USA > Connecticut > New Haven County > Waterbury > The town and city of Waterbury, Connecticut, from the aboriginal period to the year eighteen hundred and ninety-five. Volume III > Part 24
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The demands of his profession were not great, and although he lived to an advanced age his health was never very good. He was,
Bronson
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however, an active pedestrian, and sometimes walked from here to New Haven to hold court, not failing to mention the fact to his less active brethren. He was a large land-owner, and carried on extensive farming operations, which probably suited both his tastes and his health better than the exacting duties of the law .*
He died August 26, 1844.
JOHN SOUTHMAYD KINGSBURY, the youngest son of Judge Kings- bury, was born in Waterbury, November 18, 1801. In early life he was associated with Daniel Hayden in the manufacture of buttons and various other articles. In 1850 he removed to East Bloom- field, N. Y., bought a farm, and lived on it for a year. He returned to Waterbury and lived here until 1858; then removed again to East Bloomfield, and remained there the rest of his life. In 1825 he married Abby, daughter of Daniel Hayden. He died in June, 1888, leaving four daughters (one of whom, Sylvia, became the wife of Elizur D. Griggs) and two sons.
BENNET BRONSON.
Bennet Bronson, son of Deacon Stephen Bronson and a brother- in-law of Judge Kingsbury was born November 14, 1775. He was fitted for college in the school of Messrs. Badger and Kings- bury and with the Rev. John Foot of Cheshire. He graduated at Yale in the class of 1797. In 1798 he was appointed lieutenant in the provisional army of the United States-known as the "Adams army "-and served about two years, when the army was disbanded.
He studied law with the Hon. Noah B. Benedict of Woodbury, and also improved his time by finding there a wife. She was the daughter of Richard Smith and sister of the Hon. Nathaniel Smith, whose wife was a sister of Mr. Benedict. They were married May II, 1801. In 1802 he was admitted to the bar and opened an office in his native town. In 1812 he became one of the assistant judges of the county court, and held the position for two years. In 1824 he became presiding judge, and remained in that office for six years. In May, 1829, he represented the town in the legislature.
He was a good lawyer, but not a ready speaker, and was better as a counsellor and conveyancer than as an advocate. He was a
* Horace Hotchkiss in his Reminiscences gives the following incident: " Judge Kingsbury fulfilled the duties of his profession with eminent success, but in the conduct of his farm equal ability was not always manifest. Deciding, one year, that it would be more profitable to feed his large harvest of corn to beef cattle than to sell it at the current price, he purchased steers for that purpose. When the beef was ready, the price was low; so he concluded to pack it, and bought a supply of barrels. While he waited for a better price, or perhaps while occupied with other duties, he forgot the proposed transaction. The hot summer spoiled the beef, and the barrels, placed under the eaves to be cleansed, fell to pieces. The staves were a poor reward for his labor."
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man of excellent judgment in business matters. He was a large land-holder and made farming profitable. He also invested suc- cessfully in manufacturing. He inherited a fair estate from his father and soon became one of the leading capitalists of the town. He was the first president of the Waterbury bank, and retained the position until his death. On June 10, 1838, he was elected a deacon of the First church, and on August 31, having considered the matter nearly three months, he “ signi- fied his consent to perform for a time at least the duties of that office."
He took a great interest in local his- tory, and began early to collect material for the his- tory of the town. It is largely due to his painstaking efforts that the history of Waterbury prior to THE BENNET BRONSON HOUSE, WEST CORNER OF WEST MAIN AND NORTH WILLOW STREETS. REMOVED IN 1895 A SHORT DISTANCE NORTHWARD. the Revolution can be so fully written. He was a friend of law and order, and liked the " good old ways." At the time it was proposed to heat the meeting-house with stoves (see page 581), he opposed the project, and when the congregation began to sit in prayer and stand during singing he saw no need of the change, but remained loyal to the older forms, standing when others sat and sitting when others stood. In person Judge Bronson was tall and in early life straight and athletic. He had sunken eyes, shaggy eye-brows and a capacious forehead. He was not an enthusiast, nor had he much personal magnetism; but for his sense of justice, his sound business judgment and thorough honesty he had the entire confidence of the community.
He died December 11, 1850.
CHIEF JUSTICE HINMAN.
