USA > Connecticut > Representative citizens of Connecticut, biographical memorial > Part 15
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Samuel Hills Capron
thoroughly accurate scholar, a noble gentleman, and a consistent Christian, and what more can be said?" "It would be wrong, perhaps, to say of any man that his place can never be filled. Our best men and women die and the world's affairs go on, and the places of the dead are filled to more or less acceptance, and everything seems, on the surface and face of affairs, to go on as well as formerly. Yet there are losses by death which can only be regarded as public calamities. To this community the death of Samuel M. Capron is felt to be such a loss." "It was just this subtle personality of Mr. Capron, summed up in a thoroughly genuine and manly character- the scholar, the gentleman, the Christian-adding to his treasures of learn- ing and culture the priceless gift of a true and faithful heart, transmuting the teacher's duty into joy, and his responsibility into love, that won such gen- eral and affectionate esteem, and made him such a social power, and opened at last the fountains of grief which caused a whole city to lift up its voice and weep."
Were we to quote from all the addresses and printed articles published in memory of Mr. Capron, volumes would be filled; the few here given amply show the high esteem in which he was held.
Judge Dwight Loomis
Dwight Loomis, IL. D.
T HERE are certain men whose lives, because of some quality of distinction or union of such qualities, seem to stand out among those of their fellows, distinct and separate, like a musical tone among many sounds, not because of its loud- ness, but because the human ear naturally discriminates in favor of something quite perfect and satisfying in itself. Of such clear-cut quality, of such distinct and distinguished individuality, was the life and personality of the Hon. Dwight Loomis, LL. D., late associate justice of the Supreme Court of Connecticut, in whose death, September 17, 1903, the bench and bar lost one of their brightest ornaments, and the community a public-spirited citizen and a just judge.
Judge Loomis was a member of one of the oldest and most highly- respected families in the State, the founder of which in this country was one Joseph Loomis, a woolen draper of Braintree in the county of Essex, England, from which he sailed for the American colonies in 1638, and in the same year became one of the first settlers of Windsor, Connecticut. There, and in other parts of the State his descendants have continued to live down to the present time, taking an active and distinguished part in the affairs of the community and always maintaining a well-deserved posi- tion of prominence. The father of Judge Loomis was Captain Elam Loomis, a successful farmer of Columbia, Tolland county, of whose marriage with Mary Pinneo, a lady of French descent, Dwight Loomis was the fourth child.
Dwight Loomis was born at Columbia on the old Tolland county farm, and there passed the years of his childhood, gaining his general education at the local public schools and the academies at Monson and Amherst, Massa- chusetts. These advantages the youth supplemented with much independ- ent reading and study, and with association with such friends as he knew would be able to impart knowledge and culture to him. One of the sources that he repaired to in this quest was a debating society which existed in Columbia during his youth, at which all manner of subjects were discussed, and of which the young man was a very active member. Indeed it was in connection with the debates in which he participated at this time that he received the first training in addressing public gatherings, of which he later achieved such mastery. Even at this early age he had acquired the art of interesting and inspiring others with his ideas and feelings, and of this faculty he was able to avail himself most appropriately in the first work which he took up upon leaving school. This was teaching, in which he was extremely successful, making for himself a very considerable reputation as an instructor. He had determined in the meantime, however, to take up the law as a profession, and accordingly, after a few years spent in teaching, entered the office of the Hon. John H. Brockway, at Ellington, Connecticut. This was in 1844 and after remaining for some time with his learned pre-
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Dwight Loomis
ceptor, he matriculated at the Yale Law School, from which he was gradu- ated with the class of 1847.
The town of Rockville was at that time without a lawyer, and Mr. Brockway, who was one of the leaders of the bar in Tolland county, pro- posed to his former pupil that he should become associated with him as a partner and represent the firm in that town. This proposition Mr. Loomis assented to with delight. and upon his admission to the bar at once made his home there. His character was one that quickly inspired confidence, positive and self-confident, yet without any of that aggressiveness which inspires envy and animosity, so that he was quickly a well-known figure in the com- munity, with a growing practice and reputation. Nor did he disappoint the expectations of his friends. He had been a hard student and knew his sub- ject well and this, combined with a great love for it and many natural quali- fications, brought him remarkable success in his cases.
