USA > Connecticut > Hartford County > The memorial history of Hartford County, Connecticut, 1633-1884, Vol. II > Part 3
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yours Truly Alfred Norite
21
BERLIN.
Berlin " was formed. In 1832 the name was changed to " The First Universalist Society in Berlin." In 1831 the society began build- ing, and in 1832 met for the first time in the new church. The first pastor was the Rev. John Boyden, who was followed in 1836 by the Rev. William A. Stickney. He was succeeded in 1840 by the Rev. Horace G. Smith. In 1843 Mr. Daniel H. Plumb was ordained, who served the society till 1845. After that, preaching services were irreg- ular, and in 1870 the house was sold to School District No. 5, and the money paid to " the treasurer of the Universalist State Convention of the State of Connecticut, to be used for the benefit of the Universalist denomination in this State."
In May, 1781, a petition was presented to the General Assembly then sitting in Hartford, for a new town, to be called Kensington. The peti- tion was not granted ; but the subject was agitated until in the spring of 1785 the new town of Berlin was formed of parts of the three towns of Wethersfield, Farmington, and Middletown. The town then included nearly all the territory now in the towns of New Britain and Berlin. Town-meetings were held for sixty-five years in turn in each of the three parishes into which the town was divided. In 1850 the citizens of Kensington and Worthington, seeing themselves out- voted by the increasing population of New Britain, and perceiving, as they thought, a disposition in that thriving village to centre all the town business there, joined in petitioning the General Assembly to be separated from New Britain. The petition was granted. Berlin became a new town with the old name, but with only one representative in the State legislature ; while New Britain has two representatives and the records of the old town. Immediately after the division, the population of the new town of Berlin was 1,869; by the census of 1880, it was 2,385. Berlin has two town-halls, - one in each of its two societies, - and town-meetings are held the even years in Kensington and the odd Alfredchorch Town Clerk years in Worthington. It is noteworthy that since the division of the town (and for six years before) one man, Deacon Alfred North, of Worthington, has until now (1884) held the offices of town clerk and treasurer, having been voted for by men of all parties.
From the beginning the people of Great Swamp turned their attention to the education of the young, and made provision for the employment of teachers. At first, a teacher was hired for the whole society, to go from one neighborhood to another, teaching in such places as were designated by the committee. Not long after, school " sections," or districts, were formed. After the division of the society in 1774, education was one of the chief subjects of consideration by the in- habitants of both societies. Berlin Academy was incorporated by the legislature in 1802, and was for many years flourishing and useful. Miss Emma Hart, afterward Mrs. Willard, of Troy, was for a time one of its teachers. In 1831 the Worthington Academical Company was formed, and soon after erected a school building. Among the teachers
22
MEMORIAL HISTORY OF HARTFORD COUNTY.
in that building were Ariel Parish, since distinguished as an educator in Westfield and Springfield, Mass., and in New Haven ; and Edward L. Hart, who after a few years removed to Farmington, and in company with his uncle, Simeon Hart, conducted there an excellent boys' school. In 1876 he closed an honored and useful life. The town has now nine school districts, with nine common schools, in which instruction of about the average quality is given in the ordinary English branches. There is no high school nor academy. Advanced scholars are sent out of town - mostly to New Britain, Hartford, and Middletown - to complete their school studies.
The manufacture of tin-ware in this country probably began in Berlin. About the year 1740, William Pattison, a native of Ireland, came to this place. Soon after, he began the manufacture of tin-ware, and continued in this business till it was suspended by the Revo- lutionary War. After the war, the business was resumed in this and in a number of the neighboring towns by persons who had learned the trade of Pattison. At first, the products of the art were carried about the country for sale by means of a horse with two baskets balanced on his back. After the war, pedlers began to use carts and wagons, and went with their wares to every part of the United States.
The author of Dwight's Travels tells us that immediately after the war with Great Britain, which closed in 1815, "ten thousand boxes of tinned plates were manufactured into culinary vessels in the town of Berlin in one year." A few years later, the business in this place began to decline. Now there are two shops, in each of which two or three hands are employed, - one in the village of Worthington, and the other in East Berlin.