Joel Hinman was the son of Colonel Joel Hinman of Southbury, and was born there, January 27, 1802. He studied law in Newtown with Judge Chapman and at New Haven with Messrs. Staples and
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Hitchcock, the founders of the Yale Law school, and settled in Waterbury in 1824. The following year he married Maria, daughter of James Scovil, Esq. In 1830 he was appointed judge of probate and continued to hold the office for ten years. He twice represented the Fifth district in the state senate and the town of Waterbury several times in the house of representatives. In 1842, while a member of the house, he was elected a judge of the Superior court, and is said to have been the youngest man who up to that time had filled the position. In 1861 he became chief justice, and held the office at the time of his death, February 21, 1870. Judge Hinman resided in Waterbury until 1845, when he removed to New Haven, and some years later to Cheshire, where he died. During his resi- dence here he occupied for some years the place at the east corner of West Main and South Willow streets (now owned by Robert K. Brown). He built for himself an office on the same lot, as was the custom of country lawyers. This stood where the house next east of Mr. Brown's residence now stands. Subsequently he built a house near the south end of Willow street, and later still, one on North Main street on the lot where Dr. Alfred North afterward built his dwelling house (now occupied by the Waterbury club). Here he lived until he removed to New Haven. Judge Hinman was a man of good natural ability, excellent common sense and great fairness of mind. As a practitioner he was rather lacking in energy, although possessed of much shrewdness, but as judge all his stronger qualities came into play and he met with marked success .*
N. J. AND T. S. BUEL.
Norton J. Buel was the eldest son of Eliphalet Buel, a substan- tial farmer of Salisbury, who was born in that town in 1787. In 1866, on the death of his wife, Mr. Buel came to Waterbury and made his home with his younger son, Theodore, whom he survived a year and a half. In the autumn of 1873, on his way home from a visit to a daughter in Iowa, he was taken ill, and died in Brooklyn, N. Y., September 18. In the Waterbury American of September 26 he was characterized as "a man of genial and cheerful disposition and agreeable manners, highly esteemed by all who enjoyed his acquaintance-a Christian gentleman of the old school, whose mem- ory will long be cherished in the community."
Norton J. Buel was born in Salisbury, September 6, 1813. He studied law with General Sedgwick of Sharon and Judge O. S.
*A more extended notice of Judge Hinman appears in Volume XXXV of Connecticut Reports, from, which this has been condensed.
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Seymour of Litchfield, and in 1835, when but little more than twenty-one years of age, opened an office at Naugatuck (then a part of Waterbury). In 1840 he removed to Waterbury centre and remained here until the autumn of 1863, when he removed to New Haven. He died there March 6, 1864.
During a considerable portion of his residence here he held the office of judge of probate; he was also town clerk, and represented the town and district several times in the legislature, and no man in the community wielded a greater influence or was more thor- oughly respected than he. He did much to give shape to our bus- iness enterprises, for he was not only a good lawyer but a thorough business man, and his counsel in new undertakings was very gen- erally sought and always freely given.
At the time of his death he was already in the front rank of his profession, and had he lived a few years longer would have had a practice in the state and federal courts not surpassed by that of any other lawyer in the state. With a naturally fine constitution and temperate habits, he yet broke down in the fullness of his powers under the severity of his professional studies and labors. His proverbial fidelity to truth always commanded the respect of his brethren and the unreserved confi- dence of his clients. He did not rely so much upon his genius as upon the careful study and preparation of his cases; and in argument he sought to make an impression by clearness of statement and by a forcible yet truthful pre- sentation of the facts of a case, rather than by mere oratory or appeals to passion or prejudice.
Mr. Buel married Silence L. Peet of Salisbury, who survived him several years. Their only child, a daughter, died in childhood .*
Theodore Sedgwick Buel, the second son of Eliphalet Buel, was born in Salisbury, March 1, 1826. In 1845 he entered the office of his brother in Waterbury, and after the usual course of study was admitted to the bar. He soon afterwards became his brother's partner, and in that relation attained a highly respectable rank in his profession and a considerable practice. In 1849 and 1850 he held the office of town clerk.