It was but four years after his advent in that locality when his fellow townsmen, realizing that he was one of the rising young men, made him their candidate for the State Assembly, his election duly following in the same year-1851. Notwithstanding his youth he quickly gained a position of prominence in this body and established a reputation, remarkable in one so young, as a brilliant debater and wise legislator. His faithful champion- ship of the interests of the State in general and his home community in particular, irrespective of partisan considerations, increased his popularity greatly, and confirmed the impression of him as a man whom they could trust. His career, however, had fallen upon troublous times, and the intense feeling and violent agitation incident to the slave question and preceding the birth of the Republican party, were already in evidence. With the latter momentous event Mr. Loomis was concerned, having been the choice of his region as State Representative to the National Convention held in Phil- adelphia in 1856, at which the Republican party was founded. The follow- ing year he was elected to the State Senate from the Twenty-first District and during his term in that body was chosen chairman of the judiciary com- mittee, a position of the greatest responsibility and calling for legal attain- ments of a high order. In 1859 he was elected to the Thirty-sixth Congress from the First Congressional District of Connecticut. This was under the circumstances a remarkable achievement, as the district, considered doubtful at best by the party, was rendered still further so by the entrance of a dis- appointed aspirant for the Republican nomination, as an independent. In spite of this serious handicap Mr. Loomis was elected and again elected to the Thirty-seventh Congress, after a unanimous renomination. His record during his term as Congressman was a splendid one, attending so strictly to his duties that he seldom even missed a vote, he was a shining example to his confreres, and reaped the fruit of their very unanimous approval and honor. He was chosen chairman of the committee on ex- penditures in the Treasury Department, a heavy responsibility, and he was also a member of the committee on elections.
It was not so much from the point of view of the formal observation of his duties and obligations, however, that honor is due Mr. Loomis as because of the courageous attitude he assumed in the face of the appalling respon-
Soomis
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Dwight Loomis
sibilities of those ominous days. The close of Buchanan's administration and the opening of Lincoln's witnessed the rapid development of that con- troversy which came to a head with the outbreak of the terrible war which was to last so long and drain the nation of so much wealth and so many valuable lives, and for those in whose hands lay the shaping of events the burden was indeed a heavy one. Fortunate indeed was the Nation that among those who helped to guide the ship of state in those days were so many brave men who faced the emergency squarely and did not hesitate to follow the course they believed in, not rashly, but calmly and with a com- plete appreciation of the consequences involved. Among these men Mr. Loomis was a leader. None saw more clearly than he the perils and horrors that were to come, yet he saw also that the future of the Nation depended on keeping a bold face and showing no vacillation, and he and all of his mind united to uphold the hands of the great President in his efforts to preserve intact the Union. In the spring of 1864 Mr. Loomis was elected a Judge of the Superior Court of Connecticut for a term of eight years, and in 1872 was reelected. He did not serve out his second term, however, as the resignation of Judge Phelps, of the Supreme Court, left a vacancy in that august tribunal which Judge Loomis was chosen to fill. The account of this appointment is one which illustrates very vividly the profound respect and admiration in which Judge Loomis was held in the community, and is briefly as follows: Judge Phelps, whose resignation left the Supreme Court short one member, was a Democrat, and the only one of his fellows of that political belief. The 'Governor and the legislative majority were, however, Democratic, and the choice of Judge Loomis would mean that the Supreme Court would become unanimously Republican through the act of a Democratic Legislature. Yet without regard for partisan considerations, the choice was made and the Judge was raised to the highest bench in the State. In after years Judge Loomis used to refer to this election as the greatest compliment he had ever received and the most satisfactory episode in his political career, and to the action of the Democratic Legislature as one of the most disinterested and honorable actions of the kind with which he was familiar. Judge Loomis was reëlected to his high office and held it steadily until he reached the age prescribed by law for the retirement of judges, when the General Assembly appointed him a State referee.
