USA > Connecticut > Litchfield County > Woodbury > History of ancient Woodbury, Connecticut : from the first Indian dead in 1659 to 1854 > Part 44
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In 1817, the college in Middlebury, Vermont, conferred on Presi- dent Day the degree of doctor of laws, and in 1818, Union College, in Schenectady, the degree of doctor of divinity. The degree of doctor of divinity was likewise conferred on him, in 1831, by Har- vard University.
President Day occupied his station as president until 1846-longer than any other head of the college. Yale College has been pecu- liarly fortunate in its presidents ; and it may be said with truth, that it at no time flourished more, than under the administration of Presi- dent Day. Ilis learning and talent united to great kindness of heart, and urbanity of manner, have secured alike the respect and love of the thousands of pupils committed to his charge.
HON. THOMAS DAY, LL. D.,1
Was the third son of Rev. Jeremiah Day, and brother of the sub- jeet of the foregoing sketch. He was a descendant, in the sixth generation, of Robert Day, of Hartford, who was born in England,
1 Kilbourn's Litchfield Biography.
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came to America among the first settlers in Massachusetts, and joined the company of one hundred persons, who in 1638, removed from Newtown, Mass., to Hartford, Conn., with the Rev. Thomas Hooker, the first minister of Hartford. Thomas Day was born in the parish of New Preston, July 6th, 1777. He passed his child- hood and youth under the parental roof, attending the common dis- triet school in winter, and laboring with his brothers on a farm in summer. ITis father and elder brother first instructed him in Latin and Greek ; and he afterward spent some months under the tuition of Barzillai Slosson, Esq., in the neighboring town of Kent. The winter of 1793-4, he passed at an academy in New Milford. Thus fitted for college, he entered the freshman class in Yale College in the spring of 1794, and graduated in 1797, at the age of twenty.
During his first year after graduation, he attended the law lectures of Judge Reeve, at Litchfield. From September, 1798, to September, 1799, he was tutor in Williams College, and at the same time, read law under the direction of Daniel Dewey, Esq., of Williamstown, afterward a judge of the supreme court of Massachusetts. In Sep- tember, 1799, Mr. Day went to Hartford, read law with T. Dwight, Esq., about three months, was admitted to the bar in December, 1799, and immediately entered on the practice of law in Hartford, where he has resided ever since. In October, 1809, he was appoint- ed by the General Assembly, assistant secretary of state; and in 1810, he was elected secretary of state by the people, and re-elected for twenty-five successive years, or until May, 1835.
In May, 1815, he was appointed associate judge of the county court, for the county of Hartford, and annually afterward, except one year, until May, 1825, in which year he was made chief judge of that court, and was continued in that office, by successive annual appointments, until June, 1833. In March, 1818, as one of two senior aldermen of the city of Hartford, he became one of the judges of the city court, and continued such, by successive annual elections, until March, 1891.
Mr. Day was one of the committee who prepared the edition of the statutes of Connecticut, published in 1808; and by him the notes were compiled, the index made, and the introduction written. IIe was also one of the committee, who revised the statutes in 1821, and likewise one of a committee to prepare and superintend a new edition in 1824.
In June, 1805, he began to attend the supreme court of errors, for the purpose of taking notes, and reporting the decisions of that court;
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and he has attended it every year since for the same purpose, till the present year. Provision being made by law for the appointment of a reporter, Mr. Day was appointed to that office, June, 1814, and was continued in it till his resignation in 1853. As a volunteer, he prepared and published reports of cases decided by the supreme court of errors, from 1802 to 1813, in five volumes, Svo .; and as official reporter, reports of cases decided by the same court, from 1814 to 1853, inclusive, in twenty-one volumes, royal Svo. He has also edited several English law works, in all about forty volumes, in which he introduced notices of American decisions, and sometimes of the later English cases, either by incorporating them in the text, or by appending them as notes in the margin, together with other improvements.