There are other manufacturing interests of some importance in the town, - two carriage-shops, one in East Berlin and one in Kensington ; three grist-mills, two saw-mills, six blacksmith-shops. W. W. Mildrum is doing a considerable business in East Berlin as watch and clock re- pairer, and in cutting and polishing agates as jewels for ship-surveyors' compasses, etc. The agates are mostly found in the trap ledges of Ber- lin. On Belcher's Brook the Blair Manufacturing Company formerly made planters' hoes, garden-rakes, etc. The building is now occupied by Hart, Burt, & Co., wood-turners, who employ seven hands. The Mattabesitt River, where it runs through East Berlin, was utilized more than eighty years ago by Shubael Patterson and Benjamin Wilcox for Bergen spinning cotton yarn, which was put out to women to be woven on hand-looms. Afterward Eli- shama Brandegee engaged in the same business. The build- The Roys & Wilcox Company
ings next passed into the hands of a joint-stock corporation which made tinners' tools and machines. took the business in 1845. The establishment was burned in 1846, and not long after rebuilt. In 1870 the premises passed to the Peck, Stow, & Wilcox Company, which employs in this factory one hun- dred and twenty-five hands. The corporation has now a capital of a million and a half, and employs fifteen hundred hands in its factories in eight towns. Mr. Samuel C. Wilcox, of this company, is a native and a resident of Berlin, a good business man and a public-spirited citizen.
Y. b. Wil cox
23
BERLIN.
The Berlin Iron Bridge Company, formerly the Corrugated Metal Company, also doing business on the Mattabesett River, in East Berlin, was founded by Franklin Roys for the manufacture of corrugated shingles, and afterward made fire-proof shutters, doors, and roofs. It now makes parabolic truss bridges. S. C. Wilcox is president of the company, and C. M. Jarvis chief engineer and superintendent. It is doing a thriving business, employing from fifty to seventy-five hands, and turning out from $100,000 to $200,000 worth of iron-work in a year.
In Kensington, Mill River-a branch of the Mattabesett-furnishes power for manufacturing purposes, which has long been used. Forty or fifty years ago the Moore Company began to make steelyards, garden- tools, etc. In 1842, J. T. Hart began the manufacture of shovels, tongs, and a few brass goods. In 1879 the Peck, Stow, & Wilcox Company bought the establishment, and also that of the Moore Company, and now does the greater part of the manufacturing that is done in Kensing- ton. It employs from two hundred and fifty to three hundred hands.
In former times there was a great deal of " trade " in Worthington. People came from neighboring towns for this purpose. Some of the stores, especially that of Elishama Brandegee, enjoyed a high repu- tation in these parts. But business of this kind has sought other cen- tres. There are now two stores in Kensington, two in the village of Worthington, and one in East Berlin. This is largely an agricultural town. It is well suited for grazing and for the production of hay, large quantities of which, as well as of milk and butter, are carried for sale to neighboring markets. Garden vegetables and small fruits are also raised to supply other places. Many fine orchards are scattered over the town. The soil is capable of producing in abundance any kinds of fruit or grain that can be grown in New England.
During the War of Independence what is now the town of Berlin was but a parish lying within the limits of three towns, and therefore all military proceedings within this parish were credited to these towns. But the citizens of the parish took an active part in the war. The church records of Kensington and Worthington bear the names of several who died in camp or were killed in battle. Almost every able- bodied man in the parish was in the service during some part of the war. After the affair at Lexington, Lieutenant Amos Hosford, after- ward a deacon of Worthington church, went with sixteen men, prob- ably volunteers from the Middletown part of this parish, to join the army at Boston. In the active and patriotic measures taken by Selah Heart Wethersfield and Farmington, men belonging to this parish took a prominent part. In 1775, Colonel Selah Hart, a citizen of Kensington, was appointed by the General Court as one of a committee "to provide stores of lead as they shall judge necessary for the use of the colony, to contract for and take lead ore that shall be raised out of the mine of Matthew Hart, of Farmington, and to dig and raise ore in said mine if profit- able and necessary for the use of the colony." How many bullets were made from the lead of that mine does not now appear. The mine is in Kensington, on the Mill River. It does not seem to
24
MEMORIAL HISTORY OF HARTFORD COUNTY.
yield lead enough to be profitable to work. Colonel Selah Hart com- manded a regiment in 1776, and when Washington evacuated New York he was cut off and captured by the British, and was held a pris- oner for two years, during most of which time his wife knew not whether he was dead or alive. He was afterward promoted to the command of a brigade, which he held till the close of the war.
