USA > Connecticut > Litchfield County > Torrington > History of Torrington, Connecticut, from its first settlement in 1737, with biographies and genealogies > Part 49
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In the following year he entered the Theological seminary at New Haven, where he remained three years. After this he supplied the pulpit of Mt. Carmel Congregational church six or eight months and on the 18th of May, 1830, was ordained pastor of that church and congregation. This pastorate, eminently pleasant and pros- perous, was terminated at his own request at the end of six years.
He was installed as pastor of the Wolcottville church, Feb. 29, 1837, and commenced his labors under circumstances that promised success to the cause he represented and comfort to himself, but scarcely had he commenced his work before the approaching hard times began to affect his parish in its manufacturing enterprises, and this, with other attending adverse events led him, after being here a little over one year, to ask for a dismission from the pastoral relation, but the decision of the council was against the dismission. He re- mained until Sept. 29, 1839, when he was regularly dismissed.
His third pastorate continued twelve years in East Avon, Ct., and yielded valuable and encouraging results but was abruptly closed on account of the displeasure entertained by the parish against the book Shady Side written by his wife. Instead of being stimulated to higher and nobler attainments in the future, the parish determined to execute judgment, for the supposed offence, upon the minister's family.
In August 17, 1853, he passed directly from his dismission at Avon to his installation at North Stonington, where for the space of almost seventeen years, he was enabled, apparently, to do the most and best service of all his toiling years in the ministry.
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From this place he passed to Long Ridge, in Stamford, Ct., which was a smaller field of labor than any in which he had previously served, but the interests of which he cordially espoused. Having a characteristic aversion to the system of stated supplies, he thought it best to be installed in this place though the hope of remaining many years was not great. The elements of the congregation were of an unusually mixed character, and the tide of business enterprises and family relations were all moving from the place rather than flowing toward it.
Here he managed to procure aid from the kindred of himself and wife to repair the house of worship and beautify its interior ; and by this the external circumstances and condition of worship were very much changed in the place.
Here he continued to labor with much earnestness and unceasing effort, hoping that some signal change of internal life might be seen and realized to the great comfort and advantage of the community, but while all of his hopes were not realized, such were the apparent improvements that the remembrance of these labors are not without some consolation in his retired years.
From this place he returned to Mount Carmel, the place where he began his ministerial and pastoral life, where he has built him a snug home and where he finds some congenial employment, and takes comfort in "reviewing the precious past, and anticipating the glorious future."
MRS. HUBBELL.
This summary of changes in the career of this pastor's life would be very incomplete without special mention of his family. He mar- ried on October 30, 1832, Martha, daughter of Noah Stone, M.D., of Oxford, Ct. Her mental culture and moral training had been the best kind both as to home influences and institutions of learning. In her new sphere, young as she then was, the result of her piety and her intellectual culture, to wield the pen of a ready writer in behalf of the great principles and precepts of the great Teacher, soon began to manifest themselves under varied circumstances and in regard to many objects of attention peculiar to such a relation to the commu- nity. She always had some definite theme on which her thoughts were philosophically running, and drawing practical applications, during the intervals and fragments of time when the cares of the family and the claims of social life would allow her attention to be thus devoted. Being naturally fond of reading and thinking, and
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having been trained in such employments from childhood, she was always adding to her store of knowledge, and to her ability to ex- press herself precisely and gracefully upon any subject on which she engaged in conversation or writing. Soon her narratives began to find place in public print ; in the weeklies and monthlies ; and then she wrote a number of volumes for Sunday school reading, which were published and gave good satisfaction.
It was during the pastorate of her husband at East Avon, that she wrote and published that book, Shady Side, which made such a stir in the parish that he felt constrained to resign his pastorate, but which sent her name far and near as an authoress, and brought her great tribute of thanks and gratitude for the good service it was doing for the ministry among the churches. It is stated as the mature judg- ment of many of the leading ministers of New England, that no one thing ever transpired which did so much to awaken a proper consider- ation and understanding in the minds of the public toward the ministers' families, as the writing of this book, and this opinion, with many grateful feelings, were frequently expressed to the authoress and her husband.