Mr. Day's name likewise stands connected with many literary and benevolent institutions. Ile is, or has been, one of the trustees of the Hartford Grammar School, and clerk of the board; one of the trustees of the Hartford Female Seminary, and president of the board; one of the vice-presidents of the American Asylum for the education of the deaf and dumb ; one of the trustees of the Retreat for the Insane ; one of the directors of the Connecticut Bible Socie- ty ; president of the Hartford County Missionary Society, auxiliary to the Am. B. C. F. M .; president of the Conn. branch of the American Education Society ; president of the Goodrich Associa- tion, &c., &c. He was an original member of the Connecticut His- torical Society, and aided in its organization, in 1825, being at that time its recording secretary. On the revival of the institution in 1839, he became its president, a position which he still retains.
Mr. Day was married, March 18th, 1813, to Sarah Coit, daughter of Wheeler Coit of Preston, (now Griswold,) who was a grandson of the Rev. Joseph Coit, of Plainfield, one of the first class of Yalensian graduates. They have had eight children, two sons and six daughters. One of the sons died in infancy. The other son and all the daughters but one are living. They are Sarah Coit, born in 1811, residing with her father ; Elizabeth, born in 1816. is wife of Prof. N. P. Seymour, of Western Reserve College, and resides at Hudson, Ohio; Thomas Mills, born in 1817, graduated at Yale, in 1837, was admitted to the bar in Hartford, 1840, and is resident in Boston ; Catherine Augusta, born in 1819, married two or three years since ; Harriet, born in 1821, is the wife of John P. Putnam, LL. B., who graduated at Yale in 1837, and now resides in Boston
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Robert, born in 182 1, and died the same year; Mary Frances, born in 1826, and Ellen, born in 1829, and died in 1850.
At the commencement of Yale College, in 1847, the corporation of that institution conferred on Mr. Day the honorary degree of doctor of laws.
REV. THOMAS DAVIES,
Was the son of John Davies, Jr., and was born in Herefordshire, England, December 21st, 1736, O. S., and removed to this country with his father in the year 1745. He graduated at Yale College in 1758. He was ordained deacon by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Thomas Seeker, in the Episcopal chapel at Lambeth, August 23d, 1761, and ordained priest by the same prelate the following day. Soon after this he returned to America, and entered upon his duties as a missionary of the Society for propagating the Gospel in Foreign Parts, at the age of twenty-five, in several of the towns of Litchfield county. The Davies family located in that part of Washington, known as " Davies Hollow," but the subject of this sketch soon made New Milford his principal place of residence. Ile continued in the discharge of the laborions duties of his station, for about four years, when he died suddenly from a disease of the lungs, May 12th, 1766.
Ilis pulpit performances were of decidedly superior merit. ITis personal appearance was prepossessing, his delivery forcible, and the. composition of his sermons exhibited marks of scholarship in advance of the generality of preachers of the time in which he lived. IIe also possessed considerable poetic talent.
He was buried in New Milford, and the epitaph on the tablet which covers his remains is an epitome of the history of his short but useful career :
" In memory of Rev. Thomas Davies, a faithful servant of Jesus Christ, an active, worthy missionary from the venerable Society in England. who depart- ed this life, May 12, 1766, in the thirtieth year of his age. He met death with the greatest Christian fonitude, being supported by the rational hope of a bless- ed immortality.
" The sweet remembrance of the just, " Does flourish, now he sleeps in dust.
" Vita bene acta, jucundissima est recordatio."
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HON. DANIEL EVERIT,
Was a native of the parish of Bethlehem, Woodbury. He read law with Andrew Adams, Esq., of Litchfield, afterward chief jus- tice of the superior court. He was the second member of the bar in New Milford, whither he removed in 1772, and the first who was regularly educated to the legal profession. He was chosen a mem- ber of the General Assembly four times, viz., in October, 1780, May, 1781, and in May and October, 1783. He was a delegate to the convention which ratified the Federal Constitution. In May, 1790, he was appointed judge of probate for the district of New Milford, which office he held until his death, in January, 1805, in the fifty-seventh year of his age.
HION. WILLIAM EDMOND.1
William Edmond was born on the 28th of September, 1755, in Woodbury, in what is now called South Britain, adjoining the Hlou- satonie River. Ilis father, Robert Edmond, of Dublin, in Ireland, and his mother, Mary Marks, of Cork, removed to this country about the year 1750, and settled first in Pennsylvania. In conse- quence of difficulties with the Indians, he removed to Woodbury about the year 1753, and bought a traet of land of the Pootatuck tribe of Indians. Robert Edmond had ten children. William was one of the oldest of the family. The youngest son, David, graduated at Yale College in 1796, and became a distinguished lawyer at Ver- gennes, in the state of Vermont. One of the sons settled at Whites- town, N. Y.
