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 36
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LATER ROMAN CATHOLIC SOCIETIES.
THE YOUNG MEN'S ALOYSIUS TOTAL ABSTINENCE AND BENEVO- LENT SOCIETY was organized about 1879. The officers were: Presi- dent, Maurice F. Carmody; secretary, James H. Freney. It was a prosperous society for several years.
ST. JOSEPH'S CATHOLIC TOTAL ABSTINENCE SOCIETY was organ- ized, November 19, 1893, among young members of the parish of the Immaculate Conception. The immediate impulse was the stir- ring campaign conducted at that time by the popular temperance advocate, T. E. Murphy. The charter members numbered 100, and the first officers were: President, James H. Freney; vice-president, Patrick McMahon; treasurer, Dennis J. Casey; financial secretary, Thomas Luddy; recording secretary, William T. Walsh. The objects of the society are the practice of total abstinence and the discouragement of the drinking habit by advice and example. On the first Sunday of every month a public meeting is held at St. Patrick's hall of a literary and musical character, at which some capable speaker gives an address on temperance. The society has handsome rooms in the Lilley block, furnished with library, piano, and means for athletic exercise. It has a glee club, a base ball club and a dramatic club. On June 19, 1894, the society became affiliated with the Catholic Total Abstinence union of Connecticut and at the annual convention held in Hartford in August, 1894, James H. Freney was chosen director for New Haven county. The spiritual
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HISTORY OF WATERBURY.
director of the society is the Rev. William Lynch of the church of the Immaculate Conception. The officers of the society for 1895 were: President, James J. McDonald; vice-president, James McKnight; treasurer, Dennis J. Casey; financial secretary, Thomas Luddy; recording secretary, Patrick F. Shields.
THE ST. PATRICK'S TOTAL ABSTINENCE AND BENEVOLENT SOCIETY was organized on February 7, 1894. The first officers were: Presi- dent, J. F. Galvin; vice-president, D. F. Kelly; recording secretary, J. M. Lynch; financial secretary, Patrick Courtney; treasurer, Law- rence Cronin; chaplain, the Rev. J. H. Duggan. The objects of the society are to promote temperance among its members and to aid and assist each other in sickness and distress. The present officers are: President, J. M. Lynch; vice-president, Bernard Malloy; recording secretary, J. F. Galvin; financial secretary, Patrick Courtney; treasurer, James Courtney. The present membership is ninety-eight.
THE CONFRATERNITY OF THE SACRED THIRST AND AGONY OF JESUS has already been mentioned (page 765) among the societies of the parish of the Sacred Heart.
A FEW SHORT-LIVED ORGANIZATIONS.
Ever Welcome Temple, No. 18, of the TEMPLE OF HONOR AND TRUTH, was organized about 1876.
THE YOUNG LADIES' TEMPERANCE LEAGUE was organized in 1877. The officers were: President, Ida Blakeslee; vice-president, Mrs. Maria Cummings; secretary, Mary Chatfield; treasurer, Anna White.
THE WATERBURY TEMPERANCE ALLIANCE was organized August 14, 1889. The officers were: President, Rev. W. P. Elsdon; secre- tary, Charles W. Carr.
THE WATERBURY PROHIBITION ASSOCIATION was organized about 1891, with these officers: President, Porter L. Wood; vice-presi- dents, E. A. Moree, E. J. Thomas, W. M. Hurlburt; secretary, George Sutherland; treasurer, W. C. Myers.
H. B. GIBBUD.
Henry Burton Gibbud, son of Eli Bird and Hannah (Hitchcock) Gibbud was born in Waterbury, July 1, 1857. His father was born in Salem society (Naugatuck) in 1827, spent a large part of his life in Waterbury and died at his son's home in Syracuse, N. Y., Feb- ruary 18, 1895. He was for a long time worthy patriarch of Matta- tuck division of the Sons of Temperance.
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CHARITY, PHILANTHROPY AND REFORM.
Henry received his early education in the schools of Waterbury, but in 1870 removed with his family to Brooklyn, N. Y., and after- that attended the Brooklyn public schools. He was also for a time a student in the Tabernacle Lay college, of which the Rev. Dr. T. D. Talmage was president, but did not graduate there.
In 1880 he went into the publishing business, but before this, had became interested in city missions, to which he has chiefly devoted himself. In 1878 he began a "rescue" work in Baxter street, New York, which subsequently developed into the widely known "Florence Night Mission," sustained by C. N. Crittenton as a memorial of his daughter Florence. Mr. Gibbud was the first city missionary to establish an "all night " mission.
