USA > Connecticut > Representative men of Connecticut, 1861-1894 > Part 47
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Many kind and complimentary allusions were made to Mr. Hendce by thic various journals of the day at the time of his decease. His memory can be honored in no better way than by showing the cstecm in which lic was held by his contemporaries. The Hart- ford Courant said cditorially :
The death of Mr. L. J. Hendee, president of the Etna Insurance Company, takes from social and business circles in Hartford a familiar figure. Mr. Hendee has been for nearly a quarter of a century identified with one of the largest financial institutions of Hartford, and his integrity and foresight have done mnuch to main- tain and add to the Ætna's splendid reputation for soundness and fair dealing. Mr. Hendee leaves behind lim a good name without spot of any sort. He was universally respected and estcemed-a quiet, useful, wise and honorable man. In all respects he was a good citizen and a good man.
A paragraph from an article in the Hartford Times says :
Mr. Hendee's record as a business man is one of unimpeachable integrity. He was scrupulously honest even in the inerest trifles. In character he was sincere and upright, a inan of the finest moral sensibilities and of almost womanly gentleness of disposition. Though peculiarly modest, his was a character of noble inanliness. He was one of the best of story tellers. His manner was deliberate, but every word counted, and his yarns had always a point of application, as well as of contagious jollity.
At the opening of this sketch a suggestive quotation was made from the Insurance Journal. All the papers devoted to this subject contained feeling allusions to the vacancy created by the death of Mr. Hendee in the fire underwriting world. Speaking of his appearance the Standard said :
Mr. Hendee was a man of commanding appearance, and his massive head, clear cut features, and expres- sive eyes, are well portrayed in the likeness that heads these lines. There was something in his physical and mental make-up that suggested the broad guage statesman of a former generation. If lie appeared somewhat stern to strangers, it was a sternness which applied only to his high sense of rectitude, justice and honor, which were coupled with a peculiarly kind and gentle disposition, and an unvarying considerateness, to which all his associates of the Ætna Insurance Company will bear sorrowing testimony, not less than his many friends and neighbors.
The closing scene of his life is beautifully told by the Argus :
At home, not many miles from his birthplace, amid the scenes of his successful labors, within sight of their beauties and within sound of their music, surrounded by friends who had known him long and loved him well, he died as he would have wished to die-calinly and peacefully-ripe in years and riper still iu manly and generous deeds. Toward the last, the fine old face, always reflecting peace and good-will to his fellows, shone with a new and more perfect light, which came direct from Him whose servant he was, and in whose vineyard he had long been a faithful worker.
Excellent and appropriate resolutions were passed by the various companies and the church to which Mr. Hendee belonged. Lack of space prevents the insertion of even the tribute of his associates of the Ætna Company, though it was the best of them all.
Nov. 23, 1852, Mr. Hendee was married to Adeline E. Whitmore of Middle Haddam. His worthy wife passed on to her reward in 1884. Of their five children all are yet living. Abner, who is successor to Crittenden & Co., New Haven ; Richard, now in business in Birmingham ; Lucius, and two daughters, Hetta E., and Sarah J., who live at the old home in Hartford.
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OF CONNECTICUT, 1861-1894.
ERRY, ORRIS SANFORD, of Norwalk, United States senator from Connecticut, was born in Bethel, Conn., Aug. 15, 1823. His father, Starr Ferry, was a prominent hat manufacturer in his native town. His mother's inaiden name was Esther Blackman. His superior mental endowments became apparent in early youthı. He was apprenticed to his father's trade, and subsequently cherished just pride in the proficiency he had attained in that calling. As chairman of the Senate com- mittee on patents, in the last session of Congress he attended, he proved himself to be in advance of advocates and experts in thorough knowledge of that branch of manufacture. Love of books and passion for study took possession of him in early life, and he left his trade to enter upon a course of preparation for college. At the age of fourteen he was sent by his father to a preparatory school at Wilton, Conn., in 1837, and completed his preliminary studies at New Haven in 1840, under the instruction of Mr. Harvey Olinstead. Judges of character saw in him a youth of rare talents and promise. While others acquired knowledge laboriously, to him it was merely pastime. In 1840, at the age of seventeen, he entered Yale College, and while there "his fine powers of mind soon found appreciative recognition, particularly in the department of literature and debate. He early became one of the editors of the Yale Literary Magazine ; was also a successful competitor for the Townsend literary prize ; and uniformly stood among the very highest in anything that required elaborate or extemporaneous address. His prestige this gained in letters, together with his hearty social qualities and his fine personal appearance, secured for him a marked popularity, as well in circles without as within the college."
