USA > Connecticut > Men of mark in Connecticut; ideals of American life told in biographies and autobiographies of eminent living Americans > Part 5
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29
95
SIMEON EBEN BALDWIN
In 1865 Judge Baldwin was married to Susan Winchester, the daughter of Edmund Winchester of Boston. They have had three children, two of whom are now living, Roger Sherman Baldwin and Helen Baldwin Gilman, wife of Dr. Warren. R. Gilman of Worcester, Mass.
The story of Judge Baldwin's successful career contains several lessons helpful to young men of the present generation. In the first place, as the son of a prominent family, he withstood the common temptation to rest on the laurels of his father and grandfather, and he has gone through life determined to win his own name. He has not emulated his father's success in the political world, but he has surpassed him as a jurist; and by his own effort he now occupies the same position in the State judiciary as was held by his grandfather many years before him. As a university professor he did not permit his class-room duties to limit his activity, but the very year of his appointment he began to place his legal knowledge at the services of the State. On the other hand, he did not permit frequent public honors to cause him to neglect his obligations to Yale University, but continued to instruct classes at the Law School. Finally, as a jurist, he took an intelligent and active interest in other spheres of activity, and his achievements in these lines have contributed much to his suc- cess. Judge Baldwin is known as an able jurist, a public spirited citizen, and a broad-minded man.
WILLIAM HAMERSLEY
H AMERSLEY, WILLIAM, was born at Hartford, Connecticut, September 9th, 1838. He was the son of William James Hamersley and Laura Sophia Cooke. His mother was a daughter of Oliver Dudley Cooke, of Puritan descent, who was for a few years after his graduation from Yale, a Congregational clergyman, and, afterwards, in 1800, founded the publishing house of O. D. Cooke. He is fourth in descent from William Hamersley, an officer of the British ship of war, "Valeur,"-which was stationed at New York in 1716,-who resigned his commission and married a wife of Dutch descent, settling in New York. The father of William Ham- ersley was, for many years, a distinguished citizen of Hartford, and at one time postmaster of the city. He was for a term of years editor of the American Mercury, which paper was later sold to, and incor- porated with, the Independent. Press of Hartford.
After passing through the grammar and high schools of his native city, Mr. Hamersley entered Trinity College in 1854, but was never graduated He entered the law office of Welch & Shipman and was admitted to the Bar in 1859, and at once began the practice of law independently in Hartford.
Mr. Hamersley made his entrance into official life as a member of the Court of Common Council in 1863. Three years later he was chosen vice-president of that body, and for the year 1867-1868, served as its president. From 1866 to 1868 he held the position of City Attorney for Hartford, and then resigned to accept an appointment as State's Attorney for Hartford County. This position he filled for twenty years with great acceptability. Mr. Hamersley was appointed on the commission which, in 1878, framed the Practice Act, and the Orders and Rules of Court and Forms, under that act, which were adopted by the judges. In 1886 he represented Hartford in the State House of Representatives, and served on the committees on judiciary and federal relations. In 1893 Governor Morris appointed Mr. Hamersley an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of Errors, and
中身
99
WILLIAM HAMERSLEY
this appointment was met with approbation throughout the State. In 1901 he was reappointed to this position. He was a lecturer on con- stitutional law at Trinity College from 1875 to 1900, and has been a member of the Board of Trustees of Trinity since 1884. In 1893, Trinity College, proud of her son, conferred on him the honorary degree of LL.D.
Mr. Hamersley was one of the founders of the Connecticut State Bar Association, and with Richard D. Hubbard and Simeon E. Bald- win, constituted the committee of the association, through whose efforts the American Bar Association was formed. Through this agency much of the most important legislation during almost a quarter of a century has been achieved. He was instrumental in improving the jury system in Connecticut. Mr. Hamersley's whole life has been given to the practice of his chosen profession, and to work relating to reform in the state law proceedings.
SAMUEL OSCAR PRENTICE
P RENTICE, SAMUEL OSCAR, Justice of the Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut, was born in North Stonington, New London County, Connecticut, August 8th, 1850. He is the son of Chester Smith Prentice and Lucy Crary Prentice. His father was a farmer who served his townsmen as representative in the State Legislature in 1857 and 1862, and later as selectman and first select- man during the Civil War period.