Not long after his brother's removal to New Haven, he relin- quished the practice of the law and accepted the appointment of secretary with Brown & Brothers, and during the remainder of his life was connected with that corporation. He was a careful and conscientious lawyer, and in business was exceptionally industrious and energetic. His integrity was unspotted, and he enjoyed the
*Volume XXXII of Connecticut Reports contains an extended notice of Judge Buel, from which this sketch has in part been taken. The funeral discourse was by request of the New Haven county bar pub- lished in pamphlet form (14 pages), with the following title: " An Address delivered at the Funeral of Hon. Norton J. Buel, in the Second Church, Waterbury, by George Bushnell. New Haven: 1864."
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esteem and confidence of the community in a very high degree. His death in the maturity of his powers was felt to be a public loss.
In 1854 he married Cornelia, daughter of Philo Brown (see page 345). They had four children: Henry Norton, who was born Novem- ber 9, 1856, and died November 30, 1877; Philo Brown, who was born February 2, 1859, spent several years of his life in South America, and died near Valparaiso, July 25, 1894; Nella Ives, who died in childhood, and Katharine Sedgwick, the wife of Colonel John B. Doherty. Mr. Buel died March 9, 1872.
J. W. WEBSTER.
John Wilkinson Webster, son of Charles and Joanna (Darling) Webster, was born at West Hartford, January 19, 1817. His earliest American ancestor, John Webster, came from Worcestershire, Eng- land, and was one of the original settlers of Hartford. His father was a brother of Noah Webster, the lexicographer. He was edu- cated in the schools of his native town and in the academies of Wilbraham and Westfield, Mass. After leaving school he pursued for awhile the business of machinist, but having resolved on a pro- fessional life he entered the Yale Law school, and graduated in 1844. He was admitted to the bar immediately afterward and settled in Waterbury. His mechanical and business experience enabled him to command a professional position assured and hon- orable. He has long enjoyed a valuable practice which, as senior member of the firm of Webster & O'Neill (established in 1866), he still maintains. Since the death of N. J. Buel, in 1864, Judge Web- ster has been the senior member of the Waterbury bar, and must be nearly if not quite the senior member in practice in New Haven county.
He is a democrat in his political convictions, but has not given much time to politics, nor sought political office. He has, how- ever, been mayor of the city, city attorney, judge of the probate court, water commissioner, a member of the several branches of the common council and of the board of agents of the Bronson library, and has filled many other offices. He has been for many years a member of the board of education, was for some time its chairman, and has frequently served as school visitor. Judge Webster has all his life been an ardent sportsman, combining with his interest in the sport itself a keen and intelligent obser- vation of the nature and habits of animals, insects, fishes and birds.
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On March 28, 1860, he married Elizabeth S. Hicox of Naugatuck, and has one daughter, Josephine, the wife of George M. Allerton .*
JOHN KENDRICK.
John Kendrick, son of Green and Anna (Leavenworth) Kendrick, was born at Charlotte, N. C., May 27, 1825. His mother was a na- tive of Waterbury, and his father came here to reside when John was three or four years old (see page 266). He was fitted for col- lege at the school of Stiles French in New Haven, and graduated at Yale in 1843. During a portion of the next year he was assistant to Seth Fuller in the Waterbury academy (page 520). He afterward engaged in mercantile business in New York, but in 1845 com- menced the study of law with Norton J. Buel, and later entered the New Haven Law school and was admitted to the bar in 1847. He opened an office in Waterbury. In 1848 he was appointed town clerk. After a year or two he abandoned for a time the practice of law and engaged in manufacturing. Subsequently, from 1857 to 1859, he was employed as an assistant editor of the New Haven Register, but most of his time was given to some branch of manu- facturing until 1874. When his second son, Greene, was admitted to the bar, he resumed practice and formed a partnership with him, which continued until his death. He died on his fifty-second birth- day, May 27, 1877.
Mr. Kendrick was a man of ardent and impulsive nature, of an amiable disposition and a genial manner. He had a fund of anec- dote, was a good raconteur and quick at repartee. He was a fine classical scholar, had a natural capacity for languages, and great skill in macaronics. Two of these-one beginning " Felis sedit by a hole," and the other "Fuit Mexicanus homo"-have had a very extensive circulation and have attracted so much attention that they are reproduced in the chapter on literature. He was an active and ardent politician. He began his political life as a whig, and afterward became a democrat. He represented the town in the legislature in 1867. He was a candidate for congress in the Second district in 1871, but was not successful. He was at one time judge, or recorder, of the city court, was mayor of the city in 1864, 1865; and 1868, and held the office of city attorney at the time of his
* When Noah Webster was about issuing his great dictionary he enlisted his nephew to assist in its dis- tribution. This was before the era of railroads, and young Webster drove to Amherst and Williams colleges to deliver complimentary copies to the professors. A letter from his uncle, received at Williamstown, Mass., directed him to return to New Haven by way of the Farmington canal,-a great treat to the young traveller, for the canal in that day was what the "limited express " is now. When the Messrs. Merriam published the International edition of Webster's Dictionary, recognizing the fact that Judge Webster was the nearest living kinsman of the famous lexicographer, they sent him a complimentary copy of the work.
