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18I
BIOGRAPHY OF CONNECTICUT.
T. D. CROTHERS, M.D., HARTFORD: Superin- tendent Walnut Lodge Hospital.
Thomas Davison Crothers was born in West Charlton, Saratoga county, New York, in 1842. His father was a direct descendant of a noted family of surgeons who have been prominent in Edinburgh for over a cen- tury as teachers in the university of that city. His mother came from the Holmes family of Stonington, Conn., very prominent in the revolu- tionary war; and later they settled in Saratoga coun- ty, New York. The sub- ject of this sketch was brought up on the farm, T. D. CROTHERS. and prepared for college at Fort Edward Seminary, New York. The ex- citement of the war caused him to give up a college course and enter direct upon the study of medi- cine. After a course of lectures at the medical college at Albany, N. Y., he entered the Ira Harris U. S. Military Hospital as medical cadet. In 1865 he graduated from the Albany Medical College, and continued his studies at the Long Island Col- lege until the next year, when he entered upon the practice of medicine at West Galway, Fulton county, N. Y. In 1870 he removed to Albany, and later became connected with the college as assistant to the chair of the practice of medicine and lecturer on hygiene, and instructor in physical diagnosis. In 1875 he was appointed assistant physician to the New York State Inebriate Asylum at Bingham- ton. In 1878 he resigned to become the superin- tendent of Walnut Hill Asylum at Hartford, Conn. Two years later the Asylum Association was sus- pended on account of the failure of the legislature to assist them in building.
A year later Dr. Crothers organized the Walnut Lodge Hospital, a private corporation for the medi- cal treatment of alcohol and opium inebriates, over which he has had active charge up to the present time. In 1875 Dr. Crothers married Mrs. Risedorf of Albany, N. Y. In 1876 the American Associa- tion for the Study and Cure of Inebriety issued a quarterly journal devoted to the medical study of inebriety, and Dr.„ Crothers was unanimously elected editor, a position which he has held up to the present time. He was also elected secretary of this association, and has been ever since continued in that position.
In 1887 Dr. Crothers was one of the American delegates to the London international congress for the study of inebriety. This congress was attended by delegates from all parts of the world, and was
the first great gathering of scientific men for the purpose of discussing the drink evil. The English Society for the Study of Inebriety gave Dr. Crothers a reception and dinner before the congress opened, which attracted much attention at the time. For many years Dr. Crothers has been a voluminous writer and lecturer on different phases of inebriety, and his views have been the subject of much interest and controversy. In 1888 he gave a course of lectures on inebriety before the students of the Albany Medical College, and in 1889 re- peated it before the medical students of the Uni- versity of Vermont at Burlington. Dr. Crothers is a member of many scientific societies both at home and abroad, and is frequently invited to present his views in both papers and lectures before them. These views, which he carries out practi- cally in his hospital, are that " inebriety is a dis- ease, and curable as other diseases are." Like all other pioncers, Dr. Crothers has a large circle of ardent admirers among scientific men, as well as bitter detractors. His conduct of The Journal of Inebriety, published by The Case, Lockwood & Brainard Company of this city, has given it a na- tional reputation among the scientifie periodi- cals of the day, and his private hospital has at- tracted widespread attention and patients from all over the country. Dr. Crothers is still a young man, and has the promise of great prominence in the future in scientific circles, if his energy and health continue.
GEORGE H. JENNINGS, M.D., JEWETT CITY: Physician and Surgeon.
Dr. George Herman Jennings was born in Pres- ton in this state, March 20, 1850. He fitted for col- lege at the Norwich Academy, in 1872 pursued a a course of study in the College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York city, and in 1875 gradu- ated from the Long Is- land College Hospital, Brooklyn, New York. Soon after graduation he removed to Jewett City and commenced the prac- tice of medicine, in which he has been engaged to the present time. He was married to Miss Annie Greenwood of Bos- G. H. JENNINGS. ton, Mass., and they have five childrer. Dr. Jen- nings is deeply interested in educational affairs, and since 1884 has been committee of the Jewett City schools. He is connected with the Methodist church, and in politics is a republican. He is a member of the masonic fraternity, and president of the Agassiz Association of Jewett City. 1
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CHARLES H. S. DAVIS, MERIDEN: Physician.
