USA > Connecticut > New Haven County > New Haven > New Haven, a book recording the varied activities of the author in his efforts over many years to promote the welfare of the city of his adoption since 1883, together with some researches into its storied past and many illustrations > Part 41
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"In the autumn of 1848 I visited the venerable Eneas Munson, M.D., at New Haven. He had been assistant surgeon, under Dr. Thatcher, in the old War for Independence. He knew young Hale well during the later period of his life at Yale College, for he was then a frequent visitor at the home of Dr. Munson's father.
" 'I was greatly impressed,' said Dr. Munson, 'with Hale's scientific knowl- edge, evinced during his conversation with my father. I am sure he was equal to Andre in solid acquirements, and his taste for art and talents as an artist were quite remarkable. His personal appearance was as notable. He was almost six feet in height, perfect-proportioned, and in figure and deportment he was the most manly man I have ever met. His chest was broad; his muscles were firm; his face wore a most benign expression; his complexion was roseate; his eyes were light blue and beamed with intelligence; his hair was soft and light brown in color, and his speech was rather low, sweet, and musical. His personal beauty and grace of manner were most charming. Why, all the girls in New Haven fell in love with him,' said Dr. Munson, 'and wept tears of real sorrow when they heard of his sad fate. In dress he was always neat; he was quick to lend a helping hand to a being in distress, brute or human; was over- flowing with good-humor, and was the idol of all his acquaintances.'"
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FOOTSTEPS OF HALE IN NEW HAVEN
Before this, the younger Munson had given an account of Hale to Ebenezer Baldwin (Yale 1808) for publication in the American Historical Magazine, published in New Haven in 1836. This account I shall also quote in full:
"Nathan Hale I was acquainted with from his frequent visits at my father's house, while an academic student. His own remarks, and the remarks of my father, left at that period an indelible impression on my mind. Hale remarked to my father, that he was offered a commission in the service of his country, and exclaimed 'Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori.' These were some of the last expressions I ever heard fall from his lips. The remarks of my father, after Hale left the house, were, 'That man is a diamond of the first water, calculated to excel in any station he assumes. He is a gentleman and a scholar, and last, though not least of his qualifications, a Christian.' Hale's urbanity and general deportment were peculiarly attracting, and for solid acquirements I am sure he would lose nothing on comparison with Andre. Cannot you rouse the dormant energies of an ungrateful republic, in the case of Capt. Hale, to mark the spot where so much virtue and patriotism moulder with his native dust. His name ought to be engraven with a pen of iron and the point of a diamond, that future generations may bow at his shrine, and reverence the cenotaph, as containing the ashes of a paragon, while they deplore his untimely end. M."
Dr. Munson, the Elder ("Old Eneas"), lived in a house which stood on what is now West Chapel Street, just beyond its intersection with York Street. This house was within easy walking distance from the College Yard, as it was then called, and we can imagine Hale's "frequent visits" to it to see Dr. Munson, probably the most original and entertaining member of the community.
Soon after Hale's death, Dr. Munson was to write a poem on Hale in heroic couplets. From this poem I will quote his description of Hale :
"Erect and tall, his well-proportioned frame, Vigorous and active, as electric flame ; His manly limbs had symmetry and grace, And innate goodness marked his beauteous face; His fancy lively, and his genius great, His solid judgment shone in grave debate; For erudition far beyond his years ; At Yale distinguished above all his peers;
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Speak, ye who knew him while a pupil there, His numerous virtues to the world declare ; His blameless carriage and his modest air, Above the vain parade and idle show
Which mark the coxcomb and the empty beau ; Removed from envy, malice, pride, and strife,
He walked through goodness as he walked through life;
A kinder brother nature never knew,
A child more duteous or a friend more true."
The poet proceeds in a high strain, drawing another picture of his friend :
"A form so manlike, with such sweetness joined, Such fortitude, and so enlarged a mind, Such pleasing manners, and such spotless truth, Such majesty and grace, in bloom of youth."
One more couplet may be quoted :
"In earth's full bloom, fell this lamented friend ; But life is long that answer's life's great end."
The last line is of course from Young's "Night Thoughts," read by every one in those far off days.
Another house at which Hale must have been a frequent visitor in his undergraduate days was the mansion of James Abraham Hillhouse, the home of Hale's great friend, corre- spondent and classmate, James Hillhouse, the Patriot. This house, long familiar to us of to-day, in a greatly enlarged and altered form, was torn down only the other day-Grove Hall. It is said to have been built in 1762.
