USA > Connecticut > Representative men of Connecticut, 1861-1894 > Part 55
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While at Washington, Commissioner Mitchell instituted several important reforms in the administration of the patent office, with the immediate result of greatly improving the service. He resigned his commissionership on July 1, 1891, owing to the demands mnade upon him by his private practice, which demanded his whole attention.
The nature of his specialty and his official position have been instrumental in bringing him into business relations with lawyers in all parts of the country, and few in his profession are more widely known or more highly respected for solid attainment, purity of character and unfailing courtesy. Mr. Mitchell's services as an advocate have been sought in connection with almost every branch of the industrial arts protected by letters patent, the "Tucker bronze " cases and " Rogers trade-inark " cases, and many of the Edison lamp cases being instances exhibiting the variety and importance of his litigation. He is at present established in New York City, retaining however his Connecticut office and business connections.
In a report to the National Civil Service Reforin League on the condition of the patent office occurs the following paragraph regarding Mr. Mitchell's appointment, character and work ; and its complimentary strain was well deserved :
The appointment of the present commissioner by President Harrison was made in pursuance of sound business principles. There were several candidates for appointment, some of them retired congressmen, and many of them with strong political backing; but the President resisted this influence, and declared that, if the patent bar would unite in a recommendation, he would appoint the man they recommended. The present commissioner, Mr. Charles E. Mitchell, was suggested. He was a patent lawyer of extensive experience and of recognized standing, with a large income from his profession; and his acceptance of the office involved considerable pecuniary sacrifice. As soon as it was ascertained that he would accept, the leading patent lawyers of the country endeavored to secure his appointment. He had their almost unanimous support as thoroughly well qualified for the position. This commissioner seems to be independent of political influences, and has inaugurated valuable reforms. * * * Your committee are glad to report from information in their posses- sion, derived, as they believe, from trustworthy and non-political sources, that there has been a decided improvement in the efficiency of the office since the appointment of the present commissioner.
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In the affairs of the city in which lic long resided lic takes a deep interest, and his efforts to advance the welfare of his fellow-citizens have been persistent from the day he took his place among them. He took a very active and leading part in securing for the Young Men's Christian Association in New Britain, of which he was president for several years, the large and commodious structure which it now occupies ; and in various ways has been of service to this and other local organizations of worth and character. Learned in the law, of sterling integrity of character, and actuated only by worthy motives in whatever he undertakes or endorses, he holds an enviable position both as a lawyer and a man. In private life, as in public, he is held in great estcem and has hosts of warm, personal friends.
Mr. Mitchell was married, in 1866, to Miss Cornelia A. Chamberlain, a native of New Britain, Conn., a lady in every way worthy of her husband. They have three children.
UBBARD, ROBERT, M. D., of Bridgeport, late assistant medical director and acting medical director United States volunteers, and, in 1879, president of the Connecticut Medical Society, was born in Upper Middletown, now the town of Cromwell, Middlesex County, Conn., on April 27, 1826.
He is a member of the old Connecticut family of Hubbard - branches of which are now to be found in many parts of the Union - which traces its descent from English ancestors of the name who were among the early settlers of New England, arriving about the year 1660, and who, before the close of the century, had become prominent members of the Connecticut colony. His father, the late Jeremiah Hubbard, was a native of Upper Middletown, now Cromwell, and during many years of his life followed the sea in the West Indian trade which, in his time, was extensively carried on from Middletown. A man of simple habits, intelligent, brave, honest, hard-working and God-fearing, he was a sturdy specimen of the old-time "Yankee salt," of the type which made the American navy and merchant marine famous during the first quarter of the present century. Although frequently at sea and the mate of the vessel in which he sailed, he was equally at home on land, being likewise a farmer and the owner of a respectably sized although not over- productive farin in Middlesex County. His wife, born Elizabeth Roberts, was a native of Middletown and the daughter of Wickham Roberts, a prosperous farmer of that place, whose lands included in part the beautiful site now occupied by the Connecticut Hospital for the Insane. Jeremialı and Elizabeth Hubbard were the parents of eight sons and two daughters.