The book as a whole was regarded as a fair representation of society in New England at the time. Some few thought the pic- ture overdrawn on the dark side, while many thought it not a shady side but a very correct representation of real life as generally ex- hibited in communities such as described, under circumstances of financial difficulty.
As a literary production it was so acceptable that the authoress was solicited for other volumes on kindred topics by publishers and persons of distinction both in America and Europe. Forty thousand copies of the book were very readily sold ; and still it was called for, being sold by the Carters of New York. At Wolcottville the book was not very kindly received, though most every body read it.
Had the health of Mrs. Hubbell been good, and continued, other books of equal value might have been received from her pen that would have had the same beneficial influence in favor of the great principles of Christianity ; honesty, truthfulness and a life of consist- ency by professed Christians.
Mrs. Hubbell's health gradually declined and her wasting disease brought her useful career to a close at life's high noon, at the age of two score and two years.
Of the two children of this family who survived to mature years the following is the brief record.
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MARY ELIZABETH HUBBELL
Was born at Mt. Carmel, Dec. 5, 1833. She was naturally gifted in intellectual qualities and under the careful training of her parents and the schools she attended, she became fitted for, and accepted the position of principal teacher in a young ladies' school in Baltimore, Ind., the year before her decease. Twenty and a half years was the limit of her life. Her writings of prose and poetry remain to justify the tribute paid to her by her mother :
" Child of genius and of song ; Child, too, of God."
REV. WILLIAM STONE HUBBELL
Was born in Wolcottville, April 19, 1839. He was graduated at Yale college in the class of 1858. In the autumn of 1857, he en- tered the junior class of the Theological seminary at Andover, and remained there two years, when he enlisted as a private in the 25th Ct. infantry ; was promoted to be 2d lieutenant in the 21st; had a brilliant career to the end of the war, when he was commissioned brevet-major, and returned to spend his third year at Andover. He has been six years the successful pastor of the Franklin St. church in Sommerville, Mass. In the autumn of 1865, he married Carrie, daughter of Alfred Southmayd, Esq., of Middletown, Ct., and has two daughters and two sons.
Rev. Stephen Hubbell married at Albany, N. Y., his second wife Harriet Thompson, daughter of Ezra Hawley, Esq., of Catskill, May 11, 1859.
Amid the changes, bright and drear which have come to him all along his ministry, his beloved and loving family has been the great comfort and crowning joy of his life.
DANIEL HUDSON,"
And Mary Coe, " his wife," were among the pioneer settlers of the town of Torrington, Litchfield Co., Conn. They came into the parish of Torringford in 1868, and were constitutents of that society and church in establishing the pastorate of the Rev. Samuel J. Mills over that people in 1769. He was born in Bridgewater, Mass., in 1738, and she in Middletown, Middlefield Society, Ct., in 1745. Both of them were of genuine Puritan extraction in their physiques, spirits, morals, religion and deeds.
" Manuscript of Dr. E. D. Hudson of New York.
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HISTORY OF TORRINGTON.
Daniel Hudson, ancestor of all the Hudsons of New England, came from England, probably Lancastershire,' with his wife, sons, and daughters, to Boston, between the years 1625 and 1630,2 and settled in Lancaster, now Leominster, Mass. His son William was made a freeman in Boston in 1631 ; and allowed to keep an ordinary (tavern) in 1640. His son Daniel, who settled in Bridgewater and married Mary Orcutt, and had Daniel who married Mary Fobes, who had Daniel Hudson in 1738, who when twenty-one years of age, went with his cousin Barzillai,3 westward to Middletown, Ct.
Robert Coe of Norfolkshire, England, born in 1596 ; and his wife Anna, came to New England in 1634, and settled successively at Watertown, Mass., Wethersfield and Stratford, Ct. MARY COE was the daughter of Capt. David Coe and Hannah Camp, his wife, of Mid- dletown ; grand daughter of Joseph Coe and Abigail Robinson, his wife ; great grand daughter of John Coe of Stratford ; and great, great grand daughter of Robert Coe, England.