Still another house, and this is still standing, must have often heard the footsteps of Hale. I now refer to the fine brick mansion on the north side of Elm Street, between Church and Orange Streets, then the residence of Timothy Jones, Esq., a prominent citizen and the uncle of Hale's roommate, Isaac Gridley, who seems to have made his home with his Grandfather Jones. This house, in our day occu- pied by Dr. C. Purdy Lindsley and later by the Hon. Burton Mansfield, is doomed to demolition ere long. Built in 1765,
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it has a notably fine mahogany staircase which should be removed and preserved. When this historic mansion dis- appears, the only building left in New Haven which knew the footsteps of Hale will be Connecticut Hall, before which his statue by Bela Lyon Pratt stands to-day.
Hale and his roommate, Isaac Gridley, we get together in the same picture but twice,-once when they were on the same day elected to membership in Linonia, and then again in a boat on the harbor. In Charles Collard Adams' "Middletown Upper Houses," we get a full-length and highly-picturesque portrait of Gridley, who seems to have had an extremely punctilious as well as prosperous career, always the gentle- man. In this account, his biographer says: "Isaac Gridley was the roommate of Nathan Hale, and was in a small boat when a storm came up. When there was danger, Hale said, 'I will never be drowned. I am going to be hung,' as he pointed to a wart on his neck." Here Hale, unterrified and grimly humorous in the storm, shows another side of his nature.
The Gridley anecdote, incidentally, gives us a glimpse of extra-curriculum activities in Hale's college days, on which the shadows fell one hundred and fifty-odd years ago. The bright waters of the Harbor and Sound seemed to have called the student to adventure then, as, indeed, they did until just a few years past, when the vogue of the automobile and golf drove the sailboat as a source of student diversion out of existence. Reckless as sailormen, a special Providence generally brought the students ashore, as it did the imperturb- able Hale with his laconic, "I will never be drowned, I am going to be hung."
Another warm friend and admirer of Hale's was Timothy Dwight (1752-1817, Yale 1769), later on to become Yale's great president. Dwight and Hale were friends, fellow- Linonians and correspondents. Where Dwight lived in New Haven in the years immediately following his graduation in 1769 from college, I do not know. Probably the house
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no longer remains. In his "Conquest of Canaan" (1785), Dwight paid his oft-quoted tribute to Hale:
"Thus, while fond virtue wished in vain to save, Hale, bright and generous, found a hapless grave. With genius' living flame his bosom glowed, And Science lured him to her sweet abode; In Worth's fair path his feet adventured far ; The pride of Peace, the rising hope of War ; In duty firm, in danger calm as even- To friends unchanging, and sincere to Heaven. How short his course, the prize how early won, While weeping Friendship mourns her favorite gone."
I cannot better conclude this long and perhaps too-discur- sive attempt to follow Hale's footsteps in New Haven than by quoting from a sermon on Hale, preached in the United Church on June 12, 1898, by the late Dr. Theodore T. Munger (1830-1910, Y. C. 1851). Dr. Munger said :
"Hale comes nearest the full ideal of heroic patriotism to be found in American history. . .
"Hale is the truest hero on the lists of Yale and her most beautiful and precious gift to the Country."
New Haven, Sept. 18, 1926.
GEORGE DUDLEY SEYMOUR.
LVI.
"I CAN'T HEAR, SIR, THAT YOU ARE ABOUT MOUNTING THE DESK."
(Richard Sill, a Yale Senior, in a letter dated at New Haven 5 March, 1775, to Hale at New London)*
The quotation chosen for the title of this near-opusculum is plain enough in its meaning to any one familiar with the details of Hale's story, particularly with those recorded in the Linonia minutes, where he appears constantly on his feet, speaking in one capacity or another. The phrase, "mounting the Desk," characterizes him succinctly and dramatically, and gives us a literally "moving picture" of the young man.
Richard Sill (1755-1790, Yale 1775) had been in Yale two years with Hale. The friendships formed at Yale "carried on" then as now, and we find Sill, the Yale Senior, in corre- spondence with Hale, the schoolmaster, after the latter's graduation from College.
Sill writes :
"You say you have been somewhat deficient in the letter-writing way but I rejoice to hear you are reformed."
