USA > Connecticut > Representative men of Connecticut, 1861-1894 > Part 16
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Very truly yours, WM. H. BULKELEY.
The legislature then passed the "Healing Act," validating the disputed "black ballots," which was a very peculiar document. Mr. Waller was installed in the gubernatorial chair, and General Bulkeley retired to private life with the respect of all the citizens of the state. After the battle regarding the ballots was over, the Hartford Post spoke thus of General Bulkeley's course during the campaign : "General Bulkeley has stood in the face of unscru- pulous opposition, which has gone to extreme lengths in assailing him unjustly, in a dignified attitude; he has permitted no word to escape his lips which could possibly be distorted into an unpleasant reflection upon his traducers. He has borne himself like the true gentleman that he is, and in his defeat the cleanliness of his record and the manliness of his bearing give liis friends a renewed assurance that their confidence in him was fully deserved."
Governor Bulkeley is an active member of Robert O. Tyler Post, G. A. R., of Hartford, and also of the Army and Navy Club of Connecticut, and in each of these organizations his interest is shown in many practical ways. A member of the Pearl Street Congregational church, he is a generous contributor to its charities. A prominent citizen of Hartford for nearly two-score years, Governor Bulkeley's name is conspicuous in political and business circles, far outside the limits of the city and county. First, as having occupied the second highest office within the gift of the people of his adopted state, and next as the proprietor of one of the most noted dry goods emporiums in this section of New England. His ances- tors were distinguished for the impression they made on the moral, civil and business life of the communities in which they lived, and this representative of a later generation is 110 exception to the rule of the past. In private life, he is a gentleman of superior traits of character, and the social life of Hartford would be the loser by his removal. Now in the prime of his manhood, always popular with his constituents and honored by his fellow-citizens, it is more than probable that the future has yet higher honors in store for his acceptance.
Wmn. H. Bulkeley was married Sept. 8, 1863, to Emma, daughter of Melvin and Letitia Gurney of Brooklyn, N. Y. The family circle now includes six children: Mrs. Edward S. Van Zile of New York city, Col. W. E. A. Bulkeley of Hartford, Mrs. David Van Schaack of Brooklyn, N. Y., John C. Bulkeley, student at Trinity College, and Sallie Taintor and Richard Beaumaris Bulkeley, the two latter being still under the parental roof.
P. H. Woodward
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W
OODWARD, P. HENRY, of Hartford, son of Ashbel and of Emeline (Bicknell) Woodward, was born in Franklin, Conn., March 19, 1833.
He is the eighth in descent from Richard Woodward, who embarked in the ship "Elizabeth " at Ipswich, England, April 10, 1634, and whose naine is on the earliest list of proprietors of Watertown, Mass. The Woodward genealogy is given in Dr. Henry Bond's History of Watertown. His father was a physician of unusual skill, and incidentally a deep student of the antiquities and genealogies of New England. A sketch of his life may be found in the New England Historical and Genealog- ical Register for April, 1886. The son graduated at Yale College in 1855, grading high for thoroughness and elegance of scholarship. He studied law in part at Harvard, and toward the close of 1860 opened an office in Savannah, Ga., in company with William Robert Gignilliat, Jr., of that state. Soon interrupted by the outbreak of war, professional practice was never resumed. Returning north after most of the lines of communication had been closed to through travel, he spent the next year in study and writing.
From September, 1862, till September, 1865, he furnished the editorials and attended to the night dispatches of the Hartford Daily Courant. A reminiscent letter fromn Mr. Woodward in the memorial number issued Dec. 10, 1892, says, "Personally my connection with the Courant was delightful from beginning to end, and was given up regretfully from loss of health through overwork."
In September, 1865, he was appointed special agent of the post-office department, and was entrusted with the duty of reconstructing the service in the state of Georgia. The task was performed so efficiently that he was soon placed in charge of the through mails and of the whole scheine of distribution between the Olio River and the Gulf of Mexico, and eastward to the Carolinas. He transferred the work from stationary offices like Nashville, Montgomery and Augusta to cars fitted up for the purpose, and as he was allowed without interference to select clerks with sole reference to their qualifications, the mail facilities of the South were quickly raised from disorganization and chronic incompleteness to a degree of excellence unsurpassed in the most favored parts of the country.
