USA > Connecticut > Litchfield County > Plymouth > History of the town of Plymouth, Connecticut : with an account of the centennial celebration May 14 and 15, 1895 : also a sketch of Plymouth, Ohio, settled by local families > Part 16
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Again, the citizens of Plymouth were in that fighting regi- ment, the old Fifth. In the Sixth, Eugene Atwater was a captain. In the Seventh, Eighth, Ninth, Tenth, Eleventh, Twelfth, Thirteenth, Fifteenth, Sixteenth, Seventeenth, Twen- tieth, Twenty-fifth, Twenty-ninth.
Last, but not least, may I speak of them in the old Nine-
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teenth, afterwards the Second Connecticut Heavy Artillery. The Litchfield County Regiment, Company D, of the old Nine- teenth, contained eighty-six officers and men, of whom fifty-three were from Plymouth, eighteen from Watertown, thirteen from Harwinton, one from Burlington, one from Morris. The aver- age age of those eighty-six men was, I suppose, not more than twenty-five years. It was probably less. They were examined and passed as sound, healthy persons. Under the ordinary con- ditions of civil life, during the three years of their term of service, not more than five of their number would have been likely to have died. That would have been an annual average of two in a hundred. What was the fact? Of those eighty-six thirty- seven were wounded ; thirty-one were killed or died of wounds or disease ; thirty-four only remained to be mustered out at the close of their term of service. Adding to the death-roll, those who afterward died of wounds received in battle, or disability, contracted in the service, it is entirely within bounds to say that one-half of those eighty-six men died as the result of their devo- tion to their country's cause, while it is also, in my sincere belief, true, that not one man in that entire number left the service in as good a physical condition and with as good chances for long life, as when he entered it. Now these men knew the risks they took when they started. They understood, they realized what they were doing, and they did it deliberately. There were boys in that company, in their teens. Boys who were the hopes of fathers ; the pride of fond mothers ; dutiful sons who would not have gone without their parents' consent. And they went with that consent, and their parents knew what it meant. Other boys had gone from other Plymouth homes before them, in the First Connecticut Artillery, and in other regiments, and had been brought home dead and laid away in the cemeteries of our town. Some had not come home, and would never come, alive or dead. Their parents knew this, and they let their sons go. Wives knew it, and they bid their husbands God-speed. Even children, and they kissed their fathers, and said good-bye. Why was all this? Oh, my friends, you who lived in those days know why it was, as only you can know. Love of country was stronger than the love of life. Better death for its honor, than life if it came to disgrace. And so, in the defence of Washington; in the charges at Cold Harbor ; in the trenches before Petersburg; fac- ing the rebel batteries at Winchester ; sweeping down the slopes of Fisher's Hill ; and in the sunken road at Cedar Creek ; as on many another battlefield, and in many another regiment, the men of Plymouth laid down their lives, a willing sacrifice upon the altar of their country. Nor did they die in vain. Bv their sacrifice, by their blood, was generated that new birth of free- dom, out of which came that assurance for all time. which the immortal words of Lincoln declared on the field of Gettysburg, that "government of the people, by the people, and for the peo- ple, shall not perish from the earth."
I purposely refrain from speaking the names of those con- nected with the service, who seem to me entitled to special men-
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tion. I do this because in the first place, time will not allow me to do justice to all, and I would not by allusion to some and omission of others seem to discriminate to the injustice of any. Again, the means of observation of each person differs, and as a result, were I to speak of individuals, as they appear to me, I might on one hand speak of some more highly than others would recognize as their due, and on the other fail to confer praise where it was felt to be at least equally called for. Besides, to my thinking, the honor comes from the willing service and true devotion. And whether that service resulted in a general's star, or an unmarked soldier's grave, is but an incident. The path of duty was the way to glory, and it led alike to both.
Nor passing from military service, would I speak much or of many of those belonging to this town, who in civil life have won distinction here or elsewhere.
