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 48
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When I first came to New Haven to live ( 1883), stories of Town's wonderful library and curios were still current. Pro- fessor Weir told me about its richness in books relating to the fine arts, and Henry T. Blake how visitors were taken to see the house and its treasures as one of the sights of the city. Whatever skepticism I ever had about the character of the library was dispelled when I saw a few of the books in private
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hands here, and also the several catalogues prepared for its dispersal at auction. I recalled, too, my early days in the city of my adoption, when I was privileged to attend the "soirees" of the "Attic Philosophers," who had spacious bachelor quar- ters in the attic of the house as greatly enlarged, some years after Mr. Town's death, by Henry Austin (1804-1891), one of Town's most devoted admirers and pupils (see pp. 219-230), for Mr. Joseph Earl Sheffield (1793-1882). As thus enlarged in the prevailing Italian villa style, as it was then called, Mr. Sheffield made the house his residence, and dying, left it, much as it outwardly appears to-day, to the Sheffield Scientific School, whence it came to harbor those hospitable "Attic Philosophers" of "Sheff" affiliations. Notable names those "Attic Philosophers" bore, names now, alas, starred in the Yale Quinquennial Catalogue. I had an eye for architecture even in those days and well recall how sections of the rich cornices of the original library abutted into those low attic rooms, which somehow "took in" a few feet of the upper part of Town's noble high-studded library apartment.
And now, "at length and at last," my young friend in pursuit of the ana of Lydia, had stumbled on a more detailed account of the house and books than I had seen.
But before presenting to the reader what Mrs. Sigourney has to say about Mr. Town's library and its treasures, let us follow the poetic footstep back to Norwich, where she was born. In the chapter entitled "Aristocracy of the Olden Time," in her "Letters of Life" (pub. 1866), she refers grandly to the "mansion of my birth and earliest happiness." Her father, to speak plainly, was Madam Lathrop's gardener (in the vernacular, hired man) and had quarters in Madam Lathrop's house.
Madam Lathrop (1717-1805), Lydia's first great benefac- tress, was indubitably the "first lady" of Norwich and a very great lady she was, a daughter of Governor Joseph Talcott (1699-1741), of Hartford, by name Jerusha. Widowed and bereft of her children, Madam Lathrop made so much of
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Lydia, who, in turn, made herself so useful and companionable to Madam Lathrop, that on the death of that great lady, Lydia was privileged to visit in Hartford the widow and daughters of Colonel Jeremiah Wadsworth, Madam Lathrop's favorite nephew. During this visit she naturally made the acquain- tance of Colonel Jeremiah's son, Daniel, destined to become the "Maecenas of Hartford" and its "first citizen," as his wife was to become its "first lady," as I suppose any social historian of Hartford would readily concede.
Daniel Wadsworth, a lifelong semi-invalid and dilettante, became much interested in Lydia and when she removed to Hartford a few years later, to open a school, became her chief patron and launched her on her great career. Such was Lydia's glittering reward for making herself useful, as a child, to Madam Lathrop, under whose very roof she had been born to the "poor but honest parents" of all such stories.
Mrs. Daniel Wadsworth, born Faith Trumbull, was the daughter of the second Governor Jonathan Trumbull (1740- 1809, Harv. Coll. 1759), of Connecticut. Her sister Harriet was the wife of Professor Benjamin Silliman (1779-1864, Yale Coll. 1796), of New Haven. Professor and Mrs. Silliman lived handsomely and hospitably on what is now Hillhouse Avenue (originally Temple Avenue) and were among the chief ornaments of that "simple and pure society" for which New Haven was so extolled in the Eighteen Thirties by N. P. Willis (1806-1867, Yale Coll. 1827) in "American Scenery" (London, 1839), a massive work in two volumes, adorned with many engravings, including two full-page plates of New Haven.
What more natural than that Lydia (now Mrs. Sigourney) should make the acquaintance of Professor and Mrs. Silliman when they came to Hartford to visit Mr. and Mrs. Daniel Wadsworth? And again, what more natural than that Pro- fessor and Mrs. Silliman should invite the celebrated poetess to visit them in New Haven? And here she came in July, 1838, with her daughter Mary. It was a memorable visit for
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her, opening the door, as it did, to the very penetralia of New Haven society, of which Mr. Willis was soon to assure the readers of "American Scenery" that "It is not too much to say, it is one of the most elegant and highly cultivated in the world."
