USA > Connecticut > Litchfield County > Litchfield County centennial celebration > Part 4
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No portion of the country sooner revived under the new im- pulse, given by the establishment of a National Constitutional
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Government, than this County. Our resources were varied. Our soil was every where strong on the hills and by the streams. Various sections possessed their peculiarities of production. Wheat was a staple of the western towns. Dairy products were yielded in abundance in the northern and central regions ; and, in almost every location, every species of grass, fruit, and grain, indigenous to any northern latitude, by reasonable culture, was found to flourish. We were rich in the most useful mineral in the world, and our streams of purest water afforded privileges every where for converting our ores into iron and our forests into building materials. But we had more-that, without which, all these were worthless ; we had an industrious, and what was bet- ter, an economical and an intelligent yeomanry. We had a few slaves, to be sure; not enough of these, nor enough of a de- graded foreign population to render the toil of our own hands, in the fields, or of our wives or daughters, in the kitchen or the dairy, dishonored or disgraceful. Our people were Native Amer- icans ! And here is the secret of our prosperity and progress.
In 1784 the first newspaper press was established in this County by Thomas Collier, and was continued under his su- perintendence for more than twenty years. It was called the " Weekly Monitor." It was a well conducted sheet, and it is refreshing now, after the lapse of many years, to look through its columns, as through a glass, and see the men of other days, as they have spoken and acted on the same ground on which we stand. Mr. Collier was an able writer, and his editorial efforts would have done honor to any journal. It is a Litchfield monitor now, and whoever shall look over its files will see, at a glance, the great changes which have been introduced, in later days, into all the departments of business and of social and political life.
Then, the intercourse between the several towns in this County and the market towns was slow and difficult. The Country merchants were the great brokers, and stood between the farmer and the markets. They received all his produce and supplied all he wished to buy. The thrifty farmer, on settlement, received his annual balance from the merchant. This enabled him to increase his acres. He did not invest it in stocks ; of these he knew nothing, except such as he had seen attached as instruments of punishment, to the whipping post in every town.
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The merchants, thus employed, almost all became wealthy. A broken merchant in the County was seldom heard of. Among the most successful and respectable of these gentlemen, whom I now recollect, were Julius Deming and Benjamin Tallmadge, of this town ; Tallmadge, of Warren ; Bacon, of Woodbury ; Lea- vitts', of Bethlem and Washington ; Starr, Norton, and Lymans', of Goshen ; Battel, of Norfolk; King, of Sharon ; Holley, of Salisbury, and Elijah Boardman, of New Milford, afterwards a highly respectable Senator in the Congress of the United States. At that time, Derby was the chief market town for many of the merchants in the southern towns of the County.
The age of Turnpike Roads commenced about the year 1800, and no portion of the country was more improved by them than this County. Before this, a journey through the Green Woods was spoken of as an exploit,-a region now accommodated by the most pleasant road in the County. The roads constructed, about the same time, from New Haven to Canaan, from Sharon to Goshen, and from Litchfield to Hartford, changed very much the aspect of the County and its current of business, and if they have not been profitable to stockholders, they have been invaluable to the people.
The spur given to agriculture by the wars following the French Revolution was felt in every thing. If our farmers have failed in any thing, it has been in a proper appreciation of their own calling. They have yielded a preference to other employments, to which they are not entitled. If we are to have an Aristocracy in this country, I say, let the farmers and business men, and not our idlers, be our Princes !- not such as are ashamed of their employments and withdraw their sons from the field and their daughters from domestic labor. I would have no such to rule over me. But, in spite of some such false notions, agriculture has kept pace even with other branches of industry in the Coun- ty, as the appearance of our farms and the thrift of our farmers attest. Much of this may be attributed to an Agricultural Soci- ety, which was formed here several years ago, and has been well sustained until this time.
I have alluded to the condition of manufactures as it was before the Revolution-limited to iron and confined to the furnace in Salisbury and a few forges in that vicinity ; to which may be
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added, the manufacture of maple sugar, to some extent by the farmers in some of the towns.
