USA > Connecticut > Representative men of Connecticut, 1861-1894 > Part 6
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His struggles as a newsboy were similar to those of other poor boys following the same humble calling, says the Biography of Connecticut. He continued in this occupation during the months of one suininer only. He then became a "cabin boy " on a fishing vessel sailing from the port of New York. During the gold excitement of 1849, and while he was attached to the schooner " Mount Vernon," he was about to sail in that vessel to California, when Mr. Robert K. Waller, a kind-hearted citizen of New London, became interested in him, offered him a home and education, and made him by adoption a member of his family and household, and the bearer of his name. Since this good fortune happened, Thomas M. Armstrong, whose father's name was Thomas Christopher, and whose mother's naine was Mary, has been known as Thomas Macdonald Waller. The boy, who had already enjoyed the advantages of the schools of New York city, then entered the public schools of New London, and remained in them until he graduated at the Bartlett grammar school with honors, carrying off the first prize in oratory at about the age of seventeen. The class to which he belonged in the high school, of which Mr. E. B. Jennings, M. A., was the master, graduated several boys beside Waller who have won distinction in life. In due time Mr. Waller began the study of law and was admitted to practice in the courts of Connecticut. In his profession he soon attained a reputation as a successful advocate, and acquired a lucrative practice. At the opening of the war he enlisted in the Second Connecticut Regiment for a three months' campaign, but on account of a painful disease of his eyes, from which he has suffered more or less during life, he was not able to remain in the service. He did what he could, however, by public speeches and otherwise, in recruiting regiments in Connecticut and elsewhere. He was elected a member of the Connecticut Legislature in 1867, and again in 1868, and during the latter session of the Assembly he took a leading part in an important debate on the policy of bridging the Connecticut river. In a recent speech, delivered before the Chamber of Commerce of the city of New Haven on "rapid transit," and published in the state papers, in allusion to this incident, he is reported as saying :
The first public speech I ever made in New Haven which I am able to recall, was delivered in 1868, in the old state house on the college green. Ex-Senator Eaton closed a several days' legislative debate against bridging the Connecticut river, or as he used to call it, "bridging God's highway," on one side, and I closed it on the
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other. New Haven was aronsed from centre to circumference on that occasion in favor of the bridge. "You cannot resist the nineteenth century," I remember was about the only argument urged, but it was sufficient and successful (laughter). On the night of victory our esteemed friend, Harry Lewis (may hie live long and be happy ), gave our side an ovation, and that night (we were all younger then) in the exuberance of our joy, we "painted the town red." The old river ferry boats on the Connecticut went into ancient history, and the locomotive crossed God's highway in triumph (applause). I recall this instance now because the predictions that were sincerely made of all sorts of harm that would follow the change from the old to the new, from the ferry boat to the bridge, would be to-night, in the light of our experience, curious and useful reading. I have lived to see the Shore Line wooden bridge built and wear out with age, and in the progressive spirit of the times a splendid iron structure take its place. The many years behind me since that speech was made reminds me of approaching age. But the fact is not a sad one. We must all, you know, either die young or grow old, and the latter alternative is preferable, if we are doing something worthy of our time as we pass down the line (applause).
I11 1870 Mr. Waller was elected secretary of state. The duties of this office did not interfere with his legal practice. The clerks in the office did the business, -the secretary had only the direction and supervision of the official work. In the Centennial year of 1876 he was elected speaker of the House of Representatives. The session was the shortest that had been held for years, and much of the credit for the prompt manner in which the public business was accomplished was ascribed by the newspapers of that day to the ability and facility with which the speaker discharged his duty. At the close of the session he was presented with an elegant watch in token of the respect of his colleagues in the Assembly for his impartiality and courtesy as their presiding officer. At the close of the session, the judges of the courts of Connecticut appointed him as the attorney of the state for New London county. This office he held by reappointments until he was elected in 1882 as governor of the commonwealth. During his state-attorneyship he tried a number of criminal cases which attracted the attention of the whole country, and the evidence and arguments in which were published daily in all metropolitan journals. The trial of Herbert Hayden, a Methodist minister, for the murder of one of his parishioners, occurred in New Haven . and occupied the court for more than two months. He was designated to conduct this trial by the judges of the state at the request of the state-attorney, Hon. Tilton E. Doolittle, who was disqualified by reason of some professional association with the accused.