" He graduated in 1844, at the age of twenty-one," says an article in the " Biographical Encyclopedia of Connecticut and Rhode Island," "and at once commenced the study of law with Thomas B. Osborne of Fairfield. One year later he entered the office of the late Chief Justice Thomas B. Butler, in Norwalk. In two years from that time he was admitted to the bar, and became the partner of his former preceptor. His professional associations were most fortunate. Judge Butler was remarkable for his legal learning, varied acquirements, love of justice, and generous social qualities. The bar of Fairfield and the adjoining counties had many eminent lawyers. There were the venerable Charles Hawley, Roger Sherman Baldwin, the Ingersolls, Judges Butler, Seymour, Dutton - all learned in the mysteries of jurisprudence, the first two becoming chief justices of our high court. Besides these there were a score of younger men - Minor, Beardsley, Loomis, White, Carter, Beach, Harrison and others near his own age, of rare ability." Address of H. H. Starkweather on the Life and Character of O. S. Ferry ; corrected and read by James A. Garfield, p. 62. Surrounded by this array of cultured and disciplined talent, it speaks volumes in favor of the young practitioner's industry and talent, to state that within a few years from his admission to the bar he had placed himself at the head of his profession.
In 1847, he received the commission of lieutenant-colonel of the Twelfth Division of Connecticut militia ; in 1847, he was appointed judge of probate for the District of Norwalk ; in April, 1855, and again in 1856, he was elected to the state Senate; in the same year he was appointed state attorney for Fairfield County, and held that position until 1859, when he was elected representative to Congress from the Fourth District of Connecticut. In Congress he served on the committee on Revolutionary claims, and on the committee of thirty-three on the rebellious states. The House then embraced many mnen of marked character and ability. The great leaders of the South, schooled in politics and accustomed to rule, were there. The North also was represented by many men of great ability, but mostly new to the public service. Mr. Ferry took a conspicuous part in the discussions of the body from the very outset. His opin-
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ions and positions were identieal with those of our most thoughtful and practiced statesmen. His analyses of the state of the country were skilful and just; and his views of the duty of the national government such as were amply justified by the following inarchi of events.
How much of the marvelous effectiveness then and afterwards revealed in the service of his country had its origin in personal conseeration to the highest duties and noblest ends need not be liere disenssed. In the autumn of 1859, he made a public profession of religion, and united with the First Congregational chiureh of Norwalk. That he had not done so before was not owing to real indifference or prejudice, but to the strength of his propensitics to sense and sin. The power of these was broken by Divine grace, and he entered into the liberty where- with Christ makes His people free. Theneeforward, as he once remarked to Senator Wadleigh, he tried to live as though the next moment would isher him to the bar of the Eternal Judge. In this frame of mind he found nothing inconsistent but everything that was con- gritons with the service of his troubled and imperilled country. He was an eminently sincere 111a11- sineere in his professions and sineere in all his actions. This sincerity was manifest in his worship in the sanctuary; in the Sunday school, where he was a faithful and edifying instructor ; in the place of social prayer, where his voice was often heard in remarks and fervent petition ; in occasional religious lectures, wherein he used all his wealth of seriptural learning, of general and eritieal knowledge, to unfold and enforee the truths of Christ and of his revealed religion. Humility was as obvious as sineerity. Mind and heart and life were wholly given to Christ. The Rev. Dr. Childs, a former pastor of Senator Ferry, wrote of him in the Congregationalist, Dec. 9, 1875 :
It is true that in early life he was skeptical; but the transition from skepticism to faith was real and thorough. His conversion was as clear as that of Paul. In the latter part of the year 1865, lie delivered a course of lectures, rapidly prepared, on the evidences of Christianity. These, I think, indicated the working of his own mind in passing from the darkness of unbelief to the Christian faith. The great fact on which he rested was the resurrection of Christ. He had satisfied himself, as a lawyer, as an investigator of evidence, that, as a historic fact, Jesus of Nazareth rose from the dead. That settled everything. The Bible was inspired because it had upon it the seal of the risen Christ. Christianity, with all its facts and doctrines was true, because it was grounded in Him who was dead and is alive again. This was to him a real and living faith. He grew in it and by it.