With the change of administration he was relieved from superintendence of the railway service and assigned to general duties, with headquarters at Augusta, Ga. The position involved a great deal of travel, required at times intense but brief spurts of mental activity, and brought numerous adventures, some of which in the disordered state of the country were made more exciting by a flavor of peril. Occasionally the rapidity and certainty with which complicated skeins were unravelled, startled by dramatic effects the witnesses drawn by circumstances into the inquiries. In February, 1873, Mr. Woodward, then engaged on important matters in Georgia and Alabama, received repeated and urgent dispatches to hurry to Washington. On reaching the department he was told that there was dishonesty in the management of the office at New York city, and was instructed to probe it to the bottom. He was also assured that the government would stand behind him with all its resources. He met by appointment Harry G. Pearson, then a railway postal clerk, who after- wards; by successive promotions for merit alone, became postinaster of New York city. Together they commenced the work.
In the first corner invaded, the cold blooded stealings from the government exceeded $10,000 per annum. Other corners were just as bad. Very soon they began to encounter mysterious obstacles. The petty thieves inside were in league with powerful politicians on the outside who, for the sake of themselves and their confederates, put forth herculean efforts to stop the investigation. Finally after a siege of a month or more, during which the defenders
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of guilty secrets were protected by masked batteries at every turn, Mr. Woodward received from Postmaster-General Creswell a letter stuffed with personal compliments but relieving him from further prosecution of the case, and directing him to turn over all the books and papers connected with the affairs of the outgoing regime to a convenient tool held in reserve for such emergencies. The compliments in the missive that ended the investigation brought unspeakable pain to the recipient, for these were so many implicit admissions that gangs of politicians banded together for plunder and for mutual protection were sometimes strong enough to laugh at law and justice, and even to defy successfully the government of the Republic. Permitted to select his residence wherever he pleased, Mr. Woodward now trans- ferred his headquarters from Georgia to Connecticut.
In the summer of 1874, Hon. Marshall Jewell was recalled by President Grant fromn the court of St. Petersburgh to take the position of postmaster-general. One of his earliest acts as a member of the cabinet was to unite with Secretary Bristow in sending a commis- sion to Texas to investigate charges of wide-spread corruption brought against federal office- holders in that state, and he selected Mr. Woodward to represent the post-office department. Several had preceded on similar missions and in each instance had pronounced the accusa- tions to be groundless. In a few days at widely separated places the commission unearthed a inass of villainy, the accumulation of years of mal-administration, that astonished even the parties wlio had persisted in pressing the charges in the face of roseate reports from successive investigators. Speedy removals followed in the principal federal offices of that state.
Shortly afterwards Mr. Woodward was appointed chief of the corps of special agents. About a quarter of the force consisted of highly gifted and skillful men upon whom the real work devolved. Many on the rolls were incompetent. The corps was rapidly reconstructed with a single eye to efficiency. Subordinate divisions were established at convenient points throughout the country, and other changes of method introduced which became permanent features of the system. Unfit inen were dropped and promotions made from other branches of the service for inerit alone in disregard of the demands of politicians. Quickly the force rose to unexampled effectiveness. Other departments in difficult cases invoked its aid. Fail- ure to succeed became a tradition of the past. Conspiracies between contractors and clerks to obtain routes by fraudulent bids were discovered and broken up. Old abuses were rooted out. Large sums were saved by cutting off or reducing unnecessary service dishonestly procured. Mr. Woodward supervised the entire work.
Meanwhile in pursuing the whiskey frauds Secretary Bristow had invaded the White House. In the memorable utterance, "Let no guilty man escape," General Grant spoke in all sincerity, little dreaming that his own confidential secretary was deeply implicated. Unwisely both Bristow and Jewell entered the Cincinnati convention in 1876 as candidates for the succession. Instead of planning for advancement, reformers should be prepared for martyrdom. The action of those gentlemen gave their enemies the opportunity to persuade the President that his own confidential advisers had scandalized his administration, merely to rise on the dishonor of their chief. Weary and desperate, General Grant dismissed them both. The move was followed by the official massacre of all who had been prominent in the exposure and prosecution of frauds in the two departments. Thus the subject of this sketch was retired after eleven years of service.