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Very little is known of William until he entered Yale College in 1773. It is a tradition in the family, that he assisted his father in the cultivation of his farm, and at the same time, by the instruction and assistance of the minister of the parish, fitted himself to enter the freshman class, and that he actually was admitted before his father knew anything about it-that he then informed his father of what he had done, and he being highly gratified, consented to his continuing with the class. He graduated in 1777. While he was a member
1 The author is indebted to the Hon. Henry Dutton, of New Haven, for this sketch ; William E. Curtis, Esq., of the city of New York, a grandson of Judge Edmond, also sent to the author an excellent sketch of his life.
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of college, in the spring of the year that he graduated, he went as a volunteer against the British, who, under Gen. Tryon, had made an incursion to Danbury. The British, having set fire to that town, at- tempted to return by the way of Ridgefield. The Americans, under Gen. Arnold, overtook them at the north end of the village in Ridgefield, and a smart skirmish ensued. In this attack, Mr. Edmond took a part, and was severely wounded in the leg above the knee. Of the severity of this wound, some just conception may be formed, from the following memorandum in his own handwriting : " Wounded at Ridge- field, 27th April, 1777. Boarded with Doet. Joseph Perry, of Wood- bury, from November 9, 1780. to Jannary 17, 1781. During this time or abont the latter part of it, my wound, which had continued painful by turns in the extreme, discharging daily large quantities of pus, and occasionally small fragments of bone, was laid open. The thigh-bone near the knee-joint, was found broken entirely off in two places. about three inches apart ; the intermediate bone divided or split lengthwise into three pieces. Three pieces were extracted, to- gether with about one-third of an ounce ball which was wedged in between them. These pieces the doctor retained as a trophy of his surgical skill. Scales of the bone followed, when the uleer ceased." Tradition says, that soon after the engagement, a French surgeon undertook to examine the wound, and injured a tendon, which result- ed in a lameness from which Mr. Edmond never recovered-that afterward, at the time mentioned in the memorandum, a council of surgeons met and decided that the leg must be amputated-that they left the house to attend church, expecting to perform the operation the next morning-that during their absence, Mr. Edmond resolved, as he afterward said, not to have it done, as he thought life, after such a loss, would be a burden ; obtained possession of their surgical in- struments, scraped a large quantity of lint, and with a patience and determination which few men possess to an equal degree, eut with his own hand into the wound until he discovered the piece of ball lodged between the bones. Becoming faint, he applied the lint, bound up the wound, and awaited the return of the surgeons, when the lead and the pieces of bone were extracted. The wound healed up, but he was always afterward lame to a considerable extent.
When he was wounded he was in a field, probably near the north end of the village of Ridgefield, and was left upon the field. He in- formed me that he found himself unable to leave the ground or ob- tain any assistance. Night came on with a bleak, coll wind. To shelter himself from it, he crawled to a small ravine, which had been
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formed by a current of water, but which was then dry, and lay down in its bed. Notwithstanding the pain of his wound, it was with the utmost difficulty, on account of the drowsiness produced by the cold, and the faintness caused by the loss of blood, that he could keep awake. Ile exerted himself to the utmost, knowing that sleep, un- der such circumstances, would be the certain precursor of death. As soon as the light dawned in the morning, he discovered some per- son looking round for plunder. Mr. Edmond raised himeslf, and called to the man to come and help him. The man, alarmed by this unexpected apparition, started to run from the field. Mr. Edmond drew up his musket, and aiming it at him, ordered him to stop or he would shoot him dead. This produced the desired effect, and the man, who lived in the vicinity, assisted him to a neighboring house. After Mr. Edmond had remained in the house a short time, a ser- geant, with a file of soldiers, came into the room where he and sev- eral other wounded soldiers were, and informed them that he had di- rections to take them in a wagon to a different place, and, according to my impression, to Danbury. Judge Edmond, in relating this inci- dent, said that he was satisfied he never could survive such a journey, in such a vehicle, over a rough road, and he was determined not to go, and so informed the officer. The officer took the other wounded soldiers, and proceeded toward the bed on which he was lying, say- ing that he must obey his orders. He once more had recourse to his trusty musket, and ordered him to keep his distance, or he would be a dead man. No man that ever encountered the eye of Judge Ed- mond, even in old age, would, under such circumstances, be inclined to advance. The officer, muttering with an oath that he might stay and die, left the room.