I have, however, mentioned some of its clergymen, and I may be pardoned a passing reference to a few of its more promi- nent men in the ranks of other professions. There have been many physicians here. Of those now in practice, skillful and useful as any who preceded them, though they may be, it is not fitting that I should speak. Of those now gone, I will only say, that there have been three, one in each section of the old town, before its division, unlike to each other as were the sections in which they lived, who, taking them all in all, considering their skill, their character, their citizenship, their faithful service, are worthy of special remembrance : William Woodruff, of Thomas- ton, Samuel T. Salisbury, of Plymouth Center, Franklin J. Whittemore, of Terryville.
Of the legal profession, in memory of the same qualities to which I have just referred, there have been three also who should be named : Calvin Butler, Elisha Johnson, and Ammi Giddings. The two last each lived here for many years, filling spheres of great usefulness, careful counsellors, trusted advisors. They were your judges of probate, town clerks, registrars. They each represented the town in the lower house, and the senatorial dis- trict in the upper house of the General Assembly. They each went away to find what they deemed wider fields, and perhaps I violate no confidence which I ought to keep, when I say, that I have heard both regret, as I also regretted, that they went.
Of Calvin Butler, probably the present generation knows much less. A brief sketch of his life may be found in an appen- dix to the Fifteenth Vol. Connecticut Reports. He was born in what is now Wolcott, in 1772; removed with his parents while a child to New Marlboro, Mass. He was two years in Williams College, then studied law; commenced practice in 1800, in New Canaan, Conn. Next year he went to Bristol, where he remained until 1806, when he removed to Plymouth, where he resided until his death in 1844. He represented this town in the General Assembly of this State in 1814, 1815, 1816, 1817, 18IS, 1821, 1822, and 1828. He was a member of the convention which formed the constitution of this State in ISIS. He repre- sented the sixteenth senatorial district in the Senate in 1832.
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He was for very many years town clerk. When Plymouth became a probate district in 1833, he was appointed its first judge, and remained in office until disqualified by age, in 1842. He was also at one time judge of the old county court for the County of Litchfield. He died suddenly while away from home, but his dust is in our cemetery, and he left the reputation of a faithful public servant, a competent and careful lawyer, and an honest man.
Of all the men born in Plymouth, who have gone from here to lives of great distinction and usefulness elsewhere, there is only one of whom I feel that I ought to take time to speak to-day. I refer to Junius Smith, LL. D., who was born in Northbury parish in 1780. He graduated at Yale College; at the Litch- field Law School, and settled as a lawyer in New Haven. In IS05 he went to England, and there engaged in mercantile pur- suits, with varying fortunes, until 1832. He then interested him- self in the cause of trans- Atlantic steam navigation, convinced that the ocean could be crossed by steam. He was met with incredulity. He undertook to charter a vessel for an experiment, but had no success. He tried to organize a company, but men of science declared that no steamer could survive the terrible storms that sweep the Atlantic. Not a single share of stock was taken. Notwithstanding this, he persevered. I cannot detail the struggles of six years, but the indomitable will of a Plymouth boy conquered, and in 1838, the Sirius, a steamer of 700 tons, sailed from Cork on the 4th day of April and reached New York on the 23d, the first vessel that steamed her way across the Atlantic, and one of our boys did it.