Mr. Waller was elected and re-elected mayor of New London. He succeeded the Hon. Augustus Brandegee, and the Hon. Robert Coit was his successor in the office. He served the city for nearly six years. His administration, as appears from the published reports of his official vetoes and orders in the city press, was always spirited and sometimes aggressive. His sweeping "wooden awning," "sidewalk " and "hitching posts " orders are often now referred to by New Londoners with an approving smile. The improvements the titles of these orders suggest are appreciated now, but at the time they were issued they raised a municipal tempest, and were the occasion of a city meeting in the historic old house, the object of which was the censure of the mayor for his inordinate activity. The meeting was an unusually long one, and the speeches were inany and vehement ; but the result was, after a speech of defense by the mayor, that the meeting adjourned, sine die, without taking action, and the mayor was in due time re-elected to office.
In 1882 he was nominated by his party as a candidate for governor, and after a campaign in which he took the leading part, speaking everywhere in the state, he was elected by a handsome majority. His administration was recognized by men of all parties as dignified and conservative. The contemporaneous criticisms of the press of the state show that his messages, public speeches and other state papers which are of record, were accorded unstinted and general commendation. The delegates at the state convention which first nominated him for governor were nearly divided in their preferences between him and other candidates, but at the close of his two years' terin as governor his party convention renominated him without
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OF CONNECTICUT, 1861-1894.
a division and with enthusiastic acclamation. He received in his second canvass for the distinguished office a plurality of the votes of the people, and a larger number of votes than Grover Cleveland, who was the candidate for President at the same election and who carried the state. Mr. Waller failed, however, to obtain a majority over all, and as the General Assembly was Republican, his competitor, Hon. Henry B. Harrison, notwithstanding the popular choice, became the governor of the state.
President Cleveland offered Mr. Waller the appointment of consul general of the United States at London, the most lucrative office it is said in the patronage of this government. The public press approved the appointment, and expressed the opinion that Mr. Waller, because of his speech in favor of Cleveland in the national convention of 1884, which is specially noticed in the records of that convention, deserved the highest compliment and office the President could give him. As consul general in London, Mr. Waller made such a record that the state department on inore than one occasion expressed its official satisfaction in most complimentary terms, and the English and American people with whom he had associated in social and business affairs for four years in London, gave a banquet in his honor on the eve of his departure, at which three hundred people, including Minister Phelps, Minister Grant, and the entire consular corps in Great Britain were present. On this occasion he was presented with a costly silver "loving cup" bearing suitable com- plimentary inscriptions, and well filled with royal punch. Since Mr. Waller's return to this country he has been engaged in his profession as the senior member of the firm of Waller, Cook & Wagner, corporation lawyers at 15 Wall street, New York. His name has been mentioned in the state papers as a candidate for the vice-presidency. The only public position he has since held was connected with the World's Columbian Exposition. He was nominated as a commissioner for Connecticut by Gov. Morgan G. Bulkeley, appointed to the position by President Harrison, and elected as first vice-president by the national commission. He was frequently called to the chair of the commission by President Palmer, and took an active part in all the debates of that body. As a presiding officer in the chair he has won encomiums for his knowledge of parliamentary law. Of his success as a debater, a writer in one of the Chicago papers has said: "He has made as many motions and offered as many amendments as any other member of the body, and the journal of the proceedings shows that, -excepting upon inotions for adjournment, of which he himself says he is always in favor-he has hardly ever failed to carry his point." Mr. Waller still resides in New London. "He works," he says, "five days a week in New York that he may live the other two in Connecticut."
