USA > Connecticut > New Haven County > New Haven > Revolutionary characters of New Haven : the subject of addresses and papers delivered before the General David Humphreys branch, no. 1, Connecticut society, Sons of the American revolution > Part 2
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Services in Honor of Ezra Stiles
a candidate for the presidency of Yale College when the subject was mentioned to him at the time President Daggett was elected in 1766, though he was induced to accept it eleven years later.
He was educated in science, and was one of the first to conduct, when a tutor, a series of electrical experiments with a machine, which had been given to Yale by Dr. Franklin. During his whole life he exemplified by his teaching and example a tolerance in religion and politics which was rare for that period. One of his closest friends was a Jewish rabbi. Stiles was, however, well grounded in his own beliefs. He was opposed to the custom, which prevailed before the Revolution among the ministers of the Church of England, of preaching a sermon on each thirtieth of January in commemoration of the martyrdom (as they then called it) of King Charles I. He objected strongly to such an observance in this country and claimed that it should rather be celebrated as an anniversary of joy and thankfulness that a tyrant had been made to yield to the "sovereignty of the people." He wrote a biography of the exiled Judges Whalley, Goffe and Dix- well, which did much to excite the people of New Eng- land to revolt from the British Rule. His diary kept during that critical period is of priceless value to the his- torian. But of all his achievements the greatest was that he put Yale College on the solid foundation, and what has now become the traditional principle of the university, of conducting its affairs in harmony with the people of the state and of training men for the public service.
EZRA STILES
BY SIMEON E. BALDWIN, LL.D.
Address delivered in the old cemetery in New Haven before the Gen. David Humphreys Branch of the Sons of the American Revolution, June 14th, 1908.
There are three classes of men, whose memory we would honor to-day: Those who fought in the Revolution-the largest class; those who conducted the civil affairs of the country during the Revolution,-a much smaller class; those who prepared the way for the Revolution, and made possible its success. To this last class-the smallest of all- the prophets of Independence, belonged Ezra Stiles, of whom I have been asked to speak to you this afternoon.
A minister of religion, the son of a minister, and the grandson of a minister, his profession was one of peace. But he was not one of those to whom peace at any price seems worth the having. There are things in this world, rights to be won, duties to be fulfilled, where the motto must be, Peaceably if we can, forcibly if we must.
Thirty years before the Declaration of Independence, when graduating from Yale, he defended in debate the · proposition that divine law gives no hereditary title to a King.
In 1760, when settled as a minister in Newport, he delivered a sermon there, on a day of public thanksgiving for the surrender of Montreal to the British, which com- pleted the conquest of Canada. How, he asked, did Ameri- can political institutions compare with those of Europe? We were planting an empire-of better laws and religion- and, he added :
"It is probable that in time there will be formed a provincial con- federacy and a common council standing on full provincial suffrage; and this may in time terminate in an imperial diet, where the imperial dominion will subsist, as it ought, in election."
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The time of which he spoke was soon to come. On August 14th, 1765, came the uprising at Boston against the Stamp Act. For many years afterwards the anniversary of the event was celebrated. There were annual gatherings to commemorate it, as he notes in his diary, at the Liberty Tree in Dorchester. But a greater anniversary was to take its place; that of the solemn uprising of all the thirteen col- onies, to declare their full independence of the British crown.
I have mentioned his diary. This exists in manuscript in the library of Yale University, and the larger part of it was printed a few years ago in its series of Bicentennial publications. It covers a long period of years, and shows from the beginning to the end the spirit of the ardent patriot, . the cultivated scholar, and the keen observer of all that makes the history of the time.
He was for a long time pastor of a church in Newport, and on coming there found that a memorial day was cele- brated in one of the other churches, of a very different character from that of the Boston affair of 1765.
The thirtieth of January had always been observed in the Episcopal church at that place, as the anniversary of the death of Charles I. In 1770 the service was omitted, and Stiles says in his diary, that if the day were to be observed, it ought to be, not in sorrow for a martyred King, but as a Thanksgiving that one nation on earth had so much forti- tude and public justice as to make a royal tyrant bow to the sovereignty of the people, and sentence him to a well merited punishment.