The first American to bear the Judge's family name was Captain Thomas Prentice of Newton, Massachusetts, known to the early English settlers as "The Trooper." Among his other distinguished ancestors, all of whom came from England or Scotland, are found Elder William Brewster, Colonel George Denison, Thomas Stanton, Captain James Avery, Captain John Gallup, Richard Treat, Rev. James Noyes, and William Cheesboro, all names conspicuously associ- ated with the early history of New England.
Judge Prentice spent his youth in the country until the time of his college preparation, which was carried on at the Norwich Free Academy from 1866 to 1869. He then entered Yale College, from which he was graduated in 1873 with the degree of A.B.
During his college course Judge Prentice won many honors both in the gift of the faculty and of his fellow students. Among these honors were three composition prizes, a Junior rhetorical, the "Lit" prize medal and oration stand at junior exhibition and at Commence- ment. He was also chairman of the editorial board of the "Lit." He was a member of the following college societies: Kappa Sigma Epsilon, Delta Beta Xi, Delta Kappa Epsilon, and Skull and Bones.
Having chosen the law as his future profession, Judge Prentice attended the Yale Law School after completing his academic course and received his LL.B. degree in 1875. He took the Townsend prize for the best oration at this graduation. During his course at the law school he was also special teacher in the Hopkins Grammar School in New Haven.
-
Samual O. Protice.
103
SAMUEL OSCAR PRENTICE
In the autumn following his graduation from the law school, Judge Prentice, having been immediately admitted to the bar, began practice as a clerk in the law office of Chamberlain, Hall & White of Hartford, Connecticut. The following year, in 1876, he was admitted into the law firm of Johnson & Prentice as junior member. This partnership continued until the summer of 1889, when he became a judge of the Connecticut Superior Court, being appointed to this posi- tion by Governor Morgan G. Bulkeley, to whom he had been executive secretary. He was confirmed by the General Assembly. At the ex- piration of his term of eight years, in 1897, he was reappointed for a second term. In 1901 Judge Prentice was appointed and confirmed justice of the Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut. He now occupies this high position, and ranks as one of the foremost jurists in the State.
Judge Prentice has rendered many important public services to his town and State. From October, 1881, to October, 1886, he was chairman of the Hartford city and town Republican committees, and he was a delegate to the Republican State Presidential Convention in 1884, and to the State Convention in 1886. For several years he was town and city attorney of Hartford. For twelve years he was clerk of the Hartford County Bar. He has been a member of the State Bar Examining Committee since its organization in 1890, and its chairman since June, 1898. In 1896 he was made instructor in pleading at the Yale Law School. In 1901, he was appointed professor of pleading in the same school, and he still retains his classes at Yale.
The Judge was an officer of Company K, First Regiment, Con- necticut National Guard, from 1879 to 1889. He was president of the Hartford Library Association 1885-6, and has been president of the Hartford Public Library Association since 1895. In 1899 he was made president of the Yale Alumni Association of Hartford County. He was president of the Hartford Golf Club for three years, and vice- president of the Waumbeck Golf Club of New Hampshire for three years. He is a member of the Congregational Church. His favorite relaxation from his legal and public duties is found in walking and playing golf.
On the 24th of April, 1901, Judge Prentice married Anne Combe Post of Jersey City, N. J. They have no children. Their home is at number 70 Gillett Street, Hartford.
ARTHUR TWINING HADLEY
H ADLEY, ARTHUR TWINING, LL.D., educator, political economist, and president of Yale University since 1899, is a fine type of the American scholar, who is versed in prac- tical affairs, and is a worthy representative of an old and distinguished family. His careful cultivation of the fine talents which he inherited, together with his earnestness of purpose, high character, clear percep- tions, and prompt and efficient action, brought him into prominence in comparatively early life. Among other honors, he enjoys the distinc- tion of being the first layman to be elected president of Yale, which for two hundred years had had a minister at its head. And what is more remarkable, this honorable position was reached when he was only forty-three years of age.