Mr. Waller married in early life Miss Charlotte Bishop, a New London girl. His present family consists of his wife, one daughter and five sons. His daughter is the wife of Prof. William R. Appleby of the University of Minnesota. His eldest son, Tracy, is a lawyer now practicing his profession in New London. His son Martin, a member of the New London Bar, is engaged temporarily in mercantile business, and his son Robert K. is now a student at Yale Law School. His two younger boys are pursuing their school studies in New London.
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ENN, AUGUSTUS HALL, LL. B., A. M., judge of the superior court, late judge of probate for thic Winchester district, and brevet-colonel United States volunteers, was born at Plymouth, Litchfield county, Com., Jan. 18, 1844. The family of Fem has long been known in Connecticut as one of high respectability, and its members have intermarried with some of the best and oldest families in the state. On his paternal side the subject of this sketch traces his descent, throngli one of the fcinale alliances, "to William and Elizabeth Tuttle of England, who were among the earliest settlers of New England and residents at New Haven about the ycar 1635, as fully set forth in the gencalogy of the Tuttle family, compiled by George F. Tuttle, Esq., of New Haven, and published in 1883. His father, the late Augustus Fenn, son of Elam Fenn, was a native of Plymouth, Conn., and married Esther Maria, daughter of Orison Hall of Plymouth, whose ances- tors were also among the first settlers of New Haven, Milford, Wallingford and Cheshire, Conn.
Judge Fenn received his early education at the district and common schools and at the Waterbury high school. As a youth his tastes took a strong literary turn, and he contributed freely both in prose and verse to newspapers and periodicals, and in 1859 published a small volume of poems. In March, 1862, having settled on the law as a profession, he began its study in the office of the Hon. Ammi Giddings of Plymouth. Although he applied himself with diligence to the mastery of Blackstone and Kent, and to fulfilling the routine duties of his clerkship, he was not for a moment insensible to the dangers threatening his country, then in the throes of the Civil War. Ardently patriotic, he had watched the conflict from the very first with the keenest interest, and, doubtless, had he been permitted to have his own way, would have been one of the earliest - boy though he was-to take up arms in defense of the national government. As the stirring events of the second year of the war unfolded thein- selves he became dissatisfied with his inaction, and finally concluding that the nation had need of the services of every one of her sons, however young, who might be capable of bearing arms, he abandoned his studies, and in July, 1862, enlisted in the Nineteenth Regiment of Infantry, Connecticut Volunteers, then being recruited in his section of the state. His com- rades at once recognized his fitness for leadership, and elected him to first lieutenancy of com- pany "K." In a short time the number and designation of the regiment was changed to the Second Connecticut Heavy Artillery, and Lieutenant Fenn was chosen to the captaincy of company "C." In the field he served with his regiment continuously nearly two years, participating with it in all the eventful campaigns in which it was engaged and ably dis- charging every duty confided to him. "On June 22, 1864," says Vail, in his history of the regiment, "he was detailed acting assistant adjutant-general on General Upton's staff. In September he was appointed judge advocate of the division court-martial which tried twenty- five cases. At Cedar Creek (Oct. 19, 1864), he lost his right arm. The surgeons of Annapolis proposed to muster him out and discharge him for disability, but he protested, and wrote to General Mackenzie, urging his interference. The consequence was that he was retained ; and in less than seven weeks from the time that he had an arm taken off at the shoulder he reported for full duty at the front, and was at once detailed as acting assistant adjutant-general of the brigade again, which detail was afterwards changed to brigade inspector. He subse- quently participated in several fights. He was detailed as judge advocate five different times, was brevetted major after Cedar Creek, promoted to major in January, 1865, brevetted lieu- tenant-colonel for Little Sailor's Creek, and colonel for services during the war." This brief and modest account of services, which were not only patriotic but heroic, has been quoted with due acknowledgement in Lewis's History of Litchfield county and in Tuttle's Genealogy.
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OF CONNECTICUT, 1861-1894.
