USA > Connecticut > Representative citizens of Connecticut, biographical memorial > Part 8
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John Gilbert Root
National Bank, a very prominent and influential position in financial circles, not only in Hartford, but generally throughout the State. This was greatly increased by his connection with many important financial and industrial concerns in the capacity of director. Among these were the Security Com- pany, and the Mechanics' Savings Bank, of which he was a trustee, and the Spring Grove Cemetery Association, of which he was at different times a director, treasurer and president.
Mr. Root's activities were very far from being measured by his business interests, however great and important as these were. There was, indeed, scarcely an important movement of any kind going on in the city with which he was not connected. While by no means the conventional politician, he exerted a strong and wholesome influence upon the political situation in Hartford. He was a strong believer in the principles and policies of the Republican party, and an observer in a large way of the political issues in the country, but he did not identify himself with the local organization of his party to any extent, preferring to remain quite free from partisan influ- ence in his political course. When, however, it became necessary in the year 1888 for the Republicans to nominate a strong candidate for mayor of Hartford, Mr. Root's prominence and personal popularity made him easily the most available candidate and he was offered the nomination. Although his aspirations lay by no means in the direction of public office, and though he valued highly his independence as a private citizen, yet he would not say no to the obviously popular demand made for him by his fellow citizens. His campaign was a notable one against the Democratic candidacy of C. M. Joslyn, whom he defeated by a vote of three thousand, five hundred and sixty-two against three thousand, three hundred and five. Mr. Root suc- ceeded Morgan G. Bulkeley as mayor of Hartford and served his fellow citi- zens in that capacity for two years, doing much that was eminently for their advancement during that time. He was greatly interested in the cause of public education, and in 1891, after his term as mayor had expired, was elected a member of the High School Committee and served thereon for four years. At the time of the agitation for the bridge across the Connecticut river, John Gilbert Root was one of its strongest advocates, and when the Connecticut River Bridge and Highway District Commission was formed in 1895, he was made a member, attending every meeting of the body which his health permitted. At the time of the dedication of the bridge in October, 1908, he took an active part in the ceremonies and the three days festivities, deriving great pleasure from them, for he felt a strong civic pride in the possession of the splendid structure and the great improvements which accompanied its opening on the east side of the river.
Mr. Root was all his life intimately identified with the military organi- zations in Connecticut. He joined the Union army in the Civil War and served through that momentous conflict as captain of Company B, Twenty- second Regiment of Connecticut Volunteers. After the close of the war he returned to his adopted city, and continued his association with the military organizations there. After the death of Colonel George S. Burnham, who had held the office of president of the association formed by the Twenty- second Regiment, Mr. Root took his place as life president, and, as the title
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implies, still held the office at the time of his death. He was for a number of years a member, and later a veteran, of the First Company of the Govern- or's Foot Guard, and chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Veteran Corps. He was a member of the Hartford City Guard and later a veteran of that body. He was a member of the Robert O. Tyler Post, Grand Army of the Republic, and for many years a trustee of its relief fund, and he was also a member of the Army and Navy Club.
It would seem enough to tax the energies of any man, what has been enumerated above as the various departments of the life of the community in which Mr. Root participated. But his interests were of the broadest, his sympathies the most inclusive, and there were but few things that went on which possessed any real value to the community at large or any group of its members that he did not have a hand in. He was a conspicuous figure in the social world in Hartford, and a member of prominent clubs, but perhaps that which interested him most in this direction and claimed most of his attention was his membership in the Masonic Order, in which he was very prominent. He was, indeed, one of the best known Masons of the State. He became a member of Hartford Lodge, No. 88, Free and Accepted Masons, as early as December 19, 1859, and eight years later was made its worshipful master, and at the time of his death was the oldest past master in Connecticut. He was also a member of the Actual Past Masters' Association of the Masonic District of Hartford, Connecticut. He was grand treasurer of the Grand Lodge of Connecticut, Free and Accepted Masons, from January 19, 1882, to January 15, 1896, when he resigned from that honorable but responsible office. He was also a member of the Pythagoras Chapter, Royal Arch Masons, and of the F. Walcott Council of the Royal and Select Masters, and of the Washington Commandery, Knights Templar, in which he was knighted, March 29, 1861, and of which he became the eminent commander in 1869, and at the time of his death was the senior past commander thereof. He was chosen grand commander of the Grand Commandery of Connecticut in 1875, and lived to be the senior past grand commander. He was a mem- ber of the Charter Oak Lodge of Perfection; the Hartford Council, Princes of Jerusalem, and the Cyrus Goodell Chapter of Rose Croix. He was also a member of the Connecticut Sovereign Consistory, Supreme Princes of the Royal Secret, of Norwich, and received the thirty-third degree on September 18, 1894.