Even a few years ago, this County was not believed to be destined to become a manufacturing community. During the Revolutionary War, Samuel Forbes, Esq., commenced a most important experiment in Canaan-the manufacture of nail rods. Before this, nails were hammered out from the bar iron-a slow and expensive process. There was a slitting-mill in New Jersey, in which nail rods were made, but the machinery was kept hidden from public inspection. Forbes wished to ob- tain a knowledge of it, and for this purpose employed an ingen- ious mechanic and millwright, Isaac Benton, of Salisbury. Benton, disguised as a traveling mendicant, obtained admission v to the mill, and so critically, and without suspicion, marked the machinery and its operation, as to be able immediately to make such a model of it as to construct a mill, of the same sort, for Forbes. This was the foundation of his great fortune in after life. He afterwards erected another slitting-mill in Washington, (now Woodville.) By these he was able to supply the great demand for this article. This was a great improvement upon the former mode of nail-making, but was itself superseded, some years afterwards, by the introduction of cut nail machinery. Esquire Forbes, as he was afterwards familiarly called by every body, may justly be deemed the pioneer of the manufacturing interests in this County. His efforts were confined, generally, to the working of iron. His forge he extended, and accommo- dated to the manufacturing of anchors, screws, and mill irons. He introduced this branch of the iron business into this County, if not into the State. It was not long after followed by those enterprising manufacturers, Russell Hunt & Brothers, at South Canaan, by whom the largest anchors for the largest ships of the American Navy were made.
The manufacture of scythes by water-power, was commenced in this County first at Winsted, by Jenkins & Boyd, in 1794. These enterprising gentlemen, with the brothers Rockwell, soon extensively engaged in various branches of the manufacture of iron and steel in Winsted and that vicinity, from which originated, and has grown up to its present condition, one of the most flour- ishing manufacturing villages in the State.
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The furnace, in Salisbury, continued for many years in most successful operation under its active proprietors, and especially its last owners, Messrs. Holley & Coffing, by whose energy and success, the iron interest, in Salisbury, has been most essentially promoted ; and it has extended into the towns of Canaan, Corn- wall, Sharon, and Kent. Ames' works, at Falls Village, are not equalled by any other in the State.
In speaking of the iron interest, I cannot but allude again to the Salisbury iron ore, which is found in various localities in that town. It stands superior to any other for the tenacity of the iron which it produces, with which the armories of Springfield and Harper's Ferry are supplied, and from which the chain cables and best anchors for the Navy are made. And I am confident, if the machinery of the steam vessels and railroad cars were made exclusively from this iron, and not from a cheaper and inferior material, we should know less of broken shafts and loss of life in our public conveyances.
Paper was first made in this County, at the great Falls of the Housatonic, in Salisbury, by Adam & Church, as early as 1787, and soon after in Litchfield. The first carding-machine erected, I think, in this State, was built at the great falls in Canaan, about 1802. Previous to this time, wool was carded only by females, at their own firesides.
A general manufacturing policy was suggested by the measures of government, and not long after a more extensive experiment was made in the manufacture of woolen cloths by the late Gov. Wolcott, and his brother Hon. Frederick Wolcott of this place, than had been made in this County before ; and although the trial was disastrous to its projectors, it was the parent of the subse- quent and present prosperity of the village of Wolcottville.
The same policy has spread into almost every town in the County, and has not only extended the manufacture of iron, from a mouse trap to a ship's anchor, but has introduced, and is intro- ducing, all the various branches of manufactures pursued in this country ; and of late, the elegant manufacture of the Papier Mache. Plymouth, New Hartford, Norfolk, Woodbury, as well as the towns before mentioned, have felt extensively the beneficial effects of this modern industrial progress, so that our County may now be set down as one of the first manufacturing Counties in the
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State ; and this confirms what I have said, that here are all the varied facilities of profitable employment, which can be found in any section or region of this country. Our young men need no longer seek adventure and fortune elsewhere! Neither the desire of wealth, nor the preservation of health and life, should suggest emigration.