Mr. Hadley was born at New Haven, Connecticut, April 23, 1856. He was the son of James and Anne (Twining) Hadley. His father was a man of warm heart and broad sympathies, a noted educator and philologist, the author of important text-books, and for more than twenty years professor of Greek at Yale. Two of the elder Hadley's brothers were distinguished men, one a professor in a medical college, and the other a professor of Hebrew in the Union Theological Semi- nary at New York, and later in the Divinity School of Yale. His wife, too, belonged to a noted family. She was a woman of fine qualities of mind and heart. That her intellect was highly cultivated is attested to by the fact that in mathematics she took what was then the full course of study at Yale.
The earliest members of the Hadley family to settle in this country came from England about 1640, and located in the north- eastern part of Massachusetts. Among the earlier members to become especially distinguished were the great-grandfather and grandfather of President Hadley, the former of whom, Captain George Hadley, was a noted Indian fighter in New Hampshire, and the latter, James Hadley, a professor of chemistry in a medical college then located in Fairfield, New York.
1
november 30 / 904.
107
ARTHUR TWINING HADLEY
The childhood and youth of Mr. Hadley were passed in the city in which he was born. His health was only moderately good. His interests were divided between books and play. He had no duties involving manual labor, and had no special difficulties in acquiring an education. After a preparatory course of study in the Hopkins Grammar School, in New Haven, he entered Yale, from which insti- tution he was graduated in 1876. Though he was far from being a recluse, he was a scrupulous student throughout his college course. He took several important prizes along widely different lines and was graduated at the head of his class. His post-graduate course of study was begun at Yale, where he spent one year, and was continued at the University of Berlin where he remained for two years. His special studies in this course were history and political science.
The active work of life was begun in 1879 as a tutor at Yale, which position he held until 1883, in which year he was appointed lecturer. He served in this capacity for three years. From 1886 to 1899 he was professor of political science. At a meeting of the corporation on May 25th, 1899, he was elected, and on the 18th of the following October he was inaugurated president of the university. For a time in the eighties, he was editor of the Railroad Gazette, and from 1885 to 1887 he was the State Labor Commissioner for Con- necticut, in which capacity he rendered efficient service, which, with the two volumes of his official reports, gave him a high standing as an authority on matters affecting the rights and interests of em- ployers and employees.
At a somewhat earlier date he had commenced a careful study of the history of railroads and of the problems connected with their administration. The results of this exhaustive study were embodied in a book on "Railroad Transportation, Its History and Its Laws," which was not only accepted as the standard work of its class in the United States, but which has also been translated into several foreign languages. His opinion upon important phases of the railroad ques- tion was considered so valuable that he was examined as an expert by the United States Senate Committee, which, under the leadership of Senator Cullom, drafted the Inter-State Commerce Law.
In addition to his regular duties at Yale, Mr. Hadley served for two years, 1891-93, in place of Professor Sumner, who was abroad at the time, as professor of political and social science in the academic
108
ARTHUR TWINING HADLEY
department. For many years he has done much to train students in public speaking and to encourage them to engage in debates. He has lectured at Harvard and other educational institutions, has made addresses at important public meetings, and has written largely on railroads, finance, and political economy for cyclopedias and leading magazines and newspapers. In addition to the work already named he is the author of "Economics " (1896), which has been adopted as a text-book in several of our higher educational institutions; " The Education of the American Citizen," (1901) ; and " Freedom and Responsibility," (1903). He is not only a forceful writer and lecturer, but also an earnest and entertaining after-dinner speaker.
Mr. Hadley was married, June 30, 1891, to Helen Harrison Morris, daughter of former Governor Luzon B. Morris, of Connecti- cut, and a graduate of Vassar College. They have had three children, of whom all were living in 1904. Mr. Hadley has received the degree of LL.D. from Yale, Harvard, Johns Hopkins, and other institutions in the United States, and has also received foreign honors. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and of the Century and University Clubs of New York. In politics he is a lib- eral Republican, though he believes in free trade, and he sometimes acts independently of his party. His religious affiliations are with the Congregational Church.