Of the many men whose energy, enterprise and clear fore- sight have been vitally useful to this community in the develop- ment of its resources; the employment of its inhabitants; the building of its great industries-three men distinguished as founders will always be held in special honor: Seth Thomas, Eli Terry, Silas Hoadley. The first has given his name to the new town in the valley which came from our soil. The second has bestowed his, through his son, Eli Terry, Jr., upon the village in which we are assembled to-day. The third, less fort- unate, has ceased to be remembered even in the appellation of the small hamlet, which once was called Hoadleyville. But it matters little. He was in many respects the peer of the other two men. His life was one of great usefulness, and whenever the early history of Plymouth is written, or whenever it may be recalled, his place in it is secure for all time. Of one of these men, and of one only in this place, and in his presence, it is fitting that I should speak somewhat to-day. Eli Terry was born in East Windsor, April 13, 1772. He learned the business of clock making, and became deeply interested in such of the arts and sciences as have a bearing on the construction of instru- ments for measuring time. He came to Northbury parish in September, 1793, and started the business of clock making. It is probable he used a knife, as well as many other tools then in use, in doing the work. So limited was the demand at that
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time, that after finishing three or four, he was obliged to go out on horseback with them, and put them up where they had previously been sold. But it is not my province to detail the history of the manufacturing industries of Plymouth. That part was allotted to and has already been discharged by one much more competent. I am thinking more of the man. He was a person of great energy. He not only helped to lay the foundation of Thomaston, but afterwards of Terryville, to which he removed and where he died. He was successful in business, accumulating what was a large fortune in his day. It is said that he distributed to his family, and gave away to different objects during the latter part of his life, not less than $100,000, retaining at the same time an amount of available property sufficient to afford him an annual income of $3,000, which he regarded as sufficient for all his temporal wants. He said that when he commenced business, he never once thought of accumulating one-tenth of that amount. He was a self-made man, with not much early education, and not a wide range of reading, but he understood his business thoroughly. He was plain and practical. His manners were blunt, his ways original and peculiar, but he was a man of the strictest integrity, and he had the confidence, respect and esteem of all who knew him. He died in 1852 at the age of eighty.
I had purposed to trespass upon your patience no longer than one hour, and but little of that space of time remains. Perhaps, however, but little concerning the history of Plymouth since the close of the war need be said. The years succeeding the end of that great struggle were busy and prosperous ones. So much so, that notwithstanding the ravages wrought, the census of 1870 showed, as we have already seen, a marked in- crease over that of 1860. Our population had then become the largest of any town in Litchfield county. In 1875, after a legis- lative struggle of three years, Thomaston became an independ- ent town, taking all its territory from the old town, thus dividing population, territory and grand list. The old town regretted the necessity of division, but in the main, as I believe and trust, the kindliest of feelings have continued to exist between the sec- tions. Though separated in government, in many respects Ply- mouth and Thomaston are and must ever remain united. After the lapse of a score of years, it may at least be said, I think, that neither town has found its prosperity impaired, as a result of the division.
Considering the times through which we have passed, the age in which we live, the temptations which beset the enthusiastic and ambitious youth, eager to get on to seek other and larger spheres of enterprise ; to leave the rocky farms and the modest workshops for smoother acres or more alluring avocations-the mystery is not that the old town has failed to show a rate of increase; the wonder is that it has done so well and held, or so nearly held its own. All honor for this. First to God, who led our forefathers as they journeyed into the wilderness and trans- planted them as offshoots from a sturdy vine, by the river in the North Country, leaving them there in trust that He who had
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transplanted would sustain. Next, thanks and praise to those men and women, who, proof against temptations to emigrate, have deemed the old soil good enough for them, save to the ex- tent that they by their lives of labor could improve it, and make the town better because they continued to live in it. Let this day then be one not in glorification of those, who, yielding to temptation, left home, however well they may have fared else- where, but let such as their only hope of forgiveness, vie with others in expressions of appreciation of those more loyal than they, who did not not do likewise.
