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 49
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I do not resist and why should I, the temptation to note that Trumbull, born June 6th, 1756, was a year younger to a day than Captain Nathan Hale and that both were graduated from College the same year. I have no knowledge that they ever met, but they were born not far from each other "East of the River" whence the "brightest and best" came in the old days, according to the theory advanced by the late Governor Morgan Gardiner Bulkeley (1838-1922), who "sprung it" upon me a few weeks before his death. I was quite unpre- pared for the attack and retired, I fear, in some confusion, as he fired a volley of great "East of the River" names at me. Both Town and Mrs. Sigourney (Lydia Huntley), great and near-great, were of that region. Louis B. Namier, the English historian and scholar, once told me that in his opinion Eastern Connecticut, far less influenced by New York than Western Connecticut, and longer the home of Calvinistic theology, presented a sturdier stock; Governor Bulkeley would have cherished that argument and reinforced it.
Mr. Thomas E. O'Donnell, writing in "Architectural Design" of Town's house which he happily characterizes as "The Home of the Greek Revivalist," says in part, "This [the design of Mr. Town's house] seems to clearly indicate that this Reviv- alist, at least, was not content to live in an adapted temple type but that instead built his house in the refined spirit of Greek work and not in a copied Greek form and also that he was able to write into a stiff, formal style something of the domestic quality that is expected in a place of residence."
Famous as Mr. Town was as an architect and sought for as
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his services were from all over the country as a designer of public buildings, it is not to be supposed that the rewards of his professional work as an architect enabled him to build, about 1832, his substantially-fireproof Hillhouse Avenue mansion and fill it with the finest collection of books and engravings relating to the fine arts that had been brought together in this country prior to or for a long time after his death in 1844. It is pleasant for one who has spent his own professional life in considering patents for inventions, to dis- cover that Mr. Town was only enabled to indulge his passion for the fine arts by the proceeds-the royalties or whatever- from patents he took out on certain improvements in bridges, for fortunately, he was an able engineer as well as an archi- tect. Town was given an honorary degree by Yale in 1825. More and more he is being regarded as one of the ranking American architects of his time.
In the rooms of the Mattatuck Historical Society, in Water- bury, may be seen a portrait of Town, done in quite the "grand manner," by Spencer in 1839. It represents a very handsome man fairly surrounded by books in the richest of bindings. One hand rests upon a scroll, while the other holds a superior pencil. Prominent among these rich "properties" is a picture of a bridge-entrance in the classical style and upon it the inscription, "Erected A.D. 1839, Ithiel Town's Patents."
Town's shade must be pleased as he looks down from his "Mansion in the Skies" (a Neo-Grec building perchance) to see his bust by Chauncey B. Ives (a native of Hamden) given a place of honor in the new Yale Art School. On the base of the bust appears a band of lattice work symbolizing Town's truss, the source of the fortune on which he built his library. Of him it may be truly said "His work lives after him."
The Birth-Place.
August, 1929.
NOTE: "Associated [in the management of 'Godey's Lady's Book'] at that time [1841] with Mrs. Hale [Sarah Josepha Buell, 1788-1879] was the
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most popular poetess who ever wrote in America-Lydia H. Sigourney [1791-1865]. Her popularity was only equalled by her industry; her post- humous memoirs record over two thousand contributions to more than three hundred periodicals, and she published forty-six volumes of all sorts- poetry, essays, travel, fiction, historical sketches, cook-books, etc." (Mott's "History of American Magazines"; see "Saturday Review of Literature" for Nov. 23, 1929, p. 34I.)
NOTE 2: Mr. Gordon Sherman Haight, a fellow member of the Eliza- bethan Club, has my thanks for calling my attention to Mrs. Sigourney's article in The Ladies' Companion.
NOTE 3: Mrs. Sigourney was vastly prolific in the field of occasional verse, sought and also unsought. The late Professor B-, of Yale, who knew his Hartford, once told me that its citizens feared to die, lest its poetess celebrate them in verse. A single instance of her habit will suffice for illustration. Mrs. N-, the wife of a Farmington farmer, died in childbirth. Mrs. Sigourney did not know Mrs. N- or her family, but on learning of her death was moved to write the appended verses and send them to the bereaved husband and family. They are here for the first time printed.