He was connected with the Florence mission from its establish- ment in 1883 until 1887. While on a visit, in 1887, to Syracuse, he undertook mission work there, to familiarize those interested in the rescue of the fallen with his methods. At the end of a month, as no one could be found to go on with the work, he continued in it, and has since made Syracuse the centre of operations. These include not only evening meetings at the mission rooms, but prison meetings, meetings in the hop fields, and the use of a gospel boat and a gospel wagon.
The book entitled " Daylight and Darkness," by Helen Campbell, contains chapters by Mr. Gibbud descriptive of his special work, and he has published various tracts for distribution among those for whom he labors .*
* One of these is entitled, " The Story of Nellie Conroy .
. Leaves from the Journal of an All- Night Missionary; " another, " These Five Years: Rescue Work in Syracuse Slums."
CHAPTER XLV.
THE LITERARY PRODUCT OF THE TOWN-WATERBURY POETS-JOHN TRUMBULL AND "M'FINGAL" -LEMUEL HOPKINS AND "THE AN- ARCHIAD"-A. BRONSON ALCOTT-MESSRS. KINGSBURY AND KEN- DRICK-ERA OF THE WEEKLY NEWSPAPER-POETS OF THE WAR TIME-MRS. SEELEY AND OTHERS-JOSEPH ANDERSON-JOHN G. DAVENPORT-MRS. NOBLE, MISS BASSETT AND OTHER TUNEFUL WOMEN-PROSE WRITERS-EIGHTEENTH CENTURY DIVINES-THE MODERN ERA-F. J. KINGSBURY-C. U. C. BURTON-DR. HENRY BRONSON-C. H. CARTER AND PRESIDENT CARTER-F. T. RUSSELL -JOSEPH ANDERSON-H. F. BASSETT-D. G. PORTER - ARTHUR R. KIMBALL-MISS PRICHARD, MISS DU BOIS AND OTHER NOVELISTS- NOTEWORTHY BOOKS, PAMPHLETS AND ARTICLES.
A NY one who would exhibit fully and accurately the place of Waterbury in literature ought to have before him from the outset a Waterbury bibliography. What would such a biblio- graphy contain ? First, books and pamphlets and articles in period- icals relating wholly or in large part to Waterbury, whether descriptive, historical or statistical, by whomsoever written; sec- ondly, books and articles, upon whatever subjects, written by Waterbury authors, that is, by persons belonging in any way to the town, whether by birth or by residence in it; thirdly, books, pam- phlets and periodicals published in the town or within its original limits, or bearing a Waterbury imprint. Such a bibliography-far more extensive, by the way, than any one would be likely to anticipate -would be almost a necessity to the historian who would give to the theme any adequate treatment. But having constructed such a list, he must begin at once to reconstruct it, or at least to carry through a process of exclusion. The bibliography would contain a large amount of documentary matter which could not with any propriety be regarded as literature, such as the published reports of the town, the city and the various municipal departments, charters of companies, church manuals, school reports, newspaper files, files of almanacs, and even city directories. All these are of value to the local historian and must be consulted by him; but the com- pilers of such documents have no intention of authorship in pre- paring them, and they are not "literature." In such a bibliography would also be included the productions of men who have lived in the town, but whose literary career entirely preceded their coming
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or commenced after their removal. A fortuitous relation such as this might involve the enrollment of a name by the bibliographer, but it would hardly justify us in claiming the writer as a Water- bury author. We can claim, of course, the men whose literary work was done here, and we can claim also, in a certain way, men born or "raised " here who entered the realm of authorship after remov- ing to other places. But what concerns us chiefly is the literary work produced by Waterbury men and women while living in Waterbury, whose work is still extant in books or pamphlets or periodicals.
Compared with New Haven and Hartford, Waterbury can prob- ably make but a poor showing in the field of literature. Yet to any one who has not gone carefully over the ground its literary product, as represented in the following pages, will seem surpris- ingly large in amount, and surprisingly varied and unique in qual- ity. We can do little more here than enroll the names of writers and the titles of their productions; but it will be seen that while our poets and men of letters can scarcely be described as a galaxy or even a constellation, they make nevertheless a quite respectable array, and furnish additional evidence that the brain power of the community has not been entirely absorbed in the management of brass mills. According to the custom of historians of literature, it seems best that we should divide our authors into two groups, prose writers and poets. We begin with the poets, and present them in chronological order, according to the dates at which their literary work began, or came first before the public.