During this visit Mrs. Sigourney had the felicity of making the acquaintance, among others in the first rank of society, of Mr. Town, who lived near the Sillimans on the Avenue; of Colonel John Trumbull, Mrs. Silliman's uncle and a member of the Silliman household; and of Miss Mary Lucas Hillhouse (1781-1871), a daughter of the Hon. James Hillhouse (1754- 1832, Yale Coll. 1773). Miss Hillhouse lived at the head of the Avenue, in the family of her brother, James Abraham Hillhouse (1789-1841, Yale Coll. 1808), the author of "Hadad," and other poems, on which the door of oblivion was long since closed.
Mrs. Sigourney made the most of her opportunities and became a correspondent of the Sillimans, Mr. Town, Colonel Trumbull, and Miss Hillhouse, and they were undoubtedly pleased to admit to their circle a lady so well-known, so refined, and so eminently pious as this lady from Hartford. She was taken to see Mr. Town's house, with its treasures of books, paintings, engravings, curios, and whatever. In his own field as an architect and as a collector, he occupied an outstanding position, comparable to hers. Out of this acquaintance grew the magazine article on "The Residence and Library of Ithiel Town, Esq.," around which this chapter is being written.
Another precious fruitage of this visit was the friendship formed with Miss Hillhouse, the "first lady" of New Haven and the "female star" of its choice circle. What more fitting than that the "American Hemans," as Mrs. Sigourney was called, and the "American Hannah More," as Miss Hillhouse was sometimes styled, should correspond and that Mrs. Sigourney should celebrate the manor and domain of Sachem's Wood in prose and verse? Miss Hillhouse was an ardent collector of autographs and Mrs. Sigourney was delighted to
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add to her collection, now in the possession of James Hill- house, Esq., the present owner of the mansion that crowns the height of Sachem's Wood. It is a commonplace to say that Mrs. Sigourney must be judged by the mores of her day and generation. For all her "hifalutin'," and incorrigible gentility she seems to have been a kindly and charitable person ; to have "practiced what she preached." To her great credit it must be said of her that she was notably devoted to her father and mother as long as they lived.
In "The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table" Dr. Holmes has an amusing account of meeting Lydia not once but twice over the "social tea cup" in Hartford when he was lecturing there. He refers to her not by name but (slyly, if you will) as a "Littératrice of note" and also as a distinguished lady, which of course she was. But "Littératrice of note" !! What could be happier in its connotations than that ?- her portrait at a stroke ! By all accounts Dr. Holmes was as inveterate a talker as Mrs. Sigourney was versifier, and so "honors were easy" over the "social tea cup" up there in Hartford in the "lang syne."
To return, after this gossipy excursion, to Town: He, too, was very much a celebrity and we may judge no more averse ta publicity than was his visitor from Hartford. She was always, according to her biographer-and her "literary remains" provide ample evidence to prove it-pressed for sub- jects to enrich and exalt (invariably) with her genius. What subject could possibly be more literary than a library ? Hence the article, for which the foregoing forms such a long and digressive introduction.
Beyond peradventure, Mr. Town gladly collaborated and supplied the material, not only as to the dimensions of his library and the number of books and prints in it, but also some few details of his own professional beginnings, and herein lies the chief value to me of what she wrote. Unfortunately for those curious like the writer, she did not put down what he doubtless told her and what the writer has tried in vain to discover, viz., where and how he got the training to design,
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before he was thirty, his masterpiece-Center Church in New Haven, which even contains many unsuspected refinements of architectural design, hidden until the late Leoni W. Robinson made a careful survey of the fabric (see pp. 183-194).
So much of Mrs. Sigourney's article of 1839 as I have space for follows :
Original. RESIDENCE OF ITHIEL TOWN, ESQ.
BY LYDIA H. SIGOURNEY.