In the same spirit, he copies in his diary (I, 649) the epitaph on the cannon marking the grave of John Brad- shaw, President of the Court of Regicides :
"Stranger Ere thou pass, contemplate this Canon, Not regardless be told That near its Base lies deposited the Dust of JOHN BRADSHAW,
Who nobly superior to all selfish Regards
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Ezra Stiles
Despising alike the pageantry of Court Splendor, The Blast of Calumny & the Terrors of royal Vengeance, Presided in the illustrious Band of Heroes and Patriots Who fairly and openly adjudged CHARLES STEWART, Tyrant of England, To a public and exemplary Death : Thereby presenting to the amazed World, And transmitting down thro' applauding ages The most glorious Example of unshaken Virtue, Love of Freedom and Impartial Justice;
Ever exhibited on the blood-stained Theatre of human action. Reader Pass not till thou hast blessed his Memory And never-never forget THAT REBELLION TO TYRANNY IS OBEDIENCE TO GOD."
In March, 1770, Newport set up a Liberty Tree, to mark the anniversary of the repeal of the Stamp Act (March 18, 1766).
In 1772, Dr. Stiles wrote to a friend in England, that the system of that country as to colony administration was leading directly to the establishment of a glorious empire here; and in 1774, in a similar letter, declared that no man in America believed that our increasing millions would always submit to despotism. Revolution might come and if it did its success was "indubitable."
All his ministerial brethren were by no means of his opinion.
June 30, 1774, was made by the Rhode Island Assembly. a day of Public Fasting and Prayer, on account of the closing of the port of Boston by the British ministry. The shops of Newport were shut and Dr. Stiles preached a ser- mon appropriate to the day ; but in a neighboring church, he says in his diary, the clergyman took for his text "Fast not as the hypocrites do," and preached a "High Tory sermon against Boston and New England, as a turbulent, ungov- erned people."
In the following September, when Gen. Gage seized the
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powder in the Charlestown arsenal, 30,000 men, says his diary, started for Boston from different parts of New Eng- land. This shows, he adds, that New Englanders "are ready to fight for their Liberties."
He was confident of success. Great Britain, he thought, could not stand up against a commercial war with us. Her whole foreign commerce was then but five million pounds a year, of which over three million was with her American colonies.
Of the Continental Congress of 1774, he wrote that it was a "regular, legal, patriotic body wherein two millions were as justly and truly represented, as ever any body of mankind were before. It held up a light to the world to shew to all enslaved empires how they may put their lives in their hands and rise to liberty."
The battle of Lexington soon came. The news, he writes, reached New Haven on Friday night "and on Lord's day morning the company of cadets marched from New Haven via Hartford for Boston." *
In July, 1775, he writes :
"From this time I consider the Twelve United Colonies of America as having now taken the form of a republic. The old forms of pro- vincial Govt's may subsist a little longer, but their efficacy will diminish, while the Continental Congress will grow in authority & rise into su- preme dominion."
In July, 1778, Dr. Stiles was made President of Yale, and one of his first acts was to lecture to all the students on the nature of the government of the eleven United States which had then adopted constitutions for themselves, whether before or since "the glorious Act of Independency."
On July 5, 1779, when the British invaded New Havent Dr. Stiles sent his son Ezra with the College company of students to defend the approaches to the city, while he him- self rode from one military post to another, uttering, we
* It may not be generally known that half of the building in which Captain Benedict Arnold, who led the party, kept his drug store is still standing. It is on George street, in the rear of the Wood block.
t A sketch drawn by Pres. Stiles showing the forces of the invaders, their places of landing and lines of march is reproduced opposite page 33 of this volume.
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may be sure, words of patriotic encouragement and sym- pathy.
On July 4, 1780, Dr. Stiles, with the other clergy of the town, made part of a company "of Patriots" who dined to- gether at the "Coffee House" in this city. His diary has this brief description of it: "After dinner thirteen patriotic toasts were given. At the third, the ministers retired."
The Fourth of July was celebrated then at New Haven with less noise, and more solemnity than now. The diary gives this account of the day in 1787.