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Jamkellogg
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death. He was a member of the famous Peace convention at Phil- adelphia in 1866. In 1869 he received an appointment from General Grant as special bearer of the treaties which had been made with- the Belgian government, and spent some months in European travel.
John Kendrick, Jr., the eldest child of John and Marion Ken- drick, was born February 13, 1850. He spent some time in college and afterward studied law. He did not, however, enter the legal profession, but pursued a business career and was also a successful inventor. He died at Dayton, O., April 27, 1895.
GREENE KENDRICK, second son of John and Marion Kendrick, was born in Waterbury, May 31, 1851. He attended the Waterbury schools, and prepared for college at Round Hill school, Northamp- ton, Mass. He graduated from Yale in the class of 1872, having been the Berkeley and Clark scholar for three years, and after a year in a post-graduate course entered the Yale Law school and graduated from there in 1875, having taken the Jewell, Edwards and Roman Law prizes, which were all that were offered at, that time. He was admitted to the bar in June, 1875, and began prac- tice in Waterbury, in company with his father. On his father's death in 1877 he was appointed to serve during the remainder of his unexpired term as city attorney. He was city clerk from 1874 to 1879, auditor of the state from 1875 to 1881, and member of the board of education from 1875 to 1883. He represented the town in the legislature in 1876, 1877 and 1878, and was mayor of the city in 1882 and 1883 (see page 45).
In January, 1888, Mr. Kendrick removed to New York city, and was admitted to the New York bar. He was a member of the law firm of Finley & Kendrick, and during this time was associate coun- sel with Colonel R. G. Ingersoll in the celebrated contest over the Hart will .* In 1892 he returned to Waterbury and reopened a law office here. Through all his business career and the agitations of politics, Mr. Kendrick has retained his interest in classical scholar- ship, and is also known as a ready and able writer for the news- paper press.
THE HON. S. W. KELLOGG.
Stephen Wright Kellogg, son of Jacob Poole and Lucy (Wright) Kellogg, was born in Shelburne, Mass., April 5, 1822. At the end of
* Mrs. Hart, a theatrical celebrity known on the stage as Gertrude Granville, left in her will (which was drawn by Mr. Kendrick) a large estate to her theatrical associates and friends. Her husband, the well- known actor, Tony Hart, contested the will. He was represented by Judge J. J. Clancey, and the estate and the legatees under the will were represented by Messrs. Ingersoll and Kendrick. The case was in the courts nearly two years and was hotly fought. Surrogate Ransom finally upheld the will, and declared its provisions valid.
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his first year in college his father died, leaving the widow and three younger children in his care. His early life was spent upon his father's farm, where he worked in the summer until twenty years of age. He taught school in the winter months, after he was sixteen, and attending an academy at Shelburne Falls for a short time. At the age of twenty he entered Amherst college, where he remained two terms, and then entered Yale, the third term of the freshman year. He graduated in 1846, taking one of the three highest honors of his class. He became principal of an academy at Winchendon, Mass., in the autumn of that year, but returned to New Haven and entered the Yale Law school the fol- lowing winter. He was admitted to the New Haven bar in June, 1848, and immediately opened a law office at Naugatuck, where he remained until 1854, when he removed to Waterbury, having been elected judge of probate for the Waterbury district, which then included Naugatuck. Since 1854, he has had his law office in Waterbury, having a large practice in the higher courts of the state and in the United States courts.
