USA > Connecticut > New Haven County > Waterbury > The history of Waterbury, Connecticut; the original township embracing present Watertown and Plymouth, and parts of Oxford, Wolcott, Middlebury, Prospect and Naugatuck. With an appendix of biography, genealogy and statistics > Part 43
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58
The present manufacturing interests of Waterbury are perhaps more in- debted to Lamson Scovill than to any other man. He was bold, energetic and sagacious. He had enlarged views and that degree of confidence in the future which ensured success. So soon as he got strength of his own, he was ready to lend assistance to others. Many enterprises have been carried forward to a successful result by his kindly aid. Not only his . relations, but his friends, in the largest sense, shared in his financial prosperity. He was foremost in all the improvements of his native vil- lage. His own generous impulses he did not hesitate to follow, even when indulgence was expensive. He was a large-hearted man with social, kindly feelings. Few persons have been equally respected or more beloved. He was a member of St. John's church, of which he was an important benefactor. His generosity and that of his brother Wil- liam founded a professorship in Washington College, which is named after the donors. At the time of his funeral, the factories, stores and public places of the city were closed, and the countenances of the citi- zens, assembled in large numbers, wore an aspect of honest grief.
431
APPENDIX.
WILLIAM HENRY SCOVILL,
A younger brother of the preceding, was born July 27, 1796. His mother was Alathea, the daughter of Mitchel Lamson of Woodbury, a woman of excellent character and superior endowments, who died a few years ago, aged about 80.
Mr. Scovill spent his early life at home on the farm and in the store of his father. When about seventeen years of age, he went to school at the Academy in Cheshire, then taught by the Rev. Dr. Bronson. Ile was there in the winter of 1812-13. In the following year, he became a clerk in a store in New Haven, first in the employment of Mr. Brush, and then in that of Mr. Peck. When about 20 years of age, he returned to Waterbury and opened a store, the capital being furnished by Mr. Peck. The business not proving successful, it was abandoned after two years' trial, and Mr. Scovill again engaged himself as a clerk to his uncle, William K. Lawson, of Berwick, Pennsylvania, in whose employment he remained about two years. The next year, after leaving Berwick, he went into trade on his own account at a place called Turner's Cross Roads, near the Roanoke, in North Carolina, where, in addition to the usual articles of a country store, he dealt somewhat in cotton. Here he remained several years, and accumulated five or six thousand dollars. In 1827, he visited Waterbury and made an en- gagement with his elder brother, J. M. L. Scovill, to become his partner in the business of manufacturing metal buttons.
On the 2d day of July, 1827, Mr. Scovill was married at Black Lake, near Ogdensburgh, N. Y., to Eunice Ruth Davies, daughter of Hon. Thomas J. Davies. By this marriage he had four children, two of whom still survive, Mrs. F. J. Kingsbury of Waterbury and Mrs. Curtis of New York City. Mrs. Scovill, a woman of many virtues, of uncom- mon intelligence and great force of character, died, much lamented, of pulmonary consumption, Nov. 25, 1839.
Mr. Scovill was again married, March 22d, 1841, to Rebecca H. Smith, second daughter of Hon. Nathan Smith, deceased, of New Haven, by whom he had three children, one of whom, a son, still survives. He died at Charleston, S. C., whither he had gone for the recovery of his health, (which had been for several months declining,) March 27, 1854. His second wife died the 4th day of August following.
Mr. Scovill, for many years before his death, filled a large space and exercised a wide influence, in the community in which he lived. He was a sagacious business man of comprehensive views, who assisted his brother in conducting one of the most extensive and prosperous man-
432
HISTORY OF WATERBURY.
ufacturing establishments in Waterbury. He was a man of intelligence, of generous sympathies and inflexible principle. His wealth he dis- tributed with a free hand in the way of both public and private charity. To every good cause, he was ready to give material aid. He was em- phatically a public benefactor, and his loss was a public calamity. He was one of the most active and influential members of St. John's church, Waterbury ; was senior warden for many years, and was among the foremost in the work of erecting the beautiful edifice in which the society now worship. Throughout the State, he was known as the liberal patron of the church and its institutions.
Mr. Scovill was not less distinguished for his social and private than for his public virtues. At his own fireside, in the bosom of his family, among his intimate friends and in all the most sacred relations of life, he was faithful, affectionate and true.