ON THE DEATH OF MRS. N-
Tears stood within an infant's eye, Just opening on the light-
And sad its mournful wail arose, Amid the funeral rite-
The guardian of a peaceful home, The friend,-by all approved, The saint, who from her blooming years A Saviour's precepts loved,
But ah! no mother soothed her babe,- For motionless and cold,
Turned from her fireside here below To the drear burial sod,
Was that fond breast, which would have joy'd The feeble frame to fold .-
And changed these scenes of care and woe, For an abode with God. -L. H. S.
Farmington, March, 1839.
It will be noted that these "eminently Victorian" verses were written soon after "our dear Queen" came to the throne, and sweetly reflect the spirit of her time. Mrs. Sigourney's laurels have faded (most laurels do!) but it may well be that as a recent reviewer has asserted, "she was the most popular poetess who ever wrote in America." She was an ideal of "female excellence" and everyone could understand what she wrote, and it will have to be admitted that that is, in itself, a great merit-a merit often absent from far better verse much applauded to-day.
LXVIII. DWIGHT AND HILLHOUSE: PIONEERS IN POMOLOGY.
An eminent American scientist, with the collection of Jap- anese pottery as an avocation (Professor Edward S. Morse), once told the writer that pottery was male and porcelain female, whimsically intimating that the collection of specimens in these two fields should be thus allocated. A similar alloca- tion, it seems to me, might well be made for flowers and fruits, an idea which receives support on the female side in the present vogue of garden clubs organized all over the country by the ladies of our so-called "leisure class." If their menfolk, carrying out the other side of the idea, should ever address themselves to pomology as a fashionable pastime. they would at the same time be carrying on a tradition of the early days of the Republic, when pomology was viewed as among the most gentlemanly and becoming of the Arts of Peace. In sup- port of this statement, I call attention to the instances of two gentlemen of New Haven who beguiled their "hours of ease" in the cultivation of small fruits.
In Vol. I of the Papers of the New Haven Colony Historical Society, p. 140, I read that :
"Timothy Dwight, D.D., President of Yale College, cultivated the largest garden in the city with his own hands, and produced the best culinary plants and the finest fruits in the city. He introduced the Chili strawberry, and was the first to successfully cultivate the strawberry as a garden fruit in New Haven. His peaches are said to have been of the choicest kinds, and very abundant -- so abundant that they were removed from his grounds by the cart load. He died in 1817."
It is gratifying to learn that "Blest Dwight" was so blessed in his garden, but cart loads of peaches so close to the College Yard lay a heavy tax on credulity. I could the more readily visualize such abundance of peaches, if I could be assured that
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Dr. Dwight's garden was elsewhere than back of his own house, which stood close to what is now the site of Lawrance Hall, facing College Street, or that the undergraduates of a century ago were more indifferent than those of to-day would, per- adventure, be to unheeded showers of presidential peaches. Yet where else could he have tended such a garden, save in his own grounds back of his house? Doolittle's map of 1812 shows a fence with a row of trees along it, running close to the north end of what came to be called "South Middle" College. The fence divided what is now the "Old Campus" into halves and screened the President's big back yard, com- prising the whole north half of the plot, from the then College Yard proper. Therefore, the presidential peaches had at least the protection of a fence. Let us hope that they also had the better protection of high-principled youth!
Dwight's peach trees were prolific, if we can credit their chronicler, Mr. Bacon, but Mr. Hillhouse made the finer pomo- logical gesture in his attention to the more aristocratic pear, of which he boasted, if we may again credit the Baconian chronicler, forty varieties. To quote again from the same source :
"James Hillhouse, by profession a lawyer, cultivated extensively the apple, the pear, and the peach. A quantity of apple and pear scions from the King's garden, in France, having been received by him, and finding no person to cultivate them, he, with the assistance of a friend, in one eve- ning, by candle light, set one hundred and fifty scions into small stocks. This collection contained about forty varieties of pears. Among his peaches were the Early Ann, Nutmeg, Red Rareripe, Yellow Rareripe, and White and Red Clingstone. His assortment was so arranged as to have ripe fruit from the beginning to the end of the season. To him the public are indebted for the beautiful elms which adorn our streets. He died in 1832."