The ancestors of Daniel Hudson and Mary Coe were of the first respectability, yet were not saints of the highest order; in asmuch as their moral perceptions became darkened, and their characters tainted by the spirit of slavery, "that sum of all villainies;" for the record reads that slaves of Capt. David Coe, "were married with his consent." As " Jacob served Laban, seven years, for his daughter Rachel to wife;" it doth appear that Daniel Hudson served Capt. David Coe, for his daughter Mary; for in his will, the reading is: "I give and devise to the heirs of my daughter Mary Hudson £32- 18s .; the reason why I give them no more is, that my son Hudson, had the improvement of my lands, eight years, which I judge to be their full proportion to the rest of my daughters."
Daniel Hudson and wife Mary, went westward, at that time a tiresome journey, on horseback and with an ox cart; through the dark wilderness, following the bridle path and the unmade south road (in distinction from the north road through the northern part of Winsted) which, by order of the general assembly, a committee had laid out in 1762, running through the south part of New Hartford, and following a bridle path through the northern part of Torringford street, at the house of Rev. Mr. Gould (now Hayden's); thence north westerly past the hostelry of John Burr, on the brow of the
I Divers of this name are here.
2 The emigration records of those years cannot as yet be found.
3 Barzillai settled in Hartford ; originated and printed the Connecticut Courant.
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steep hill; thence down the declivity to Still River swamp (Burrville) ; thence up the mountain gorge to Winchester. On that road, and on its west side, mid-way between the Gould place and landlord Burr's Hotel, they pitched their tent, and erected a small one story house for temporary residence. Subsequently they built a two story lean-to house on a site nearer the Burr estate. There they became possessed of an extensive farm, the most eligible and feasible for tillage and grazing of that region.
The site and scenery were beautiful and unsurpassed, location healthy, the air invigorating, the water pure, cool and delicious, and every prospect pleasing and inspiring. Here they dwelt, toiled and prospered; reared and nurtured a family of nine children, seven daughters and two sons, all of whom grew up healthy, hardy, indus- trious, intelligent, useful and enterprising members of society, and who inherited a goodly portion of puritanic principles and character. The homestead remained in the family ninety-two years, so long as there was a Hudson to live in Torringford !
In those days of the wilderness of Torrington, and the incipient enterprise of Daniel Hudson and Mary Coe, when they were depend- ent for every comfort and implement of husbandry, upon their good sense and unmitigated, wearing labors of mind and body, then and there their puritan characters, energy of life, indomitable spirit and courage were manifested with that of others, indicating the coming celebrity of Torringford. The trees were cut down, clearings made, seeds, shrubs, fruit-trees and vines put into the earth, and which produced rich harvests. In due time the farm was well stocked with cows and sheep, for dairy, wool and mutton. Grass of a superior quality, indian corn, rye, peas, beans, barley, oats and flax were profitable crops. The lands, though of diluvial formation, with a deep and extensive underlying base of granite table-rock, cropping out into occasional ledges with huge boulders of the same, incidentally strewn upon the soil, possessed good strength, and were originally heavily timbered with sugar maples, hickory, ash, beech, oak, chest- nut, cherry, tulip and box trees, and adorned with the kalmia or mountain laurel, while the intervales were full of tall pines, hem- locks and tamaracks with their verdure waving to the winds most gracefully. So picturesque was the landscape scenery, and so in- spired was the Rev. Samuel J. Mills with its grandeur when he came there to settle that he was exercised to exclaim, " Here let me live, and here let me die."
The household scenes of Daniel Hudson and Mary Coe furnished
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an instructive and indicative horoscope of the future of that family in prosperity, physical comforts, health, longevity, morals, religion and intelligence. The active physical and moral energies of the parents, and their numerous daughters and two sons, manifested in the various industries, utilities and responsibilities, gave promise of certain success and honor in life. All clad in homespun and homemade garments ; the father and sons in butternut colored or plain, the mother and daughters in plaid or striped short gowns and petticoats, seldom with costly shoes, except on extra occasions, offered a scene which re- spectable society of modern times may feel to despise, but in regard to the prudence and wisdom of which it might be health to the eyes of many people to see.
