USA > Connecticut > Representative men of Connecticut, 1861-1894 > Part 39
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His fellow-citizens have honored him with various official positions, for which he was eminently fitted by his mental qualifications and long training. During the administrations of Presidents Pierce and Buchanan he served as postinaster of West Winsted. Dr. Steele represented the town of Winchester in the legislature of the state for the sessions of 1875, 1879, and 1887, and was senator for the Fifteenth senatorial district for the year 1874-75. In both House and Senate he took a prominent position. He did good work as chairman of the committee on finance in 1875, and in 1879, was chairman of the committee on humane institutions, and engrossed bills, the latter being one of the most important and laborious in the House. In 1887, he was a leading member of the judiciary committee. While in the Senate he was a member of the committee on cities and boroughs, and on the committee on corporations. It was during his teri of service at the state capital that the effort was made to remove the court-house from Litchfield to Winsted. Litchfield had been the county town from the beginning, and though it was the central point, it was bleak and inaccessible, and when the old court-house was burned down, there was immediate thought of rebuild- ing elsewhere. Winsted had the advantage of excellent railroad facilities, but Litchfield was unwilling to part with her ancient prestige, and other towns also wanted the prize. There was an earnest fight in the legislature, during the course of which Dr. Steele made a speech, calin, dignified and argumentative, which was said to be the speech of the session. Win- sted won the prize, but was obliged to share it with New Milford. Dr. Steele foresaw that wisdom and prudence would still be necessary, and on returning home he prevented
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the citizens from celebrating the event. His thought was that other towns wanted the court-house as innich as Winsted, and his town could not afford to lose the friendship of the rest. His popularity was strikingly illustrated in 1874, when he was elected by a large majority in a district strongly Republican, his opponent being one of the leading Republicans of the state.
Dr. Steele was one of the best informed members of the Masonic fraternity in his section of the state, having been initiated in St. Andrew's Lodge, July 2, 1851, and three years later was chosen its master. He joined Meridian Chapter in 1859, and was high priest of the chapter for the years 1860-61. A limited circle of business outside of his profession has claimed a portion of his time. For a long series of years he was trustee of the Mechanics' Savings Bank, and at the date of death was president of that institution, and was a director in the Hurlbut National Bank. He was associated with Colonel Batcheller in the inan11- facture of scythes at Winsted, and was also interested in the Eagle Scythe Works at River- ton. His interests were not merely those of a financial character, but by his counsel he assisted materially in the success attained.
The end came suddenly, in the very prime of his later manhood, soon after he had passed his sixty-third birthday. Though willing to live and continue the good work he was doing, he was prepared to go on to his reward. The touching scenes at his funeral were simply the expressions of the loving respect in which he was held by all classes in the com- munity. A sentence in the mention of the first emigrant of the name is eminently true of Dr. Steele: " Unambitious except to do good and be faithful to every trust committed to him." Many kindly words were spoken of him at the time of his death. The Winsted Herald closed a glowing tribute to his memory in the following words :
He took high rank in the House during his last term (1887) and was made a member of the judiciary conll- mittee. He was a well-informed man and an excellent talker, and was both persuasive and pleasing, and when he had "the floor " he was always accorded the close attention of his audience, whether at the State Capitol, the town meeting, or at the post-prandial exercises of any board or society of which he might be a member or guest. Few men had the " fraternal " characteristic inore strongly marked than Doctor Steele. He was a prominent Mason, and his lectures on Masonry were listened to with delight by members of the Lodge whenever he could be induced to give them. He was a member of various other fraternal organizations, but of late years his age debarred him from membership in several beneficiary societies which would gladly have opened their doors to him. But the realm in which Doctor Steele will be most missed aside from his own home will be in the homes where he was the beloved physician. His practice was very large and might have been very lucrative to him, but he was so much inclined to wave his hand and say, "That's all right," when asked for his bill, that the wonder is that he ever accumulated any property. The story of his leniency in matters of "collections " may be had from the mouth of every poor man in the community who had occasion to employ him, and there are no sincerer inourners over his death than among the poor. He was to them the " Good Samaritan," and on Sunday afternoon fully one thousand persons, mostly of this class, called at his home to look upon the face of their friend and benefactor.