He has never given special attention to systems of physical culture, though he plays lawn tennis, golf, and other outdoor games, and he greatly enjoys mountain climbing. In the choice of a pro- fession he was left free to follow his own inclination. The first strong impulse to strive for the prizes of life he traces to a " com- bination of ambition with the need of making a living." The influence of his mother was very strong upon both his intellectual and spiritual life. Among certain powerful aids and means in his efforts to succeed, he mentions those of home and private study as the most important, and contact with men in active life as coming next in effectiveness. Of the books which have proved the most helpful, he names the Bible, Shakespeare, and Dante, and afterwards Goethe.
In writing and in teaching, President Hadley lays greater stress upon the importance of a " higher standard of industrial and political ethics " than has been somewhat generally accepted in the past. The value which he places upon patient endurance, as a means to the
109
ARTHUR TWINING HADLEY
attainment of the highest success, is indicated by the following quota- tion from an address to the students at Yale: "The achievement which comes through trial and failure is nobler in quality than that which seems to come of itself. Without patience we may have indi- vidual deeds of great splendor, but they stand as something separate from the doer. With patience, the deeds become so inwrought into the character of the man that his success or failure in externals is a small thing, as compared with that success which he has achieved in himself. He is a leader to be loved and trusted, as well as to be admired and followed." In language equally clear he states, in the same address, the importance of helpfulness and self-sacrifice on the part of those who desire to be leaders of others and to obtain the highest good for themselves: "Remember that the great achieve- ments of history are those which have been worked out with others and for others, and that this cooperation can only be obtained at the price of patient waiting. Remember that real leadership belongs to the man who can thus patiently feel the needs and limitations of other men, and who has that power of self-renunciation which alone will enable him to compass this result. And finally, remember that, however much you may be able to dazzle the multitude or lead the multitude, the respect of your own conscience, under God, is the one enduring possession."
HENRY PARKS WRIGHT
Y ALE spirit," "Yale democracy," "the Yale chance for every man" are phrases often heard. They represent the desire to express a certain atmosphere, which is inexpressible in words. Its explanation is no easier than would be the explanation of the composite of the attributes of a given number of noble men. But those of the past thirty years who have enjoyed the privilege of living under the influence of that atmosphere are quick to attest the important contribution toward the total result, made in his unpretentious way, by the present dean of the college faculty, Pro- fessor Henry Parks Wright. He has been these many years the exemplar of that patience, gentleness, and fatherly kindness-firm but always just-which have been to students as the very love of Alma Mater herself for them, which have held them true to their course and which have welded bands of affection never to be broken.
Dean Wright is of Puritan descent. The first of his name in America was Samuel Wright, who came from London and settled in Springfield, Massachusetts, where we find his name as deacon of the church in 1639-an honor of high degree in those days, from ecclesiastic or civic standpoint. But a family that is devout can also be militant, as evidenced in this family as early as King Philip's Indian War, when Lieutenant Samuel Wright went forth to battle and gave up his life at Deerfield, on September 2nd, 1675. John Crawford, another ancestor, was a captain in command of a company in the Continental army at Burgoyne's surrender at Saratoga, in 1777.
The professor was born November 30th, 1839. His father was Parks Wright, living in Winchester, Cheshire County, New Hamp- shire, following the business of carpenter and builder. He was a man of energy and thrift, fond of work and systematic and inventive, with a mind seeking to discover and develop new paths of useful- ness. Relief Willard Wooley was the professor's mother. Both parents died while he was quite young, his father when he was only
111
HENRY PARKS WRIGHT
six weeks old, and his mother three years later. Then he went to Hinsdale, New Hampshire, to be brought up by his grandmother, Mrs. Hannah (Crawford) Woolley, whose influence upon his char- acter and habits was deep and lasting. After the death of her hus- band, in 1844, she removed to Oakham, Massachusetts, her native town.