JUNIUS SMITH, LL. D.,
The third son of Major-General David Smith, (a major in the Revolu- tion,) was born in Watertown, Northbury Parish, Oct. 2, 1780. He graduated at Yale College in 1802, studied law in the Law School in Litchfield, and settled as a lawyer in New Haven. In 1805, he had occasion to go to London on business, and being detained beyond his expectations, engaged in commerce, maintaining his connection with Tallmadge, Smith & Co., of New York. In 1810, he visited his friends in this country, but soon returned. On the 9th of April, 1812, he married Sarah Allen, the daughter of Thomas Allen, Esq., of Hudders- field, Yorkshire .*
Mr. Smith continued his mercantile pursuits with varied success, till 1832. He then interested himself in the great cause of Transatlantic Steam Navigation, in connection with which, his name has become widely celebrated. He sailed for New York in August, his thoughts intently occupied with the subject. He became convinced that the Atlantic could be traversed by steam, and when he arrived at New York, endeavored to awaken an interest in his plans among merchants and others. He was met by a smile of incredulity, and returned to London in Dec. (1832.) Here he first applied to the London and Ed- inburgh Steam Navigation Company, whose steam vessels were the largest afloat, and tried to enlist it in his undertaking. Failing in this, he made efforts to find and charter a vessel for an experimental trip,
* See Kilbourne's Biographical History of Litchfield County, &c., a work of which I have made free use in the preparation of this sketch.
433
APPENDIX.
but met with no success. He then began to consider whether he could not compass his object by the formation of a joint-stock company for the purpose of constructing steamships for Atlantic navigation. On the first of June, 1835, a prospectus of a company proposing a capital of £100,000 was issued, in his own name, and widely distributed, at considerable expense, among the London merchants, particularly those engaged in the New York trade. A very few regarded the plan with favor ; but generally it was made the subject of gibes and jeers. Its author was ridiculed as a visionary. Men of science regarded the en- terprise with incredulity, and declared that it must fail as a practical thing. No steamer, they said, could survive those terrible storms which sweep the Atlantic. The result was, as might have been foreseen, and as Mr. Smith himself apprehended, "not a single share was taken." Men of capital are slow to embark their means in untried experiments. Were it not so, they would soon cease to be capitalists. This habitual caution (conservatism) of wealth may retard, but will not prevent the birth of discovery and improvement.
Mr. Smith, nothing daunted, now revised his prospectus, raised the capital to £500,000 and named the association The British and Ameri- can Steam Navigation Company. But he could get nobody to stand as directors. At length, however, after numerous and various discouragements, such as would have disbeartened ordinary men, a company was organized with eleven directors, (Mr. Smith one of them,) with Isaac Solby, Esq., for chairman. The capital was increased to £1,000,000, and subscribers were readily obtained. It was proposed to cross the Atlantic in fifteen days. In July, 1836, the company adver- tised for proposals, and in September a contract was made with some ship builder to construct a steamer of 2016 tons, the keel of which was laid April 1st, 1837. It was afterwards called the British Queen. But there was delay in getting in the boilers, and the Sirius, of about 700 tons, was chartered to take her place. The latter sailed from Cork on the 4th of April, 1838, and arrived in New York on the morning of the 23d. She was the first vessel that steamed her way across the At- lantic. It is true, the steamer Savannah, sailing from Savannah, Geor- gia, had performed the voyage, in 1819; but steam was used only when sails could not be employed. As a practical thing, the great question of Transatlantic Steam Navigation was solved by the persevering efforts and dauntless energy of Mr. Smith. If he is not, in strictness, entitled to the name of a discoverer, he merits little less. He saw, more clearly than others, the bearing of certain great scientific truths, and was the first to turn them to practical account.
On the afternoon of the same day that the Sirius reached New York,
28
434
HISTORY OF WATERBURY.
the Great Western, of 1340 tons, arrived ; having sailed from Bristol, April 7th. The appearance of these two steamships, at about the same time, from another continent, was the cause of the most lively and ex- citing demonstrations. Subsequently, (July, 1839,) Mr. Smith himself embarked from London, in the British Queen, and was received in New York with hearty congratulations. Soon after, he received the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws from Yale College, and was made the presi- dent of his company.