In 1892 he removed to Hartford, in which city he made his home for the remainder of his life, a life that remained active in the public service until the very end. As State referee he arbitrated some important disputes including that between the State, Yale University and Storrs' Agricultural School. His latter years were also rendered busy by his collaboration with J. Gilbert Calhoun, of Hartford, in the writing of the important work entitled "The Judicial and Civil History of Connecticut." In 1896, a year after the publication of this work, Yale University conferred upon him the degree of Doctor of Laws, and for some time he acted as a lecturer at the law school of the university. He continued in harness to the very last, and it was on his return from a hearing at Torrington, Connecticut, in his capacity as State referee, that his death resulted from a sudden stroke.
Judge Loomis married, November 26, 1848, Mary E. Bill, a daughter of
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Dwight Loomis
Josiah Bissell Bill, of Rockville, and a sister of Judge Benezet Hough Bill, of that place. Mrs. Loomis was born February 14, 1822, in Susquehanna county, Pennsylvania, and died June 1, 1864. On May 28, 1866, he married (second) Jennie E. Kendall, of Beloit, Wisconsin, but a native of Connecti- cut, a daughter of Elisha Hubbard and Mary (Holcomb) Kendall, of that place. She was born July 10, 1841, and died March 6, 1876. To them was born a daughter, Jennie Grace Loomis, now Mrs. D. W. Williams.
No mere record of events can give an adequate impression of the feeling in which Judge Loomis was held in the communities where he made his home and, indeed, throughout the State which he so long and faithfully served. Perhaps nothing can fully convey a sense of it, yet it would seem that if anything could it would be those testimonials which poured in at the time of his death, in which, from full hearts, his friends and associates spoke their veneration and love. The closing pages of this sketch cannot be better employed therefore than in quoting some of the more important of these.
The judges of the Supreme Court of Connecticut passed resolutions upon the occasion of his death which, after a brief resume of his career, closed as follows :
Judge Loomis was a God-fearing man of the antique type, one who ever lived as in the Great Taskmaster's eye. He honored every office he was called upon to fill, he never betrayed a trust, or consciously neglected a duty, and never was found wanting. He was a trusted counsellor, a wise law-giver, an ideal judge, a patriotic citizen, a Christian gentleman, a man tried and found true in every relation of life. His reported opinions are models of their kind, and easily take rank with the best in our reports. In them the. facts are found fairly and clearly stated, the reasoning is clear-cut, logical, convincing, and in reaching the conclusion no real difficulty in the case is evaded, nor any fair objec- tion left unanswered. His character and ability won for him the love and esteem of his associates on the bench, and his uprightness, his kindly nature, his unfailing courtesy, and the combined dignity and simplicity of the man, won for him the respect and con- fidence of the bar, and of the people. He was the best of the predecessors in office of the present members of this court, and they, mindful of the worth of the man, of his distinguished services to the State and Nation, take this occasion to pay this tribute to his memory.
Similar resolutions were passed by the city council, the Hartford Life Insurance Company, the George Maxwell Library Association, the Loomis Institute, and many other important societies and organizations with which Judge Loomis was in some way connected. Those of the Loomis Institute ran in part as follows :
In the fullness of years, and of honors that were accorded to him in recognition of his true worth, of a lineage that has given the community, the State, and the Nation, from the colonial days, men of strength and power, statesmen, jurists. soldiers, scientists, and men of affairs and bearing in the seventh generation the family name of one of the pioneers in the settlement of Windsor, the ancestor of the founders of this institute, whose purpose is to provide for those in need a free and gratuitous education, and the means to advancement in useful knowledge, we count ourselves most fortunate in the choice of the Hon. Dwight Loomis as its president three years ago, in his acceptance of that office, and in its administration. *
* * A sound lawyer, a learned judge, a true patriot, a loyal friend, courteous always, and considerate of others' opinions, steadfast in his own convictions and in his reasons for them, with a firm hold on the confidence and regard of all who knew him, Judge Loomis leaves to them a legacy of honor in all things, and to us, his associates in this philanthropic trust, an abiding memory of his services to this institute, in his wise counsel, and his deep personal interest in the con- duct of its affairs.