The plain truth is, Hale was so "deficient in the letter- writing way" that his correspondents complained of it, com- pelling him to apologize frequently for his delay in writing and to resolve to reform, which I think he never did. Hale was a man of action and though he conducted a considerable correspondence, he did not have the gift of letter-writing in
* The full text of this letter will be found in the Yale Alumni Weekly of April 9, 1926.
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anything like the measure of some of his friends,-like Sill, for instance, who, in the letter with which we are here con- cerned, writes entertainingly of what is going on in the Col- lege Yard, and of the Tories who infest the town. Says Sill:
"The Military Art just begins to dawn in the generous breasts of the Sons of Yale (pardon bombast for 'tis allowable if we may take all those who have written upon this subject, as a rule). College Yard constantly sounds with, poise your firelock, cock your firelock, etc. These warlike noises are continually in College, from which we may gather as great evidence, war will be proclaimed soon, as from a Noise which was lately heard in the Air in divers places, there is this circumstance which these College noises want in order to terrify the Vulgar, that is I don't learn that any fire follows them, which some say did the other-Which hath the greatest force to convince a rational mind of the approach of war, I leave you to say-We have two Regular Soldiers to instruct us and I trust our progress is not small considering the shortness of the time. & so much for military. I can't hear Sir that you are about mounting the Desk" [Italics inine].
Sill, the writer of this sprightly letter, was a native of Lyme, and, though later in College, was but a few weeks younger than Hale. Cut down in his prime (he died at thirty-five), he left a fine record as a soldier and officer, and had already greatly endeared himself to his associates in public and private life.
With the Yale R. O. T. C., of which we have heard so much in the last decade, and with the new Naval Unit at Yale, we are wont to view the training of the Yale undergraduate in the "Military Art" as the outgrowth of the World War, whereas it appears from Sill's letter that it is an old Yale tradition, running back to the muttering of Mars just before the War of Independence. It is to the glory of Yale that before Lexington-before "the embattled farmers fired the shot heard round the world"-Yale men were being trained by "Regular Soldiers" in the College Yard for the impending, irrepressible conflict.
461
RICHARD SILL TO NATHAN HALE
So far as the writer is aware, the earliest reference to the "Military Art" as an extra-curriculum activity is to be found in this letter of Richard Sill's, written now a century and a half ago, to Yale's scholar-soldier hero, Nathan Hale, justi- fying the heart-warming refrain, "For God, for Country, and for Hale."
The Birth-Place,
October 6, 1926.
LVII.
TWO SERMONS BY DR. MUNGER.
THE MUNICIPAL CHURCH (Preached April 28, 1901.)
In Dr. Munger's famous farewell sermon of April 28, 1901, he urged the profound obligation to service to the entire com- munity, imposed upon the United Church Society on account of occupying, by the sufferance of the community, a site upon New Haven Green, our common inheritance. He said :
"In the early days, the Church was placed where it is as a matter of convenience to the community. It was founded in the days of Church and State. The State set apart this thirteenth square in the midst of the twelve for the use of the Church-not for the sake of the Church but for the sake of the State, which thus made the Church its servant. Note the distinction; the State did not thus honor the Church, but made it as one that serveth."
Here are deep truths, largely lost sight of now, obscured by other aims, but bound to be brought forward and re-exam- ined on some day of reckoning.
This sermon contained Dr. Munger's last message to his people. During his pastorate and for some time there- after, both the Church house itself-the Meeting-House- and the United Church Chapel on Temple Street were con- stantly used for meetings and gatherings unrelated to the specific work of the Society. The underlying principle of his sermon lay far deeper in Dr. Munger's thought than his appli- cation of it, and calls upon all eleemosynary bodies of whatever character enjoying exemption from taxation or other allied sufferance, not to forget their obligation to the people who grant the sufferance for their own ultimate benefit-an obliga- tion often lost sight of and treated lightly by such institutions, especially when they have enjoyed the sufferance for many
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generations, and come to mistake it for a vested right,-a character it never takes on in fact. I cannot forbear saying here that my own efforts to secure larger privileges for the community from Yale University have proceeded from the profound truths of that sermon-truths which I could wish might be constantly reiterated. I refer now, in particular, to the Sunday opening of the Collections of the Art School and Peabody Museum, to the free Sunday afternoon recitals upon the great organ in Woolsey Hall. My further efforts, else- where recorded in this book, to have the University extend to the public the use under proper restrictions of the University Library and to use the Carnegie Swimming Pool during the long summer vacations, have as yet been unsuccessful, but must, I have faith to believe, ultimately be granted. I am well aware that I have been criticized for these efforts and charged with meddling, but here again my critics lose sight of the fundamental nature of tax-exemption-something granted by the people for their own ultimate benefit and hence a matter of public concern and hence the proper concern of any citizen who participates in any degree, however small, in the exemp- tion. If the citizens-all citizens-realized that the adminis- tration of any tax-exempt institution of whatever character was their concern and freely exercised their rights of criticiz- ing what is their own business, they would receive far larger benefits from all institutions so exempted by them for their benefit,-their colleges, schools, hospitals, charitable homes of every description, and so on through the list.
