so tenderly for him. But, aside from the life immortal, to what an extent such a noble character really lives, long after passing from us! Do we not find that some such friends seem almost as really alive as others who are only temporarily absent?
"Your dear father was one especially calculated to remain a living presence in the hearts and minds of his friends. His quali- ties were rare ones in this restless, hurrying, noisy, self-seeking world. To me he was the embodiment of calmness, patience, high and unselfish purpose.
"To many he will always be a living character,-absent now only a little longer than usual. It is not the ending of a blessed companionship, but only an absence for a time. His personality is meantime a living presence in the heart, and the days of absence will end with the ushering in of 'life more abundant.'"
MRS. URANIA BATTELL HUMPHREY.
Another of the distinguished members of this family was Urania Battell Humphrey, born May 30, 1814, at Norfolk, Conn. Died November 19, 1887, at New York. From a Memorial of Mrs. Humphrey, privately printed soon after her death, we are permitted to make some extracts.
"The funeral of Mrs. Humphrey took place at her apart- ments in the 'Florence House,' New York, November 21, 1887. The services were conducted by the Reverend Richard S. Storrs." In his address Dr. Storrs said:
"It wants but a few months of fifty years since I first met the beloved friend at whose funeral service we are gathered today. It is more than forty years since I became her pastor, and at the time
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when that happy and affectionate relationship began it seemed as if all the promise and expectation of her early life were to be realized. I remember an entertainment at her house in Brooklyn, forty-one years ago this coming Christmas, at which she presided like a queen; and I am saddened as I think, that with the excep- tion of my wife and myself, not a single one of those who were then present to share her hospitality is now living on the earth. As we know, in the after years she had to meet many sorrows; sorrows that came sometimes unexpectedly, and which were the heaviest which she could have been called upon to bear in her sensitive experience. Once I remember perfectly her saying to me, "There is one grief which I know God will spare me,-the death of my husband. I could not survive that; I am sure my heart would break, and I am confident that that will not be permitted to come to me." But it did come, and came, as we remember, with great suddenness, and with an overwhelming power of affliction.
"Other deaths came: of her mother, her brother, her sisters, and her sisters' husbands, to whom she was very tenderly attached; deaths of those in her husband's family whom she loved as well; the deaths one after another of each of her children, in the bright- ness and grace, the beauty and bloom of life. Where the promise had seemed greatest, these many successive sorrows came to her; more, I think, than to any other person whom I have known as pastor,-more in number, coming in the saddest series, and each one of peculiar severity. Of course there are different results which might have been realized in her experience out of this singular, one might almost say this continuous suffering. We know how she retained to the last her affectionateness of nature. We know how patiently she submitted when at last came the stroke upon her own person. We know with what sweet and filial confi- dence she has awaited the end, which at last she has met. We know that the spiritual sensibility which was always rich and tender in her, never failed. I don't know that I ever saw a woman more tenderly moved than she was when her husband, whom she devotedly loved, came by his confession of the faith into the Church of Christ; or when afterward the daughters followed him. There is always a blessing peculiar to those who have come unto God out of great tribulation. It is a very sweet promise which I have read, that in the city to which we journey there shall be no more sorrow, nor pain, nor death, for the former things are passed away, and God shall wipe away all tears from every eye."
Among Mrs. Humphrey's benefactions, mentioned in the Memorial, in addition to the Battell Chapel in Norfolk, are her gifts to the 'Long Island Historical Society,' as follows:
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"December, 1887.
"The Board of Directors of the Long Island Historical Society has had the pleasure of receiving an official notice of the bequest of Ten Thousand Dollars, made to it by the will of Mrs. Urania Battell Humphrey, for many years an honored resident of Brooklyn. The husband of Mrs. Humphrey, Hon. James Humphrey, who for several years represented one of the districts of this city in Con- gress, and the memory of whom is still fresh among all who knew him, had been from an early date a member of this Society, and one of its Councillors. After his death Mrs. Humphrey, in fulfill- ment of a wish which he had expressed, gave to our Library the admirable portrait of Chief Justice Marshall, which her husband had possessed and justly prized, and which has been since among the chief ornaments of our rooms. She added also a large number of rare and valuable volumes which had been collected by her husband, and which were given as a memorial of him. When our present building was erected she gave two thousand dollars to the Building Fund, to which she afterwards added six hundred and fifty dollars for supplying a special alcove with biographies of women, or with books written by women, together with a choice collection of works on music.