He forgot his own soul for others, Himself to his neighbor lending, He found his Lord in his suffering brothers, And not in the clouds descending.
In the beginning of his career Dr. Steele laid down two simple rules for his life: First, Never to play games of chance, not that such games were totally wrong in his sight, but because he had no time to spend that way. Second, Never to sit down where liquor was sold. He was always a strong temperance man, and could never be induced to taste intoxicating drinks. Although he often voted "No License," for reasons which seemed wise to himself, he believed that in the present state of society the greatest amount of good could be accomplished only by "High License."
Harvey B. Steele was twice married. First, April 30, 1861, to Mary Mather of Win- sted, who died in 1872. Second, April 26, 1882, to Emily, daughter of John Stanwood of Hartford. She survives him and still lives to honor his memory in the old homestead.
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B UCK, JOHN R., of Hartford, was born in East Glastonbury, Dcc. 6, 1836, and was educated at the academy therc, later at Wilbraham Academy, Massachusetts, and then entered Wesleyan University, Middletown, but did not graduate. In1 1877, that institution gave him the degree of M. A. After leaving college, following the example of othier successful country boys, he began teaching school and taught at Manchester, Glastonbury, East Haddam, and elsewhere, generally in academies, that excellent sort of educational institution which of late ycars has passed very ncarly out of existence.
Mr. Buck came to Hartford in 1859, and took up the study of law with Judge Martin Welles and Julius L. Strong, the latter of whom afterwards became his partner. In 1862, he was admitted to the bar. Two years later he was elected by the Republicans to be assistant clerk of the lower house of the Connecticut General Assembly, and, following the regular line of promotion, was the next year clerk of the house, and the next after that the clerk of the senate. This course opens to a young man a wide acquaintance with men and affairs in politics and has proved the entrance for many other prominent men to a public career. In 1868, Mr. Buck was president of the Hartford Common Council; in 1871 and 1873, he was city attorney of Hartford; from 1863 to 1881, he was treasurer of Hartford county, and in 1880-91, he was state senator for the first (Hartford) district. He was nominated for Congress in 1880, and was elected over Beach, Democrat, by a vote of 17,048 to 17, 114. Running for the same office in 1882, he was defeated by W. W. Eaton by a vote of 14,740 to 14,047. He was elected to the Forty-ninth Congress in 1884, over Eaton, by a vote of 16,589 to 16,285, 410 votes having been given for Hammond, Prohibitionist, and 237 votes for Andrews, Greenbacker. In 1886, he was again the candidate of his party for the Fiftieth Congress and was defeated by Vance, Democrat, by a vote of 14,898 to 14,568. Hart, Prohibitionist, received 996 votes, and Loper, Labor candidate, received 378 votes. When the next election approached, Mr. Buck declined to allow his name to be used as a candidate, having determined to devote himself directly to the practice of his profession. While in Congress, he was on the committee on the revision of the laws, the Indian affairs committee, and the committee on naval affairs, and, in the last position, was influential in securing the construction of new ships.
In 1887, he and the Hon. Lorrin A. Cooke were made receivers of the wrecked Continental Life Insurance Company, and the innich involved affairs of that company have since been gradually working into order. Mr. Buck's old partner, Congressman Julius L. Strong, died in 1872, and in 1883 he formed a partnership with Judge Arthur F. Eggleston, now state attorney, and at that time already one of the most prominent and successful of the younger members of the bar, as Buck & Eggleston, and this firm is employed as counsel by a large number of important local corporations and private firms, and is represented now in nearly all the important cases tried in this part of the state, besides being often called elsewhere. Mr. Buck holds his position through no accident of good fortune, but as a result of honest, hard work and an attractive personality which has drawn to him a very wide acquaintance. The choice gift of making friends is one of his natural qualities, and he is personally known to as many people in the state as any man in Connecticut, while he has acquaintances in every state in the Union. Men who ineet him remember him. In politics, his experience ranges from town, city, and state affairs to the deliberations of Congress, and in law it ranges from the drawing of the will or the organiz- ing of a corporation to an argument before the supreme court. His acquaintance with the theory and practice of both politics and law is extensive and his advice in both fields is
OF CONNECTICUT, 1861-1894. 245
highly valued, for he is universally regarded as a peculiarly safe and judicious counsellor. He has been a Republican from his first appearance in politics and no gathering of the leaders of the party in the state is complete without him. His manner is deliberate, and caution is one of his characteristics, but his conclusions are positive and he always has the courage of thein.