One of the Engravings which adorn the present number, is of the mansion of a gentleman, long celebrated for his architectural designs, which both in public and private edifices, have beautified so many parts of our widely- extended country. It is pleasantly situated in New-Haven, Connecticut, one of the most delightful and picturesque cities in New-England. It is a fair object to the eye, but its most striking feature is the noble library which it contains, and the accommodation afforded for its tasteful arrangement. In the second story, is a spacious apartment, forty-five feet in length, twenty- three in breadth and twenty-two in height, with two sky-lights, six feet square,-three windows at one end, and three sash-doors, opening upon the balcony. There, and in the lobbies, and study, are arranged, in Egyptian, Grecian and Gothic cases, of fine symmetry, between nine and ten thousand volumes. Many of these are rare, expensive, and valuable. More than three- fourths are folios and quartos. A great proportion are adorned with engrav- ings. It is not easy to compute the number of these embellishments-though the proprietor supposes them to exceed two hundred thousand. There are also some twenty or twenty-five thousand separate engravings-some of them the splendid executions of the best masters, both ancient and modern. In these particulars, this library surpasses all others in our country. There are also one hundred and seventy oil paintings, besides mosaics, and other works of art, and objects of curiosity.
Mr. Town has been nearly thirty years in making this collection, and hav- ing had many facilities, while in Europe, both for selection and for economi- cal purchase, believes the whole cost not to exceed thirty thousand dollars- though, at the usual cost of books and engravings, the amount must have been far greater. He has been assiduous, not only to give his treasures a fitting temple, but to guard them from casualties by fire. Every partition in his building, even to those in the closets, are of brick; all the inside plastering is upon bricks, without laths, except the ceiling, and all the floors are of mortar two inches in thickness, with a coat of water-cement, and the rooms without woodcases.
That the design of forming so large and rare a library, should have been cherished by one, who had neither enjoyed the benefits of classic education,
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or inherited the facilities of a child of fortune, is truly remarkable. The philosopher, peering into the hidden springs of action and motive, might be desirous to know what had early operated to produce so strong a predilec- tion for works of art, and elegant literature. It is pleasant thus to have the solution from his own pen.
"I have had a great attachment for curious and uncommon books, ever since the age of eight years. At that time, in consequence of the death of my father, I commenced living with my uncle, and the girls of his family were in the habit of sending me to borrow a book, which contained an alphabet of letters, suitable for marking linen. In this book, which was entitled 'The Young Man's Best Companion,' were various copyslips- mathematical diagrams-dials for different latitudes-mariner's compass, etc., neatly engraved on copper-plates. These diagrams I examined frequently while on the way, and can yet recollect the strong and vivid impressions they made on my young and astonished mind, from the great ingenuity which I conceived it required to make and understand such very curious figures. Ever since, I have had a great propensity and love for mathematics, draw- ings, paintings, engravings, etc., and if this book-affair did not lead to it, I known not what did. I was often reproved by the girls, whom I have men- tioned, for drawing figures with chalk on a large stone-hearth in my uncle's house. Ten or twelve years ago, I obtained, with some difficulty, this same book, and could scarcely now be persuaded to part with my 'Young Man's Best Companion,' on any terms."
Too much praise can scarcely be accorded to a man, who, dependent on his own exertions, has thus taken pleasure in devoting so large a proportion of his time and means to the accumulation of intellectual treasures. It is an example peculiarly conspicuous and beautiful in a country where the acquisi- tion of money, for less liberal purposes, and sometimes for no purpose at all, except for the name of having amassed it, or of dying in possession of it, is both the business and the passion of multitudes,
"Till in the long-drawn struggle, life escapes."
The traveller, who in visiting the semi-capital of Connecticut, admires its fine scenery, its varied architecture, its ancient college, its classic domes, and tasteful cottages, shaded by lofty elms, or embosomed in shrubbery-its noble gallery of pictures, and their venerable artist, whose time-defying pencil still adds to the creations of genius-will not fail also to visit and admire the Library, which has been here so imperfectly described.
Among the writings of Mr. Town, is a pamphlet, entitled "Outlines of a Plan for an Academy and Institution of the Fine Arts," of which the follow- ino is a transcript. It clearly sets forth an excellent design of patronising what he so well understands.
She promptly sent him a copy of the Ladies' Companion containing her article, as appears from his letter to her under date of January 21, 1839, in which he modestly says: "The
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attention bestowed upon my collection in your notice of it, is certainly all, if not more than it merits. I hope you will make it visits yourself, or, with your friends, as often as conv't." (Hoadley Papers, Conn. Hist. Soc.)
Mrs. Sigourney's visit to Mr. Town's "residence and library" took place in 1838, but the library was already "magnificent and unrivalled" as early as 1834, asserts Dunlop in his invaluable "History" in which I read :
Mr. Town travelled in Europe [in 1829-30] in company with S. F. B. Morse and Nathaniel Jocelyn and examined the works of art with a learned eye and judgment. His library of such works is truly magnificent and unrivalled by anything of the kind in America, perhaps no private library in Europe is its equal.