Dr. Charles Henry Stanley Davis of Meriden, who held the office of mayor in that city during the years of 1887 and 1888, was born in Goshen, Litch- field County, March 2, 1840, being the seventh in descent from Dolor Davis, one of the original settlers of Barnstable, Mass., 1634. The father of ex- Mayor Davis, Dr. T. F. Davis, removed to Meri- den in 1849, when the subject of this sketch was a lad of nine years. Dr. Davis had been a success- ful practitioner at Litch- C. H. S. DAVIS. field and Plymouth. He died at Meriden in 1870. Prior to the war ex-Mayor Davis, being twenty years of age at the time, removed to New York, and, with Charles H. Thomas, a well-known trans- lator from the German and French, and an oriental scholar, opened a bookstore, dealing principally in philological works and New Church publications. In a back room in this bookstore the American Philological Society was started by the Rev. Dr. Nathan Brown, who translated the Bible into Assamese, and is now a missionary in Japan. Rev. William U. Scott, now a missionary in Bur- mah, Rev. F. Janes, and others, were members of this society, and Dr. Davis was corresponding secretary for several years. He soon, however, sold out his interest in the bookstore, began the study of medicine under Dr. William T. Baker, and entered the Bellevue Hospital Medical School. After a course at Bellevue, Dr. Davis entered the medical department of the New York University, and when he graduated received not only his diploma but a certificate of honor signed by Dr. Valentine Mott, Dr. John W. Draper, and the rest of the faculty, in testimony of his having passed one of the best examinations, and having pursued a fuller course of study than is usually followed by medical students. After graduating, Dr. Davis attended a course of lectures at the University of Maryland, and another at the Harvard Medical School. Thus qualified by study and hospital practice he returned to Meriden as a physician in 1865, succeeded his father in the business and soon built up a large and lucrative practice. In 1872 he went abroad for travel and study, remained eight months, visiting England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, France, Germany, Italy, and Switzerland. Dr. Davis is one of the honorary secretaries for the United States of the Egypt Exploration Fund, and is the editor of Biblia, an archaeological journal, devoted to Egyptology, Assyriology, and archæo-
logical research in oriental lands. He is also a member of the New Haven Medical Society, Con- necticut State Medical Society, the Societe d' Anthropologie of Paris, and the society of Bib- lical Archæology of London; honorary member of the Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Buffalo, Chicago, and Minnesota Historical Societies, New England Historico-Genealogical, American Ethno- logical, and American Philological societies. He was one of the founders of the Meriden Scientific Association, has always been director of its section of archæology and ethnology, from the first its recording and corresponding secretary, and editor of its four volumes of Transactions. In 1870 he published a history of Wallingford and Meriden, a work of a thousand pages, requiring much labor, especially in its genealogies of old Wallingford and Meriden families. For four years he edited. for the American News Company, the " Index to Lit- erature," a work which required the careful exam- ination every month of some one hundred and thirty periodicals. He found time also to write a work on "The Voice as a Musical Instrument," published by Oliver Ditson, the distinguished musi- cal publisher of Boston, which has had a very large sale; also a work "On Classification, Training, and Education of the Feeble-minded, Imbecile, and Idiotic," which has become authority on the sub- ject. He also edited the first volume of the Boston Medical Register, and has contributed largely to the literary, medical, and scientific journals. Sev- eral of his articles on the education of feeble- minded children were translated into the Spanish language, and published in El Repertorio Medico. The catalogue of the library of the surgeon-general at Washington enumerates over twenty articles contributed by him to the medical press. He has a reading knowledge of the modern languages, and has studied Arabic, Hebrew, Syriac, Assyrian, and the Ancient Egyptian languages.