Mr. Root married, December 12, 1876, in Hartford, Isabella S. Camp, a daughter of Joseph and Clarissa Camp, of that place. Mrs. Root survives her husband.
The religious affiliations of Mr. Root were with the Pearl Street Con- gregational Church, of which he became a member in 1858. He was an ardent worker in the cause of the church and of religion generally, and materially aided in the support of the many benevolences connected with the congregation, and at the time of his death was a member of the prudential committee.
John Gilbert Root was undoubtedly one of the most active citizens of Hartford, and one of the most public spirited during his life in that city. His
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John Gilbert Root
strong sense of justice, his sincerity, and unimpeachable integrity in all public dealings, gained him the admiration of all his fellows, and his affabil- ity and frankness of manner, his lack of ostentation, and open-hearted friendship for all, won him no less surely their affection. Despite his amaz- ing activity which seemed to embrace all that the city interested itself in, he was nevertheless one of the most domestic of men, loving his home and the society of his family and intimate friends, as that could be enjoyed on his own hearth. He was also a great and wide reader, and possessed of the delightful culture and refinement which seems the wellnigh universal accompaniment of the lover of books. In all circles where his face was known, from the family fireside to the executive building of the city, high and low, rich and poor, his death has left a gap impossible to fill and difficult to forget. The whole community, indeed, feels keenly the loss of one who labored so earnestly and effectively, and who accomplished so much for its advancement.
Bliver C. Smith, M. D.
T HERE is something that appeals to the popular imagination as intrinsically noble about the adoption of a profession the object of which is the alleviation of human suffering, such, for instance, as medicine, especially where, as in this case, the sacrifice of many of the comforts and pleasures which men count so highly is involved. When in addition to this, however, the task is not only voluntarily chosen but carried out in the most altruistic spirit and in the face of difficulties quite special and peculiar, the circumstances rise toward the heroic and the sincere admiration of all is claimed. Such was the case in a high degree in the life of Dr. Oliver C. Smith, of Hartford, Connecticut, whose death in that city on March 27, 1915, deprived the whole community of a friend and bene- factor.
Dr. Smith was born November 29, 1859, in the city that all his life has been the scene of his energetic and invaluable career, a son of William B. and Virginia (Thrall) Smith, old residents there. He attended the West Middle School and the Hartford High School where he gained his general educa- tion, and afterwards took a course in the Hannum Business College to pre- pare himself for the serious business of life. It was in a measure an accident that his attention became directed to medicine as a career, and an unfor- tunate accident Dr. Smith doubtless regarded it at the time of its occur- rence. This was nothing less than a serious illness which completely pros- trated him at the age of nineteen years and just when he was ambi- tious to make a beginning in life. During this illness he was under the care of Dr. James H. Waterman, a well-known physician of Westfield, Massa- chusetts, who, perceiving the youth to take a keen interest in medicine, encouraged him to look further into the matter and gave him his advice to choose it as a career. His interest being a very real one, the young man took the advice to the extent of entering Dr. Waterman's office, where he studied for a period of eighteen months. By the end of that time he had seen enough of the situation to have made up his mind very definitely on the subject, and accordingly in the year 1880 he matriculated at the Long Island Medical College. Here he applied himself with an ardor that was characteristic, and soon won the regard of his instructors and professors, as well as of the student body. He won many honors during his years of study here, being the president of his class, winning the Atkinson prize and standing third in general marks out of a class of eighty. While in the second year of his course he won a competitive examination which entitled him to the position of ambulance surgeon, and he also acted as substitute interne in the Long Island General Hospital during the same period. How earnest he was in the pursuance of his career may be seen in the fact that in the vacation of 1881, instead of giving the time to recreation, he sailed on board the steamer "City of Para" to Rio de Janeiro as surgeon. After his graduation he at once began practice, at first in the office of Dr. Jonathan Curtis, of Hartford, and
