USA > Connecticut > Fairfield County > Newtown > Newtown's bicentennial : an account of the celebration of the two hundredth anniversary of the purchase from the Indians of the land of the town of Newtown, Connecticut, held August fifth, 1905 > Part 10
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HON. CHARLES H. BRISCOE
Ex-Speaker of Connecticut House of Representatives.
ADDRESS
THE HON. CHARLES H. BRISCOE
Judge Briscoe, in expressing his interest in the town and its celebration, was struck by the passing away of many of his contemporaries, some by removal and some by death. Newtown was his native place and the home of his ancestors, being descended from Nathaniel Briscoe, one of the early settlers. The old homestead stood near the village cemetery and a part of the cellar wall can still be seen near the highway.
In regard to this old Indian deed, he said he was glad that his ancestors did not participate in that original bargain. It was a shame how much the white men got for so little.
Referring to the great men the town had produced, he mentioned Isaac Toucey, Governor, Secretary of the United States Navy, and Attorney General of the United States. Of Charles Chapman, who was born on the ground where the Episcopal rectory now stands and who died in 1869, he said, he was a great lawyer, a man who could sway audiences, juries and legislatures. Asa Chapman, Judge of the Supreme Court, had a law school here, where many had a preparation for a successful career at the bar.
In regard to the changes of population, he said, when he was a boy there was but one Irishman in town, Daniel Quinlivan, the first of that large migration which to many at the time seemed undesirable. But the Irish race had done a large and useful work for the community, and were among our best citizens. This was a lesson to us in regard to the way in which we should look at the element which
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was now coming into the country, the Hungarian and the Slav. We should have faith in our country as a refuge for the oppressed of other lands and believe that they would, under our free institutions, be assimilated to become useful and patriotic citizens.
The Chorus here sang "Home, Sweet Home," and the President of the day said :
"Of the younger men who have gone from Newtown and are doing good work elsewhere there is one who will be well received, not less because as a successful lawyer he is carrying out the good principles learned here as a boy than because he is a son of one who for near a quarter of a century was rector of Trinity church. That beautiful structure, the pride of the whole town, erected during his rectorship, is his material monument. His more enduring monument is in the lives and hearts and memories of his people. Mr. Frederick P. Marble, of Lowell, Mass."
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FREDERICK P. MARBLE
Attorney at Law, Lowell, Mass.
Son of Rev. Newton E. Marble, D.D., Rector of Trinity Church, Newtown, from April, 1857, to September, 1878.
ADDRESS
FREDERICK P. MARBLE, LOWELL, MASS.
Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen, and, I trust I may be permitted to add, in addressing a great many of you, Old Friends and Neighbors :- I do not know that I ever felt more embarrassment in speaking on a public occasion than to-day, excepting perhaps some twenty-five or thirty years ago, when on Friday afternoons in the old Academy building which stood then on the Street, I used to rise from my seat and with faltering steps ascend the platform, and in a somewhat weak and piping voice exhort my fellow students to "strike until the last armed foe expires," or declaim some equally stirring phillipic. But, however diffi- dent I may feel as a "prophet in my own country," I shall not let it prevent my expressing in a few words the very great gratification it affords me to be here to-day to join with you in commemorating a very important and interest- ing occurrence in the history of our good old town. The value of such celebrations is not measured alone by their historical interest, though that indeed is great, and I am sure that we who have listened to the scholarly and thought- ful addresses just delivered have learned much before unknown of the history and growth of our town, and that much of value will consequently be perpetuated and pre- served which might otherwise be lost in the lapse of time. Useful as these occasions are in awakening and reviving an interest in the things of the past, I believe they have still
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greater importance in that they stir up and promote public spirit, or civic pride, as it is sometimes called, and stimulate movements in the line of material progress and improve- ment.