I had long known that Mr. Hillhouse was the first "profes- sional citizen" of New Haven of his time, but until coming upon the above item, I had no idea that pomology was so passionate a pastime with the Patriot of Sachem's Wood.
The Birth-Place, March, 1925.
LXIX.
SAFETY FIRST: AN ARGUMENT FOR REMOVAL OF THE FIRST VOLUME OF THE NEW HAVEN COLONY RECORDS TO HARTFORD AND ITS DEPOSIT THERE IN THE FIRE-AND- DAMP-PROOF VAULTS OF THE STATE LIBRARY.
("Ancient history," but why make pi, now that it is in type? February, 1930.)
For an exhibition of rare original historical material, com- memorating the Landing of the Pilgrims, held in the Univer- sity Memorial Hall November 20-25, 1920, Mr. Keogh, the University Librarian, solicited the loan of the first and second volumes of the New Haven Colony Records. His praisewor- thy enterprise directed attention to the fact-not unknown but long ignored-that the precious first volume was still held in New Haven, rather than in its proper depository, the State Archives, which are kept in Hartford. Official permission was obtained to have the second volume sent down from Hart- ford, and the City of New Haven not only loaned the precious first volume, but also a stalwart policeman to stand guard over it all day. Every night during the exhibition it was taken back to the City Hall and locked up solemnly, and then returned to Memorial Hall in the morning. And so it was that these two volumes, after a separation of over two hundred and fifty years, were for the first time brought together again. But for this reunion under University auspices, and with so much parade on the part of the City calling attention to the fact that the first volume had never been sent to Hartford under the terms of the Union of 1665 (and no one seems to know why it was not sent with the second volume), I doubt if anything would have been done about it.
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History does not record who made the suggestion, but a few weeks later a bill was drafted and introduced into the State Legislature (House Bill 770), directing the Secretary of State, the Town Clerk of New Haven, and the Judge of Probate for the District of New Haven, to deliver to the State Librarian such volumes of the records of the "Colony of Juris- diction of New Haven as are now deposited in their respective offices." New Haven, however, did not propose to surrender the precious first volume without a struggle,-a fact which seemed to show that the old resentment of members of the New Haven Colony against the Union (1665) had in the course of two hundred and sixty years not wholly expired. History records that Davenport was in his day a consistent reactionary and strongly opposed to the Union. He is still the "Patron Saint" of New Haven and loyalty to his ideals was to be expected from a community consecrated to the worship of the ancestral fetish.
Mayor FitzGerald forthwith appointed a Citizens' Commit- tee to appear before the State Committee on the Library, in opposition to the bill when it came to a hearing, and he did me the honor to place me on the Committee. I made an inves- tigation of the subject, and satisfied myself that legally the first volume belonged to the State and not to the City of New Haven. I also found that the protection afforded by the vault in which it was kept in our own City Hall was entirely inadequate. Consequently, I was unable to join my fellow committeemen in opposing the transfer. I was also unable to attend the hearing in Hartford, but at the request of the Hon. Frederick Lord Perry, of New Haven, then Secretary of State, I prepared the following letter for him to read before the Committee. He read it, and the Committee voted unani- mously for the passage of the bill, which, in amended form, was enacted into law May 5, 1921. Accordingly in due course, Mr. Godard appeared at New Haven, armed with a copy of the Act duly certified by the Secretary of State, and the trans- fer of the first volume to Hartford followed. The necessity
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for adequate protection of the New Haven land and probate records, however, still remains, and hence the inclusion of my letter to Mr. Perry in this book.
New Haven, Conn., March 3, 1921.
HON. FREDERICK LORD PERRY,
New Haven, Connecticut.
DEAR SIR :
In response to your request for a letter giving my views on the proposi- tion to remove the first volume of the New Haven Colony Records to Hartford, I wish to go on record as being in favor of the transfer, for the reason that I believe the volume in question will be immeasurably safer against loss or injury by fire or water in the specially constructed record vaults of the State Library and Supreme Court Building at Hartford, than here in the old vault in the City Hall, in which our Land and Probate Records are at present housed.