In his thirty-five years of life in Hartford, Mr. Buck has earned his reputation alike for ability and for honesty. Those who advise with him, know he will say what he thinks, and those who are opposed to him know that he will use only honorable methods in dealing with them. He is director in the National Fire Insurance Company of Hartford and in the Hartford County Mutual Fire Insurance Company. In social life, among his near friends, he is loved for his sincerity, his simple tastes, the genuineness of his sympathy, and his almost boyish enthusiasmn. No man is more fond of his books, no inan appreciates a joke more, no inan enjoys a "day off " better, or finds more genuine pleasure in the sports of the country, whether shooting, fishing, or the mere walk abroad. Some years ago, he bought the old Buck family mansion near Buck's corners in East Glastonbury, the home of his boyhood, back three miles from the Connecticut river and eight miles below Hartford, on one of the highest hills between that city and New London. He has refitted it and made his summer home where he can enjoy the breezes under the great trees that his ancestors set out, and where his friends are always welcome and alinost always represented, and where, among the boys he grew up with, he is still one of them.
Mr. Buck married Miss Mary A. Keeny of Manchester, in 1865, and they have two children, Miss Florence K. Buck and John Halsey Buck, who graduated from Yale in 1891.
ORGAN, J. PIERPONT, of New York, is the son of Junius S. Morgan, the story of whose life appears in the preceding pages, and to which reference should be made for points of family history. He was born in Hartford, Conn., April 17, 1837, and like his father, he has gained both pecuniary success and business reputation outside his native state. His preparatory education was received at the English High School, Boston, and it was finished in a thorough manner at the University of Gottingen, Germany.
Inheriting from his father executive ability of a rare order and a taste for financial operations of an extended scope, he has developed his talents along this line until now he is the actual head of the leading banking firm of the United States. Before he attained his majority, Mr. Morgan entered the banking house of Duvean, Sherman & Company, New York, and for three years he gained experience in moneyed transactions. In 1860, he was appointed the agent and attorney in the United States for George Peabody & Company of London, of which firm his father was an active member .- This was the testing time of his career, but he proved equal to all the responsibilities of the position amid the trying times of the war period. Four years later he became the junior partner of the firin of Dabney, Morgan & Company, and in 1871 he was made a member of the house of Drexel, Morgan & Company, and that connection has lasted to the present day.
Few men who have been so prominent in Wall street are as little known as Mr. Morgan. He is a inan of few words, is seldom seen on the street and is difficult of access during business hours. Most of his time is spent in his office or at his home, where his family life is of a quiet and modest nature. Well known in London, he is alinost as
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powerful a factor there as in New York City. The trend of his mind is towards financial projects of a size thic very thought of which would overwhelin a man of smaller calibre. If he had done nothing else throughout his busy career, his re-organization of the tangled affairs of the West Shore Railroad would have raised him to a place in the very front rank among American financiers. In recognition of his service as chairman, the re-organization committee presented him with a silver and gold dinner set costing $50,000, and it was a well deserved tribute to the successful carrying out of liis original plan for solving the difficulties of the situation. He was the unseen leader of the force in the more recent railroad war which ended in the overthrow of what was known as the "Reading Combine." His position as the head of the largest banking house in America inakes hiim the centre around which numerous important railroad schemes revolve. In his office have been arranged many railroad deals with which the public was not made acquainted till months after they had been consummated.