As soon as the war was over, and the Indians subdued into peace, our people rushed again to Vermont, and to the Whites- town and Genesee countries, as they were called ; so that, in a few years, let a Litchfield County man go where he would, be- tween the top of the Green Mountains and Lake Champlain, or between Utica and the Lakes, and every day he would greet an acquaintance or citizen from his own County.
And then followed the sale and occupation of the Connecticut Western Reserve. Many of its original proprietors were our citizens ; and among them, Messrs. Boardman, of New Milford ; Holmes, Tallmadge, and Wadsworth, of Litchfield; Starr and Norton, of Goshen ; Canfield, of Sharon; Johnston, Church, and Waterman, of Salisbury. For a time it seemed as if depopula- tion was to follow. The towns of Boardman, Canfield, Tallmadge, Johnson, Hudson, and several others on the reserve, were soon filling up with the best blood and spirit of our County ; and since then, we have been increasing the population of other parts of the States of New York and Ohio, as well as of Michigan, Illinois, and Indiana, so that now there is not one of us who remain, who has not a parent, a brother, or a child, in New York, Vermont, or the States of the West. And we believe that these children of our own raising, have transmitted the impress and image of Litch- field County, to the general condition of society where they have gone, and that they have fixed there a moral likeness which proves its parentage. This emigrating propensity has characterized the Saxon race in all times of its history ; and it is still at work, scattering us into every corner and climate, and away to dig for gold and graves in the barrens of California! Notwithstanding this exhausting process of emigration, our population which, in the year 1800, was 41,671, has increased to the number of 46,171.
I do not know that before the Revolution there was a public Grammar School in the County. The preparatory studies of young men, intended for a collegiate course, were prosecuted
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with private instructors - generally, the Clergy ; and this course was pursued still later.
Among the clergymen of the County most distinguished as instructors, and in fitting young men for college, as it was called, were Rev. Daniel Farrand, of Canaan, Ammi R. Robbins, of Norfolk, Judah Champion, of Litchfield, and Azel Backus, D. D., of Bethlem. This last named gentleman was afterwards Presi- dent of Hamilton College.
Soon after the war, Academies were instituted, and among the first and best of them was the Morris Academy in the parish of South Farms, in this town, which was commenced in 1790, by James Morris, Esq. Esquire Morris was no ordinary man. He was a distinguished graduate of Yale College, and an active officer in the Revolutionary Army. ITis learning was varied and practical, and under his direction the Morris Academy became the most noted public school of the County, and so continued for many years. This excellent gentleman died in 1820, aged 68 years. An Academy at Sharon, not long after, acquired a deserved reputation, under such instructors as John T. Peters, Elisha Sterling, and Barzillai Slosson. Many years afterwards an Academy was conducted in Ellsworth Society, in the same town, under the superintendence of Rev. Daniel Parker, which soon attained a high reputation.
Our relative position in the State, and the controlling influence of the cities, have left us without College, Asylum, or Retreats ; but our district schools have been doing their proper work, so that Judge Reeve remarked while alive, that he had never seen but one witness in Court, born in this County, who could not read. And these schools have not only made scholars, but school-masters, and these have been among the best of our indigenous productions, and have found a good market every where. When Congress sat in Philadelphia, a Litchfield County man was seen driving a drove of mules through the streets. A North Carolina member congratulated the late Mr. Tracy upon seeing so many of his constituents that morning, and enquired where they were going, to which he facetiously replied, that they were going to North Carolina to keep school.
A new tone to female education was given by the establish- ment of a Female Seminary, for the instruction of females in
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this village, by Miss Sarah Pierce, in 1792. This was an un- tried experiment. Hitherto the education of young ladies, with few exceptions, had been neglected. The district school had limited their course of studies. Miss Pierce saw and regretted this, and devoted herself and all of her active life to the mental and moral culture of her sex. The experiment succeeded entirely. This Academy soon became the resort of young ladies from all portions of the country - from the cities and the towns. Then, the country was preferred, as most suitable for female im- provement, away from the frivolities and dissipation of fashiona- ble life. Now, a different, not a better practice, prevails. Many of the grandmothers and mothers of the present generation were educated as well for genteel as for useful life, in this school, and its influence upon female character and accomplishments was great and extensive. It continued for more than forty years, and its venerable Principal and her sister assistant now live among us, the honored and honorable of their sex.