The advantages of the sparse and indigent public schools, were appreciated, being eagerly improved by most of the young people until they were past their years of minority. After a time there were added home institutions, night schools, and self education ; and with these, religious instruction through the catechism and the Bible, were interspersed with a constancy and fidelity that did honor to parents and teachers of such a faith as the descendants of the puri- tans. Mr. Mills exercised great interest and influence in the intel- lectual and religious nurture of the children ; and they were an increasing multitude in those days. The children always loved his presence and mirthful sayings. On one occasion when she that is Mrs. Clarissa Hudson Tuttle, was very small, and the teacher de- sired to exhibit every child, she was called up to repeat the verse : " In Adam's fall we sinned all ;" Mr. Mills exclaimed : "No, no ; my child," for " in Cain's murder we sinned furder."
Family religious observances were very regular and the presence of every member of the family rigorously required. At the setting of the sun every Saturday, all secular affairs ceased instantly, and exclusively ; even to the cracking of a nut. Books were scarce and expensive, and almost exclusively religious ; such as the Bible, psalms, Westminster Catechism, Bunyan's Pilgrims Progress, some book of sermons, Scott's Commentaries, and the Connecticut Courant ; and even this last named, is thought to have been more religious in those days than at present. All the members of the family were re- gular in their attendanceat church. The father going on horseback, the mother seated behind him on a pillion ; the girls and boys on foot ; and with staid faces, suppressed glee and solemn demeanor they traveled the unmade and rough roadway two miles to church every Sunday. As shoes were a very expensive article of dress, particularly
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so for a large family, it was customary for girls and boys to carry these articles in their hands until they came near the church and then to put them on, to " tread the courts of the Lord's house," thus reversing the ancient requirements. In their religious faith and creed, they were like father Mills and the church, thorough bred Calvinists. Their children and children's children constitute good standards, into which to engraft a more enlightened faith and practice of Christian humanity and civilization.
Daniel Hudson was a strong federalist in politics, and was greatly exercised when Jeffersonian democracy began to influence the public mind, and to loose the bands of ecclesiastical and federal church and society ; and to favor what were deemed heretical sects and op- posing creeds, and faiths, which were anathematised as wicked en- croachments upon the orthodox "bodies corporate."
Notwithstanding some peculiarities of creed and faith, the puritan characters and exemplary lives of Daniel Hudson and Mary Coe as well as many others were manifestly invaluable legacies to Torring- ford, for its ultimate growth, progress and reputation, as affording a pleasant " habitation to dwell in." Their children all grew up to manhood and womanhood ; became respectably allied, and affiliated in every reform and progress of human civilization, and their de- scendants are scattered, and honorably known, in various parts of the United States.
DANIEL COE HUDSON.
In Memoriam, by Dr. E. D. Hudson.
Daniel Coe Hudson, the eldest son of Daniel and Mary (Coe) Hudson, resided several years on a farm located half a mile west of Mast swamp, on the south side of the road, at the beginning of the (occidental) ascent to the homesteads of Dea. John Cook and Joseph Fowler, Esq. He married Mary Loomis, daughter of Epaphras and Mary (Hills) Loomis ; a woman of good repute for her excellent ways, and loving kindness; she being the sister of Deacon Lorrain Loomis, so noted for his intelligence, and rare benevolence. They had one son (Daniel), a very promising child, but who, when seven years of age, was suddenly stricken down with diphtheria and died in 1805. His mother had, one year previously, deceased by typhus fever, when only twenty-eight years of age.
Thus overwhelmed by his bereavements he left that malarial place 63
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and returned to his native (Orient) hill of Torringford, and pur- chased the estate of John Burr, hostelry, which adjoined his father's estate. The two possessions were mainly cooperatively improved by the father, and his two sons, in respectable farming and dairying. They were also extensive manufacturers of brick, of reputable quality, from the large crop-out clay beds on their lands, which are sufficiently ferruginous, to effect a beautiful red color, hardness and great dura- bility by calcination and their oxidation.
For his second wife he married Rhoda Fowler, daughter of Noah and Rhoda (Tuttle) Fowler ; a woman of rare qualities of character ; dignity of demeanor, gentle and amiable disposition, wisdom, inde- pendence and discretion. By an eminent critic, she was pronounced "a perfect and exemplary character." They had two sons and three daughters who were nurtured, baptized, disciplined and thoroughly educated under the ministering care and watchfulness of Mills and Goodman, all of whom proved to be worthy scions of their puritan ancestry. They stood in their lot and place in every Christian, philanthropic work ; were ardent lovers and cultivators of music ; great readers, and noted school teachers.