"4. Anniversary of Independence celebrated in New Haven. Between XI & XII a Procession was formed from the Court House (by Desire of the Committee for Celebration) by the Scholars preceded by the two City Sheriffs, then the Citizens, Common Council-Men, Aldermen (Mayor* abs. at Philada. Convention) & the Clergy viz. Messrs Whitty, Street, Wales, Edwds, Holmes, Austin & myself. Be- ing seated in the Meetinghouse, I being desired by the Committee presided, gave XVIIIth Ps. Watts: then I made a Prayer of Thanks- giv: 20; then sang Ps. 73. Then have been previously desired to do so covered my head with my Hat,t and called up the Orator viz. David Daggett Esq .¿ who made an excellent Anniversary Oration of fourty Minutes. Closed with an Anthem. Dined with about 100 Gent. in the State House."§
In 1788 the entry was as follows :
"4. Anniversary celebrated in New Haven. A Procession formed at the Long Wharf of a Commixture of all Descriptions, accords to the Idea conceived at Boston at their Rejoycing last Winter. A Sower headed the Procession succeded by 3 pair of Oxen & one holds a Plow; then Reapers, Rakers, Shoemakers, Sadlers, Cabinet Makers, Black- smiths, Goldsmiths &c. then a Whale Boat manned & rows a federal ship, Capt & Sailors, Citizens, Merchts, Scholars of the several Schools, Masters, Tutors of the College, 7 Ministers, City Sheriffs, High Sheriff, Common Council Men, Aldermen, Mayor Mr. Sherman, the Committee of the Day & Orator. The Procession moved at Eleven o'clock & march thro' State street up as high as Elm street, thro' that to College street then round thro' Chapel street, by the College into the Green --
* Roger Sherman, who was then in attendance at the Convention which was framing the Constitution of the United States.
+The academic custom for a College President when performing some solemn act at a public function.
#Afterwards Chief Justice of Connecticut, and U. S. Senator. §III, 269.
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the Head reached round the Green to the Brick Meetinghouse Door when the other End was at the College, or a Length of about an hun- dred or 120 Rods. The whole March was near one Mile & three Quar- ters. Entered the Meetsh. at Noon or XI.59. Exercises,
XIb 59.A.M.Entered-Anthem singing.
XII. 2. Salute by discharge of XIII Canon in a Park around Liberty Pole, the Federal Flag flying.
XII. 9. Declaration of Independ. 1776. Read by Mr. Meigs.
20. Hymn 67th Watts sung.
XII. 26.
to XII. 54. Prayer by Dr. Wales.
55. Singing 21 Psalm.
I. 6. to 1.39. Oration by Mr. Baldwin .*
Contribution for the poor.
1.47. Federal Hymn composed by Tutor Bidwell.
1.56. Blessing by myself. Thus the exercises continued about two hours in the Meetshouse.
We then broke up & went to the State House, where about 150 Gentlemen dined together & drank 13 Toasts under the Discharge of Canon. At the fourth Toast which was Gen. Washington, the Min- isters retired and smoked a pipe in the Council Chamber. Reverend Messrs Dana, Street, Trumbull, Edwds, Wales, Austin, & myself were present. Afterwds the Ministers walked & drank Tea at my House."t
It is hard for us to appreciate at this distance of time the horrors which attached to the war of the Revolution, on account of the participation of the Indians in the invasions of the British forces. His diary # notes that in January, 1782, soon after the successful expedition of our troops against the Six Nations, in which many packs of peltry were captured, there were found among them eight ofhuman scalps. They were the fruit of the preceding three years of Indian ravages on the frontiers of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Virginia, and had been made up, says Stiles, to send to the Governor of Quebec, to be forwarded thence to London. One pack contained two hundred and eleven scalps of girls; another one hundred and ninety-three scalps of boys; another one hundred and two of men, eighteen of whom had been burned alive.
*Simeon Baldwin, afterward a judge of the Supreme Court of Errors, and Mayor of New Haven.
+III, 321.
ţIII, 56.
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In 1783, Dr. Stiles delivered the election sermon at Hartford. This, you recollect, was an annual affair. The General Assembly always attended, and it was followed by a public dinner, at the expense of the State. Dr. Stiles took for his subject the Treaty of Peace with its acknowledg- ment of our independence and sovereignty, and painted in strong colors a great future for the United States. The dis- course awakened wide attention both here and in England, and a sumptuous edition was soon published in London. The title is significant of the author's thought : "The United States elevated to Glory and Power."