The state of the nation at the epoch of his entrance upon congressional duties was such as to call forth all the powers of his riehly and rarely endowed nature. A sagacious counsellor and a wise statesman, he was also an eloquent advocate and orator. Thie magnetie and eon- vineing power with which he spoke placed him amongst the masters of forensic and popular address. He was uniformly equal to the emergency. No voice was more potent in rallying the inasses than his. No eounter foree was more feared by political opponents than that which lie brought to bear. Nowhere did he speak "with the counsel of the statesman and the authority of the general in war" to greater effeet than in the Senate of the United States ; and nowhere was appreciation of his colossal merit more genuine and emphatic. During the congressional session of 1875, at the end of a fifteen minutes' speech on the Louisiana question, Senator Schurz remarked to a mutual friend, "Poor Ferry ! Ill and weak as he is, he is head and shoulders above any other man in the Senate in point of intellectual foree."
Mr. Ferry was preeminently a man of convictions. He decided and acted according to his conviction of what was clearly and broadly right. Questionable causes, as a lawyer, he positively refused to espouse. More than once he said to those who, with mueh entreaty and gold, sought to enlist his services : "No, gentlemen, I think you are not in the right, and I will have nothing to do with your case." Such a man could not possibly be in any other than a resolutely hostile attitude to slavery and secession. On the 24th of February, 1861, he made an earnest speech in Congress, in which he affirmed that the southern leaders demanded that the Constitution be so amended as to give protection to slave property every-
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where in the United States, while they refuse to pledge that even such an amendment, with the repeal of the personal liberty bills, should constitute a final and satisfactory adjust- ment. "To buy transient peace, even if possible, at the price of this amendment, is to enact a dangerous precedent. Any new demand will be enforced by repeated secession. A compromise now is but the establishment of sedition as an elementary principle in our system. There is no course left but for the government to vindicate its dignity by an exhibition of its strength." The old Puritan spirit rose in him with lion-like majesty and force, and calmly resolved on vigorous and prompt action. He served in the Cassius M. Clay guard, which patrolled Washington day and night, in the season of aların and peril, before the arrival of troops. In June he was commissioned as colonel of the Fifth Connecticut Volunteers. In March, 1862, he crossed the Potomac, at Williamsburgh, with . his regiment, advanced into Virginia, drove the enemy from Winchester, and occupied the place. Soon after that he was appointed brigadier-general, and took command of the brigade under General Shields, whose division was ordered to join McDowell. In the severe and sanguinary frays that followed, General Ferry bore himself with distinguished gallantry, earned brilliant reputation by services during the war, and at its close devoted his best energies to the political and social welfare of the country he would have died to save.
When the war for the preservation of the Union ended, he resumed the practice of his profession ; but in the next year, 1866, was elected to the Senate of the United States, in which he served one full terin, and to which he was reelected in 1872. He entered the Senate at the beginning of the Fortieth Congress. The problem of reconstruction was to be solved. By many he was held to be unduly conservative, in his tendencies. It is true that he early favored large amnesty to those who had been in rebellion against the government; but it is also true that he always maintained with masterly ability not only the right of the nation, but its duty to secure liberty, enfranchisement, and civil rights to those who had been slaves. He wrote considerably for the press. Many of his speeches were printed in the Congressional Globe, but otherwise he left no publications. Bribery and corruption never attempted to approach him, for sterling integrity elevated him beyond the reach of tempta- tion. "As a senator," said Mr. English of Connecticut, "he had a clear conception not only of the duties but the responsibilities of the position, and was fearless in the discharge of those duties." Senator Bayard, of Delaware, affirmed that "his censure of what he deemed corrupt, dishonest, and unworthy, was unhesitating and unsparing. And he never permitted the garb of party to shelter a guilty man from his just denunciation. For six years we served together upon the committee on private land claims, where cases involving the title or possession of extensive and valuable bodies of land came frequently before us. His intelligence, acumen, and fine legal and judicial abilities were in this way made known to me; and reports of important cases, comprehending questions of law and fact of a com- plicated nature, where lapse of time and fraud had combined to obscure truth and justice, were made by him, and are on the files of the Senate, in which his vigorous and instinctively honest mind dissolved all doubts, and arrayed the merits of the case in clear and orderly precision."