Dr. Munger, in his sermon, as I am well aware, did not call upon the general public to act, but sought to impress upon his own church the seriousness of its obligation to the public by reason of its enjoyment of the public sufferance.
Any tribute of mine to Dr. Munger would be incomplete without this acknowledgment of my obligation to him for his clear exposition of the fundamental relation existing between the people granting privileges and the tax-exempt creatures enjoying them for the benefit of the people.
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NEW HAVEN :
NATHAN HALE
(Preached June 12, 1898.)
"I have told the young people the story of Nathan Hale because, taken altogether, he comes nearest the full ideal of heroic patriotism to be found in American history" (from the sermon).
On Children's Day, June 12, 1898, Dr. Munger preached on the text, "Quit you like men ; be strong." His theme was Nathan Hale. In concluding, he said (I quote from his original manuscript lying before me) :
"I wish there were a statue to Nathan Hale on the Campus, in the Vanderbilt Court, where the students could see the great hero of Yale in the act of becoming poor even unto death if perchance he can make his country rich. . to thus remind Yale of the truest hero in her lists and her most beautiful and precious gift to the Country."
Dr. Munger had been led to write this sermon on Hale by a talk I had had with him about Hale and about MacMonnies' statue of Hale, erected in City Hall Park, New York, in 1893. I wanted to see a statue to Hale on the Old Campus which knew him as a Yale undergraduate,-to place him before the students of to-day. For my part, I had been enlisted, as a small boy, in the cause of Hale by reading over and over in one of my school "Readers," such as were in common use half a century ago, Francis Miles Finch's poem beginning, "To drum-beat and heart-beat A soldier marches by; There is color in his cheek, There is courage in his eye, Yet to drum- beat and heart-beat In a moment he must die."
The idea of a statue to Hale on the Yale Campus therefore appealed to me very strongly, and one evening-I think in the fall of 1898, though it may have been in the early winter months of 1899-I unfolded to Dr. Munger, in his study, a plan that I had worked out to this end. He was so much interested in the idea that he readily agreed to bring the matter before the Yale Corporation. The records of that body show that on March 16, 1899:
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TWO SERMONS BY DR. MUNGER
"The following preamble and resolution introduced by the Rev. Dr. Munger were adopted and voted, viz:
"In view of a movement among the alumni and friends of the University to place a statue of Nathan Hale upon the College Square,
"Voted, that the movement has the approval of the Corporation, and that a Committee of nine be appointed by the Corporation, to take the matter into consideration, and to report plans of action to this body.
"The following persons were subsequently appointed to constitute said Committee : Senator Joseph R. Hawley, Professor Weir, the Rev. Dr. Munger, Hon. Samuel E. Merwin, of New Haven, Morris W. Seymour, Esq., of Bridgeport, Howard Mansfield, Esq., of New York, George D. Seymour, Esq., of New Haven, Jonathan Trumbull, Esq., of Norwich, and Mr. Lewis S. Welch, of New Haven.
Professor Weir soon resigned, and his place was taken by Professor John Henry Niemeyer.
It will be noticed that four members of this Committee were not Yale men, since the aim was to make the project of a statue to Hale a State as well as a College affair; the former aspect of the project was talked over at great length with Dr. Munger, since, viewed in another light, the project was to be the beginning of a movement to bring the State and the College much closer together than they had been in the past, or are at present. I personally had the promise, for instance, of some subscriptions from Connecticut men who were in nowise affiliated with the College. Though we had but few meetings of the Committee, a great amount of work was done, largely, if I may say so, by Dr. Munger and myself.