The boy was fond of his books, and he read through with care nearly all the volumes which the small town library contained. In the schools of Oakham he received an excellent training in the English branches, including higher arithmetic and algebra, and was taught some geometry and Latin. From these schools many had gone forth to the academies to fit for college, and though without means he was encouraged by his teachers to hope that he might be able to do the same. During the vacations, which sometimes nearly equalled in length the parts of the year devoted to study, he earned money by working in a boot shop, and in the wire works factory of S. & W. Lincoln. At the age of seventeen, in a little unpainted schoolhouse in the southwest corner of the town, he began what, after sundry vicissitudes, was to be his profession. His first pupils were the children in the district schools of Oakham. With a college edu- cation in view he persevered with his work as a teacher and kept on with his studies until he was able to go to Phillips Academy at Andover, Massachusetts, to round out his preparatory course. The influence of his own teachers in those country schools, and of the teachers at Phillips, Andover, was next to that of his home in shaping the course of his life.
Then came the call to enlist in the service of his country, and he forsook everything else and responded to it. He had just finished his middle year in the academy, and the first goal of his ambition seemed near of attainment. It may be readily understood, there- fore, that nothing but the nation's service could have induced him to give up his cherished hopes, for it is one of his fixed principles that a course once decided on after due deliberation ought not to be abandoned. Many times since then has he told other young men when tempted to give up their studies for something easier or more lucrative, "Don't give up. Finish what you have once begun, and you will be stronger men for it all your lives." But the sacrifice, though great, was no doubt a cheerful one, and when he was once
112
HENRY PARKS WRIGHT
enlisted he could apply to his own case the maxim which students who have sought him in his office have many times heard from his lips, "When once you have deliberately chosen a course, don't waste time and nerves in imagining what might have been if you had chosen differently."
His service in the Civil War was with the Fifty-first Massachu- setts Volunteers, in which he was a sergeant in Company F. He had been offered a commission, but, being without military training, he preferred to enlist in the ranks. His trustworthy character and good judgment gained the confidence of both officers and men. He was especially helpful in the discipline of the Company and was often detailed for special service.
On his return from the front, in August, 1863, after the expira- tion of his term of service, he resumed his studies at home, under the instruction of the Rev. Dr. F. N. Peloubet, who was then settled in Oakham, and entered Yale College in the fall of 1864. His faculties being trained in the school of hard experience and now matured, he accomplished his tasks with a degree of thoroughness which eventually gave him prominence among his classmates. Though having to devote much time to earning money in order that he might pay his own way, he won eminence in scholarship, particularly in the classics, took many honors, was elected to the senior society of Skull and Bones, and became valedictorian of the class of 1868. His was the highest stand ever attained up to that date, and it was a record that stood unequalled for a quarter of a century.
The following September he was appointed instructor in Latin at Chickering Institute, Cincinnati, Ohio, where he continued for a year and a half. In January, 1870, he returned to Yale to accept the position of instructor in Greek and Latin, becoming assistant pro- fessor of Latin in July, 1871, for five years. In July, 1876, he was appointed Dunham Professor of Latin. He had taken a graduate course in Latin and Sanskrit under Professor Thacher and Pro- fessor Whitney, and in 1876 received the degree of Ph.D. from Yale. Union College gave him the degree of LL.D. in 1895. From April, 1877, to August, 1878, he was studying in Germany and Italy, chiefly at the universities of Göttingen and Berlin. Since 1884, when the office was created, he has been dean of the Yale College Faculty and the greater part of his time since then has been devoted to the
113
HENRY PARKS WRIGHT
exacting duties of that position. In 1886 he was chosen a member of the Board of Trustees of the Hopkins Grammar School.
Office and man were well met when Professor Wright was made dean. His recitations in Latin, from the earliest days, partook in no degree of the nature of hetcheling. Before Yale was a university, he was imbued with university ideas. He assumed that his pupils were not there for reformatory or disciplinary purposes; he loved the old classics, he gave freely of the fruits of his wide reading, he brought out the beauty of prose and verse when studied for a higher purpose than to illustrate the rules of syntax, and, while seldom rising to the point of enthusiasm in manner, he instilled into many young men the spirit of genuine scholarship. Indeed, when in later years the value of the Greek and Latin as required studies began to be questioned, and protests against their removal from the curriculum went up from hundreds of graduates, it may be that many of those protests sprang from recollection of old days in Professor Wright's recitation room-from men who, under his teaching, had learned their value for discipline and culture.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.