After he had somewhat recovered, but was still unable to go abroad, he said he was in a room with two men, who were making ball cartridges. Whether this was at Ridgefield or not, I can not rec- olleet. As he was lying on his bed, he discovered that they were filling the cartridges from an open keg of powder, and that one of them was unconsciously smoking a pipe, on the tobacco of which was a live coal, which seemed every instant liable to drop into the pow- der. Mr. Edmond slipped silently from the bed, crawled behind the man, and without uttering a word, seized the bowl of the pipe in his hand, and thus secured the coal. The man started and wished to know what he meant ; when he informed them of the danger to which they had been exposed. The men turned pale as death, and darted
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from the room, and it was a long time before he could persuade them to return to their occupation.
After he had recovered sufficiently to be removed, he spent some time in reading chiefly theological and medical works, and resided for a while in Fairfield. Some of the members of the bar, regarding him with kindness and sympathy, suggested that he should offer him- self for admission to the bar, although he had read very little on the subject of law. Ile adopted this suggestion, and after a slight exam- ination, was admitted. He established himself in Newtown in May, 1782, and took an office in the dwelling-house of Gen. John Chand- ler, on the west side of the street, and a little north of the place where he afterward erected a dwelling-house and resided until his death. An incident occurred soon after, which illustrates clearly the charac- ter of the man. A company of soldiers had, for some purpose, been stationed in Newtown. They became insolent, and trampled on the rights of the citizens, but no one dared to bring them to justice. One of the inhabitants finally applied to Mr. Edmond, and obtained a writ against one of the soldiers, which was served upon him. In a short time, the captain, dressed in his regimentals, with his sword in his band, walked into Mr. Edmond's office, which was a chamber, and demanded haughtily what he meant by such conduct. He informed the captain that he had sued one of the soldiers, and should treat the others in the same way if they trespassed on the citizens. The cap- tain raised his sword, and swore that his soldiers should not be sued by a damned limping lawyer. Judge Edmond was over six feet in height, with large shoulders and limbs, and a Herculean frame. In relating to me what followed, he raised himself from his chair and took it in his hands, and the impression which his lofty figure and de- termined look made upon me, will never be effaced. He said he was sitting in an old-fashioned kitchen chair, with high round posts, which had become somewhat rickety by use. Ile took one of the posts in his hand, and with his foot, cleared it in an instant from the rest of the chair. Seizing the post in his right hand, he raised it over the captain's head and ordered him to quit his office without delay. The captain hesitated a moment, but concluded that the better part of valor was diseretion, and commenced a retreat. Mr. Edmond fol- lowed him down stairs, and until he had passed through the gate into the street. Ilere the soldiers, who had witnessed the conclusion of the enterprise, greeted the mortified captain with a loud shout. The people of the town had no difficulty afterward with the troops, but
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the captain found it expedient to make his peace with Mr. Edmond, to prevent being dismissed from the service.
At a town meeting held soon after he opened an office, some one, to put a joke or a slur upon him, nominated him as "hog-hayward." One of the old inhabitants objected, upon the ground that it would give him a settlement in the town. Whether the mover fared as bad as one who years afterward objected to a similar appointment of the late Hon. Roger M. Sherman, in Norwalk, has not been ascertained. On that occasion, Mr. Sherman hoped the objection would be with- drawn, and the question tried, that he might know who would be under his charge as hayward.
The course which Judge Edmond informed me he took, soon after he commenced practice, was always mentioned to his credit. An in- habitant of the town applied to him for a writ against a neighbor, wlio as he said, had carried away his hog-trough. Mr. Edmond suggested to him, that he had better wait a while, and see if his neighbor would not bring it back ; but the man insisted on a writ. Mr. Edmond then asked him what the trough was worth. He said, half a dollar. He handed the client half a dollar, and told him the neighbor would now keep the trongh.