In his " Testimony relating to the Star Route cases" (page two and following), Hon. Thomas L. James, postmaster-general under General Garfield, explains how Mr. Woodward was recalled. At an interview on the 9th of March, 1881, the President told Mr. James that in the star route service "he was satisfied there had been willful waste of the public money and gross corruption," and instructed him " to pursue this investigation until there were no inore facts to ascertain." He then asked, "How do you propose to proceed ? "
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OF CONNECTICUT, 1861-1894.
I replied that, with his approval, I should telegraph P. H. Woodward of Connecticut, formerly chief special agent of the Post-office Department, and a inan of character and integrity-who, while in the depart- ment, had rendered great service to the government in breaking up the practice of straw bidding in connection with star-route contracts-to come to Washington, and that I would place the investigation in his hands. The President said that this met with his entire approval.
On my way back to the department, I met Senator Hawley and Governor Jewell of Connecticut. At my request both these gentlemen telegraphed to Mr. Woodward to accept the position of inspector. In reply to my telegram, Mr. Woodward met me in New York on the 12th of March, when I asked him to become my confidential agent in the investigation of the star-route frauds. He accepted, accompanied me to Washington, and was commissioned as an inspector on the 14th of March. I notified the President of Mr. Woodward's arrival. He said that he was much annoyed in regard to certain large post offices in North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia; that he did not wish to make mistakes in appointments in this connection ; that only men fit to be postmasters and those having the confidence of the people should be appointed, and that as Mr. Woodward had formerly lived in the South he thought it would be well to place all the applications for appointment in his hands and let him visit the cities in which these offices were located, inquire into the fitness and character of the applicants, and recommend the person best equipped for the place. These suggestions were carried out, and in consequence very little progress was made in the star-route investiga- * tions until the Ist of April. * * *
In the early part of April, fortified with facts and figures laboriously and carefully collated, Mr. Woodward and myself called on the President and exhibited a comparative statement of the most corruptly manipulated routes. He displayed great surprise, and wished to kuow if the figures had been verified by the records. He also added that he had been providentially saved from falling into a trap which had evidently been set for hini, and seemed to be contemplating some peril which he had escaped. * * On * the 19th of April, Inspector Woodward addressed mie a communication strongly urging that the interests of the pending investigation and of the department demanded the retirement of Thomas J. Brady from the office of second assistant postmaster-general. The same evening Woodward and myself called upon the President, to whom I referred the letter. He at once directed Brady's dismissal.
Picked men were sent to the Rocky Mountain states, and territories, where most of the manipulated routes were located, in quest of facts relating to the performance of the service. Mr. Woodward personally examined seriatim the complicated and bedeviled papers on file in the department, and prepared the abstracts showing just what had been done and what could be proved. All implicated persons who hoped to obtain immunity by giving information, were required to communicate through him. On this point Dr. Edward C. Savidge says-in his "Life of Benjamin Harris Brewster," page 140 :
Messrs. MacVeagh and James, knowing the difficulty of acquiring the secrets of a rich, powerful and well-organized ring, quietly announced that the administration would protect from harm the minor tools of the principals who would give valuable information to the government. It became Mr. Woodward's duty to receive these confidences, and he thus acquired the secrets of the ring, which he reduced to writing. Many of these, seen by the writer, are startling in the number of eminent men they implicate. Mr. Woodward's position was unique, yet perilous. The criminals learned to trust him implicitly ; he never broke faith with one of them. They understood that their disclosures should guide the government in preparing the cases, but should not harm themselves, or be used in court, unless they were to be accepted as state's evidence and given immunity. It was the policy of the government to mention no man's name in connection with the matter unless he was to be taken into court and prosecuted.
An account of the methods of the conspirators, of the trials, and of the debauchery of the juries, may be found in the "Life of Benjamin H. Brewster," by Dr. E. C. Savidge. More exhaustive information is contained in the records of the two trials filling seven large volumes, and in the testimony taken by the committee of the House. (48th Congress, Ist Session, House of Representatives, Mis. Doc. 38, Part 2.)