From that memorable first "Hale" evening in Dr. Munger's study, up to the time of his death in 1910, Dr. Munger's inter- est in the project never flagged, and was the subject of constant conversation between us. The attempt of a self-appointed sculptor to put his own design on the Campus led to long delays and the statue was not finally erected until 1914, six- teen years after the inception of the idea. It was my hope all along that Dr. Munger might make the address at the unveiling, but he had then "passed on," and when the time came, I strongly opposed any dedicatory exercises. Thus it
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happened that Hale took his place again in the College Yard, close to his old quarters, with no heralding. Dr. Munger, could he have then spoken, would have acclaimed Hale as "the truest hero in her [Yale's] lists, and her most beautiful and precious gift to the Country."
LVIII.
THE MUNGER TABLET IN THE YALE BICENTENNIAL BUILDINGS.
Many years ago-I cannot tell how many-I was placed with the late Dr. Theodore T. Munger (1830-1910, Yale 1851) and Governor Baldwin upon the Tablet Committee of the United Church. Dr. Munger was interested in tablets and in the exceedingly difficult art of writing memorial inscriptions, and was fond of discussing both subjects. I first learned of the tablets in the Bruton Church near Williamsburg, Virginia, from him. His interest in memorial tablets appears in his reference to the subject in his farewell sermon, delivered Sunday, April 28, 1901, and printed under the significant title, "The Municipal Church." I foresaw, of course, that follow- ing a well-established precedent, a tablet must some day be erected to his memory in the United Church, and I dragooned him into posing in the winter of 1898-1899 for Mr. Frank Crawford Boardman, a gifted young graduate from the Yale Art School, and at that time, if I remember, instructor in modeling in the School. Mr. Boardman recalls that Dr. Munger left his studio one day, after a sitting, to attend the meeting of the Corporation that elected Dr. Hadley president of Yale University. This was on May 25, 1899. But for the fact that he was an admirer of Boardman and desirous of doing anything that would help him forward in his career, Dr. Munger would hardly have consented to pose for the young sculptor. I followed the work with great interest and was well pleased with the result. The finished model was stored in the Art School, where it was, of course, seen by Professor Weir, then Director of the School. After Dr. Munger's death in January, 1910, and before I thought the time ripe to bring the matter of having the tablet cast and
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set up in the Church to the attention of the Society's Committee, I learned, to my great surprise, that Prof. Weir had secured it from Mr. Boardman for the University. I was disappointed not to have the tablet go into the Church in pursuance of my original design, but I recognized its suitability for erection as the memorial of the University to one of her most gifted and honored sons. The tablet was dedicated November 18, 1910, and may now be seen in the corridor adjacent to Woolsey Hall. A reproduction of it will be found at the back of this book. Subsequently, I acted as a member of the Society's Tablet Committee in having a marble tablet in memory of Dr. Munger designed and executed for the Church by Messrs. McKim, Mead & White.
LIX. ALEXANDER'S PORTRAIT OF PROFESSOR WEIR.
"Those portrait-painting, portrait-eating eyes of thine"
-Emerson to Carlyle, 1839.
Since this volume is largely the record of a failure,-the failure of my effort to induce New Haven to adopt City Plan- ning,-I have faith to believe that my readers (if I ever have any) will not cavil at the inclusion here among my "miscel- laneous works" of another project that was not a failure. I mean Alexander's portrait of Professor Weir, which was presented to the Yale School of the Fine Arts by a small group of his friends and a larger group of his students, on the occa -. sion of his retirement in June, 1913, from the directorship of the School,-the first Art School in the world to be con- nected with a University as a part of its educational policy,- which he had then served for forty-four years as director. I count the portrait among my "miscellaneous works," because I originated the idea and myself secured the co-operation and services of Mr. Alexander, and put the project "over." Since, moreover, the canvas is, in itself, a notable example of the work of one of the foremost American painters in the field of portraiture, as well as an important document in the history of the Art School, I feel that the story of how it all happened may be of public interest and not out of place in a volume mainly concerned with New Haven affairs.
Before I ever came to New Haven, I had, of course, known of Professor Weir as the painter of "The Gun Foundry" (1866), and "The Forging of the Shaft" (1868), and soon after I came here in 1883, I made his acquaintance. From that time forward until he removed to Providence in 1914, I was the recipient of constant "polite attentions" at his hands and was a frequent visitor both to his studio in the Art School
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