One of the previous speakers has alluded in a rather quizzical way to some of the things which Newtown lacks. It is nearly twenty-five years since I have been able to spend much time here, and, perhaps for the very reason of my long absence, changes strike me more sharply than those who have been here during their progress; certainly I see many changes that add much to the natural beauty and attractiveness of the town. Let me mention a few things that Newtown has and may have a just pride in having. As I remember our library, it consisted of a few volumes which were kept at the house of its faithful custodian, Miss Charlotte Nichols. Now by the generous gift of a bene- factor of the town a beautiful and artistic Memorial Library contains a choice collection of books, which grows con- stantly in size and value. In the old days the Newtown Academy dragged along a rather lingering existence-I do not wish to disparage what it did, for it accomplished much good, though oftentimes receiving but scant support-now you have what all towns ought to have, a High School sup- ported by the town itself and open without charge to the children of every citizen, and doing, as I am told, most efficient work under its able principal and earnest teachers.
The public press is represented among you by a paper, the Bee, which in the field it covers is indeed unique in journalism. A power for good, its influence is felt, not alone in this immediate community, but throughout the entire State, and its success is a monument to what tireless industry will accomplish. This park or public ground, which affords a meeting place to-day; your streets once bordered by unsightly weeds, to which green lawns now slope down; rough and treacherous foot-paths, now
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replaced, at least in the main, by firm and even walks; these and many other changes in the last few years show progress and that spirit of interest in public affairs which argues well for the future of the town.
I want to congratulate your Committee and those who have had a part in preparing this really magnificent celebra- tion. It has been my good fortune to attend a number of such occasions and I never have seen one which showed a more careful and painstaking working out of all its details, and the clockwork precision with which it has been carried out shows an amount of hard work and interest and enthusiasm which is really fine. The beautiful decorations throughout the town, the procession with its gay colors, music, and, most attractive of all, the bright faces of the children, and the presence of the Chief Magistrate of the State and many distinguished visitors, make this a most memorable occasion. Newtown's doors stand wide open to her returning children and all are welcomed with a cordial and gracious hospitality.
As I stand here to-day I cannot but have very much in mind my father, who came among you as a stranger many years ago, but in making this his home learned to love these green hills and quiet valleys better than any other spot on earth, and whose declining years, when the infirmities of age came on, were cheered and brightened by much of true friendship and neighborly kindness. Newtown is still the home of my revered mother, and to me full of memories of a happy boyhood. You will not wonder that it has a place very near to my heart, that all that concerns its advancement and improvement is of interest to me, and that it gives me the greatest pleasure to be here to-day and have this opportunity of expressing my loyalty to my native place and my interest in its progress and prosperity.
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The President of the day :
"At the recent commencement of Trinity College I met a gentlemen who bears a name so familiar in this town that I was led to enquire whether he had relatives living here. I found that he was of Newtown stock, and his grandfather was next neighbor to the rectory, in which I live. From his modest demeanor I did not suspect him of greatness, but invited him to come to our celebration as a descendant of Newtown. Later in the day I heard his name mentioned among those of whom the College is proud as a Professor of Law in Yale University. I have the pleasure of introducing Professor George E. Beers, of New Haven."
GEORGE E. BEERS
Professor in the Law School of Yale University.
ADDRESS
GEORGE E. BEERS, NEW HAVEN.
A previous speaker has referred in touching language to the feast to celebrate the Prodigal's return and has spoken of the fatted calf, as the only being present not in full sympathy with the occasion and not in a frame of mind thoroughly to enjoy it. One whose invitation to say a word has reached him, owing to a vacation absence, towards the close of the eleventh hour, is perhaps as well fitted as any one else to appreciate the feelings of that involuntary guest and sympathize with him. In spite of this, however, I cannot utterly refuse your kind although somewhat dis- quieting invitation, even though I must confine myself to the thought or two lying uppermost in my mind.
I am at some loss as to how to identify myself with this occasion. Your programme announces short addresses by guests and former residents, and I am neither. I was never technically a resident of Newtown and yet I have spent too many weeks and months here during a considerable term of years, too many of my boyhood memories are identified with my father's home, it is too full of family associations for me to be content to respond to the kind but formal call for guests. I enter your hospitable borders with none of the feelings of a stranger or a stepson and none of the sensations of one on a visit to his mother-in-law. I do not presume to claim a son's rights and yet as my grandfather and great-grandfather and many of my earlier
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ancestors were among your citizens, I can but look upon your kind greeting as a sort of welcome to a grandson.