Of the part performed by Mr. Woodward, Mr. Richard T. Merrick, leading counsel for the government and the acknowledged head of the Washington bar, said: (Aside from associate counsel), the others "with whom I was brought more directly in contact than with anybody else were Mr. Woodward, whom you have had before you, and Mr. Lyman, the present second assistant postmaster-general, and two more diligent, faithful and earnest officers neither this nor, in my judgment, any other government ever had."
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In addition to other testimony of similar import Attorney General Brewster said, "I think without Mr. Woodward these cases never could have been instituted. I think lie was, to use one word, invaluable. He is a man of remarkable intelligence; he is a man of great purity of character; lic is an educated gentleman. In all my life, in an experience of over forty-six years of legal practice, I never have met with a man who could assist a lawyer better than Mr. Woodward."
Mr. Woodward left the postal service soon after the change of administration in 1885. In 1888, prominent business men of Hartford, discouraged by the stationary condition of the town and by the removal to otlicr places of several promising enterprises, organized the Board of Trade. At the urgent solicitation of the president, Mr. J. M. Allen, and others, Mr. Woodward took the secretaryship. He proceeded at once to collect full and exact statistics in respect to insurance, banking and manufactures-the leading interests of the city. These duly incorporated into historical accounts, and reinforced by other matter relating to public works, education, art, local charities, etc., etc., were published the following season in a volume of two hundred and twenty pages. Four-fifths of an edition of ten thousand were circulated within a few months. The growth of the town since the formation of the Board of Trade has been phenomenal. The record year by year may be found in the annual reports of the association.
In June, 1890, the Hartford Board of Trade Room and Power Company was organized with a capital of $100,000 fully paid, Mr. Woodward being secretary and treasurer. The following season an elegant building of three stories, three hundred and sixty feet long, was completed. It was then sold on terms which reimbursed the shareholders, principal and interest, the purchasers carrying out the original purpose of the undertaking.
For the hundredth anniversary of the Hartford Bank (June 14, 1892), at the request of the president and directors, Mr. Woodward wrote its history, a book of one hundred and seventy-six pages. Many years ago he wrote a series of sketches drawn from the postal service, under the title of "Guarding the Mails."
Sept. 11, 1867, Mr. Woodward married Mary, only daughter of Charles Smith of South Windham, Conn., a highly successful manufacturer, widely known for ability and elevation of character. He has two children, a daughter and son.
B
ALDWIN, SIMEON EBEN, of New Haven, associate justice of the Supreme Court of Errors, was born in the city where he now resides, Feb. 5, 1840.
The exact locality in England from which John Baldwin, the original einigrant of the namne, departed is unknown, and the time of his arrival in this country is also uncertain. In early manhood he came from Norwich to Guilford, about 1650. His son Thomas had a son Ebenezer who was a captain in the militia, and a representative to the General Court. Simeon Baldwin, son of Ebenezer, was a man of marked character and took a prominent part in the affairs of the day. Graduat- ing from Yale College in 1781, besides being a member of Congress and mayor of New Haven, he was a judge of the Supreme Court of Errors. He married Rebecca, daughter of Roger Sherman, a signer of the Declaration of Independence. Roger Sherman Baldwin, named for his maternal grandfather, graduated from Yale College in the class of 1811, from which institution he afterwards received the degree of LL.D., an honor which was also conferred on him by Trinity College, Hartford. High official stations were often presented
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for his acceptance. In 1843-44 lie was governor of Connecticut, and in 1847 he was chosen United States senator. He took an active part in the national Peace Convention of I86I. His wife, née Emily Perkins, was a daughter of Enoch and Anna Perkins of Hartford. Her mother was a daughter of Rev. Timothy Pitkin of Farmington, a Fellow of Yale College and a trustee of Dartmouth College, and was a grand-daughter of President Clapp of Yale. She was a descendant of John Haynes, who occupied the unique position of first having been governor of Massachusetts and afterwards of Connecticut, and of Gov. William Pitkin of Connecticut. She was also descended from Gov. George Wyllys of Connecticut, and of Gov. Thomas Dudley of Massachusetts, and Gov. William Bradford of the Plymouth Colony. Of his father's family, Simeon E. Baldwin was the youngest.