Before this, and as early as 1784, a Law School was in- stituted in this village. Tapping Reeve, then a young lawyer from Long Island, who had commenced the practice of his pro- fession here, was its projector. It is not known whether in this country, or any where, except at the Inns of Court at Westmin- ster, a school for the training of lawyers had been attempted. No Professorships of Law had been introduced into American Colleges ; nor was the Law treated as a liberal science.
Before this, the law student served a short clerkship in an attorney's office, - studied some forms and little substance, and had within his reach but few volumes beyond Coke's & Wood's Institutes, Blackstone's Commentaries, Bacon's Abridgment, and Jacob's Law Dictionary ; and, when admitted to the Bar, was better instructed in pleas in abatement, than in the weightier matters of the Law. Before this, too, the Common Law, as a system, was imperfectly understood here and in our sister States. Few lawyers had mastered it. The reputation of this institution soon became as extensive as the country, and young men from Maine to Georgia sought to finish their law studies here.
Judge Reeve conducted this school alone, from its commence- ment until 1798, when, having been appointed to the Bench of the Superior Court, he associated with him, as an instructor,
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James Gould, Esq. These gentlemen conducted the school together for several years, until the advanced age of Judge Reeve admonished him to retire ; after which, Judge Gould continued the school alone until a few years before his death. It may be said of Judge Reeve, that he first gave the Law a place among liberal studies in this country, - that "he found it a skeleton, and clothed it with life, color, and complexion." This school gave a new impulse to legal learning and it was felt in the Jurisprudence as well as in the Legislation of all the States.
A new subject of study, not known in any other country, had been presented to the legal student here, - the Constitution of the United States and the Legislation of Congress. Uniformity of interpretation was indispensable.
At this institution students from every State drank from the same fountain, were taught the same principles of the Common and Constitutional Law ; and these principles, with the same modes of legal thinking and feeling and of administration were disseminated thoughout the entire country. More than one thousand lawyers of the United States were educated here, and many of them afterwards among the most eminent Jurists and Legislators. Even after Judge Gould's connection with the school, an inspection of the catalogue will show, that from it have gone out among the States of this Union, a Vice President of the United States, two Judges of the Supreme Court of the United States, forty Judges of the highest State Courts, thir- teen Senators, and forty-six Representatives in Congress, besides several Cabinet and Foreign Ministers .*
* LITCHFIELD LAW SCHOOL. - At a late dinner of the Story Association of the Cambridge Law School, the famous Litchfield Law School was adverted to. The whole passage will be interesting to the former pupils of that institution, and to the friends of its celebrated teachers. Judge Kent gave --
The first-born of the law schools of this country - the Litchfield Law School. The Boston bar exhibits its rich and ripened fruits. By them we may judge of the tree and declarc it good.
Charles G. Loring, Esq., replied. Ile began with expressing his regret that there was no other representative from the Litchfield Law School to respond to the complimentary but just notice of that institution.
I do not remember, said he, to have ever been more forcibly reminded of my younger days, than when looking around upon our young friends in the midst of whom I stand. It recalls the time when I, too, was a student among numerous fellow students. It will, probably, be news to them and many others here, that thirty-eight years ago, which to many licro seems a remote antiquity, there existed an extensive Law School in the State of Connecticut, at
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I have said that this school gave a new impulse to legal learn- ing in this country. Soon after its establishment, and not before, reports of judicial decisions appeared. Ephraim Kirby, Esq., an able lawyer of this village, published the first volume of Reports of Adjudged Cases, in this country, - a volume which deserved and received the approbation of the profession here and elsewhere. This was soon followed by Reports in Massa- chusetts and New York.