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later independently. He was one of those rare physicians who, to an un- usual technical knowledge, add a keen intuition into the nature and signifi- cance of symptoms, so that he was an eminently successful diagnostician and quickly built up a large private practice. He was a man of too much skill, however, to be allowed to remain entirely in private work, the more especially as his interest turned chiefly to surgery, skill in which is so greatly in demand in public medical institutions. When the St. Francis Hospital was formed he became a member of the surgical staff, where he remained until two years later, when he began his association with the Hartford Hospital, which continued until the time of his death. Besides this connection he was consulting surgeon of the Litchfield County Hospital, the Middlesex County Hospital, the New Britain General Hospital and the Johnson Memorial Hospital in Stafford Springs, Connecticut. He was also greatly interested in the Charter Oak Hospital in Hartford, and it is not a little to his efforts that the success of this institution is due. During his career on these several staffs, and in the extensive private practice which he never gave up, Dr. Smith gained the reputation of being one of the foremost surgeons in the State and was regarded as a leader in his profession not merely by the laity, but by the brilliant men of that profession as well. In June, 1914, he received a very welcome tribute by the conferment upon him by Yale University of the honorary degree of Master of Arts. He was president of the Connecticut Medical Society and a member of the county and city societies, as well as of the American Medical Association. He was also a fellow of the American College of Surgeons. He was also appointed surgeon-general of Connecticut by Governor Henry Roberts and held that office during the latter's administration.
Dr. Smith married, October 22, 1886, Clarabel Waterman, of Westfield, Massachusetts, a daughter of the Dr. Waterman who first turned his atten- tion to medicine and in whose office his earliest studies were prosecuted. Mrs. Smith's death occurred in 1896. To them were born two children, twins: Oliver Harrison Smith, and Clarabel V. Smith, now Mrs. Paul M. Butterworth, of Hartford. To the Butterworths have been born two chil- dren, Virginia and Oliver Butterworth.
Such are, in brief, the principal events and facts in connection with Dr. Smith's career, but, though they thus formally sketch that career, they can in no wise give an idea of the great value of his life to the community. Rising to the head of his profession as a surgeon, his life was one long record of self-abnegation and the neglect of his own affairs for those of others. Careless of his own health in his campaign for that of his fellows, nor did he consider his pecuniary advantage any more, his services being as free to the poorest as to those of wealth. It was during the last three years of his life, however, that the courageous, self-sacrificing nature of Dr. Smith was most conspicuously shown. It was during this period that he suffered from the disease that finally proved his death, and which is supposed to have been induced in the first place by his having become infected during the course of an operation performed by himself. Though from the outset Dr. Smith realized his peril, he never hesitated in the performance of his duties, but proceeded to fulfill them as calmly as though he were not himself
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Dliver C. Smith
threatened. He did not even complain to those nearest and dearest to him so that, although the progress of his trouble was most painful, no one fully realized what was taking place. At length, upon returning from the Inter- national Conference of Surgeons held in London in 1913, at which he had read an original treatise, he confided his case to Dr. William Mayo, a friend and one of the foremost surgeons of the world. Dr. Mayo examined him but discovered that his case was beyond even his skill. His interest apparently undampened, Dr. Smith returned to his duties, and though for many months he was unable to touch any solid nourishment, continued to perform them with unabated good judgment and skill up to within three weeks of his death. There were few men so deeply mourned in that region when at last the sad event occurred, and but few whose memory received so many testi- monials of respect and affection. The local press joined in a chorus of praise of his virtues and his invaluable services, and his fellow members of the profession throughout the State were not less unanimous. The will left by Dr. Smith is characteristic of the large heart and wide sympathies of the man, a large portion of his estate being left to medical charities and other philanthropic causes. It would be impossible even to notice here all the tributes that were paid his memory by his confreres, much less to quote them with any degree of completeness, yet there are a number which can scarcely be passed over, and which may furnish an appropriate ending to this brief sketch by illustrating at first hand the feelings that his associates bore him. A number of such tributes were collected in the daily press and it is from this source that the following selections are made. The "Hartford Daily Courant" published a long obituary article headed "Hartford's great sur- geon, Dr. O. C. Smith, is dead," in the course of which the following appeared :
If there is any one thing that the life of Dr. Smith shows, aside from the example that his skill has set to other surgeons and physicians, it is the lesson of his courage. This is a trait that was with him from the beginning of his career, when, as a boy, he decided to become a doctor and surmounted all the obstacles that poverty and poor health could put in his way. And it was a trait that was brought to its finest essence in his last years.