As far as I can learn, citizens of New Haven oppose the transfer for reasons of sentiment, rather than on the ground that the legal claim of New Haven to the custody of the book is superior to the claim of the State of Connecticut to the custody of the book. As between safety and senti- ment, the volume is of such paramount importance that I am surprised to find this question of safety so much ignored. I also feel the pressure of sentiment and I have always been opposed to moving objects of interest from the locality where they belong to any other, except to secure care and safety. Other considerations being equal, I should, therefore, favor disregard- ing the technical right and keeping the volume here, as a document peculiarly related to the life of this community, but having recently visited the vault in our City Hall and seen the place in which this volume is kept, and at the same time retaining a clear impression of the far superior modern record vaults beneath the State Library and Supreme Court Building in Hartford, I am convinced that the rule of "safety first" should prevail and the volume be transferred without delay.
In the first place, the vault in our City Hall is an old vault, built many years ago,-a three-story structure, lighted by plain-glass windows, opening to the north and hence exposing the vault to the menace of fire damage from the old County Court House, a structure fully as grave a fire-risk as is the City Hall itself. When the vault was built, these north windows were glazed with wire glass, which is fire resistant, but even this safeguard has been removed and plain glass substituted for the wire glass.
The volume in question is kept within the vault, not in a regular fire- proof safe providing four or five inches of insulation, but in a simple metal compartment, furnished with a combination-lock. There is, it is true, no woodwork in the room in which the book is kept, but the room is filled with papers of all sorts, many of them as old as the book and perhaps equally
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valuable. In case there were a serious fire and the windows of the vault were broken (as would be more than likely), and water were played into the vault, our ancient and modern archives would be damaged, if not ruined, and the volume in question would probably suffer with the rest, especially as it is near the floor level and the compartment containing it is not only uninsulated but also not water-tight. It is to be remembered that the loss the other day in Washington of invaluable census records was, for the most part, not due to fire but to the playing of water through the windows of a vault containing some of the records. Precisely the same thing might happen here. On the other hand, in Hartford the vaults are located entirely under- ground, are lighted by electricity, and are fireproof as well as waterproof.
A graver danger, probably, is the fact that the vault is located within our City Hall, built some sixty years ago and in no sense a fireproof build- ing. The vault was enlarged not long ago. The tower, in particular, has been described as a "firetrap." Lined with the dryest of timbers, it is a menace to the rest of the structure, rising to a great height almost over the vault. In case of fire, falling masonry and timbers upon the vault would result in the exposure of the papers therein to prolonged and intense heat, against which no insulation whatever is provided except the wall of the vault. Certainly no records can be viewed as well protected which are located, without special insulation, in an old vault in an old building admittedly far from fireproof.
In my opinion, there is no comparison between the safety provided by the vaults of the State Library and the vault in our City Hall. I am, therefore, very strongly in favor of having the volume transferred to Hartford, and placed in the custody of our State Librarian, holding it for the Secretary of State, at least until such time as the City of New Haven has provided a Hall of Records, or other repository, in every way as safe as the State Library at Hartford. The leaves of this volume have been skillfully mounted between transparent films of silk, which may increase the danger of exposing the volume to heat. I have been unable to ascertain what the fact is about this, but for one I am unwilling to run the risk of having our precious first volume of the Records exposed to the test. It would cer- tainly seem that brittle linen paper, three centuries old, when mounted between transparent sheets of new silk and exposed to heat, would suffer in a serious manner.
Some advocates of the retention of the book here claim that the book is only a curiosity and nothing to get excited about, since it was long ago transcribed with extraordinary accuracy, and reprinted under the direction of Mr. Charles Hoadly, then the State Librarian, and that some few omissions on his part do not affect the value of the reprint. As to that, it may well be doubted if the original volume does not long outlast the printed copy of it, considering the quality of the paper used in the latter.