Official stations have been showered upon Mr. Morgan until it would tax his memory to remember all the meetings he is called upon to attend, and in many cases over which he has to preside. To charitable objects Mr. Morgan gives large sums of money, and is always a liberal subscriber to public enterprises and for the relief of distress. To St. George's Protestant Episcopal church, of which he is a member, he presented a magnificent memorial building costing $300,000, which was dedicated in 1888. The fund of the Hartford Frce Public Library was enriched by $50,000. In 1892, he gave half a million dollars as an en- dowment to the New York Trade Schools, and he contributed a like sumn to the building of St. John's cathedral, and the same year he added to the American Museum of Natural History a unique collection of gems valued at $20,000. His interest in suffering humanity is evidenced by the fact that during the cholera season, he bought the steamer Stonington and gave it to Dr. Jenkins for the use of the Normandia's passengers. Unlike some rich men of this last quarter of the nineteenth century, Mr. Morgan does not forget or shirk his obligations and responsibilities to the rest of mankind.
OLT, COL. SAMUEL, may be said not only to have started the enterprise, but also to have introduced the methods that have given Hartford a unique position for excellence of manufactures. More than thirty years after his death the methods pursued by him and transmitted through the industrial leaders whom he trained, continue dominant in the large establishments of the place.
Born at Hartford, July 19, 1814, he was the third son of Christopher Colt, and on the maternal side the grandson of John Caldwell, long one of the most prosperous and public spirited merchants of the city, and president of the Hartford Bank froin its organization in 1792 till 1819. The fortune of Major Caldwell, largely impaired by the depredations of French privateers, mostly disappeared during the grievous depression in New England that caine with the war of 1812. His sons-in-law were involved in similar disasters, so that the lad whose cradle was rocked ainid affluence, was forced to enter upon the struggle of life unaided and alone.
At the age of ten he was sent to his father's factory at Ware, Mass., and later to a boarding school at Amherst, but longing for activity in a broader field, in July, 1827, lie shipped before the mast for Calcutta, inaking on the voyage a model prophetic of the revolver. After his return he went back to the mill at Ware, where, under the tuition of
Ever formfully yours Dam Coll
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William T. Smith of the dyeing and bleaching department, he learned many facts of chemistry and became quite an adept in the practical parts of the science. With the knowledge and dexterity thus acquired, at the age of eighteen alone he tried the world a second time, now as a lecturer upon nitrous oxide gas. The tours of "Dr. Coult," extend- ing from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico and continued at intervals nearly three years, provided the ineans for the slow development of his invention. At an age when inost boys are still at school he liad visited the antipodes, delighted large audiences from the platform and thought out devices which have since revolutionized the uses of firearms. In the years 1835 and 1836, respectively, he obtained patents in Great Britain and the United States for a rotating cylinder containing several chambers to be discharged through a single barrel.
In 1836, the Patent Arins Manufacturing Company with a nominal capital of $300,000, about one-half paid in, was formed at Paterson, N. J., to make the revolver. With traditional dislike for innovation, two boards of United States army officers reported against the weapon. During the Seminole war Colonel Colt passed the winter of 1837-38 in the swamps of Florida, making valuable friends among the officers in command, and proving in service the utility of the pistol. Already many had fallen into the hands of Texan rangers and had aided conspicuously in winning Texan independence. Although in 1840 an able board of ariny officers, aided by the light of experience, reported unanimously in favor of Colonel Colt's inventions, the Paterson company failed in 1842, so that their manufacture seemed to be indefinitely suspended.
In 1847, at the instance of General Taylor, one thousand of the pistols were ordered by the government for service in the Mexican War. The market was bare but Colonel Colt, from new models embodying many improvements, filled the contract by extemporizing a shop at Whitneyville, Conn. After years of heroic but disheartening struggle the hour of triumph had come. Thenceforward success followed success with a rapidity and rush at that time unparalleled in the liistory of American enterprise. Various patents, sold at the collapse of the Paterson company, he obtained again by purchase.