Honest, unswerving sense of right was his grand characteristic. It led him into courses of action opposed to popular convictions, and provoked warm indignation in his constituents at times. But indignation gave place to admiration when they saw that he wanted and intended to be and to do right under all circumstances. Considerations of personal friendship had no weight with him when opposed to ascertained duty. There was no member of the national Senate for whom he had inore profound regard than for Charles Sumner. But he did not hesitate to oppose that great and cherished friend when personal conviction of right
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and duty impelled him so to do. On the 27th of January, 1874, hic spoke in fearless and uncompromising language in opposition to thic Civil Rights Bill, and drew from Mr. Sumner the pathetic and deploring remark: "Mr. Ferry, your speech is far the most damaging blow iny micasure has yet received." Genuine moral courage was required to strike that blow, and that moral courage was one of the crowning excellencics of his character.
His last speech in the United States Senate was his uncommonly eloquent and brilliant address in memory of his old colleague, William A. Buckingham. His own end was drawing near. Lcaving Washington, shortly before the close of the Forty-third Congress, he reached Norwalk in a state of extreme exhaustion. A new method of medical treatment in Brooklyn, N. Y., was tried, but failed to give needed relief. His discase was softening or decay of the spinal marrow. Pain was excruciating, agony uncontrollable. Even then a few of Christ's tender words from the Gospel of St. John would quiet him. On the 20th of November, 1875, his friends and physicians bore him tenderly back to Connecticut that he might die in his own home. The following day was one of November gloom that passed away as the evening drew nigh, and the day closed in all the glory of a gorgeous sunset. That mnearthly glory was symbolic of the splendors that enwrapt the soul of Orris S. Ferry, in his departure to the Paradise of God. He died on the Lord's day, Nov. 21, 1875, at 2.15 P. M., aged fifty-two years, three months, and seventcen days.
In his death the country lost one of its purest and ablest statesmen; the commonwealth of Connecticut, which proudly reckons many distinguished sons among her jewels, the peer of the most gifted of them; the legal profession, one of its soundest counsellors and most eloquent advocates; the community in which he lived, an accomplished Christian gentleman; and his family such a husband and father as only such a husband could be to a loved and loving wife, and such a father to an affectionate and devoted daughter.
Senator Ferry was married on the 17th of May, 1847, to Charlotte C., daughter of Governor Clark Bissell. One daughter was the fruit of their happy and auspicious union.
PERRY, LEWIS, the sixth child and second son of Daniel Gilbert and Harriet Frances (Pelton) Sperry, was born on East Windsor Hill, in the town of South Windsor, Jan. 23, 1848.
His father, a farmer, born at Sperry's Farms, Woodbridge, Conn., was a lineal descendant of Richard Sperry, so well remembered for his protection to the regicides int 1661. Other paternal ancestors of the New Haven colony were Matthew Gilbert Todd, Cooper Heaton or Eaton, Wilmot and Carrington. Harriet Frances Pelton was daughter to James Pelton and Sophia Gaylord. Sophia Gaylord was a descendant of Dea. William Gaylord, Matthew Grant, Daniel Clark, Humphrey Prior, John Drake, Benedictus Alvord, Thomas Moore, John Osborn of Windsor, and from the Edwards family of Hartford, the Lathrop of Norwich, and the Pease of Enfield, Conn. James Pelton was descended from John Pelton of Boston, 1634, and from Margaret Thompson, a Scotch widow with nine children who sailed from Ireland in 1718, in the fleet of five ships commanded by Captain Temple, bound for Boston.
None of Lewis Sperry's ancestors arrived in New England later than 1730, all became at once land owners in the varied towns which they chose for their homes, and all were farmers, whatever other occupation or profession they may have joined with their agricultural pursuits, and in every war, from the Pequot war to the Civil Rebellion, some ancestor or near relative fought on the winning sidc.