Your chairman in calling upon me has referred to my residence in New Haven and to the fact that a part of my professional work is in connection with the law department of Yale University. I am, of course, only one of a multi- tude of men of Newtown extraction who have become resi- dents of New Haven,-I am only one of a considerable number of New Haven lawyers with Newtown antece- dents; I am not even the first practitioner at her bar to serve upon the faculty of the Law Department of that ancient university.
I believe it was in 1837 that Governor Dutton, the grand- father of one of my brethren at the New Haven bar and a colleague upon the faculty, Mr. George D. Watrous, left Newtown and the office where my grandfather afterwards practised for so many years, and after a most active and distinguished career at the bar in Bridgeport and New Haven became professor of law in Yale University. The earlier professional years of Judge Dutton were passed in this community, where there are even now many among you who were his personal friends. His later reputation as a leader of the bar of two counties, the editor of Connec- ticut's legal classic-Swift's Digest,-a Judge of the Supreme Court of Errors, and Governor of the State, is a matter of Connecticut history.
And then much later Johnson T. Platt, who unlike Gov- ernor Dutton was Newtown-born, went to New Haven, engaged in practice and became a member of the faculty of the Yale Law School. Mr. Platt was a schoolmate and early companion of many of you. While a boy he was of delicate constitution, and when he died suddenly in 1890, he was still in early middle life. His attainments, however, were of a high order, and his career as a lawyer an unusu- ally active and successful one. Among his various activi-
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ties, he was one of the most energetic and prominent members of the American Bar Association, Registrar in Bankruptcy and Corporation Counsel of New Haven. As Judge Loomis says of him in his Judicial History of the State: "He was above all things a lawyer and was proud and fond of his profession, his culture and reading were exceptionally broad and general, his interest in active affairs was most practical." To one who was his pupil and who at the beginning of his professional life cherished his friend- ship and kindly interest-all the more valued because shown by one high in his profession to a beginner who had nothing to offer in return-I seize this opportunity to pay a tribute to his memory. Mr. Platt loved Newtown. He never wearied of hearing of it or talking of it. It was his ardent wish to sometime make his home at the place of his birth, but it was not to be.
So that I am the third in the line, and no matter how haltingly or at how great distance I may follow in the foot- steps of those strong men of Newtown, I am sure you will not blame me for a certain pride of Newtown ancestry, of Newtown descent, as I think of myself as one of a line of Newtown men who have held the same place and each according to his talents, whether few or many, done the same work.
Others have spoken of Newtown's contribution to the public life of the state and nation; of Isaac Toucey, per- haps her most eminent citizen, member of Congress, gov- ernor, senator of the United States, member of the cabinet of two presidents, one of the few men who have declined a seat upon the Supreme Bench of the United States; and of scores of other men who have contributed largely to the national life.
A word should be said as to the peculiar debt in this respect of New Haven to Newtown. You have given New Haven hundreds of active, public-spirited, useful citizens
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and several of her most distinguished ones. Charles Chap- man-himself a son of our eminent citizen of Newtown, Judge Asa Chapman of the Supreme Court,-was a New- town man. While his life was principally spent at Hart- ford, he was for years a resident of our city. Distinguished as a member of Congress and at one time district attorney for Connecticut, he was principally noted as one of the greatest jury lawyers of his time. No less discriminating a judge than Governor Hubbard has said of him: "In that most difficult of all professional functions, a cross examina- tion, he was not only distinguished, he was consum- mate. * * But after all, it was perhaps in the summing up of a case to the jury that the whole range of his faculties found their fullest play. In the ready analyzing of a chaotic mass of evidence, in the skillful selection and use of materials, in the orderly and logical distribution of an argu- ment, in the matchless architecture of his sentences, in fertility of illustration, in vigor of attack and coolness in retreat, in pungency of satire for his adversaries and opu- lence of wit for all, both friend and foe-in all these he was great, in some of them he had no superior, in few of them an equal." Governor Luzon B. Morris, for many years the trusted adviser of perhaps more widows and orphans than any other man in our city, whose son is to-day one of you and known to you all,-for many years judge of probate, was a Newtown man. And I might go on call- ing the roll of Newtown men living and dead who have in the past and present contributed largely to our life and prosperity.