Of his professional associates the following examples will serve as typical. The distinguished physician, Dr. E. Terry Smith, said of him:
Dr. Oliver C. Smith had the most unselfish, sympathetic, self-denying nature that I have ever known. He lived entirely for others and the memory of his life of devotion to his profession and loyalty to his friends will be cherished by all who knew him as a most precious possession. His unbounded courage and resignation during the last three years have been an inspiration to all with whom he came in contact.
Dr. Frederick Crossfield had this to say :
The death of Dr. Smith comes as a great shock. Hartford has lost not only a great citizen but a genial gentleman and a great surgeon. No matter where one met him, at the hospital at the medical society, on the street or elsewhere, he always had a whole- hearted greeting and a kind word.
Dr. Edward B. Hooker said in part: CONN-5
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Dr. Smith's great ability is so widely known and his reputation is so firmly estab- lished that I need hardly speak of the professional side of his character. I regard him as one of the foremost surgeons not only of this State, but of the entire country. It is, however, of the man I would speak-the strong, gentle, patient, kindly man, bringing healing with his skillful hands and courage with his sympathetic, cheerful spirit. * * * His was a rich life, rich in high aspirations, rich in achievement, rich in the spirit in which it has now entered upon a new life.
Dr. Walter R. Steiner said of him :
The profession in Connecticut feel that they have lost a friend whose sympathetic, kindly ways not only endeared him to all the patients with whom he came in contact but to all the physicians as well. The interest he showed in raising the standards of the medical profession in Connecticut and the efforts which he made for that purpose will be long remembered.
We yield to nature's tear and sigh But grief before our faith recedes ; The true physician does not die, He lives in comrades' hearts and deeds ; His dauntless soul no fears appall, He knows how frail is human breath ; So one by one her warriors fall, Yet life is victor over death.
One of the most eloquent and true tributes was that of the Rev. Dr. John Coleman Adams, who said in the course of an address at the funeral service :
The great asset of any community is the manhood of its citizens. It may boast of its artificers, its builders, its traders, its financiers, but it forgets all that they have done to remember what they are. There is something finer in a man than in anything that he says or does. * * * Our friend was a great surgeon, his skill and his judgment and his initiative were of incalculable value to his fellow-men. But they were only incidental to the greater traits that he was acquiring as he wrought at his profession, the things that cannot be shaken-courage, fidelity, devotion, sympathy, service and love. These were the fruits of the greater business in which he was engaged-the business of living.
But this man confirmed in his living that line of Bayard Taylor's-
The bravest are the tenderest The loving are the daring.
Caleb Jackson Camp
Caleb Jackson Camp
T HE type which has become familiar to the world as the suc- cessful New Englander, practical and worldly-wise, yet governed in all affairs by the most scrupulous and strict ethical code, stern in removing obstacles from the road, yet generous even to the enemy, is nowhere better exemplified than in Caleb Jackson Camp, in whose death on June 19, 1909, Winsted, Connecticut, lost one of its most prominent citizens, and a figure which carried down into our own times something of the picturesque quality of the past. The successful New Englanders of the past generation, men who were responsible for the great industrial and mercan- tile development of that region, enjoyed, most of them, the juncture in their own persons of two sets of circumstances, calculated in combination to pro- duce the strong character by which we recognize the type. For these men were at once the product of culture and refinement, being descended often from the best English stock, and yet were so placed that hard work and frugal living were the necessary conditions of success and livelihood itself.