Standing at this point of time, and looking back over the events of an hundred years, we would recall, not only the scenes which have transpired, but revive our recollections of the men
which more than sixty students from all parts of the country were assembled, -every State then in the Union, being there represented. I joined it in 1813, when it was at its zenith, and the only prominent establishment of the kind in the land.
The recollection is as fresh as the events of yesterday, of our passing along the broad shaded streets of one of the most beautiful of the villages of New England, with our ink- stands in our hands, and our portfolios under our arms, to the lecture room of Judge Gould- the last of the Romans, of Common Law lawyers; the impersonation of its genius and spirit. It was, indeed, in his eyes, the perfection of human reason - by which he measured every principle and rule of action, and almost every sentiment. Why, Sir, his highest visions of poetry seemed to be in the refinement of special pleading ; and to him, a non sequitur in logic was an offence deserving, at the least, fine and imprisonment - and a repetition of it, transportation for life. Ile was an admirable English scholar ; every word was pure English, undefiled, and every sentence fell from his lips perfectly finished, as clear, transparent, and penetrating as light, and every rule and principle as exactly defined and limited as the outline of a building against the sky. From hfm, Sir, we obtained clear, well-defined, and accurate knowledge of the Common Law, and learned that allegiance to it was the chief duty of man, and the power of enforcing it upon others his highest attainment. From his lecture roomn we pass to that of the venerable Judge Reeve, shaded by an aged elm, fit emblem of himself. He was, indecd, a most venerable man, in character and appearance - his thick, gray hair parted and falling in profusion upon his shoulders, his voice only a loud whisper, but distinctly heard by his earnestly attentive pupils. He, too, was full of legal learning, but invested the law with all the genial enthusiasm and generous feelings and noble sentiments of a large heart at the age of eighteen, and descanted to us with glowing eloquence upon the sacredness and majesty of law. Ile was distinguished, Sir, by that appreciation of the gentler sex which never fails to mark the truc man and his teachings of the law in reference to their rights and to the domestic relations, had great influence in elevating and refining the sentiments of the young men who were privileged to hear him. As illustrative of his feelings and manner upon this subject, allow me to give a specimen. He was discussing the legal relations of married women ; he never called them, however, by so inexpressible a name, but always spoke of them as, " the better half of mankind," or in some equally just manner. When he carne to the axiom that " a married woman has no will of her own ; " this, he said, was a maxim of great theoretical importance for the preservation of the sex against the ondue influ- ence or coercion of the husband ; but, although it was an inflexible maxim, in theory, experi- ence taught us that practically it was found that they sometimes had wills of their own - MOST HAPPILY FOR US.
We left his lecture room, Sir, the very knight errants of the law, burning to be the defenders of the right and the avengers of the wrong ; and he is no true son of the Litchfield School who has ever forgotten that lesson. I propose, Sir .
The Memories of Judge Reeve and Judge Gould, - among the first, if not the first founders of a National Law School in the United States - who have laid one of the corner stones in the foundation of true American patriotism, loyalty to the law. - Boston Atlas.
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who have acted in them. Memory cannot raise the dead to life again ; yet it may bring back something of their presence, - shaded and dim, but almost real ;- and through the records of their times we may hear them speak again. To some of these I have made allusion. I would speak of others.
The allusion to the Law School of the County suggests to me a brief notice, also, of the legal profession here, and of its most distinguished members, as well as a further allusion to others of the sons of Litchfield County, distinguished in other professions and employments of life. In speaking of these I must confine myself to the memory of the dead. And here, I feel, that I am under a restraint, which, on any other occasion, I would resist. I feel this chain which binds me, the more, as I look around on this gathering and see some here, and am reminded of others -so many, who have contributed, by splendid talents and moral worth, to make our name a praise in the land. As the representative of the County, I would most gladly do them liv- ing homage before you all. I regret that I have had so brief an opportunity to make this notice as perfect as it should be, -a favorite theme, if I could but do it justice.
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