"She has now crowned the series of her gifts to the Library by the largest bequest which the institution has thus far received; and the Directors are sure that all members of the Society will feel a keen gratification at the fact that, after years of absence from Brooklyn, and of the wearying pain and weakness of an invalid life, this lady, for many years brilliant and distinguished in the social life of the city, should have so generously remembered this insti- tution.
From the address of Rev. John De Peu, pastor of the Congregational Church in Norfolk at the time of the dedi- cation of the 'Battell Chapel' in Norfolk, December 13, 1888, we quote:
"The best memories of the dead are not those that are erected in their name by kindred and friends, but those that they them- selves, in life, erected in the name of God.
"The Battell Chapel on the Green in Norfolk, Connecticut, will stand for all who knew Urania Battell Humphrey and her ancestry as her most appropriate monument. Her monument not less truly, but even more appropriately, in the fact that with her native modesty she insisted that her name should not appear on its walls.
"The memorial tablet bears the simple inscription which she dictated:
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TO THE TRIUNE GOD IN MEMORY OF JOSEPH BATTELL AND SARAH BATTELL.
"The erection of the Chapel, as indicated by this inscription, was prompted by both Christian and filial piety. While those who knew her admired her fine traits of character, Mrs. Humphrey always gratefully recognized how much she owed to her ancestors. Her inheritance from them was precious, for it was throughout an inheritance of Godliness. . It is not surprising that with such parents Urania Battell Humphrey should have conceived the idea of erecting a memorial of them, which should continue to con- nect their names with the church they loved and served.
"Her thought finally took definite shape early in the spring of 1887, when she accepted from Mr. J. Cleveland Cady of New York, Architect, plans for a chapel, to be built of granite from the hills that surrounded her home.
"Work was begun on the building that spring. Mrs. Humphrey watched its growth from day to day with loving interest, and saw the exterior nearly completed before her return to New York in October. Then the Lord called her to worship in the house not made with hands. The work was continued by a bequest left by her, and completed by her heirs and her brother and sister. A stained window was put in, in her memory, by her son-in-law, Dr. Charles U. Shepard, of Charleston, S. C.
"On December 13, 1888, the Chapel was given by deed to the First Ecclesiastical Society of the town of Norfolk, for the religious uses of the Congregational Church, and was dedicated "to the Triune God." The simple services were deeply impressive. The room was filled by those who had known Mrs. Humphrey and her parents.
"The deed was presented to the representative of the society by Robbins Battell, acting for himself and the other donors, and was received with resolutions of thanks by the society. . . The Chapel was first used in the regular services of the Church on Friday evening, December 14, 1888, for the usual weekly prayer- meeting.
"Simple, solid, and well proportioned, granite and slate without and polished oak within; the inner walls frescoed in russet and yellow and gold; lighted through side windows of cathedral glass in soft tones; the western end above the pulpit glorified by the
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sunlight streaming through the memorial window of opalescent glass, with the cross in the center,-the building is a sermon in stone,-a fit memorial of those whose names are on its walls, and of the daughter who gave it."
The following action was taken by the Congregational Church at its annual meeting, January 11, 1889:
"Whereas, The Ecclesiastical Society connected with this church has received from the late Urania Battell Humphrey and her heirs, and from Robbins and Anna Battell, the gift of the Battell Chapel, by them erected in memory of Joseph Battell and Sarah Battell, to be held for the religious uses of this Church in perpetuity; there- fore be it
"Resolved, That we render thanks to God . . . that he put it into the hearts of his servants to build a house for the name of the Lord, "the Triune God." And congratulating them on their in- heritance, we also thank them for their gift to us. That we see in the solid structure, built from native granite, and in its beautiful and harmonious decoration, a fit memorial of those in whose mem- ory it was erected. Their lives belong to the history of this town and of this church. . . We pray unto the Father that, emu- lating the godly ones who have gone before, we may be built together in truth and righteousness an holy house, upon the foun- dation of the Apostles and Prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone."