And what does all this show? It is surely no mere acci- dent that Newtown youth has played so large a part in the history of the state and nation. Is it not rather that life among your rugged hills and pleasant valleys has developed that body, that brain, that character which are needed for the world's work?
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A good many jokes to-day have been pointed by that Indian deed, which seems to record the exchange of a birthright for a somewhat indifferent mess of pottage, and one of my friends who has addressed you, in particular, has congratulated himself that his ancestors did not have the right sort of shrewdness to enable them to figure in that apparently sharp bargain. But after all did the Indians do more than exchange land, which they did not need, for shirts and other things which they did need? While a bar- gain that does full credit to Yankee thrift, it was honestly made and as in the case of similar purchases throughout Connecticut, history discloses no intimations that the land- poor Indians were not abundantly satisfied. As Mr. Atwater has said in his History of New Haven Colony, "at the present day we are apt to think that the sachems sold their land for a ridiculously small price ; but one who atten- tively considers all the circumstances of the case, the reservations they made, the protection they secured, and the opportunity for trade afforded by the English settlement, will perhaps conclude that what they received was of greater value to them than what they sold. It does not appear that the Indians were afterwards dissatisfied with the terms of sale." Even if after the knives which they received were dull, lead scattered and shirts worn out, they became discontented, they could surely console themselves with the thought that what they sold cost them little and they had plenty of land left. So that it would not seem that the pleasure of this happy occasion should be marred by any qualms of conscience on this score.
Men and women of Newtown, I congratulate you upon this magnificent celebration, so wisely conceived, so splen- didly executed. It is fitting that at this point in the life of your town you should pause and look back and recall the ancient days. Pride in your honorable history cannot fail to incite you and those who shall follow you to noble
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living in the time to come. May honor and prosperity attend your ancient town as the years and centuries roll on !
The President of the day :
"That Newtown's descendants have attained fame in other than the learned professions or in business is shown by the fact that we have with us to-day one who in the civil war fought for his country and has since earned distinction in the Navy of the United States. It is with great pleasure that we welcome Rear-Admiral Franklin C. Prindle, of Washington."
FRANKLIN C. PRINDLE, U.S.N.
Rear Admiral, Retired.
ADDRESS
FRANKLIN C. PRINDLE, REAR-ADMIRAL, U. S. N.
Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen :- I presume it is pretty well understood that naval officers are not given to oratory, or much speaking. In fact they much prefer to get behind their guns and let these speak for them. But there are no big guns to get behind here to-day, save those who have preceded me on this platform and those who may follow. Neither is there need for any, for these are the piping times of peace, and this occasion, one for friendly greetings, glorification and rejoicing over the happy out- come of the old-time bloodless Indian war. And do not these fair ones, who, arrayed in white, with bright and beautiful faces, grace this occasion and predominate in this assemblage, inspire us as white-winged messengers of peace! And we are assembled to celebrate the first and the last, as well as bloodless, victory of our ancestors over the Indians two hundred years ago, when, through peaceful means, this territory was acquired by our forefathers for settlement and development.
Now I am not a Newtowner, nor a son of a Newtowner, nor yet even a grandson of a Newtowner, but my great grandfather, Zalmon Prindle, was born here, and from this town he enlisted at the age of 19, in the service of the colonies and gave more than six years of his young manhood to the service of his country in that great struggle for the
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achievement of American independence which we are proud to call the American Revolution.
His great grandfather in turn, Ebenezer Prindle, was, I am proud to say, an early settler and one of the original proprietors of Newtown, and more or less prominently identified with its early history. The land records here tell us that in January, 1703,-two hundred and two years ago- he acquired from Lemuel Eells of Milford all the latter's "right, title, and interest in and unto a place called Newtown, as will more fully appear by the Grant of the General Court ;" from which it would appear that he had his eye then set upon the entire "place called Newtown" as a fit and needful holding for himself and his large and growing family ; and not long after he removed here from Milford.