Having secured one great object of his ambition, Mr. Smith turned his attention in a new direction. He had visited China and made himself familiar with the Tea plant, its habits, mode of cultivation, &c. He satisfied himself that it would grow and thrive in his native coun- try, and resolved to make the experiment. He purchased an extensive plantation, in all respects favorable to his object, in Greenville, South Carolina, and began the work, which he prosecuted for the several re- maining years of his life. His immediate purpose was to propagate and naturalize the plant, and he supposed he had succeeded; but his illness and death, and the subsequent neglect of his plantation, put an end to the hopes of those who had watched, with the greatest interest, the progress of the undertaking. He died in Astoria, N. Y., Jan. 23, 1853, from the effects of an injury which he had received a year before. His wife had died previously, (1836.) He had one child, a daughter, (now deceased,) who married the Rev. Edward Knight Maddox, an English clergyman of the Church of England.
CAPT. DANIEL SOUTHMAYD
Was the son of the Rev. John Southmayd, and was born April 19, 1717. He received a liberal education at Yale College, and was gradu- ated in 1741. On leaving college, he returned to his native village, and gave his attention to farming and public business. He became a selectman, a moderator of town meetings, a captain of militia, a justice of the peace, &c. For eight sessions, beginning with 1751, he was a representative to the General Assembly. He was much beloved for the qualities of his heart, and greatly respected for soundness of mind and force of character. He was vastly popular, and in the opinion of his contemporaries and immediate successors, had extraordinary talents. Long after his decease, it was a common remark that he was the great- est man ever born or reared in Waterbury. At the time of his death, Mr. Leavenworth preached a funeral discourse ; and such was the com- bined effect of the sermon, the occasion and the theme, that the whole congregation were thrown into tears .*
* B. Bronson's MSS.
435
APPENDIX.
Mr. Southmayd died Jan. 12, 1754. He had married, March 24, 1749, Hannah, daughter of Samuel Brown, who bore him three children. The widow married Gen. Spencer of East Haddam.
SAMUEL W. SOUTHMAYD
Was the eldest son of Samuel, the grandson of John, (the constable,) and the great grandson of the Rev. John Southmayd, and was born in West- bury, Sept. 1773. His mother's name was Dorcas Skinner. He made choice of the legal profession, pursued his studies at the Law School in Litchfield, under Judge Reeve, was admitted to the bar in 1795,* and settled in Watertown. He had not the advantages of an academical education ; nor had he the disadvantages too often arising from the se- clusion, the inexperience, the constraints and artificial methods of a col- lege life. He was a self-made man, as all men of unusual intellectual pro- portions are. Mere literature comes of good schooling,'but not greatness.
Mr. Southmayd soon rose to eminence in his profession. At the bar, he was considered as a man of rare talents. But he was unusually modest, and before a court, his diffidence sometimes interfered with his success as an advocate.
Out of his profession, Mr. Southmayd had, to an unusual degree, the respect, the confidence and the friendship of his acquaintance. He was known for his equanimity of temper and kindness of heart. To his near friends, he was greatly endeared. To his clients, he gave excellent counsel. He never encouraged litigation, but used his influence to re- store peace when it had been broken, and perpetuate friendship. He was much engaged in public life, and represented his town seventeen times in the Legislature. In 1809, he received from Yale College the honorary degree of A. M. He died in early manhood, greatly lamented, March 4, 1813. The writer well remembers the time when his death was announced in Waterbury, and the signs of grief which followed.
ELI TERRY,
The fifthi in descent from Samuel Terry, who came to some part of ancient Springfield, (Mass.,) in 1654, was born in East Windsor, now South Windsor, April 13, 1772. Samuel Terry, 1st, married Anne Lobdell in 1660, and had a son, Samuel, who settled in Enfield, in this State. The latter, Samuel, 2d, married, in 1682, Hannah Morgan, and afterwards Martha Credan. By the first marriage, he had Samuel and Ebenezer ; and by the second, Benjamin, Ephraim, Jacob, Jonathan and Isaac. The son Ephraim (born 1701) married Anne Collins, and had Samuel, Ephraim, Nathaniel, Elijah, Eliphalet. Samuel, the third of
* Stated on the authority of the late Asa Bacon of New Haven.