He has been a member of the school board in Meriden for eighteen years, occupying the chair- manship for six. He has been one of the High School committee since its organization, and was for five years acting school visitor. In 1873 he was elected a member of the legislature from Meriden, being the first democrat whom that town had sent to the general assembly in twenty years. The doctor served as chairman of the committee on leg- islation. He was returned to the house in 1885 and was again on the education committee. In 1886 he was a member of the committees on insu- rance and constitutional amendment. In 1885 he was nominated as judge of probate for the Meriden district, but declined. In 1886 he received the nomination for state senator for the Sixth sena- torial district, but, although supported by the dem- ocratic and labor parties, lost his election by thirty-
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two votes, although in Meriden he ran two hund- red ahead of the republican candidate. He was elected mayor by the united labor and democratic parties and was the first democratic mayor that the city of Meriden ever had. His administration was successful, and he was re-elected in 1888. Dr. Davis is one of the trustees of the State Reform School. He is a member of St. Elmo Commandery, Knights Templar. of Meriden ; has attained the thirty-second degree in masonry, and is a mem- ber of Pyramid Temple, Ancient Order of Nobles of the Mystic Shrine. He is also a prominent Odd Fellow and Knight of Pythias. As a citizen, mem- ber of society, and publicist, Dr. Davis is held in the highest esteem in the city of Meriden.
CHARLES S. DAVIDSON, HARTFORD: Superin- tendent Hartford Division, New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad.
C. S. Davidson was born in East Haven, Novem- ber 9, 1829, and educated at the Lancasterian school in New Haven, under the management of John E. Lovell, a distin- guished educator of that period. When he left the school in 1845, he ranked as second in scholarship, receiving in certification of that fact a silver medal, which is still retained by him as one of the pleas- antest souvenirs of his boyhood. After leaving school he remained with his father two years, and then went to work in a C. S. DAVIDSON. silver and brass plating establishment in New Haven. In 1848 he removed to Springfield, Mass., and learned the machinist trade, on the completion of which he came to Hart- ford, and entered the employ of the railroad com- pany with which he has been connected ever since, ascending through the various grades of mechanic, engineer, conductor, supervisor of construction, assistant superintendent, and finally, superintend- ent of the important Hartford Division of that great line. There is not a railroad manager in New England who possesses more fully than Superin- tendent Davidson the confidence of the public, and for the best of reasons. He has had abundant and varied experience in all departments of practical railroading, managing with consummate judgment and skill the most difficult situations; he is a man of absolute fidelity, and of courage which amounts to heroism. Those who know most of his experi- ences for the past thirty-odd years understand the secret of the regard which the public and the rail-
road company have for him, and the confidence they repose in him for every emergency.
During the administration of Mayor Sumner, Mr. Davidson was appointed a member of the Hartford board of fire commissioners, and rendered invalu- able service to the city in this capacity. He was recently appointed by Mayor Dwight as a member of the board of street commissioners, the wisdom of which appointment is universally conceded. He is a director in the Dime Savings Bank, and holds other minor positions of trust. He has never been an active politician, but no man in the city has done more to promote the interests of good govern- ment. In every position in life he has been the representative of the highest type of citizenship.
Mr. Davidson is a prominent representative of the Masonic fraternity, being advanced to the thirty-second degree. He is eminent commander of Washington Commandery, No. I, K. T .; mem- ber of Pyramid Temple; Knights of Honor; Order Red Men; Veteran Association Governor's Foot Guards; honorary member City Guards, Franklin Gun Club, etc. He is in politics an independent democrat; in religious matters his connections are with the Park Ecclesiastical society of Hartford.
Mr. Davidson was married quite early in life to Miss Catherine A. Bartholomew. They have had three children, but one of whom is living - a son - William B. Davidson, a book-keeper in the United States Bank of Hartford.
WATSON H. BLISS, HARTFORD: Contractor and Builder.
Watson H. Bliss was born at Chelsea, Vt., Feb- ruary 28, 1842, and was educated in the public schools and at the academy in East Hartford, where most of his early life was spent. He learned the trade of a house carpen- ter, and in 1869 estab- lished himself in business in Hartford, where he has for years been ac- tively engaged in the building line, being the architect and builder of many of the best resi- dences in this city. Dur- ing the war he was con- nected with the Hartford Light Guard, and enlisted W. H. BLISS. in the Twenty-Fifth regiment from that organiza- tion. He has been elected to and served several years with distinction in both branches of the Hart- ford city government, being in IS85 a member of the ways and means committee and rendering ex- cellent service in that capacity. He is an active
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and influential member of Washington Command- ery, Knights Templars, having served as comman- der in 1881 and 1884, and is also a member of Robert O .. Tyler Post of the Grand Army. He is married and has a family, one of his sons being at present engaged in business with him.