The Indian trading-post known as St. Louis, founded by the French in 1764, though on Spanish territory, con- tinued for many years to be practically under French con- trol. Spain, in 1789, endeavored to vindicate her title and strengthen her hold upon Western America by inviting accessions from the United States. Dr. Stiles, with his customary largeness of view, comments upon these facts thus, in his diary for August 27, 1789:
"The King of Spain has this year begun a City on the West side of Mississippi, at the Mouth of Missouri. And published a Proclama to invite Settlers from the English in the United States, with great Immu- nities & Privileges-allows free Liby of Conscience in Religion gives 400 Acres to a Family & Cow & farm Utensils & ten years freedom from Taxes. I. This will make a large Draught of Settlers from Kentucky &c. 2. They will seed the Territy W. of Mississippi with English Blood even to future increass Millions. 3. Extend the English Lan- guage over all n. America. 4. Tho' at present under Spanish Govt & may continue so an age or two, yet upon the first Quarrel between Spain & us they will either come to us, or erect themselves into an inde- pend. Republic. 5. They will be the means of introducing more liberal ideas among the Mexican Spands & this Communica will shew them the Way to free themselves from the Tyranny of European Masters, & bring on a Revolution in Spanish America. 6. This Precedent will make way for the Protestant Religion in Mexico & old Spain. 7. Open the Naviga of Mississippi to us."*
Most of these forecasts have been fulfilled. There was a rush of immigration from our Southwestern territory. *III, 364.
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The change of title soon to come from Spain to France could not check the seeding of the Mississippi valley with English blood. It came into the United States. The navigation of the Mississippi became free. Revolutions in Spanish Amer- ica followed, and now all America is under republican gov- ernment, either in name or fact.
These opinions were not shared by many of his contem- poraries, and among those of them who took a narrower view I may include one no less eminent than the Revolution- ary hero, under whose name you are associated. In his ora- tion before the Society of Cincinnati in 1804, General Hum- phreys, in alluding to our purchase of the Louisiana terri- tory, remarked that it was "the first national act towards an unnecessary enlargement of empire," and that the Mississ- ippi river was a boundary which appeared to have been designed by nature as our Westward barrier.
Dr. Stiles watched the progress of the French Revolu- tion with the greatest interest. There, on a wider field than here, the drama of Revolution was to be exhibited. In August, 1791, he notes in his diary the news, just received, of the arrest and return to Paris of the royal family, on June 21, and observes of it :
"A grand & important Event, we will either involve a Civil War, or more firmly establsh the Supremacy & Authory of the National Assembly. It will do the latter, & convince all the Sovereigns of Europe the Vanity of withstandg the general & popular Revolutions of a Nation of enlightened Subjects."*
Dr. Stiles was throughout his life deeply interested in all that pertained to civil government, both in theory and practice. While a minister at West Haven, he pursued for three years the study of law, and was then admitted to the bar in this county, where he practiced for two years. He read the leading institutional work on Roman Law in the original Latin. In political philosophy, he recognized Machiavelli as a profound teacher, and perhaps gave him
*III, 428.
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too much credit, in view of his advocacy of a policy of dis- simulation. "To-day," says the diary in 1786, "I have been reading in the Works of that great Politician, Civilian and Patriot the learned and excellent Machiavel, and am par- ticularly well pleased with his Letter Apr. I, 1537 at the Beginning of the Reformation. He appears to be a true Christian and a hearty Friend to the civil and religious Liberties and Rights, not of Florence and Italy only, but of all Mankind. Our Members of Congress have been much conversant in his Writings, and imbibed much Light and Wisdom from them." *
Another of the leading works of his day on political science he held in high regard. This was Montesquieu's Spirit of the Laws, which had been published in 1748. It had a profound influence on our own constitutional institu- tions. Voltaire said of it, that when the human race had lost their charters of liberty, Montesquieu re-discovered and restored them. This work was made a text-book in Prince- ton College very soon after the Revolution. President Stiles followed this example, and taught it to the Senior Class here, beginning in 1789.
In 1793, he added to his course in Political Science with the Senior Class instruction in Vattel's Law of Nature and Nations.
Nothing of interest in the events of the day escaped the notice of Dr. Stiles. The progress of invention he watched with especial care. Under date of November 21, 1794, we find this note in his diary, which shows that the method of making paper from wood is no novelty.
"Mr. Goodrich, last Week from Rutland, Vermt, brought me a Vermt Newspaper of Inst made at New Haven Vermt of the inner Rind of Bass Wood. This is the first paper of Bass Bark, and it is the first Copy or sheet of this kind of paper ever printed. It will make common ordinary but not superfine Paper. This bark will cost not one third so much as Rags, so in this Manufact, Two Thirds saved."t
*III, 211.
+III, 547.