436
HISTORY OF WATERBURY.
that name, son of Ephraim, was born in 1725, married Mary Kellog, and had Samuel, Alice, Mary, Aseph, Rhoda, Levi, Solomon, Sybil, Ezekiel. Samuel, 4th, (born 1750,) married Huldah Burnham, and had Eli, Sam- uel, Silas, Huldah, Lucy, Anne, Naomi, Horace, Clarissa, Joseph.
Mr. Terry was instructed in the business of clock making and watch repairing by Daniel Burnap* of East Windsor and a Mr. Cheeney of East Hartford. He interested himself in the arts and sciences which have a bearing on the construction of instruments for measuring time. Hle read the standard works on astronomy, natural philosophy and chemistry, (then a new science.) He kept up his acquaintance with these subjects till late in life, reading the modern treatises on their first appearance. He knew more of them than is usually known by gradu- ates of colleges. His attention, however, was principally confined to those points which had a practical relation to his business.
Mr. Terry came to Plymouth (then Watertown, Northbury parish) on the first Monday of Sept. 1793, and set up the business of clock mak- ing. Around him, Timothy Barnes of Litchfield, South Farms, James Harrison of Waterbury, and Gideon Roberts of Bristol, were already known as clock makers. The price of a wooden clock, with a long pen- dulum, at that time, was £4, or $13.33. If it had a brass dial and a dial for seconds and the moon's age, the price was $25. Brass clocks brought more-from £10 to £15, without a case.
Mr. Terry made clocks both of wood and brass in the then ordinary way, hav- ing a hand engine for cutting the teeth or cogs of the wheels or pinions, and using a foot lathe for doing the turning. It is probable he used a knife, as well as many other tools then in use, in doing some part of the work ; but that the different parts of the clock "were cut out with the penknife " is a tale of many years' growth, having no foundation, and ought not to be stereotyped as part of the history of clock making in this country. So limited was the demand for clocks at this time, and so inadequate his means for making them, that after fin- ishing three or four he was obliged to go out with them on horseback, and put them up where they had previously been engaged or sold. His usual way was to put one forward of the saddle on which he rode, one behind, and one on each side in his portmanteau. During this day of small things, however, there was an attempt at something more. As early as the year 1797, he procured a patent for what he then supposed to be an important improvement in clocks. This patent was for a new construction of an equation elock, showing the difference between the mean and apparent time. The patent is now in the possession of the writer, as exceutor of his estate. This invention proved to be a useful one to him in no way save the discipline he acquired by it ; for the secret in money-mak-
* Mr. Burnap was the maker of some of the best American clocks. Some of them are met with even now, said to be seventy years old, of excellent quality, not inferior to the best English clocks, and far better than many that are made at this day, with a more costly exterior.
437
APPENDIX.
ing at that time, as well as at the present day, was in not manufacturing so ex- pensive clocks as this kind must necessarily have been. The greater demand was, and still is, for a less costly article.
The business was prosecuted by him in this old way until about the year 1802 or 1803, when, finding he could sell his clocks without being an itinerant himself, he made provision for manufacturing them more extensively. He erected a small building on a small stream, [half a mile west of the central Congregational church, ] where he had the benefit of water power and additional machinery for doing some portion of the work. At this time, he made arrangements for manufacturing clocks by the thousand. It was regarded by some at the time as so extravagant an undertaking as to subject him to considerable ridicule. A conceited wag of the town offered to become the purchaser of the last one of the thousand, thinking he would never be able to finish that number. The clocks, however, were soon finished.