Major Jonathan Hart, a gallant and distinguished officer, was a native of Kensington. He joined the army at the beginning of the Revolutionary War, and continued in service till the war closed and afterward, until he and the greater part of his command were slain in attempting to cover the retreat of the shattered remains of the army, when General St. Clair was defeated on the banks of the Wabash, Nov. 4, 1791.
When, in April, 1861, President Lincoln sent out his call for troops, men here, as everywhere throughout the Northern States, showed them- selves ready to respond to the call. In the course of the war there were one hundred and seventy-one volunteers from this town ; and the town appropriated for bounties $22,307.17, and for the support of the families of volunteers, $6,959.58, making a total of $29,266.75. Twelve were killed in battle, and twenty-two died while in the army. In Com- pany G of the Sixteenth Regiment there were twenty-seven Berlin men, of whom two were killed and six were wounded at the battle of Antie- tam, and six died in Rebel prisons at Andersonville, Charleston, and Florence. More than thirty of the soldiers of the late war are buried in the cemeteries of this town. The soldiers' monument in Kensington, " believed to be the first erected to the memory of Union soldiers in this State," commemorates the loss of fifteen volunteers from Kensing- ton. The monument in East Berlin bears the names of thirty-five men ; some of whom, however, were from neighboring districts in Cromwell and Westfield.
The Rev. John Hooker, who succeeded President Edwards as pastor of the church in Northampton, Mass., was born in Kensington in 1729, graduated at Yale in 1751, and was ordained in 1753. He was a de- scendant, in the fourth generation, of the renowned Rev. Thomas Hooker, of Hartford. His wife was a daughter of Colonel Worthington, of Springfield, who gave the name to Worthington Parish, in Berlin. He died of the small-pox at Northampton in 1777, in the forty-ninth year of his age.
Emma Hart Willard was the sixteenth child of Captain Samuel Heart (so the name is spelled in the old records). Captain Hart was a remarkable man. He was descended on his father's side from Stephen Heart, one of the most influential of the first settlers of Farmington ; and on his mother's side from the Rev. Thomas Hooker, of Hartford. Captain Hart was prominent in all the affairs of the town, and the first clerk of the Ecclesiastical Society of Worthington. His daughter Emma was born in Worthington in 1787. Her childhood and youth were full of brilliant promise. At seventeen she was teaching a com- mon school, and at nineteen an academy in Berlin. At twenty she was preceptress of Westfield Academy, and not long after she was placed at the head of the Female Academy at Middlebury, Vermont. At twenty- two she was married to Dr. John Willard, and opened a boarding-school.
25
BERLIN.
Her thoughts and plans were devoted to the education of the young of her sex. In 1818 she sent to Governor Clinton, of New York, her plan for a female seminary, which he recommended to the legislature in his next annual message. The legislature incorporated an academy, to be established at Waterford. She took the charge of it, but after a few years removed to Troy, and, aided by that city, established there her famous school. As the years passed, her school increased in popularity and excellence, until it furnished for four hundred pupils access to nearly all the literature and science taught in the colleges of this coun- try. Dr. Willard aided her in all her plans ; but after his death, in 1825, she took into her own hands the entire responsibility of the school, and its popularity continued to increase. In 1838 she left this work and devoted herself to literary labors. She published during her life several school-books, " Poems," a " History of the United States," "Jour- nal and Letters from France and Great Britain," "On the Circulation of the Blood," "Respiration and its Effects," " Morals for the Young," and other works. She died in Troy in 1870, in the eighty-fourth year of her age. Her life has been written by John Lord.
Her sister, Almira Hart, better known as Mrs. Almira Lincoln Phelps, was the seventeenth child of Captain Hart, and was born in Worthington in 1793. She received her education in part in her sister's schools. At the age of nineteen she taught a school in her father's house, and not long after took charge of an academy at Sandy Hill, New York. In 1817 she was married to Simeon Lincoln, of New Britain, then editor of a literary paper published in Hartford. He died in 1823, and in 1831 she was married to the Hon. John Phelps, of Vermont, an eminent jurist and statesman, and went to reside in Guilford, and afterward in Brattleboro', Vermont. In 1838 she took charge of a seminary at West Chester, Penn., and afterward one in Rahway, New Jersey. In 1841 she was invited by the Bishop of Maryland and the trustees of the Patapsco Institute to " found a Church school for girls." Here she continued fifteen years, doing, as her sister says, " her great and crowning educational work." Her husband died in 1849. She died in Baltimore in 1884, at the age of ninety-one. From 1816 she was a devoted member of the Episcopal Church. She published many books for students in the various departments of natural science; the best known of which is her work on Botany, published in 1829, while she was vice-principal of the Troy Seminary.