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Dr. Stiles in his theology was what the phrase of the day denominated as "latitudinarian;" but would have been counted to-day among the ultra-conservatives of his profession.
He had quite close relations with a number of learned Jews. One of them, a Mr. Lopez of Newport, died, and his diary thus notes the event:
"He was my intimate Friend & Acquaintance! Oh! how often have I wished that sincere pious & candid mind could have perceived the Evidences of Xty, perceived the Truth as it is in Jesus Christ, known that Jesus was the Messiah predicted by Moses & the Prophets! The amiable & excellent Characters of a Lopez, of a Manasseh Ben Israel, of a Socrates, & a Gangenelli, would almost persuade us to hope that their Excellency was infused by Heaven, and that the virtuous & good of all Nations & religions, notwithstands their Delusions, may be brou't together in Paradise on the Xtian System, finding Grace with the all benevolent & adorable Emmanuel who with his expiring breath & in his deepest agonies, prayed for those who knew not what they did."*
Three years later another of his old friends died-Gov. Hopkins of Providence. He quotes in his diary from an "extra " published by the Providence Gazette, to announce the event, in which it is observed that the Governor con- templated religion "as a divine System formed by the Universal Parent, connecting rational Beings in a common Interest, & conducting them to unbounded Felicity. Hence an universal Benevolence adorned his Virtues, and a full Persuasion of the unbounded Goodness of the Deity brightened the Prospects of his future Happiness. In Life he rose sup. to the follies, & in Death to the fears of an ignorant, licentious World. He expected with Pa- tience, & met with philosophic & pious Intrepidity, the the fatal Messenger Death, & with rapturous Extasy em- braced the Glories of Immortality." "I," adds the Presi- dent, "well knew Gov. Hopkins. He was a man of a penetrating astutious Genius, full of Subtlety, deep Cunning, intriguing & enterprising. He read much espy in History & Government; by Read, Conversa & Observa
*III, 24.
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Ezra Stiles
acquired a great Fund of political Knowledge. He was rather a Quaker, hav& a seat in the Meeting, but it has been said these thirty years by his most intimate Ac- quaintª that he was a Deist, and of this I made no doubt from my own frequent Conversa with him. He was a Man of a Noble fortitude & Resolution. He was a glorious Patriot !- (but Jesus will say unto him I know you not.) "*
What is called the "historical criticism" of the bible is thought by many to be a thing of late date in this coun- try. Dr. Stiles was by no means unfamiliar with it, or out of sympathy with its aims. In 1786 we find him read- ing in French a book entitled "Conjectures on the original memorials of which Moses apparently made use in com- posing the Book of Genesis."
But time forbids further reference to the details of this good man's life. They are open to the eye of all, as given from day to day by his own pen. There is no one among the citizens of Connecticut of the eighteenth cen- tury whose character can be known to us as closely as his.
Samuel Johnson is a familiar figure to succeeding gen- erations, because he had a skilful biographer. His writ- ings are little read; but Boswell's Life of him is in every library. Rousseau's writings are now little read; but not so his autobiography; St. Augustine's, but not so his "Confessions." So, Stiles' diary gives us the material for judging the man, even more accurately than could his contemporaries.
His body was laid to rest on the Green, and there, I presume, this monument, by which we are now assembled, was first erected.
No interment took place in this cemetery until 1797, two years after his death.
The monuments were removed here from the Green in 1821. A public religious service was held in the Center Church on June 26th of that year, when Abraham Bishop
*III, 172.
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delivered a funeral address, immediately after which a committee of which James Hillhouse-the greatest beau- tifier of New Haven-was chairman, accompanied by the President and Faculty of the College, conveyed the monu- ments of the College officers and students who were buried on the Green to this lot. That in memory of President Stiles, erected by the University, summarizes his character in stately Latin phrase, which may be translated thus:
Endowed with a lofty mind, imbued with universal erudition; of the most gracious urbanity, of approved morals Eminent for charity, faith, evangelical piety, in the duties of father, friend, teacher, minister of the church, man; to his family most dear; in the church dignified with great respect; through all lands held in honor, he lived: amid the tears of all he died, May 12, 1795 Aged 68.
NEW HAVEN GREEN IN THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD. From a drawing in possession of the New Haven Colony Historical Society.
THE DEFENSE OF NEW HAVEN AND RESISTANCE MADE AGAINST INVADING TROOPS ALONG THE WEST SHORE, JULY, 1779
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