We come now to the era when the grist mill, four miles south of the central vil- lage, was converted into a factory for making clocks. At this place, Mr. Terry, in 1807-8, made still more extensive arrangements for the business. He had obtained a contract with the Rev. Edward Porter, a Congregational minister and ex-pastor of the Congregational church and society of Waterbury, and Levi Porter, his part- ner, for making four thousand elocks. It took a considerable part of the first year to fit up the machinery, most of the second year to finish the first thousand elocks, and the third to complete the remaining three thousand. The success at- tending this enterprise was such as to give a new impulse to clock manufacturing as a money-making business, and was so successfully brought to a close that the idea of retiring from business was entertained, although he was still a young man. He accordingly sold the factory, machinery and other property there, to Messrs. Seth Thomas and Silas IIoadley, who had been employed during the three years in making these elocks, and then removed to his former residence, in the central part of the town. The business had at this time been commenced in Winsted by William Hoadley, and had been revived in Bristol, Waterbury and elsewhere. Asa Hopkins, a man residing in the parish of Northfield, town of Litchfield, had erected a factory on the Naugatuck River. This Mr. Hopkins was a man of con- siderable mechanical skill and a successful manufacturer of clocks. He obtained a patent, about the year 1813 or 1814, on a machine for cutting the cogs or teeth of the wheels. This invention or improvement was for the use and introduction of three arbors or mandrels, by means of which one row of teeth on a number of wheels was finished by one operation-a machine still in use, although superseded at the time by the construction of an engine by Mr. Terry, with only one mandrel, which was used for many years afterwards, and has not been abandoned to this day. Messrs. Thomas and Hoadley prosecuted the business as partners for three years or more, when they dissolved, Mr. Hoadley retaining the factory and other proper- ty, and which he still improves. Ileman Clark, who had been an apprentice to Mr. Terry, built a factory about the year 1811, in the place now known as Ply- mouth Hollow, where he pursued the business two or more years. Mr. Thomas purchased this factory, Dec. 1813, where he again embarked in this calling, and where he has been eminently successful in making clocks, and is at this time, at an advanced age in life, extensively engaged in this and other business. Mr. Hoadley has done less business, but has been successful, and more so than many who subse- quently engaged in this occupation.
438
HISTORY OF WATERBURY.
[Mr. Terry commenced manufacturing on the Naugatuck in 1813 and 1814, at the old place known as "Sutliff's Mills," but owned by Miles Morse at the time of the purchase.]
In 1814, the short or shelf clock was devised, made and introduced by Mr. Terry, who had then removed to a site on the Naugatuck River, where he com- menced the making of these clocks; Mr. Thomas being then engaged in making the common or old-fashioned clocks, and also, to some extent, the new shelf or mantle clock. A patent was procured for this improvement in clocks, by Mr. Terry in 1816. For a few years from this time, the old or long clocks were made by Mr. Thomas and others, but gradually the sales declined, as the demand in- creased for the others. The patent was a source of no little trouble, strife and litigation. Patents were not unfrequently granted at that time, with very imper- fect specifications, the inventors not being aware of the importance of an exact definition of their claims, independent of a general description. An inventor, however meritorious, could be easily deprived of his just rights. A patentee needed a more thorough acquaintance with the laws relating to patents than with anything pertaining to the art or improvement which might be the subject of his patent. So far as the writer has any means of judging, the remark holds true to this day. The less meritorious are as likely to derive pecuniary benefit from a monopoly of this kind, as the most deserving inventor. That day of strife, however, has gone by. The writer was familiar with all the difficulties and conflicting claims of the contending parties, and knows full well that the improvements made by Mr. Terry, at this time and subsequently, marked distinctly a new era in clock making, and laid the foundation for a lucrative business by which many have gained their thousands, however unwilling they may be to acknowledge it. Some of the important improvements which should have been secured by this patent, are in use to this day, and cannot be dispensed with in the making of low-priced clocks, nor indeed any convenient mantle clock. The mode or method of escapement universally adopted at this time, in all common shelf clocks, was his plan or invention. The construction of the clock so as to allow the carrying of the weights each side of the movement or wheels of the clock to the top of the case, bringing the pendulum, crown-wheel and verge in front, the dial-wheels between the plates, making the pendulum accessible by removing the dial only, was his arrangement and invention. These things cannot now be dis- pensed with, even in the clocks driven by a spring, as the motive power, much more in those carried by weights. Millions of them have been made during the last ten years, the precise model in these particulars of the one now in possession of one of his family, and made by him in 1814. No clock, either in this or any foreign country, was made previous to this time with the weights carried each side the movement the whole length of the case; the dial-wheels inside the plates, the pendulum, crown-wheel, verge or pallet together in front of the other wheels. This mode of escapement is one of great value still, and will probably never be abandoned, so long as low-priced clocks are needed. It is true, time- pieces of a small size were imported many years before. It is also true that time- pieces were made in Boston (Willard's time-pieces) and are made to this day with one weight back of the movement, and moving below it; but this and the im- ported smaller sized article, were mere time-pieces, that is, were destitute of the parts striking the hour, and had none of the three peculiarities above mentioned, so universally adopted at this time.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.