What is far more gratifying to the truly judicious is Dun- . lop's further statement : .
It would give me pleasure to lay before the public a more full account of this scientific and liberal artist, whose splendid library is open to the inspection of the curious and freely offered for the instruction of the student ("History of the Rise and Progress of the Arts of Design in the United States." By William Dunlop, New York, 1834, pp. 299-300).
From the above it appears that as long ago as 1834 at least, this community had free access to and use of the finest library relating to the fine arts on this side of the Atlantic, and who shall say that Mr. Town's generous and broad-minded action in throwing his choice library and art collections open to the studious as well as to the curious, was not, after his death in 1844 and the dispersal of his books and objets d'art, directly contributory to Mr. Augustus R. Street's (1791-1866, Yale 1812) foundation in 1864 of the Yale School of the Fine Arts, the first school of its kind to be attached to a University in this country, and, it is claimed, in the world. Mr. Street passed his life in New Haven, save for a period (1843-8) of residence abroad. A man of wealth, he "majored," so to speak, in the fine arts and in languages. He must have often seen and enjoyed Town's choice books and pictures, and deplored on his return from Europe in 1848, that they had been dispersed and
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the community deprived of the great pleasure and profit of their use. It seems to me reasonable to presume that in founding the Art School, Mr. Street was animated in some measure by a desire to carry on the educational propaganda so hand- somely inaugurated by Town, who should be given his meed of praise for what he did in advancing interest in the fine arts in his day and generation.
I am aware that Professor John F. Weir, in his article on the Yale School of the Fine Arts in the monumental history (1879) of Yale College edited by Professor William L. Kingsley, suggests that the Art School grew out of the interest aroused in the fine arts by a series of lectures in connection with an exhibition of pictures in Alumni Hall in 1857-8. That may indeed have influenced Mr. Street in his offer of 1864 of an art school building to Yale, but I am still con- strained to think that he received the germ of the idea from Town's library and collections, which had, for nearly a decade up to Town's death in 1844, been open to the sight-seer and the student and also, perhaps, from studying Town's interest- ing and stimulating pamphlet entitled, Outlines of a Plan for an Academy & Institution of the Fine Arts, which Mrs. Sigourney's article was seemingly designed to present to the general public through the columns of The Ladies' Companion, in which it was printed in full. It is clear that Mr. Street's interest was not so much in a museum as in a well-equipped school ; similarly, Mr. Town's aim was to "present to our new country the means of educating artists, as well as the diffusing of taste and knowledge of this kind, into the mind of the community at large, to enable them to appreciate the arts." His plan was to form a joint stock company to own suitable buildings and collections and supply the teachers, the stock- holders to enjoy special privileges in place of any dividends. No matter about that; it is clear that he had the germ of an art school here in his own house and that he had been studying and writing about the subject probably as early as 1832 and, therefore, long prior to the lectures referred to by Professor
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Weir as having been given in 1857-8. I have less hesitation in advancing the foregoing theory from the fact that Professor Weir makes no claim to having been told by Mr. Street that he was led to offer to build an art school building by the interest shown in the lectures and exhibition of pictures in 1857-8. In fact Mr. Street died in 1866 while Professor Weir did not come to New Haven until 1869 and it does not appear that the two men ever met.
It may be that Mr. Town's elaborate Plan thus introduced to the readers of The Ladies' Companion in 1839 was the first project of the sort in this country. He was, it should be remembered, one of the fifteen founders in 1826 of our National Academy of Design.
The "noble gallery of pictures, and their venerable artist, whose time-defying pencil still adds to the creations of genius" referred to near the end of the above quotation from the pen of the poetess, was of course the Trumbull Gallery, then occupy- ing a site near the middle of the college yard, and the "venerable artist" of "time-defying pencil" was no other than the great Col. John Trumbull ( 1756-1843, Harv. Coll. 1773) himself, a son of Gov. Jonathan Trumbull, sometime aide de camp to Washington, historical and portrait painter to the new Repub- lic, diplomat, man of the great world whose recently translated bones repose under (or nearly under) a tablet (in the new Art School building) on which it is recorded "To his Country he gave his Sword and his Pencil." Col. Trumbull himself designed the Trumbull Gallery which was erected in 1832, as well as the meeting-house still standing on Lebanon green and notable for its beautiful spire.