I have, therefore, as a descendant of the eighth generation, a lively personal interest in this old New-town, to which Ebenezer came-as indeed a very new town to him-two hundred years ago. In fact, I may say that I have been waiting for two hundred years for an opportunity to visit this ancestral town, and place my feet upon the same soil my ancestors tilled and trod through successive generations, in direct line, until the present day, when some of whose descendants continue to still live among you.
Then as this day was fixed upon for the celebration of the bicentennial of the original purchase of the land from the Indians, I was reminded of the fact that in 1711, Ebenezer Prindle was appointed at town meeting a surveyor of these very lands purchased from the Indians; and so on this account, if nothing more, I had a great desire to come up here and see what sort of a job he had made of it, and I am glad to find that his work appears to have been so well done that some of his descendants were left upon it to still remain in possession and occupation to this day, and I hope they may so continue for another two hundred years to come.
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Soon after the close of the Revolutionary war it appears that several Newtown families removed to the still newer town of Sandgate, Vermont, and among them my great grandfather, Zalmon, his father Joel, his uncle Nathan, and others. That then became the place of my birth and the home of my childhood, and as I now see this beauti- ful Newtown I am wondering what possessed those good people to make such an apparently unfavorable exchange of location, unless it was through the operation of that anti- race suicide sentiment and practice, then more prevalent than now, which called for more room for occupation and expan- sion. At any rate I will not now dare to trust myself to express an opinion as to their judgment in exchanging these lands, so fair to look upon, for that rugged hill-country so fittingly described by some one who has written :
"Up in Vermont where the hills are so steep, The farmers use ladders to pasture their sheep."
But I must not longer detain you at this late hour, further than to express my very great pleasure in being able to be with you here to-day, and for the first time in two hundred years! May I not also follow the example of a preceding speaker, in concluding, by offering a toast,-a soldier's and sailor's toast, if you please :
"The Ladies! God bless them ! Our arms their defense, Their arms our recompense ! Fall in !"
The time was too limited to hear from others present who would have added interest to the occasion, but the President of the day called upon Mr. E. C. Beecher, of New Haven, and introduced him as one who had found his wife in one of Newtown's old families, and so could
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be at least called a son-in-law of Newtown (he married a daughter of Mr. Charles Morehouse), as one who had shown his great interest in the celebration by his substantial help. He closed the list of speakers with an address full of bright stories and witty sayings.
The President of the day, after congratulations on the successful work done by all the committees and by the citizens of the whole town who had risen to the occasion with unanimity and enthusiasm, thanked the visitors from abroad for their presence and the speakers for their part in making the occasion so full of interest, as well as the singers who had contributed so much to render it inspiring ; and expressed the hope that this bicentennial might be the beginning of a more devoted public spirit, of a just pride in the town's history, and of that interest in its present affairs which should make it one of the model country towns of the State, as nature had made it one of the most beautiful.
The Chorus then led the audience in singing "America," and the benediction was pronounced by Rev. Arthur T. Parsons, of Thomaston, a native of the town.
DANIEL G. BEERS
Chairman of the Historical Committee.
THE HISTORICAL EXHIBIT
Under the direction of the committee of which Mr. D. G. Beers was chairman, there had been arranged in the main building on the grounds a representation of the domestic life of the old inhabitants in the form of two rooms, furnished with heirlooms of the old families.
The "best room" was furnished under the direction of Mrs. George F. Taylor, and mostly with articles inherited from her mother's mother, who was a Tomlinson. Among these was an old piano, and a mirror. There was also an old calash, and a cloak with an interesting history. It was made of wool from sheep raised on her great grandfather's farm, and the cloth was spun, woven and made on the farm. There was also an old clock furnished by Mr. Nettleton, and a chair, the property of Trinity parish, which was brought from England by the Rev. John Beach in 1732, when he returned from that country after his ordination.
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