Engaly 3W. Assetwate
Lewis Sperry
1892.
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OF CONNECTICUT, 1861-1894.
Mr. Sperry's boyhood was spent on a farin in the Connecticut valley where beauty of scenery and fertility of soil frees the farmer from many of the hardships and privations which pertain to that occupation in more remote or barren regions. He attended both public and private schools in the neighborhood. At the age of thirteen he was sent to New Haven and was a member of the family and school of the well known teacher, Mr. Sidney A. Thomas. Later he entered Monson Academy, was graduated in 1869. The succeeding four years were spent in Amherst. He was popular in college, was an editor of the Amherst Student, and an active member of the debating societies, but never, at that time or since, has he joined any secret society. He perhaps gave more time to the study and practice of debate and oratory, than to the regular studies of the college course. He won several prizes as a speaker and debater, and the first Hardy at his graduation in 1873.
He immediately entered the law office of Waldo, Hubbard & Hyde in Hartford, Conn. Judge Loren Waldo was an elderly man of singular mildness and purity of character joined with marked ability in his profession. Daily intercourse with such a man could but give noble ideals of life to any youth coming under his influence. Gov. Richard D. Hubbard was then one of the foremost lawyers in the state, and Mr. Alvan P. Hyde, both as a lawyer and as a man, was worthy to complete the firmn. Here the student could see exem- plified each day the highest requirements in the study of law and its most honorable application when practised as a profession.
Admitted to the Hartford County bar in 1875, Mr. Sperry the following year joined with ex-Lieut .- Gov. George G. Sill in renting the chambers at 345 Main street, and between Mr. Sill and Mr. Sperry began a friendship which time has only deepened. Here might be noted a strong trait in the character of Lewis Sperry-in his home, among his play- mates in the district school, at college, and with those whom he oftenest meets in the practice of his profession- he has formed deep and abiding friendships which evince 110 variableness nor shadow of turning. Since his entrance into public life Mr. Sperry, so far from forgetting his earlier friends, appears to feel for them even a tenderer regard, as for those who did not come with political popularity and will not depart with it.
In 1876, Mr. Sperry represented his native town in the legislature and was of the committee for education.
When the new coroner law went into effect in 1883, he was appointed coroner for Hartford county, and had the difficult task of applying a law without precedents to guide him. The most notable case which came under his care while holding this office, was the explosion of the boilers in the Park Central Hotel. The coroner's finding and his courage and good judgment in holding the responsible parties guilty in this accident was noted by the New York and Boston papers, and editorial comment termed his a "model report."
The capacity he showed for the administration of public affairs led to his selection as a candidate for Congress, and, after his nomination in 1890, his career can be culled from the public prints.
The Hartford Times (Democrat), Sept. 30, 1890, said : "Lewis Sperry of South Windsor, was nominated by the Democratic Congressional convention of the First District, tliis after- noon, by a vote of 74 to 32. Mr. Sperry is among the most capable lawyers of Hartford county, a young man of pure character and sound judgment."
Commenting on the nomination, the Hartford Post (Republican), of the same date remarked : " Mr. Sperry is a honorable gentleman, not much in politics, who is very little known outside of the immediate vicinity of Hartford and Windsor. He will resemble nothing so much as a quiet, unemotional gentleman who has taken a 'flyer' in the political inarket."
After the election the Amherst Student took pride in saying :
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Hon. Lewis Sperry ('73) will represent the First Connecticut District in the Fifty-seeond Congress, having defeated Simonds (Rep. ) by 708. Mr. Sperry's popularity is shown from the fact that two years ago Simonds carried the district by 813, making a gain for Mr. Sperry of 1521. Hartford city, where Mr. Sperry practices law, was carried by him by 1112, being the largest majority ever given a congressional candidate. Amherst's new congressman, while in Amherst, captured many prizes, including the first Hardy.
The Springfield Republican, of Nov. 9, 1890, remarkcd:
It is seldom that a candidate of either party has been complimented so highly by the votes of his political opponents in the profession as has Mr. Sperry. He will not be so showy a man as Mr. Simonds, but he will be a hard worker, which is his natural habit.
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