Robert, the subject of this sketch, was the eldest of this large family, the care of which ultimately compelled his father to abandon his sea-faring life and settle down upon the home farm1. In the labor on this farm the boy began to take a hand at a very early age, and in his later youth he shared about equally with his father the various tasks. Such education as he obtained during these years was of the elementary kind afforded by the district schools of that period. These he attended somewhat regularly until well grown, when his agricultural tasks were increased and he was able to devote the winter months only to mental cultivation. He left school when seventeen years old. At this age he was a sturdy youth, sensible and practical, able to read and write correctly, and well up in "figuring," having during his last year at school "ciphered through Smith's arithmetic in- dependently of his researches in that text-book in the course of his regular studies." At the time he left school he possessed a genuine thirst for knowledge, and although there was no apparent probability of his having an immediate opportunity to gratify it, he cherished
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the hope of being able to do so at a later period. On two grounds he shrank from asking his time of his father ; first, because he was as serviceable to him as a hired mnan could be ; and second, because he felt it would be unjust to ask any aid or privilege which his brothers inust necessarily be denied. But his desire to tread the pathis leading to higher knowledge would not be stifled and was finally gratified through the kind offers of two of his family friends-a Mrs. Gridley of Cromwell, and Mr. afterward Rev. Jared O. Knapp; the first agreeing to give him his board and lodging in compensation for certain services upon her place ; and the last, to give him his tuition in return for his care of the school- room of the academy of which he was principal. The boy's good inother, proud of the ambition of her first-born, added her own entreaties to his and the desired freedom was at length obtained.
In the beginning young Hubbard's intention was merely to emancipate himself from the monotonous drudgery of farming, which he clearly perceived could never be made to give an adequate return for the devoted labors of a life time, even granted that it permitted the time for the gratification of his growing taste for reading and study -which it did not ; but he had as yet no greater ambition than to enter upon a business career and his studies were pursued with this end in view. At the academy, which he now entered, he found many pupils of both sexes who were considerably his junior in years mnuch further advanced than he was, but he applied himself diligently .to every branch taught and soon placed himself on an equal footing with them. When the spring session terminated, having finished Day's algebra, acquired some knowledge of chemistry and gained a fair foundation in the study of Latin, he resolved to make an effort to obtain a collegiate education. The remaining two years were given over to working and studying to attain this object. A season's farm labor brought him in fifty dollars in cash besides his board and lodging, and other occasional employments added slightly to the means at his command ; but hard work and long hours interfered with study and it was not until 1846 that he had finished his preparatory course. In that year he passed the regular examinations at Yale College and became a member of the class of 1850. In the face of all the adverse circumstances at- tending his attempt, his success in this respect merits high compliment, for he accomplished in three years, during half of which he had to perform hard manual labor, what frequently, under favoring conditions, occupies double the time. With no incident of special note, save that of getting into debt, he passed through the freshman year at college.
At its close he was offered the principalship of the academy in the village of Durham, Conn. Having the intention of returning to college and completing the course he accepted this position, hoping thereby to earn sufficient to carry out his design. But a year later he was induced by a medical friend - Dr. Benjamin F. Fowler of Durham, to undertake the study of medicine. He came to this new task with what may be called a fine preparation for it. He was in reality a well educated young man, and possessed a mental strength which had gained rather than lost by his varied struggles and experiences. From the first he found the prescribed reading in medicine most interesting and he made rapid headway. When the second year of his term as principal expired he resigned that position and entered Dr. Fowler's office as a student, remaining there a twelvemonth. He then placed himself under the tuition of Dr. Nathan B. Ives, an eminent practitioner of New Haven, becoming a member of his family as it were, although paying for his board and instruction by rendering such assistance to the doctor as was required. He remained with Dr. Ives two years, during which he regularly attended the medical school of Yale College. In 1851, he was graduated at this institution with the degree of Doctor of Medicine and had the additional honor of being the valedictorian of his class. In February, of the same year, he
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removed to Bridgeport, arriving in what was destined to be his future home, with twenty- five dollars of borrowed money in his pocket, and an indebtedness of two thousand dollars which he had incurred in getting his education.
To his way of thinking, however, thic worst had now been passed, and he entered upon liis professional career with a courageous licart and high aims. Beginning in a modest way, boarding at the city hotel, and having his office in a drug store in Wall street, he kept his expenses within reasonable limits and from the start was self-supporting. By degrees liis practice enlarged, and, as he was both conscientious and polite, he made friends rapidly, and very soon was in the receipt of a handsome income. In May, 1854, he forined a co-part- nership with Dr. David H. Nash, a graduate of the medical institute, Yale College, which continued seventeen years, and was as successful and profitable as it was agreeable. In 1861, when the War of the Rebellion broke out, he was a practitioner of such high stand- ing that upon the recommendation of the State Medical Society, of which he was an honored member, he was appointed by Governor Buckingham on the board of medical examiners (eight in number), to investigate the qualifications, and to pass upon all applicants for the positions of surgeon and assistant surgeon in the regiments then being raised by Connecticut.