Upon being mustered out of the United States service in September, 1865, Col. Fenn returned to Connecticut and resumed the study of law in the office of Messrs. Kellogg & Terry, a prominent legal firm at Waterbury. He was admitted to the bar at Litchfield, Feb. 15, 1867, and then entered the Law School of Harvard University, where he studied one year, at the expiration of which he received the degree of Bachelor of Laws. Shortly after resuming his studies at Waterbury he was chosen city clerk and held this office one year. In 1869, after having practiced law about a year at Waterbury, he removed to Plymouth in Litchfield county, where he resided and practiced until 1876. While at Plymouth he held the offices of judge of probate, town clerk and registrar, and in 1875 he was the Republican candidate for the office of Secretary of the State of Connecticut. In 1876 he removed to Winsted, Litchfield county, where he has since resided. In 1880 he was elected judge of probate for the Winchester district and held this office until March, 1887, when he resigned. I11 1884 he was elected a member of the General Assembly, and during his terin served on the judiciary committee and as house chairman of committee on forfeited rights. At this session he also was chosen one of the commission composed besides himself of the Hon. Luzon B. Morris, Henry S. Barbour, E. L. Cundall and William B. Glover, to revise the probate laws of the state, a labor to which he gave the inost careful attention and which was finally completed to the eminent satisfaction of the people. At the close of the session he made the address to the speaker. In 1884 Col. Fenn was a delegate to the National Democratic Convention which nominated Grover Cleveland for the presidency, and in that campaign he took an active part in securing his election. In 1885 he was appointed by Gov. Harrison of Connecticut a member of the commission charged with the revision of the general statutes of the state which reported the revision in 1888. In 1887 his high legal attainments received a fitting recognition by his appointment as judge of the superior court, a position he has since filled with ability and dignity.
He is at present chairman of the committee appointed by the judges to examine applicants for admission to the bar. In the local affairs of Winsted, Judge Fenn takes a leading part, not only by reason of his prominence in the judiciary, but also because of his well known interest in every movement having for its object the improvement of the citizen or the advancement of the public. He is chairman of the Winchester Soldiers' Memorial Park Association, an organization chartered by the General Assembly in 1889, and having for its object the erection of a monument and the maintenance of a ineinorial public park. He is also one of the trustees of the Beardsley Library, the William L. Gilbert home (for neglected children) and the Gilbert school, all well known institutions founded by philanthropic citizens of Winsted and cherished by its residents and government. His scholarly tastes are well shown in his fine library which, in addition to its being exceptionally full on the subject of jurisprudence, contains a large number of poetical works, on history, science, the arts, political economy and government. Notwithstanding the large demands made upon his time by his judicial and official duties, he has found leisure to prepare many articles for the press, and also many lectures and public addresses, a large num- ber of which have been published. Recently he has lectured somewhat extensively throughout the state, taking as his themes: "With Sheridan in the Shenandoah," "Mis- taken Identity," and "Points of Law we Ought to Know." He has delivered addresses at the dedication of many monuments erected in honor of the soldiers of the civil war, and has a wide reputation for his stirring and beautiful tributes to the Union dead delivered on Decoration Day for many years. He is a member of the Grand Ariny. of the Republic and was the delegate-at-large from his state to the National Encampinent in 1889, and a Con- necticut member of the National Council of Administration in 1890. He is also a member
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of the Knights of Pythias, the Winsted uniform division of which bears his nainc. He is also connected with several other organizations and societies, in all of which lic is a man of mark and great popularity. In 1889 he was honored by Yale University with the degree of Master of Arts.
Judge Fenn was married in 1868 to Frances M. Smith, daughter of Jolin E. Smith of Waterbury, Com., and has four children, two boys, Emory W. and Lincoln E., and two girls, Augusta F. and Lucia E.
LATER, JOHN FOX, manufacturer and philanthropist, was born in the town of Smithfield, R. I., March 4, 1815 .*
For three generations the Slater family has been engaged, either in Eng- land or the United States, in the improvement of cotton manufactures. Their English home was at Belper, Derbyshire, where William Slater, a man of consid- erable property, the grandfather of John F. Slater, resided more than a hundred years ago, until his death in 1782. At Belper and at Milford, not far from Belper, Jedediah Strutt was engaged as a partner of Sir Richard Arkwright in the business of cotton-spinning, then just becoming one of the great branches of industry in England.