MISS ANNA BATTELLE.
Another one of this family who possessed many of the noblest traits which beautify and adorn the life and char- acter, who lived a quiet life, whose work and worth were best and chiefly known by her own family and in her large circle of friends, was Miss Anna Battelle. She remained through life in the old home, and after the death of her mother, in 1854, how royally she presided in and dispensed the honors of the old family mansion.
Miss Battelle was best and chiefly known to those out- side of her family circle through her work in the church, of which she was a life-long devoted member, a constant attendant and active worker, foremost in the work of the Ladies' Aid Society; for a long period of years the leading soprano singer in the large chorus choir, and the lady superintendent of the Sunday School from the time that
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Grandma Welch, who was the first one in the church to hold that office, was compelled by the infirmities of age to lay down her work in 1865, until she, too, from impaired health, was compelled to pass the duties of her office to her successor, Miss Mary Eldridge, who now fills that position.
She was closely identified with her brother Robbins, and other members of the family, in their many gifts for various purposes, for the permanent improvement of this town, notably the building, equipping and sustaining the Robbins School, completing the Battell Chapel in this town, large gifts to Yale College, and to many other worthy enter- prises.
Miss Anna Battelle died December 30, 1889. At her funeral Rev. John DePue, her pastor, said of her in part as follows:
"She was by descent a daughter of the Pilgrims and the Puri- tans, of Covenanter and Huguenots; the Bradfords and Warrens of the Mayflower and Old Colony; the Buckinghams and Shermans of the Massachusetts Bay settlement. Nathaniel Robbins and Francis LeBaron united to give to their descendants a double portion of conscience and resolution. English, Scotch and French,-statesman, soldier, clergyman and physician gave to their issue clarified and active intellect.
A quiet life, spent in a Christian community close beside the church; walled about by the everlasting hills, fed by the beauties and grandeur of nature, the inspiration of literature and art, nour- ished by the warmest family affection and neighborly friendship, deepened, widened and exalted by the Spirit of the living Christ, had a chance to form itself at length into a perfect whole, like a jewel, clear and flawless, reflecting the glory of the Lord.
As the community at large knew her, the most prominent factor in her life was her loyalty to her family, her church, and native town. She was what she seemed to be. Her mind was clear and penetrating; her judgments, just and trustworthy. She thought before she spoke or acted, and would rather show her thought by action than by speech. She knew the truth as revealed through Jesus Christ. It was the true loyalty which means devo- tion.
From her girlhood she served Christ and the Church in the choir. For more than twenty years she had been the Lady Superin- tendent in the Sunday School. For years she had been the leader in the work for home missions, at the West, and the needy ones
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here at home. It was a joy for her to do for others to the full abundance of her means. When she knew her mortal illness was upon her, through the last month, when her end was very near, she was largely occupied planning for the New Year's gifts, that have for so many years made this day unique in this community.
Her life was by choice quiet and retired, and no one had a keener appreciation of friendship than had she. No one received and treasured more tenderly and gratefully the words and the gifts that brought her the witness of others' love. She was not de- monstrative, but her stillness was that of depth. God does not give us many such friends, but one such makes the joy of a life- time.
PHILIP BATTELL.
"Philip Battell was the second child of the family of nine chil- dren of Joseph and Sarah Battell. Entering Yale College, he re- mained there two years, when he joined his elder brother at Mid- dlebury College, where he was graduated. Afterwards he studied law, practicing his profession some years, a part of the time being in Cleveland, Ohio. He then returned to Middlebury, where the remainder of his long life was spent, honored and loved by all for his sterling qualities as citizen, neighbor and friend. Mr. Battell had passed his ninetieth birthday only a few days previous to his death, which occurred December, 1897. His pastor at his funeral paid a feeling tribute to the character of Mr. Battell, who, he said, embodied in the highest degree all that is implied in the term, a Christian gentleman. He will long be remembered by his large circle of acquaintances as a man singularly kind and charitable in his judgment of others; of gentle and sweet disposition, and of unfailing courtesy.
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