IIe married a daughter of Gen. Chandler, November 30th, 1784, and by her had a daughter, who married Col. Elias Starr, of Dan- bury. His wife soon afterward died. He married again February 14th, 1796, a daughter of Benjamin Payne, Esq., of Hartford. By her he had two sons, one of whom died when about twenty-one years of age, and the other is a practicing physician on Long Island, and three daughters, the eldest of whom is the wife of Hon. Holbrook Curtis, of Watertown, and the second of Dr. C. HI. Booth, of New- town.
Mr. Edmond, soon after he commenced, was engaged in an exten- sive and lucrative practice. Wild speculations in lands, fraudulently represented as being finely located in Virginia, but afterward discov- cred to be situated on the Blue Ridge, or over some superior title, had just exploded, and numerous lawsuits were the consequence. Many of the inhabitants of Newtown had been engaged in the specu- lations, and Mr. Edmond was uniformly employed on one side or the other. In 1797, he was elected a member of Congress, and contin- ued in that office four years. IIe belonged to the old federal party, and never wavered for a moment in his allegiance to it, till it was dis- solved. He never forgave John Q. Adams for his alleged defection from it.
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He was in Congress at the great struggle between Jefferson and Burr. Report says that after the balloting had been continued dur- ing nearly the whole night, one of the friends of Jefferson came up to Mr. Edmond, and inquired how long they were to be kept balloting. "Till the day of judgment," was the immediate reply. There is no doubt he would have been one of the last to yield in the struggle.
After his return he was repeatedly a member of the council, which then acted as a court of errors, until 1805, when he was appointed a judge of the superior court. He retained this office until the change in politics in 1819, when he was left out with other distinguished men. From this time, he never would accept of an office, nor receive a fec for services or advice. He devoted his time to agriculture and gen- eral reading. No man in the town could swing a scythe or handle a pitchfork with greater skill and effect.
When he was seventy years oldl, he fell down the chamber stairs of his house, and broke the neck of his thigh bone. He lay for weeks in great suffering, unable to turn himself in bed. His patience and fortitude during his trials were such as I never before witnessed. Sometimes he was quite playful in his remarks. On one occasion he told me his window gave him, while in bed, a good view of a shop where liquors were sold. He remarked that he could discover to what grade of drunkards the visitors belonged. The hardest set would be seen, groping their way to slake, or rather to stimulate their burning thirst, at the earliest dawn. At broad daylight the next in order would come, while the moderate drinkers would wait till sun- rise. After being confined to his bed for eight months, he was able to move about on crutches, and this he continued to do till his death. Ilis sufferings, writes his attending physician, for several months be- fore his death, were excruciating, but he died in the full possession of his reason, August 1st. 1838, aged eighty-two years and ten months. His habits of industry were such that I have found him in his wood- yard, supporting himself with one crutch, while with the other he would draw small sticks within his reach, and then with an ax, cut them up. It is humiliating, in view of his services and sufferings, to add, that he was allowed as a pension only the miserable pittance of twenty shillings a month, that being the sum which, in the opinion of the judge of the county court, he was entitled to, as corresponding with the degree of his disability compared with that of one wholly disabled. Being, although not poor, in somewhat straitened cireum- stances, in consequence of his inability to earn anything by labor, when he was seventy-eight years old, he applied to the secretary of
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war, to ascertain whether the pension law would admit of such a con- struction as would allow his pension to be increased ; but he added, " that if the only possible mode of obtaining relief would be by an ap- plication to Congress, perhaps he should never trouble them, as the time occupied in the discussion might cost the United States more money than would suffice to render an invalid, old and infirm as he was, comfortable the remainder of his days." Judge Edmond was a remarkable man. It is rare that so many excellencies have been united in one individual. He was plain and unassuming in his man- ners, mild and amiable in his deportment, just and honest in his deal- ings, and honorable and magnanimous in his feelings. He was eon- stant in his attendance on divine service, in the Congregational meeting-house, and always manifested the highest respect for reli- gious institutions. His family regarded him with an affection and respect, amounting almost to veneration.
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