Samuel Slater, fifth son of William Slater, was apprenticed to Mr. Strutt, and near the close of his service was for some years general overseer of the mill at Milford. Having com- pleted his engagement he came to this country in 1789, and brought with him such an accurate knowledge of the business of cotton-spinning, that without any written or printed descriptions, without diagrams, or models, he was able to introduce the entire series of machines and pro- cesses of the Arkwright cotton manufacture in as perfect a form as it then existed in England. He soon came into relations with Moses Brown of Providence, and through him with his son- in-law and his kinsman, William Alny and Smith Brown. With the persons last named he formned the partnership of Almy, Brown & Slater. For this firm, Samuel Slater devised machinery and established a mill for the manufacture of cotton, at Pawtucket, R. I., in the year 1790; but as this proved an inadequate enterprise, he constructed a larger inill at the same place in 1793. A few years later, about 1804, at the invitation of his brother Samuel, John Slater, a younger son of William, came from England and joined his brother in Rhode Island. The village of Slatersville, on a branch of the river Blackstone, was projected in 1806, and here until the present time the Slaters have continued the manu- facture of cotton goods.
John F. Slater was the son of John and Ruth Slater. He received a good education in the academies of Plainfield in Connecticut, and of Wrentham and Wilbraham, Mass. At the age of seventeen (in connection with Samuel Collier) he began to manage his father's mill at Hopeville, in Griswold, Conn. In 1856, having gained in experience and shown his ability as a manager, he took entire charge of this factory and also of a cotton mill at Jewett City, another village of the same town where he made his home. Six years later he removed to Norwich, with which Jewett City was then connected by railway, and this city continued to be his place of residence until his death at the beginning of his seventieth year, May 7, 1884.
On the death of John Slater, May 27, 1843, his sons, John F. and William S., inherited his interest in the mills of Hopeville and Jewett City, Conn., and at Slatersville, R. I., and they formed a partnership under the name of J. & W. Slater, adjusting their affairs so as to
* This sketch is condensed from a published memorial of Mr. Slater, from which liberal extracts have been made.
Suo S.Plata
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OF CONNECTICUT, 1861-1894.
be equal partners. In March, 1845, this firm sold their Hopeville property, and in 1849 bought the interest of Samuel Slater's heirs in the mill at Slatersville. In 1853, after the lease of this last-mentioned property to A. D. and M. B. Lockwood had expired, William S. Slater took the management of the Slatersville mill, and John F. Slater that of the Jewett City mill. The partnership of the brothers continued until Jan. 1, 1873, when it was dissolved, each taking the mill of which he had been the manager.
When Mr. Slater became responsible for the mill at Jewett City, there were ninety looms in it, and at the time of his death this number had increased more than five fold, and as many yards of cloth were then inade in five weeks as had previously been made in twelve months. During the forty years in which he operated this inill he maintained uninterruptedly the good- will of those whom he employed. He studied their welfare, and by so doing retained them in his service. Probably it could not be said of any other mill in the country, but it was true of the Jewett City mill, that every one of the seven overseers in different departments of the business had been in the service of the same employer for at least seventeen years, four of them for periods varying from thirty to forty-eight years. It was always Mr. Slater's policy in the manipulation of his mill to keep a piece of machinery as long as it could do its work satisfactorily, by careful management, even if it did not in appearance compare favorably with that in other mills. He did not believe in continually trying experiments, but preferred waiting till a new thing had been proved to be a success before using it. When this was done no one was more ready to adopt an improvement. This, with a like policy in other particulars, was one of the chief reasons for his success as a manufacturer.
In 1869, Mr. Slater, with others, united in completing a partially erected mill at Taftville and putting it in operation. It was organized under the name of the "Orray-Taft Manufac- turing Company," but two years later the name was changed to the " Ponemah Mills." He was one of the executive committee, and was president from the organization of the company until his death. Simple justice requires the statement that the material part of the success was due to his counsel and prudence.
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