In 1848, Colonel Colt transferred his plant to Hartford. Driven by the inflow of business out of such narrow quarters as the city then afforded, he conceived the idea of building an armory that should surpass any private armory on the planet. Dazed by the vastness of his plans, the general public gazed with wondering incredulity upon their swift and successful accomplishment. In 1852, he bought a large tract in the south meadows on the banks of the Connecticut river, within the city limits, and enclosed it with a dyke about one and three- quarters miles in length, sloping upward from a base of one hundred feet to a driveway on top of forty feet, and raised thirty-two feet above low water inark. The walls were both protected and adorned by an abundant growth of willows. The severest freshets have left the property unharmed. The armory itself was begun in 1854, and finished in 1855.
Meanwhile Colonel Colt hovered between Europe and America, everywhere honored. On his journeys business and pleasure were happily combined. While his genius and kingly presence commanded personal hommage, the product of his armory having become indispensable, exacted tribute, not only from the most powerful empires, but from lonely frontiers and from the remotest outposts of civilization. As finished, the armory consists of two parallel buildings, each of four stories, and five hundred feet long, connected at the center by a building also five hundred feet long, the whole resembling in form a capital H.
Of the enduring influence upon the community of Colonel Colt's methods, "Hartford in 1889," says :
Under the management of Colonel Colt, aided by the able men whom he gathered around him, the establish- ment advanced, in an incredibly short period, to a foremost rank among the leading houses of the world. The position was won not more by the great value of Colonel Colt's invention than by the excellence of workmanship
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that extended to every detail of construction, and the severity of judgment that could tolerate no remediable imper- fection in the mechanism of the weapon, or in the machinery by which it was made. Several of the most important industries of Hartford were organized by colonists from the armory, who brought to new lines of effort the same determination to produce the best results by the most efficient means. The leaven of the old lump pervades the new. Could one trace downward and outward hidden and intricate streams of influence, he would find that the lessons inculcated in the armory a generation ago, and since taught by its graduates, have been largely instrumental in stimulating other manufacturers here to set up similar standards, and in winning for Hartford a world-wide repu- tation for the excellence of its manufactured goods. * * * The armory became a genuine training school in applied mechanics, where absolute excellence, even if beyond human reach, was the only recognized standard.
After the Mexican War, orders came in ceaseless and swelling streams. Meanwhile, the process of simplification and improvement kept pace with the demand. Machinery for the work was both invented and made on the premises. From this department several foreign arinories were largely equipped.
In boyhood, Colonel Colt began to experiment with submarine explosives, and was, perhaps, the first person to realize adequately the possibilities of the torpedo for harbor defence. In the presence of the highest officials of the nation, he blew up ships in motion by batteries concealed beneath the surface, sending the electric spark from stations miles away. He eloquently urged the government to adopt the system, but his conceptions were so far ahead of the age that years must pass before their utility could be recognized. He was also the first to devisc and lay an insulated submarine electric cable, having thus in 1843 successfully connected New York city with stations on Fire and Coney Islands.
Colonel Colt married at Middletown, Conn., June 5, 1856, Miss Elizabeth H. Jarvis, eldest daughter of Rev. W11. Jarvis, a lady of rare gifts and graces. On the 7th, the bridal party sailed for Liverpool, and proceeded thence to St. Petersburg, where they witnessed the coronation of the Emperor Alexander, and took part in subsequent fêtes. In February, 1857, they moved into the elegant home which he had built on a spacious plateau over- looking the armory and the valley of the Connecticut. Here amid domestic joys he found blissful relief from the exactions of a business that now encircled the globe. Here two sons and two daugliters were born to them, and here entered the angel of death to claimn three of the number. The spirit that had conquered uncounted obstacles in the battle of life was well-nigh broken by these bereavements.
With vast resources at command and inspired by almost unerring foresight, Colonel Colt had in mind colossal schemes that, had time been given, might have dwarfed previous accom- plishments. Among them was an addition to the armory of a plant for the manufacture of cannon on a large scale. But time was not given. Jan. 10, 1862, he passed away in the meridian of his powers. At the funeral fifteen hundred workmen from the armory, with tearful eyes, lined the pathway to the grave. The city and the nation mourned.
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