ELIJAH H. HUBBARD, MIDDLETOWN :
Elijah Hedding Hubbard is a prominent and suc- cessful business manager in Middletown, being a director of the Middletown National Bank, the Middletown Savings Bank, the Shaler & Hall Quarry Co., the Ferry Co., and the Gas Co. in that city. He has spent most of his life in Middletown, where he has been exten- sively engaged in market-
ing business. He is a democrat in politics and has held various town offi- ces, including that of selectman. Mr. Hubbard was born in Agawam, E. H. HUBBARD. Mass., Nov. 13, 1810, and received a common school education. His wife, whose maiden name was Mary J. Badger, died Nov. 15, 1847, leaving three children, all of whom are living. Mr. Hubbard's life has been devoted to business in which he has met with deserved success.
FREDERICK F. BARROWS, HARTFORD: Public School Teacher.
Frederick Freeman Barrows, principal of the Brown school, Hartford, and one of the best known educators in New England, was born in Mansfield, September 4, 1821. He received a common school, select school, and academi- cal education, and has fol- lowed the profession of teaching since the winter of 1839, although he did not enter upon it as a de- termined life-work until 1843. His early life was that of a farmer in his native town. He taught school winters from the F. F. BARROWS. time he was eighteen years of age, teaching two terms in Springfield. He taught in Willi- mantic for six years, and his record in equipping young men especially for a life work was so marked that attention was attracted to him in Hartford and in Norwich, both of which cities were
in competition for his services in 1850. He was finally engaged as principal of the First school dis- trict in Hartford, a position which he has held for forty-one years; being the longest continual term of service of any school teacher in the state. His work in Hartford has been of the greatest value to the public of his district, which is in that part of the city known as the Fifth and Sixth wards, and has a large element of foreign population. He was the inspiring agency in the construction of the fine Brown school building named after Flavius A. Brown, who was chairman of the school committee for many years, and in close sympathy with the efforts of Mr. Barrows for the establishment of a first-class school for the masses. Mr. Barrows out- lined to him what he desired, and, the district ap- proving of his plans, the building was erected; which at the time of its construction was without doubt the finest school edifice in the state. Within a few years past the main building has been en- larged by the addition of a kindergarten depart- ment, which is carried on under the most approved modern system after Froebel, the founder of that style of teaching the young. Mr. Barrows's school numbers between 1,500 and 1,700 pupils, and re- quires a trained corps of thirty-five teachers and special instructors in German, penmanship, drawing, and singing to carry on the work. At a celebration of the fortieth anniversary of Mr. Barrows's connection with the school a portrait of him was presented to the school by his many friends, and some souvenirs of the occasion were given to him. Hon. M. J. Dooley, then United States bank commissioner, a graduate of the school, made the address of presentation, and most fittingly characterized the school when he said: " Mr. Barrows's genius has here reared an institution which is for the Protestant and Catholic, the Jew and Gentile, absolutely without a rival." Mr. Barrows has frequently been called upon to address 'teachers' conventions and educational gatherings upon his methods of teaching, and especially upon his mode of instruction in numbers, in which he has a wonderful talent amounting to genius. Graduates of the Brown school may be found in all parts of the country, and they uni- formly testify to the healthful influence and whole- some results of his training. He has been a rigid disciplinarian, but tempers his school government with the rarest judgment and tact. It has been an every-day spectacle at the Brown school to see Mr. Barrows near the gateway, and hundreds of little children grasping him by the hand to say, "Good day, Mr. Barrows," as school closes. He knows children intuitively, and has had wonderful success in bringing forth from what seemed unpromising minds excellent citizens and intelligent men in all the walks of life. In 1882 his friends sent him
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BIOGRAPHY OF CONNECTICUT.
to Europe on a tour for recreation, a kindness which he greatly appreciated. Mr. Barrows has been prominently identified with the Park Con- gregational church in Hartford. He has never taken any active part in political life, but has been in sympathy with the republican party from its foundation. His wife was Harriet Harris of Willimantic, and he has five children living. Volumes might be written, full of instances con- nected with his teaching, in which his acute knowl- edge of human nature and his power of " reading " persons have been most remarkable. He is as much an institution of Hartford and Connecticut as is the school system itself, and his life work has been more than ordinarily successful in that it has tended to the uplifting and betterment especially of the children of the poor of his city.