Mr. Kellogg was clerk of the Connecticut senate in 1851, a mem- ber of the senate from the Waterbury district in 1853, and a mem- ber of the house in 1856. In 1894 he was appointed by the legisla- ture judge of the New Haven county court, and he held the office of judge of probate for the district of Waterbury for seven years. He was city attorney from 1866 to 1869, during which time he pro- cured the first legislation for supplying the city with water. He was again city attorney from 1877 to 1883, and during this period drew up a bill for the establishment of a sewerage system for the city and procured its passage by the legislature. He was a dele- gate to the Republican national convention in 1860, and was a mem- ber of the committee in that convention that drew up the "plat- form" upon which Abraham Lincoln was first elected president. He was also appointed delegate to the national conventions of 1868 and 1876, and in the latter was chairman of the Connecticut dele- gation. He was colonel of the Second regiment of the Connecticut National Guard from 1863 to 1866, and brigadier-general from 1866 to 1870. He was elected to the Forty-first congress in 1869, and re-elected in 1871 and 1873. During his six years of service in con- gress he was a member of the committees on the judiciary, patents, war claims, and Pacific railroads, and was chairman of the commit- tee on naval expenditures in the Forty-second congress, and of the committee on civil service reform in the Forty-third. He has been one of the agents of the Bronson library since its organiza- tion in 1868, and while in congress succeeded in making it one of
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the six depositories in the state, for the valuable publications of the United States government. During his three terms in Wash- ington Mr. Kellogg was conceded to be one of the best repre- sentatives the district ever had, with a peculiar aptitude for the practical side of legislation. On April 1, 1873, shortly before his third election to congress, the Waterbury American spoke of him as follows:
It is not often that a congressman at the end of four years of service receives so many testimonials-frank and business-like in their tone-from his constituents, without reference to locality or party. The truth is that Mr. Kellogg perceives more clearly than most congressmen, what are the real duties of a representative, and honestly endeavors to fulfil them. . He has kept himself free from congressional corruption, and at the same time has done a large amount of honest and valuable work for the district and the state which he has represented.
Since his retirement from congress, Mr. Kellogg has devoted him- self to the practice of his profession. He has never lost his inter- est in public affairs, however, and has frequently written articles for the press upon political and other subjects of interest. His second son, John P. Kellogg, has been associated with him in his office the past ten years.
On September 10, 1851, Mr. Kellogg married Lucia Hosmer Andrews, a grand-daughter of Chief Justice Hosmer, of Middle- town. Their children, in the order of their age, are as follows: Sarah Andrews, married to F. C. Plume in 1880; Lucy Wright, married to E. H. English of New Haven in 1882; Frank Wood- ruff (for whom see elsewhere); John Prescott; Elizabeth Hosmer, married to Irving H. Chase (see page 311) ; Stephen Wright, Jr., who died in 1868; and Charles Poole, secretary of the State Board of Charities.
JOHN PRESCOTT KELLOGG, was born in Waterbury, March 31, 1860. He graduated from Yale college in 1882 and from the Yale Law school in 1884. He commenced the practice of law as a member of the firm of Kellogg, Burpee & Kellogg in 1884, and subsequently, on the retirement of Colonel L. F. Burpee, became the junior mem- ber of the firm of Kellogg & Kellogg. He was appointed assistant city attorney in 1891, an office which he held until March, 1893, when he was appointed prosecuting attorney of the district court of Waterbury. He was also made town attorney in October, 1891. He was appointed an aid on the staff of General J. L. Watson (with the rank of captain), in 1890, and resigned in May, 1892. On June I, 1892, he married Clara, daughter of Frederick A. Mason. They have one child, Fredrika Mason.
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C. H. CARTER.
Calvin Holmes Carter, eldest son of Preserve W. and Ruth (Holmes) Carter, was born at Waterbury May 19, 1829 .* On his mother's side he was descended from the Judds, who were among the first settlers of the town. His earlier education was pursued in the schools here. His preparation for college was mostly with Thomas M. Thompson of Woodbury. He entered Yale in 1847. Near the end of his freshman year he entered Brown university, but before long returned to Yale, where he graduated with high standing in 1851. He pursued the study of law partly at the Yale Law school and partly with the Hon. Increase Sumner of Great Barrington, Mass., and opened an office here in 1853. He soon after formed a partnership with the Hon. S. W. Kellogg, who was at that time practicing in Naugatuck, and the firm of Kellogg & Carter took a prominent position in the profession. This connection con- tinued until Mr. Carter was appointed postmaster, in 1861. After this, although transacting more or less legal business, he was not actively engaged in the profession.
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