David Billard Williams
David Tillard Williams
T has often been claimed. and with considerable show of truth, that Americans as a class are deficient in those qualities which in other lands and among other races have produced great developments of art and literature. But upon closer examination the accusation falls to the ground, and particu- larly in the case of imagination, that most essential of qual- ities in all artistic accomplishment. Imagination is a pos- session of our own countrymen, just as it is of the rest of mankind, but the circumstances which have attended our growth as a people have been such as to divert its action into strange channels and give to it an unaccustomed and even uncharacteristic expression. To be cast upon a new world and with problems, first a wilderness which threatened to engulf us, and then later a vast domain of unrivaled wealth to be developed, this was our fate as a people and it is not surprising that our attention should have been closely chained to the practical problems of existence, and with small oppor- tunity for those flights which have so distinguished other times and places, but which we found it necessary to postpone to a future date. Within our own especial province, however, our imaginations have been active enough as the vast commercial and industrial enterprises of the country bear elo- quent witness to, and as the marvelous mechanical inventions of Americans no less convincingly prove. For everything of a creative nature is essentially an effort of the imagination, whether it be an epic or the founding of some great establishment for purely practical purposes. I
It has been in the latter direction obviously that the creative imagina- tion of America has exerted itself, and nowhere has there been shown a greater or more striking example of its effects than in industrial New Eng- land, one of the greatest manufacturing regions of the world. Even in such a region as this, among such giants of material progress, there stand out certain names as, at once, peculiarly typical and peculiarly prominent ex- amples of the genius for affairs which has distinguished the entire people. Such a name is Williams, the patronymic of an old and distinguished New England family, whose members from earliest colonial times have played a prominent part in the affairs of the community, and have during the past few generations built up one of the greatest industries of its kind in the world.
The American ancestor of this notable house was one Robert Williams, who came to this country from England in or before 1638, in which year he was admitted as a freeman at Roxbury, Massachusetts. For six genera- tions, down to the time of James Baker Williams, the father of the gentle- man whose name heads this sketch, we have a list of distinguished clergy- men, doctors and soldiers, who served their country and fellowmen in all manner of self-sacrificing and disinterested ways.
The life of James Baker Williams, however, fell upon the time when the need for industrial and commercial development, if not the paramount, was
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David Maillard Mailliams
at least one of the most important in the country, and quick to perceive the opportunity which the new conditions offered, he turned his attention to these matters. The opening of his career certainly did not suggest a great future, or rather would not to-day, with our more impatient outlook, for Mr. Williams started life as a clerk in a drug store on the munificent salary of twenty-five dollars a year. However, like so many of his place and genera- tion, he turned the little to the great by the alchemy of his cleverness and industry, until the outcome was the great J. B. Williams Company, manu- facturers of shaving soap, known wherever civilized man uses the razor.
David Willard Williams, the second child of James Baker and Jerusha (Hollister) Williams, was born April 12, 1853, at Glastonbury, Connecticut, where his father had moved at the beginning of his career as a manufacturer, from the ancestral home at Lebanon in the same State. The childish asso- ciations of the boy were with Glastonbury and there, at the local schools, he obtained a general education. He also attended the Sheffield School, at Yale University, 1873-75, a member of the class of '76, but did not take his last year of study, because of ill health. In 1876 he entered the employ of J. B. Williams & Company, manufacturers of soaps, as traveling salesman. In 1880 he began the manufacture of soaps on his own account, as head of the firm of D. W. Williams & Company. In 1885 the J. B. Williams Company was incorporated, succeeding J. B. Williams & Company, and buying out D. W. Williams & Company. D. W. Williams was made superintendent of the new company, and later vice-president. His father died March 2, 1907, and D. W. Williams at once succeeded him as president of the J. B. Wil- liams Company, but though he continued his effective management he did not live much over two years longer in which to carry out his plans, his death occurring June 8, 1909, when only fifty-six years of age. Besides his presidency of the soap manufactory, Mr. Williams was associated with many other important institutions as director and in various other capac- ities, exhibiting in each case the same genius for management.