In 1862, he himself took the field as surgeon (with the rank of inajor) of the Seven- teenth Regiment Connecticut Volunteer Infantry. A few months later he was promoted to a brigade surgeoncy in General Sigel's corps, and shortly before the battle of Chancellorsville was again promoted to the rank of surgeon of division in General Devin's command. In recognition of his meritorious services on the field on the day of that battle he was raised to the rank of medical inspector (assistant medical director) and assigned as such to the staff of General Howard. At the battle of Gettysburg, he served as medical director in charge of the Eleventh Corps ; and when, at a later date this same corps was ordered to Lookout Mountain he was again assigned to serve as its medical director and also as staff-surgeon to General Hooker. He participated in the battles af Lookout Mountain, Missionary Ridge and Ringgold, and was conspicuous for his devotion to the wounded upon those bloody fields. Arduous campaigning, and the intense mental strain consequent upon his heavy responsibili- ties as a high medical officer, finally impaired his health to such an extent that he was com- pelled to leave the field. Resigning from the army he returned to Bridgeport, and after a brief period of rest, resumed private practice, to which he still gives his earnest attention.
In the hope of obtaining relief from a severe attack of sciatica, which probably had its origin in the field, Dr. Hubbard went to Europe and spent considerable time in Germany. While abroad he inade many interesting studies, visited a number of the principal hospi- tals and other medical institutions, and formed the acquaintance of some of the inost distinguished foreign medical men. A second trip to Europe was made in 1883, and a third in 1885. In the public affairs of Bridgeport Dr. Hubbard had taken a lively and intelligent interest from his first settlement in the town. Being recognized as a progressive, high-minded citizen, who had the interests of the place at heart, he was elected in 1874, to represent it in the state legislature. His services in the Connecticut House of Repre- sentatives were marked by a conscientious discharge of duty to the people of the state at large, as well as to his constituents. In 1875, he was nominated for Congress by the Repub- licans of the fourth congressional district of Connecticut, his opponent being the Hon. W. H. Barnum. Although his party was in the minority in the district, he received a very general support, and, notwithstanding his defeat, gained rather than lost in personal popu- larity. In 1876, he was again elected to represent Bridgeport in the state legislature. The following year lie was renominated for Congress, his opponent being Levi Warner, who was
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elected by a small majority. Pressed in 1879, to take for the third time the congressional nomination in his district he refused to do so, although the subsequent victory of the Repub- licans at the polls was clearly foreseen. His reasons for this course were found in the exacting requirements of his professional labors, rather than in any disinclination to serve the people, or to expose himself as his party's standard bearer to a third defeat.
In the year last given, he had the honor of being chosen president of the Connecticut Medical Society. A practitioner of forty years' experience, as honorable as it has been brilliant and successful, Dr. Hubbard stands among the first physicians of his native state. He is a respected member of nearly all the leading medical societies, and has contributed several interesting and important papers and addresses to the literature of his profession. He is still in active practice, and has thousands of warin and appreciative friends in all parts of the state, not the least valued being his former comrades of the Union army, who remember with pride and gratitude his noble labors in their and his country's service during the Rebellion.
Dr. Hubbard was married on April 25, 1855, to Miss Cornelia Boardinan Hartwell, the youngest daughter of Sherman and Sophia Hartwell, honored residents of Bridgeport. Mrs. Hubbard died in 1871. The children of this marriage are: Sherinan Hartwell Hubbard, graduate of Yale Law School, in large and successful practice in Bridgeport, with patent law as a specialty, married to Miss Comete Ludeling, eldest daughter of the Hon. John F. Ludeling, formerly chief justice of the state of Louisiana; Sophia Todd Everest, wife of Charles M. Everest, vice-president of the Vacuum Oil Company, Rochester, N. Y., and Cornelia E. Hubbard, Bridgeport.
OOMIS, DWIGHT, late associate judge of the Supreme Court of Connecticut, and member of the Thirty-sixth and Thirty-seventh Congresses of the United States, was born in the village of Columbia, Tolland County, Conn., July 27, 1821. The family of Loomis is of English origin, and the Connecticut branch of it dates back to the original settlement of the New England colonies. The father of Judge Loomis was Elam Loomis, also a native of Columbia. He married Miss Mary Pinneo, a native of Hanover, N. H., whose father, James Pinneo, was of French ancestry.
The subject of this sketch, who is the only surviving issue of his parents, was educated primarily at the public schools in Columbia. After leaving there he attended, during several terms, the academies at Monson and Amherst in Massachusetts, where, under excellent instructors, he finished his youthful education and qualified himself to undertake the instruc- tion of others. Returning to his native place he taught school for several years with marked success, being more than ordinarily endowed with the faculty of leading youth along the thorny paths of knowledge, and especially happy in holding the attention of his pupils, and in awakening in their natures that early thirst for knowledge so necessary to subsequent educational progress. Quite a number of those who had the advantage of his instruction during his brief period have lived to realize the high value of their young instructor's kindly, but none the less effective, methods of stimulating their zeal while at school.