James Gates Percival, second son of Dr. James Percival, a physician of great merit, was born in Kensington, Sept. 15, 1795. He received his early education in the district school and in his father's library. and perhaps more still from the beauties of Nature, with which he was familiar. He graduated at Yale in 1815. While in college he distin- guished himself as a poet, and not less for his mathematical tastes and abilities. He is commonly spoken of as Percival the poet ; but he was also, and not less, eminent as a geologist, a philologist and linguist, a chemist, a botanist, a geographer, and a mathematician. After leaving college he taught school for a time, and then studied medicine, and began to practise it, but soon left it. IIe was for a time Professor of Chemistry at West Point, but finding his duties irksome, soon resigned. He was at one time employed in connection with Professor Shepherd to make a geological survey of Connecticut, and his work was a marvel
26
MEMORIAL HISTORY OF HARTFORD COUNTY.
for thoroughmess, and his report of five hundred pages so profoundly scientific that it is said " even scientific men could hardly understand it." He also rendered very valuable assistance to Dr. Webster in pre- paring and revising his great dictionary. His last work was done as a geologist in Wisconsin ; first in the employment of the American Mining Company, surveying their lead-mining regions, and then in the service of the State. He published his first report as State Geologist in 1855, and was preparing his second when he died at Hazel Green, May 2, 1856. A complete edition of his poems, with a biographical sketch, was published by Ticknor & Fields, Boston, in 1859, and his life has been written by the Rev. Julius H. Ward. Mr. Ed- ward W. Robbins, of Ken- sington, also, in an article published in the " New Englander," in May, 1859, gave an account of Per- cival, derived from origi- nal and authentic sources and from personal recol- lections. Two other Ber- lin boys were classmates of Percival in Yale. One was Horace Hooker, a descendant in the sixth generation from Thomas Ilooker. He was settled as pastor at Watertown, I Parcial and afterward preached at Middletown and in other places. He was for several years the secre- tary of the Domestic Mis- sionary Society of Connecticut. He spent the last years of his life in Hartford, where he died in 1864.
Horatio Gridley, a native of Kensington, was another member of the class of 1815. He practised as a physician for many years in Worthing- ton, ranking high in his profession. He was a fellow of Yale College, and at one time State senator. He died in Hartford in 1864.
Dr. Charles Hooker, another descendant of Thomas Hooker, was born in Kensington in 1799, graduated at Yale in 1820, and received his degree of M.D. in 1823. He became Professor of Anatomy and Physiology in Yale College. He died in New Haven in 1863. One 1 who knew him well says of him: "He was an eminent physician and surgeon, and was distinguished not less for his professional skill than for his active piety and benevolence."
The Rev. Charles A. Goodrich was not a native of Berlin, but he was a son of one of the pastors of the Worthington church, and he spent a
1 Mr. Edward W. Robbins, of Kensington, to whose manuscript "History of Kensing- ton " the writer of this sketeh acknowledges his great indebtedness.
Edward Wilay
27
BERLIN.
large part of the most active portion of his life in Berlin. He was born in Ridgefield in 1790, graduated at Yale in 1812. and was or- dained pastor of the South Church in Worcester, Mass., in 1818. After a few years he resigned his charge on account of failing health, and
your C. aGood not.
removed to Kensington, where he taught a school for boys. After his father's death he removed to Worthington, where he was engaged mainly in writing books for publication. He was the author of a num- ber of works which enjoyed a high degree of popularity. His "History of the United States," for schools, went through many editions, and is still in use. His " Bible History of Prayer" was one of the latest and most useful of his books. He was at one time State senator, and always a public-spirited citizen and a fervid Christian. In 1847 he removed to Hartford, where he died in 1862.
Another native of Berlin was the Hon. Richard D. Hubbard, after- ward a resident of Hartford, eminent as a lawyer and statesman. at one time a member of the national House of Representatives, and more recently Governor of the State of Connecticut. He died in Hartford in 1884.