CHARLES WILLIAM BEARDSLEY, MILFORD: Seedsman and Stock Breeder.
Charles W. Beardsley, son of Charles Beardsley, was born in Stratford, Conn., May 27, 1829, and in the year 1844 he removed with his father's family to Milford. He is de- scended from William Beardsley, one of the first settlers of the town of Stratford, from whom he takes the name William; and from the Beach fam- ily through his great- grandmother Sarah, daughter of Israel Beach, 2d, of Stratford. His mother was Sarah, daugh- ter of Hezekiah Baldwin of Milford, a descendant of one of the first settlers C. W. BEARDSLEY. of that town; and he regards his success in life as very largely the result of the carly training and Christian advice of this mother. The first American ancestor above alluded to, William Beardsley, came from England in 1635, in the ship Planter, com- manded by Captain Travice. He was then only thirty years of age, but had a wife and three chil- dren, all of whom accompanied him hither. He came from Stratford-on-Avon (the birthplace of William Shakespeare), and was made a freeman in Massachusetts, but afterwards, in 1639, settled in the Connecticut township, to which the family gave the name of Stratford, in honor of the English town from which they had emigrated. The town of Avon, N. Y., was also named by descendants of William Beardsley who settled there, in honor of the old river in England. William Beardsley was a deputy for Stratford in 1645, and for seven years thereafter, and was a man of much prominence in
early colonial times. He died in 1660, at the age of fifty-six, leaving three children. The succession in the line of the subject of this sketch was through Joseph Beardsley, the youngest son. The genera- tions from Joseph were John, Andrew, Henry, William Henry, and Charles,- the latter being the father of Charles W. Beardsley, the present subject. Charles W. is the oldest of a family of eight chil- dren, the brothers and sisters being the following, all of whom are now living, and residents of Mil- ford, except as otherwise stated: Abigail, now the wife of Charles R. Baldwin of Milford; Alvira; Hezekiah, an extensive contractor and builder in Milford ; George, now residing in New Haven; Theodore, a prominent builder, of Springfield, Mass .; Sarah J., wife of Edward Clark of Milford; and Frederick, the youngest.
Mr. Charles W. Beardsley was educated in the common and select schools of his native town, and commenced learning the shoe business at the age of fifteen, which he followed for eighteen years, when, his health partially failing by close confinement in his work, he engaged in the produce business, importing the same from Montreal, Canada; and continued this business twelve years. He then bought one of the best farms in the town of Milford, and is engaged in the seed business for Peter Henderson & Company of New York city. Mr. Beardsley has bred some of the finest Jersey cattle that have appeared in America, and for which he has obtained large prices. He has held the offices of town agent and first selectman for twelve successive years, and was one of the directors of the Milford Savings Bank. He is a member of the Odd Fellows lodge in Milford, has been a member of the fire department for twenty-two years, and a member of the second company Governor's Foot Guards (organized 1775) under Governor Bucking- ham. He was elected a member of the house of representatives of Connecticut in ISS9, for two years, and served on the railroad committee; and was commissioner on the Washington bridge. He gave a full history of the old bridge, and when the bill came before the house to have the struc- ture made a free bridge, supported by New Haven and Fairfield counties, he made a strong argument in favor of the free bridge system, - and the bill was passed. He was re-elected a member of the house of representatives for the years 1891-92, and is again a member of the railroad committee.
Mr. Beardsley joined the First Church of Christ at Milford in the year 1850, and is esteemed in his native town and in the town where he resides, and wherever known, as an honorable and upright citi- zen. He married Sarah, daughter of Elnathan Baldwin of Milford, in 1850, and has the following children: Dewitt Clinton Beardsley, who married Miss Martha P. Avery of Stratford, and has three
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children, Medorah H., Maud C., and Stanley A. Beardsley; Sarah Etta Beardsley, who married Charles Clark of Milford, and had two children, George W. and Elwood R. Clark; and Charles Frederick Beardsley, the youngest, who resides at home, and is in company with his father in the seed business. The Beardsley family is a quite numer- ous one in Connecticut, and in all its branches has maintained the honorable reputation transmitted through succeeding generations from William Beardsley the venerated ancestor.
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