The location and habitation of Daniel C. Hudson was of unsur- passed attractiveness. Its commanding view, from the immediate brow of the northern terminus of Torringford hill, to the north, east and west ; of green woods, valleys, farms, woodland templed hills, hamlets, and mountainous back ground, presented a panoramic picture of great beauty and grandeur. The geological formations, which constitute the hill bases, crop out in extensive granite table rock, with its glacial marks of the ancient of days ; the towering ledges, and huge granite boulders deposited upon their extreme summits, inspire the mind with wonder and adoration. This habita- tion of Daniel C. Hudson, the place of nativity of all of his children, is one of the oldest, and first in Torringford, built by John Burr, in the quaint, old style of lean-to architecture ; and is greatly ex- posed to the cardinal points and cardinal winds (and winds not car- dinal if any there be) ; and also to salubrious summer breezes ; though in later years, rock maple, Lombardy poplars, locust and apple trees have been planted, and which afford protection and pictur- esqueness to its decaying and desolate state. This ancient home being the only vestige of the Hudsons, the place of the nativity of the memorist, the only surviving son of the " house of Hudson " he wakes with miser care o'er this dear old home, and would perpetuate, or catch, and treasure up its shadowy lineaments, even in its dissolu-
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tion, and impress his image upon the 1 cradle of his infancy, the. sanctified spot of his boyhood sports and events ; the goodbye herit- age of DANIEL COE HUDSON and RHODA FOWLER, his wife, and their children.
DANIEL COE HUDSON, JR.,
The younger son of Daniel Coe, and Rhoda (Fowler) Hudson, was a vivacious youth, ardent in temperament, fond of reading, and of music and good society. He was reared under the best influences, in the interest of enterprising society and high toned morals ; and to dwell with his parents, and assist in agriculture, and the manufactur- ing of brick. He also devoted some attention and service to a branch of commerce. He had a passion for music, which he cultivated to his own physical hurt. He also was interested in horticulture, and exerted a beneficial influence for the improvement of orchards, the production of prime fruit, the suppression of cider making, drinking, and growing intemperance. The promise of his life was fair to be- come an honorable and philanthropic member of community, but in one of his commercial business excursions, he was attacked vio- ently with pneumonia, by which he was grievously stricken down in March, 1832, in the twenty-third year of his age, at Trenton, Ohio.
BARZILLAI HUDSON,
The youngest son of Daniel and Mary (Coe) Hudson, was a native of Torringford and was a respectable citizen and farmer. He dwelt several years in the small house which was built by his father at the time he settled in Torringford. He associated with his father in the cultivation of his farm, and after his father's decease had the exclu- sive possession of the estate. Many years prior to that event he dwelt in the house with his father. He cooperated with his brother in the cultivation of both estates and in the manufacture of bricks for mutual interest, to a limited extent. He was a respected public functionary and held important positions and trusts in the town of Torrington, and was conservatively interested in moral, educational and religious enterprises.
He married Content Pickett of Windsor, a very industrious woman and valuable helpmeet. They had four children, all daughters.
I See the cut of the deserted, decaying home, and Dr. E. D. Hudson the only immediate representative of the name, photographed in 1871.
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With his decease the name of Hudson, enrolled with those of the earliest settlers, became extinct in Torrington. The old home with all its thrilling associations, became the possession of strangers. Not a vestige of that sacred habitation remains, to memorize the perils of the pioneer settlers, who felled the forest trees ; who tilled the native soil ; who built there their blest abode, where their voices uttered both prayers and songs of praise to their Great Preserver and Bene- factor.
DANIEL WYATT HUDSON,
Son of Dr. Erasmus D. and Martha (Turner) Hudson, and grandson of Daniel Coe Hudson, was born at Torringford (then owned by Dr. E. D. Hudson) December 10, 1833. He had good native genius, which was nurtured with much care and faithfulness. He was early placed under the care of a private teacher, who had charge of a family boarding school for boys, from various parts of the country ; which was instituted and supervised by his father and Rev. Mr. Goodman.
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