Such then, in retrospect, has been the first hundred years in the life of our dear old mother Plymouth. What in prospect is the next hundred years likely to be? Will she fare better or will she fare worse? None save God can tell. Whether the drain of the village, the town, the city, the West, the levy of the shop, the store, the railroads, the trades, professions and avocations of an era of tense struggling, nervous, energetic existence, that has already brought so much of exhaustion to its hills and its valleys, will continue, or abate. Whether the tide of life will still ebb out or flow back. Will the farms be abandoned or pass into hands alien to our soil, our institutions, our blood, or will those who went from them in the flush of their young manhood to furnish activities elsewhere be glad in the years that are to come to return again, bringing the exterior gifts of fortune and the fragments of their lives, to the abodes of their childhood ; bring- ing the tottering steps of age to the daisied fields where their feet tottered when they were as near the dawn of life, as they have come to the darkness and night? And its shops, will they enlarge? Or, as electricity offers its aid to transfer the water power to distant locations, or competition grows more fierce, consolidation more voracious, will they pass with the employ- ment they afford to other sites, leaving the places here that once knew them, to know them no more forever. In the ordering of a wise Heaven, which hides from all creatures the book of fate, we may not know. But if, in the future, as in the past, there shall be here happy homes, abodes of thrift, honest toil, content and love, where children are born to be welcomed, nourished, nurtured, taught, to grow healthy, virtuous, strong, bright-faced boys, radiant girls, noble men, sweet women, whose after lives, whether here or elsewhere, shall make the world better because they pass through it on their way. If here shall be churches for worship, family altars for prayer, schools for education, libraries for culture, firesides, social gatherings, and home comings for cheer. If, when our country requires men for her defense, she shall find them as she has found them here, ready and glad to do, to dare, to die for her. If, when humanity needs. the love of others shalll pass the love of self. If, when God calls. it shall matter not what the duty is, and the only reply shall be, "Thy will be done," surely then, in the future, as in the past, this shall be a spot beloved of all its children, worthy to be their working place in life, their resting place in death. A resting place from which, when the summons comes to pass to heaven, they who did their
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best on earth to make it here, will not have far to go to find it there.
Mr. Pond-We are to be favored by a short address by the Rev. M. J. Daly of Thomaston, and of the Catholic church in our village.
Rev. M. J. Daly-Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen : I am deeply sensible of the honor conferred on me in being asked to take a part in this centennial celebration, and while not a resi- dent of the town of Plymouth, our intercourse is so close and our visits so frequent, that whatever affects the interests of Ply- mouth concerns us. And, besides being a resident of Thomaston, Plymouth's first born, we have, at least in part, a right to partici- pate in the joys of this day ; to share in the glory of the triumphs and successes achieved during the last hundred years, when our interests were identical, before the separation took place, when you and we were one.
You have listened with pleasure and pride, no doubt, to the beautiful and chaste address prepared by one of your own dis- tinguished townsmen, whose absence to-day we all regret,-and for whose complete restoration to health we all pray,-the loving tribute of a devoted and generous son to a venerable and worthy mother, so comprehensive and complete as to render any other remarks needless. Nevertheless, I cannot help availing myself of this opportunity of paying my tribute of respect, small though it be, to the sons and daughters of this now prosperous town.
Let us go back in spirit a hundred years and try to realize the trials and hardships of the first early settlers. These eternal hills which dot your town like so many sentinel towers are not inviting to the husbandman, the soil in general is not fertile ; nevertheless, by industry and perseverance most of it has been brought to a state of cultivation little inferior to the best in this commonwealth. The early settlers were thrifty and hard-work- ing, and success crowned all their undertakings. Why? Because constant endeavor attended their efforts. In war, they were brave and gallant soldiers; in peace, law-abiding, God fearing citizens. Their inventive genius is world-wide. To him after whom your beautiful village is named we owe the first time-piece in the way of a clock on this continent, and to those who succeed him is due the credit of making Plymouth known throughout the civilized world, for wherever you go to-day you are sure to find a Seth Thomas clock. And if clocks and watches are useful to tell the time of day, locks are very con- venient to secure them and other treasures through the night, and here again Plymouth comes to the rescue. See your mammoth building down there, with its hundreds of hands, turn- ing out thousands, perhaps I should have said millions, of locks during the year, the result of the industry, enterprise and energy of Plymouth citizens.
You have your iron works rising up once more from the ruins, to be larger and grander and more beautiful than before, and consequently better able to contribute their proportion to the growth of the town. You have had your carriage industry
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in Plymouth, which prospered on Plymouth Hill before advant- ages in navigation, transportation, and location, deprived you of them. I might refer to the many other industries of your town, but they are all known to you. Let us hope that with the change for the better in the commercial world, every bench in these shops will be occupied, every wheel revolving, and the home of every operator filled with plenty and good cheer.