The idea that the City Records are not surrounded by all of the safe- guards which their incalculable value calls for, is no new idea with me. In 1907, when I advocated the adoption of an improvement plan for New Haven, with particular reference to the development of the Green as a
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civic center, I strongly advocated the building of a Hall of Records on the corner of Elm and Church Streets, where it would have a very high degree of fire protection. In my opinion, this community will never have properly protected its priceless records until it has a Hall of Records, built as a low structure, on a site which affords it fire protection, and itself representing the "last word" in fireproof construction. Any notion that our vault, inserted in the very bowels of a firetrap like our City Hall, can provide any protec- tion comparable to the protection of a real Hall of Records, seems to me to be idle.
In considering the question of the safety of this original first volume, the mistake is made of viewing it merely as a matter of sentiment concern- ing New Haven alone. We must regard ourselves as the custodians of the book and responsible for it to people all over the United States who trace their lineage back to the New Haven Colony, and who are, therefore, vitally interested in having every possible safeguard thrown about this original first volume. It would not be fair to conclude this letter without a tribute to our Town Clerk, Mr. John E. Doughan, who handles the volume with the utmost reverence and who would wish to guard it with his life, but such custodians are as rare as they are valuable, and a new Town Clerk might be as careless as Mr. Doughan is careful. In Hartford, on the other hand, we can reasonably expect to command a succession of trained librarians who will understand the care of such precious relics of the past. Mr. Doughan would be distressed to have the book removed, yet I think no one feels more keenly than he does, our need here of an up-to-date Hall of Records.
Very truly yours, signed : GEORGE DUDLEY SEYMOUR.
P. S .- I am sensible of the fact that being an "interloper" it may seem ungracious to have me advocate the transfer of the old volume to Hartford. I do so only, as stated, on the ground that I cannot persuade myself that the volume will not be much safer there than here. Although not "town- born," I am not without personal interest in the volume, as some of my own ancestors were among the first of the New Haven Colonists. Since I wrote the letter I have learned that the Emery Record Preserving Company, of Taunton, Massachusetts, know of no instance where a silk-mounted book has been through a fire. Just what the effect of prolonged heat upon one of these silk-mounted books would be, is, therefore, a matter of pure con- jecture. A large part of the work of the Company mentioned, consists in mounting books that have already been through fires and damaged by them. It takes a fire, and the loss or damage of records, to bring any community to a realization of their value. Our vault is located just back of the City Hall tower-almost under it. In the event of the burning of the tower it would indeed be lucky, if it did not fall upon and crush the vault under a huge mass of hot masonry and flaming timber. In that catastrophe, what chance would all of our priceless records stand to come out unharmed ?
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Mr. Leoni W. Robinson, the architect, had a hand in building the vault here, as well as that in Hartford, and is unqualified in his assertion that there is no comparison between them as to the measure of safety provided. He would favor the removal of the book to Hartford.
signed: G. D. S.
I was so much criticized by my fellow-townsmen, at the time, for favoring the transfer of the precious first volume to the State Library, that I was highly gratified to learn that our local authorities had taken advantage of an act (Chapter 175) passed by the General Assembly in 1909, which permitted any State, County, Town, or other official, to deposit permanently in the Connecticut State Library at Hartford, with the con- sent of the State Librarian, any official records in his custody not in current use,-books, files, historical papers of what- ever description. Many departments in the State Capitol, many Town Clerks, many Judges of Probate, many Church and other organizations throughout the State took advantage of the Act and deposited such material with the State Libra- rian, by whom they have been classified, indexed, and distrib- uted throughout the twenty-four fire-and-damp-proof vaults provided in the new State Library and Supreme Court Building.
The following extract from the New Haven Evening Regis- ter of March 17, 1924, tells the story of New Haven's partici- pation in the advantages offered for the protection of the records under the act passed by the General Assembly in 1909:
"Under the direction of Gen. Lucius B. Barbour of Hartford, the State Examiner of Records, all of the original wills in the files of the Probate Court from 1643 to 1790 were forwarded to the State Library under an order of Judge Gilson, there to be lodged permanently. The original docu- ments will all be photostated at the State Library in Hartford and the photostat copies sent here, so that an exact reproduction may be available in the files of our Probate Court, while the absolute safety of the original docu- ments will be assured for all time.
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