The Rev. Andrew T. Pratt was born at Black Rock, New York, in 1826, but came to Berlin to reside in childhood, and united with the church in Worthington in 1838. He graduated at Yale in 1848, studied both medicine and theology, and was ordained missionary of the American Board in 1852. His field of labor was in Asiatic Turkey, at Aintab, Aleppo, Antioch, and Marash, where he was instructor in the Theo- logical Seminary. In 1868 "his fine literary taste and thorough ac- quaintance with the Turkish language led to his call to take part in the revision of the Scriptures, and in other literary labors at Constanti- nople. His success in this new field of labor was all that had been anticipated ;" and his death in 1872, in the midst of his useful- ness, at the early age of forty- six, was a loss which was deeply felt.
Mony truly 5. North
Simeon North, D.D., LL. D., was born in Berlin in 1802, but removed to Middletown when he was twelve years of age. He graduated at Yale, with the first honors of his class, in 1825. He was tutor at Yale from 1827 to 1829; then for ten years Professor of Latin and Greek in Hamilton College, at Clinton, New York ; and from 1839 for eighteen years president of that college. He retired from the presi- dency of the college in 1857, and until his death, in January, 1884, he resided at Clinton.
His nephew, Edward North, also a native of Berlin, was cho- sen Professor of Ancient Languages in Hamilton College when he was only twenty-four years of age, and has filled that office, greatly
28
MEMORIAL HISTORY OF HARTFORD COUNTY.
beloved and eminently successful as an instructor, for thirty-nine years.
Deacon Alfred North, Edward's brother, was born in Berlin, Oct. 3, 1811. With the exception of a few months, he has always lived in his
native town. For more than forty years he has been the town clerk and treasurer of the town of Berlin, clerk and treasurer of Worthing- ton Ecclesiastical Society, and treasurer of the Second Church in Berlin. He has been a deacon of that church for forty-seven years, and was for twenty years the superintendent of its Sunday school. He is esteemed by all as a man of sound judgment and incorruptible integrity.
Samuel C. Wilcox was born in Berlin, December, 1811, son of Ben- jamin Wilcox and grandson of Samuel Wilcox. In early life he taught school, and after that was in business in North Carolina as a mer- chant and a planter. He has been largely interested in manufacturing. From 1842 to 1870 he was one of the principal managers and stock- holders of the firm of Roys & Wilcox. Since 1870 he has been a direc- tor and vice-president of the Peck, Stow, & Wilcox Company. He is president of the J. O. Smith Manufacturing Company, and of the Berlin Iron Bridge Company ; a director in the Southington National Bank, and the Phoenix National Bank of Hartford. He was first selectman of the town of Berlin for seven consecutive years, and represented the town in the State legislature in 1884. He is a public-spirited citizen and successful business man.
Edward Wilcox, his brother, was born in Berlin, April 22, 1815. He spent the greater part of his life in his native town, on the ances -. tral farm, and engaged with his brother in various enterprises. In 1850 he was chosen one of the deacons of the church in Worthington ; and he continued in that office a faithful and earnest worker until his death, Aug. 13, 1862, at the age of forty-seven.
The name of Dr. Elishama Brandegee should not be omitted. Hc was for more than forty years the loved and trusted physician of a Elishama Brandegee large part of the families of the town. He was a native of Berlin, where he died in
1884. His father, Elisha Brandegee, was a merchant, and otherwise for many years an active business man of true public spirit, who did much for the prosperity of the place.
Ir. Fr woodworth
III. BLOOMFIELD.
BY MRS. ELISABETHI G. WARNER.
BI LOOMFIELD was incorporated in 1835, and consisted of Winton- bury Parish and a portion of Poquonnock Society in Windsor. In 1840 the town received an addition of a part of Simsbury known as Scotland Parish. As now constituted, it is bounded on the north and east by Windsor, on the south by Hartford, and on the west by Simsbury and Avon, and averages four miles in length and in breadth. On the east border a forest a mile and a half broad extends the whole length of the township from north to south, and on the west is the range of hills called Talcott Mountain. Through this broad, gently undulating valley run three large brooks, which unite in the south part to form Woods River; and this, meeting another small river in the southwest part of Hartford, forms Park River, which flows through the city and empties into the Connecticut. These three Bloomfield streams are all of slow current, and overflow their banks several times a year, thus greatly enriching the soil.
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