But it was not merely as a man of business that Mr. Williams distin- guished himself in connection with his home city. Before he had even entered business, he had interested himself in political and economic ques- tions, and this interest, as he grew older, became a strong fondness for the problems of the practical conduct of local public affairs. He early gave his allegiance to the Republican party, though not in any partisan sense, but merely because he had independently arrived at conclusions corresponding to the principles it stood for. With the local organization of his party he allied himself and took an active part in politics, though without any thought of office or influence for himself. In the year 1893, without any effort on his own part, he received the nomination of his party for the Gen- eral Assembly of the State and was duly elected and reelected in 1895, serv- ing for two terms in that body and making for himself an enviable reputa- tion for disinterestedness and capability as a lawmaker. He was a con- spicuous figure in the social circles of Glastonbury, and a member of a num- ber of influential clubs there and elsewhere, among which may be named the Hartford Club of that city and the Yale Club of New York City. He was
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David Willard Williams
also a member of the Society of the Sons of the American Revolution and of the Society of Colonial Wars.
All his life, since he had attained the years of understanding, Mr. Wil- liams had been connected with the First Church of Christ in Glastonbury, and had participated in the work with ardor. Upon the incorporation of the church in 1896 he was elected its president, an office he continued to hold during the remainder of his life. At his father's death he succeeded him as deacon, and in both of these offices he did most valuable service to the inter- ests of religion. He was greatly concerned for the cause of religion gener- ally, and was associated with many movements for advancing it, notably with the Hartford Theological Seminary, of which he was a trustee.
Mr. Williams was twice married, his first wife being Helen Penfield Rankin, a daughter of the Rev. S. G. W. Rankin, of Glastonbury, to whom he was united in marriage, October 23, 1876. She died in the year 1901. On August 30, 1905, Mr. Williams married (second) Jennie G. Loomis, the only daughter of Judge Dwight Loomis, of Hartford, a sketch of whom precedes this. Mrs. Williams survives her husband. To Mr. Williams by his first wife there were born five children, as follows: Helen Louise, born in 1878; James Willard, 1885; Mildred, 1887; Ruth Clarice, 1890; Isabel Stoddard, 1894. Of his second marriage there was born one son, Dwight Loomis, in 1909.
Mr. Williams' untimely death was a great loss to many important inter- ests, to say nothing of the personal sorrow to those who had been fortunate enough to know him well. Great indeed were the number of testimonials which appeared on this sad occasion in the form of resolutions passed by the organizations to which he belonged, as well as many others from newspaper editorials to the letters of personal friends. It seems appropriate to give a number of these, which show as nothing else can the position which he held in the regard of his fellow citizens. The Business Men's Association of Glastonbury passed resolutions which read in part as follows:
Whereas, Almighty God, in His infinite wisdom, has seen fit to remove from our midst our esteemed friend and co-worker, Mr. David Willard Williams, and whereas, we are deeply sensible of the loss sustained, not only by our association, but by the com- munity at large : Now, therefore, be it Resolved, that it is the sense of this association to express to the family of the deceased our heartfelt sympathy in the loss of so good a husband and kind a father, whose private and public life were so blameless as to be an example to the young and an inspiration to all with whom he came in contact. Although his business duties, as head of an institution of world-wide reputation, were onerous, he always found time to speak the kindly word and extend the helping hand. Mr. Williams possessed not only the regard of his employees, but also their affections in a degree quite unusual in the industrial world. He has always taken a deep interest in public affairs and represented this, his native town, for two terms of the General Assembly, where his grasp of affairs and breadth of sympathy obtained for him a wide acquaintance and an enviable reputation.
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