His preparation for college was received at the Hopkins grammar school, and entering Yale he was graduated in the class of 1861. Choosing the legal profession as the one best adapted to his tastes, Mr. Baldwin studied at the Yale and Harvard Law Schools and also had the benefit of experience in his father's office, the latter being one of the leading lawyers of the state. Admitted to the bar in 1863, he at once commenced the practice of his profession in the city of his birth. This was continued until 1893, when he was appointed by Governor Morris associate judge of the Supreme Court of Errors. In this
score and a half years, he made annual additions to his reputation as a painstaking and conscientious lawyer, who left nothing undone which would assist in bringing success to his side of the case. Without devoting himself to any special branch of the law, he secured a large and profitable clientage and what is known as "general practice," throughout the state, and occasionally was engaged in cases in the courts of Massachusetts, Rhode Island and New York.
Among the more prominent cases with which Judge Baldwin's name is identified are Todd vs. Townsend Savings Bank, involving the question of the rights of holders of 11011- negotiable paper as against assignees in bankruptcy, the case being finally carried to tlie Supreme Court of the United States; the Union Switch Signal Co. vs. Hall Switch & Signal Co., in which the validity of the Hall patent for automatic railroad signals as the first American patentee in this land was involved; Boston & Providence Railroad vs. Hartford, Providence & Fishkill Railroad, before the Supreme Court of Rhode Island, brought to attack the lease and sale of the defendant road to the Boston, Hartford & Erie Co. ; Earl P. Mason et als. vs. the same, in the Circuit Court of the United States for the District of Massachusetts, involving claims of the preferred stockholders of the defendant road; the suit under which the New York & New England Road was put in the hands of a receiver by the Circuit Court of the United States in 1884, entitled Bressey vs. New York & New England Railroad Co. ; the foreclosure of the Middletown, New Haven & Willimantic Railroad first mortgage in 1875, in the Superior Court of Middlesex County, Connecticut; the Andover heresy case, so called, before the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts; the Shepaug voting trust cases, in the Superior Court of Fairfield County, Connecticut, involving the validity of the voting trusts for the control of the corporation ; the case of the mayor of New York vs. the New England Transfer Company, in the Circuit Court of the southern district of New York, involving the right of the defendant to run a steam transfer around the city to connect the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad with the Pennsylvania Railroad, which the city claimed required a ferry license.
In 1869, Judge Baldwin was invited to become an instructor in the Yale Law School. He accepted the offer, and filled the position until three years later, when he was inade professor of constitutional law at Yale, and has given instructions to a greater or less extent to the present time. He was a member of the commission appointed by the state
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in1 1872 to revise the laws on the subject of education, and the next year was inade a member of a commission to revise the general statutes of the state. The report of this last commission was the basis of the revision effected in 1875. For the year 1877 he was a member of the committee on jurisprudence of the State Bar Association of Connecticut, and in this capacity lic drew and presented the report in favor of adopting the system of code pleadings in civil actions in this state. His work resulted in legislative action to that effect, and he was made a member of a commission in 1878 to devise a proper plan to achieve this end and simplify legal procedure in civil cases. From 1885 to 1887 he was a member of the state commission to revise the system of taxation and revenue. They reported in favor of a series of changes, afterwards adopted by the Legislature, and which have increased the income of the state by the amount of several hundred thousand dollars.
Judge Baldwin served for some years as chairman of the committee on jurisprudence and law reform of the American Bar Association, and was elected president of that association in 1890. In 1884 lie received the honor of an election as president of the New Haven Colony Historical Society, and by successive elections is still filling that office. His long and intimate acquaintance with the early history of the colony render him especially well adapted for the duties incumbent upon the position. He is also a member of the American Antiquarian Society, and of the association for the Reform and Codification of the Law of Nations. As a writer, Judge Baldwin is a standard authority upon matters pertaining to the statute law of the state, and he is the author of a digest on the "Connecticut Law Reports," published in two volumes, as well as of a large number of articles, papers and addresses from time to time. The subjects are by no means confined to legal points, but embrace theology, social science, the theory of government and other questions of an abstract character. Several have been read before the American Historical Association, American Bar Association and American Social Science Association ; others before the Tennessee and Ohio State Bar Associations, etc.
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