Dwight Loomis was one of those young men to whom a college education was not essential. He had within himself, as subsequent events amply proved, that earnestness of purpose and power of application which enabled him to acquire, unaided, the mental discipline which is said to be the chief result of a well-spent life at college. Had the means of his parents perinitted, he would have taken a collegiate course, but the expense, even in those days of simple living, was too large an item to be borne by any but the very well-to-do. By
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the time it was in his power to bear the necessary cost, it was time to decide upon his life work, and without hesitation he made choice of the law. There was no fancied preference for the work of the legal profession in this decision, for the young man possessed many of the chief requisites for success at the bar, and was urged to the step not only by his personal inclinations but also by the advice of wiser heads. After completing his academic education, lie had joined a literary and debating society in his native town and at its rostrum had developed great skill in discussion, and oratorical powers of no mean order. In the debates in which lie participated he showed a keenness of logic and a judicial fairness of mind which clearly indicated that he had a future at the bar, and possibly on the bench. In 1844, being then a well educated and unusually promising young man of twenty-three years of age, he went to Ellington and began the systematic study of law in the office of the Hon. John H. Brockway, a leading lawyer and politician of Tolland County. Shortly afterward he entered the law school of Yale College, at New Haven, where he remained one year, when he was admitted to the bar in Tolland County in March, 1847. In the autumn following, he was taken into partnership by Mr. Brockway, and at once opened an office in the town of Rockville, being the first lawyer to establish himself at that place. Business came much more rapidly than is usually the case with young lawyers, and he was soon blessed with a large practice in which he had remarkable success.
In 1851, he had become so popular that he was elected to the General Assembly of the state, and during the single term he served in this body he earned enviable distinction not only as a wise legislator but also as a speaker and parliamentarian. Mr. Loomis was in ardent sympathy with the movement which opposed the repeal of the Missouri compromise and the extension of slavery into free territory, and was sent as a delegate from Connecticut to the National Convention held at Philadelphia in 1856, at which the Republican party was organized and John C. Fremont was placed in the field as its candidate for the presidency. He took a very active part in the presidential canvass following this convention, and won new laurels on the stump in his native state. In 1857, he was elected to the state Senate as representative of the 21st senatorial district. Here he had the rare distinction of being appointed, during his first term, to the chairmanship of the judiciary committee, a position eloquently and truly described by an eminent contemporary, as one "of the highest honor and responsibility, reserved for those only whose legal attainments, efficiency and personal worth befit them for its administration." Two years later he was the Republican candidate for the Thirty-sixth Congress in the first Congressional district, comprising the counties of Hartford and Tolland; and although the district was considered a doubtful one by his party, and notwithstanding the fact that a disappointed aspirant for the nomination took the field as an independent candidate, Mr. Loomis was elected. At the close of his terin he was re-nominated to represent the same district, and was reelected by a majority considerably in excess of that previously received.
Mr. Loomis's congressional career covered the closing years of Buchanan's administration and the opening years of Lincoln's. No more stirring epoch has occurred in the history of the country than these four years, each day of which was fraught with momentous conse- quences to the Republic. During this period the labors of the patriots in the national legislature were heavy with responsibility, and to their credit it must be recorded that they were unflinching in their devotion to duty, and heroic in their defiance of treason and rebellion. Mr. Loomis bore his full share in introducing, advocating and supporting the patriotic measures rendered necessary by secession and armed rebellion. Apart from this he rendered valuable services as member and chairman of the committee on expenditures in the treasury department, and also as a member of the committee on agriculture and of the
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committee on elections, the last named being one of the greatest importance. He was seldom absent during the sessions, and rarely missed a vote. He participated with earnestness in all the various important debates, and his voice was ever raised in favor "of strengthening the resources of the nation, and maintaining the integrity of the Union." Conscientious in his conduct, unfaltering in his allegiance, and logical and manly in his utterances, he exerted a powerful influence upon national affairs, and his patriotism and ability were recognized and applauded both by his colleagues and liis constituents, as well as by all loyal citizens.
In 1864, his eminent legal attainments and high character were honored by his election as judge of the Superior Court. At the close of the eight-year terin, in 1872, he was reelected to the same position. In 1875, he was elected associate justice of the Supreme Court of Connecticut, and served as such until June 3, 1891, when his term expired by limitation, according to the laws of the state. On the bench, as well as in the halls of the state and national legislatures, Judge Loomis has given unbounded satisfaction. His career has been marked, from first to last, by a high sense of honor, unremitting industry, and talents of a superior order. His qualifications for public life were both brilliant and solid, some of thein born in him, others the result of studious thought and careful cultivation. Acute analysis of character and ability have asserted that his mental and temperamental qualities admirably adapted liim to the judicial office. Always patient and courteous, capable of exercising the greatest forbearance, gifted with a good memory, endowed with uncommon powers of analysis, as well as an acute perception, and possessing rare judgment and discrimination, he combined the higher qualities of the head with the noblest qualities of the heart; and exercising both alike, has worn the erinine with becoming dignity, and has discharged his judicial functions in such a manner as to reflect the highest credit upon the office he filled and the character of the man who filled it.
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