Alas for Colonel Trumbull's time-defying pencil, which had lost its cunning many years before Mrs. Sigourney's visit to New Haven in 1838, when he was at the ripe age of eighty- two. Time-defying his pencil was not, but during this visit he painted her portrait (such an opportunity was not to be lost), which may be seen to this day in the Wadsworth Athen- eum (founded by Mr. Daniel Wadsworth and designed for
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him by Mr. Ithiel Town) in Hartford, where it is credited with being Colonel Trumbull's last effort in the art of portraiture. It is "passing strange" that, "running true to form," Mrs. Sigourney did not, so far as I can discover, embalm her impressions of so great a figure as was Colonel Trumbull in that early "American scene."
Additional and inevitable fruitage of the visit was an exchange of letters between the poetess and Mrs. Silliman, Miss Hillhouse, Colonel Trumbull and Mr. Town.
In her "bread-and-butter" letter of July 28, 1838, addressed to Mrs. Silliman, we get a glimpse of him-"the beautiful old gentleman who stood upon the steps"-of the Silliman house on the Avenue, I suppose, at the time of her leave-taking. In her letter of August II, 1838, to Mrs. Silliman, she writes, "Please to thank Colonel Trumbull for his letter, and say to him, that though he has no great respect for collectors of auto- graphs, I have placed it among a choice collection of epistles, from Europe and America, with which I have been favored."
Three of the letters to Mrs. Sigourney, two from Mr. Town and one from Colonel Trumbull, are preserved among the Hoadley Papers in the Connecticut Historical Society. Two of them I am constrained to include in this article, not because in any way intrinsically important, but as specimens of the epistolary art as practiced nearly a hundred years ago by two of New Haven's first citizens.
To Mrs. Sigourney from Col. John Trumbull
New Haven 5th August 1838
Mrs. Sigourney
My dear Madam
Accept my sincere thanks for your kind Care of my Eyes :- the Shade and the beautiful & flattering Lines which accompanied it came safe-they will be carefully preserved, & will prove an efficacious remedy for my infirmity
I am preparing for my route to N York Boston Plymouth, & fear the picture will not be completed, & dry enough to be sent to you before I go- excuse me therefore, if you should not receive it, until after my return :-
¢
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then, (in October) I hope for the pleasure of seeing you in Hartford. & will bring the imperfect Shadow [the portrait?]
With sincere Respect & Esteem, I am Dear Madam Your faithful & obliged Servant Jnº Trumbull
To Mrs. Sigourney from Mr. Ithiel Town
New Haven Oct™ 3ª/, 38.
Mrs. L. H. Sigourney
Madam,
Your esteemed favor was recd (on my return from Virginia) and read with pleasure-still I am not unaware that the very flattering compliment bestowed on my collection by your civility and good intentions, is somewhat above its merits .-
That you are however sincere in the opinion expressed, and, of course, hastily formed, I do not doubt.
I might indeed be pleased, if the collection deserved so much attention from a Lady of your acknowledged talents, as you have so kindly expressed in your letter .-
Having an opportunity to send the pamphlets &c, and a few Engravings, I have selected mostly, from among my duplicates; I will defer answering the residue of your letter for a day or two .-
Very respectfully Madam, Your obedient Servant Ithiel Town
It is a pity that Mrs. Sigourney's "beautiful & flattering lines which accompanied it" (the eye-shade) were not "care- fully preserved," as Col. Trumbull promised her they would be, and handed down to posterity. And we may doubt if the eye-shade and the verses proved "an efficacious remedy for my infirmity." It takes more than an eye-shade and poetry to repair the eyesight of man at four score plus. We may imagine, therefore, that Colonel Trumbull mingled a bit of irony with the "applesauce" of his thanks for her gifts and solicitude.
Colonel Trumbull had, peradventure, been commandeered to paint the lady's portrait. Mr. Town, perchance, was
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besought to design a library for her house in Hartford, as appears from his other surviving letter to her-that of Jan- uary 21, 1839, already quoted from but too long to reprint in full. There was, in those early days, much exchanging of presents in our "first circles." The letter in question concludes : "P.S. My daughter [her name was Etha] sends her thanks and best wishes to you for the much esteemed present you were so kind as to send her."
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