Such was the case with Mr. Camp, who on both sides of the house was descended from fine old English families whose record in the "New World" had maintained the high standard they already occupied. On his father's side the line runs back to Sir Thomas Parsons, of London, and to one Alder- man Radcliffe, of "London Town," a well known figure in his day and gen- eration. In the maternal line the first traceable ancestor was Sir Thomas Stebbins, baronet, of England. Elder John Strong of Northampton was an ancestor on both sides, and both sides have a fine Revolutionary record. Mr. Camp's grandfather, Moses Camp, was a soldier in the Nineteenth Continen- tal Regiment under Colonel Webb, and with his company commanded by Captain Bostwick, took part in the famous crossing of the Delaware at Trenton, on the evening of Christmas Day, 1776, when Washington accom- plished his brilliant coup in the face of the English army. A great-grand- father of Mr. Camp was Lieutenant Samuel Gaylord of the Seventh Con- necticut Regiment, and a great-uncle on the maternal side was General Giles Jackson, General Gates' chief of staff. Mr. Camp's parents were Samuel and Mercy (Sheldon) Camp, residents of Winsted, Litchfield county, Connecticut.
Caleb Jackson Camp was born in the town of Winchester, June 12, 1815, and spent the first fifteen years of his life on his father's farm. During this time he attended the local common school, gaining what a bright and alert brain could from the somewhat rudimentary education offered there, and later supplementing this with two years at the village academy. After com- pleting his studies in this institution, Mr. Camp left the parental roof, and removing to the neighboring place, Winsted, secured a position as clerk in the general store of Lucius Clarke. Mr. Camp's coming to Winsted and engaging in the mercantile business were for life, and he never changed the one as his place of residence or the other as his occupation. A capacity for
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hard work and unusual quickness in mastering detail, together with a pleasant manner and the willingness and even desire to do his best in his employer's interests, quickly gained recognition for him, and after only four years, when he was but nineteen years of age, he was taken into partnership by Mr. Clarke and given a voice in the conduct of the business. Upon the retirement of Mr. Clarke later, the firm became known as M. & C. J. Camp, and carried on the same business successfully for many years, becoming a factor in the life of Winsted in more ways than one. It quickly grew under the able management of Mr. Camp until it became the largest and most prosperous house of the kind in Litchfield county. Indeed, so great grew its reputation, not merely for successful business methods, but for the probity and honesty with which its affairs were managed, that par- ents anxious for their sons to engage in the mercantile life strove to have them serve their apprenticeship in the establishment, which might be regarded as a sort of industrial training school for the region. But it is not alone in this manner that the firm of M. & C. J. Camp contributed to the development of the town. It reached out, or rather Mr. Camp reached out through its instrumentality, beyond the limits of the mercantile business to the control and operation of many enterprises which were of great value in building up the town. Such was the case of the Union Chair Company of Robertsville, which was owned and managed by the Camp firm for thirty- five years. Another of Mr. Camp's ventures, engineered through the firm, was the construction of the first brick building block in Winsted, an invest- ment which proved highly lucrative. A part of this enterprise was the build- ing and fitting out of a large public auditorium in this block, which was not the least successful feature, remaining, as it did, the largest and most popu- lar hall in Winsted for a number of years. It was Mr. Camp also who was instrumental in introducing stone sidewalks in Winsted, and his firm organ- ized the town's first gas company. But he did not confine his attention to home enterprise exclusively. He was interested in western industry and a great believer in the development of that vast region. The State of Minne- sota especially engaged his attention and in 1874 he organized and founded the Winona Savings Bank in the Minnesota town of that name. The insti- tution is now a thriving one, Mr. Camp remaining a trustee for some thirty years. The Winona institution was not the only bank in the organization of which Mr. Camp had a hand. He was one of the twenty-two incorpora- tors who in 1860 founded the Winsted Savings Bank and was a director until his death, he surviving the others by more than thirteen years. He was one of those elected directors of the Hurlbut Bank of Winsted upon its organization in 1857, an office which he continued to hold until his death. He was president of the Connecticut Western Road, and during his term of office the stock advanced one hundred per cent.
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