Plymouth's sons are warriors ; they have fought the battles of their country. They contributed their portion of patriotic citizens to the Union cause, and when the strife was over, when the victory was won, they returned to their homes, and since then have pursued the even tenor of their ways, sending legisla- tors to our Capitol, giving candidates to the medical profession, to law, and to the sacred ministry.
There is no more forcible example of the worth of Ply- mouth's children than the history of him who was to have delivered the address on this occasion. He was a gallant and brave soldier, and wore the blue and fought for the Union, and came home, and is now honored with the ermine as a just and upright judge. Plymouth has had a Woodruff, and she still has a Whittemore, a Bradstreet, a Woods, a Warner, a Goodwin, a Higgins, and many others who are of the medical profession, and while it is true that the Fenn family seem to be born lawyers, seem to come into the world with a legal spoon in their mouths, to be an ornament to the bar as well as to the bench, it is nevertheless true that the Bradstreets, and the Scotts, and the Plums, are close competitors in their chosen profession.
Plymouth has contributed her portion to the sacred ministry, and to-day Plymouth's children are discharging their sacred duties to many congregations. She has given children who have been and are the benefactors of every charity, without regard to class or color or creed. The very soil on which you stand is the gift of one of Plymouth's children, and if-which God forbid- the name of your illustrious benefactor should ever become extinct, this beautiful park and all its surroundings will per- petuate for all time the honored name of Baldwin.
Yes, in all the callings and avocations of life-in agriculture, in mechanics, in statesmanship, in the fine arts, in medicine, law, and the sacred ministry, Plymouth has given children that have discharged their duties with credit to themselves and honor to their native town. And, my dear friends, what is true of Plymouth's sons is in their own sphere true of Plymouth's daughters. If the former are brave as the bravest, the latter are fair as the fairest. They are the peers of any in the land ; for grace and dignity and all womanly accomplishments they have no superiors, and while it is true and possible that one of Ply- mouth's sons may be called upon to fill the highest position in this grandest land on the face of God's earth and occupy the Presidential chair, it is, at least to mind, far more probable that one of Plymouth's fair daughters will be called upon to preside as mistress of the White House.
Let then the good work go on; let the achievements, the
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triumphs, the successes of the past hundred years, stimulate us to larger undertakings, to greater achievements, to new con- quests, so that when we come to celebrate the second centennial your children and your children's children will rise up and bless your names and the names of your sires, for having laid a founda- tion so solid and enduring that time cannot change or enemies destroy. A hundred years of self-government, a hundred years of triumphs, a hundred years of enlightenment, a hundred years of growth and prosperity, until the climax, peace, happiness and prosperity crown your efforts to-day. All hail, then, to old Plymouth ! Blessed, thrice blessed be thy children ! Never may stain or blemish rest upon any of their characters. May their record in the future be what it has been in the past, a record for integrity of morals, of liberty, of justice and charity, so that Plymouth will continue to give in the future, as she has in the past, sons and daughters to honor every position, to fill with grace and dignity every place open to competition in this fair land.
Thus will she contribute her portion of good citizens to town, state and nation, insuring a glorious land and continuance of heaven's choicest blessings, and help to keep her what she has been in the past, what she is at present, no doubt what God intended her to be and what the poet described her, " The land of the free, and the home of the brave." May the hundred garlands you lay upon her venerable head to-day be accompanied with the wish and with the prayer that Plymouth, old Plymouth, may continue for all time to be the fruitful mother of patriotic and noble sons and fair and virtuous daughters.
Mr. Pond-If a stranger should have dropped in here to-day, I think it must have occurred to him by this time that Plymouth is quite a town. We are proud of pretty nearly everything. Mention has been made of the three hundred soldiers that went from this town in the defense of our flag. We wish to call your attention for a brief time to one particular soldier, one who had a remarkable career, and in whom we are very much interested. We have invited his friend, Judge Sheldon of New Haven, to be with us to-day and to deliver a short address upon Dorence Atwater and the Andersonville record, and I take pleasure in introducing to you Hon. Joseph Sheldon of New Haven, who will address you upon this subject.
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