WATERBURY POETS.
In the year 1750 two poets were born in Waterbury who attained to more than a provincial fame. One was John Trum- bull, who was born in Westbury parish (now Watertown) on April 13; the other was Lemuel Hopkins, who was born in Salem society (now Naugutuck) on June 19. . Trumbull became a prominent law- yer, and in course of time a judge of the Supreme Court of Errors and Hopkins became a physician of renown; and neither of them spent much of his life in his native town after reaching manhood. But Waterbury can surely claim them as her gift to the world of letters, and this account of the place of Waterbury in literature may properly begin with a brief sketch of these men and their work as poets.
John Trumbull was the son of the Rev. John Trumbull, the first pastor of the Westbury church, and from 1772 until his death a
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HISTORY OF WATERBURY.
member of the corporation of Yale college. The boy was remark- ably precocious, and at the age of seven passed successfully an examination for admission to Yale. He did not enter, however, until 1763. During his student life he became an intimate friend of young Timothy Dwight, afterwards the college president, and their tastes and ambitions led them to work together for the advancement of literature, as distinguished from the so-called
John Trumbull
" solid learning," in college and in the society in which they moved. In those days " English poetry and the belles lettres were called folly, nonsense and an idle waste of time, and the two friends were obliged to stem the tide of general ridicule and censure." This was the situation which first called forth the satirical talents of Trum- bull. He remained in New Haven after his graduation, to pursue special studies, and the party of Trumbull and Dwight was soon increased by the accession of several young men of genius, who succeeded eventually in producing a material change in the tastes and pursuits of the students.
----
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About the time that Trumbull entered Yale, the college for polit- ical and other reasons had become unpopular with a large propor- tions of the inhabitants of the colony. Matters came to a crisis in 1766; the president resigned his office and a series of changes began which resulted in a revival of interest in English literature and important modifications in the course of study. In 1771 Trumbull and Dwight were chosen tutors, and in the following year, when he was but twenty-two years of age, Trumbull published the first part of a poem of 1700 lines, entitled "The Progress of Dulness," designed to expose to ridicule the defective and absurd methods of education then prevailing. He said in his preface that his aim was to illustrate and lay stress upon the following and various other well known facts:
That to the frequent scandal as well of religion as of learning a fellow without any share of genius or application to study may pass with credit through life, receive the honors of a liberal education and be admitted to the right hand of fellowship among ministers of the gospel; that except in one neighboring province ignorance wanders unmolested at our colleges, examinations are dwindled to mere form and ceremony, and after four years' dozing there no one is ever refused the honors of a degree on account of dulness and insufficiency; that the mere knowl- edge of ancient languages, of the abstruser parts of mathematics and the dark researches of metaphysics is of litttle advantage in any business or profession in life, and that it would be more beneficial in every place of public education to take pains in teaching the elements of oratory, the grammar of the English tongue and the elegancies of style and composition.
This very modern view of the relative value of different courses of study he repeats in the poem itself:
Oh ! might I live to see that day When sense shall point to youths their way, Through every maze of science guide, O'er education's laws preside, The good retain, with just discerning Explode the quackeries of learning, Give ancient arts their real due, Explain their faults and beauties too, Teach when to imitate and mend, And point their uses and their end.
It was a hope which he saw only partially fulfilled, but he seems to have labored throughout his life for its realization.
While performing his duties as a tutor he devoted himself to the study of the law, which he had now selected as his profession. In 1773 he was admitted to the bar, but went immediately to Boston to continue his studies and entered the office of John Adams, after- wards president of the United States. He was now at the centre of
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HISTORY OF WATERBURY.
American politics, at a time when the "violence of party was ex- treme." Thoughtful men were already convinced that the colonies must eventually cut loose from the mother country, and one of their chief aims was to weaken the ties which bound them to it and cement them in a closer union with one another. As a contribution to this end Trumbull, at the suggestion of some of his friends in Congress, wrote the first part of the production by which he is most widely known, " McFingal, a Modern Epic Poem." The poem was begun in 1775 and completed in 1782. It is divided into four cantos, entitled "The Town Meeting, A. M.," "The Town Meeting, P. M.," "The Liberty Pole " and " The Vision," and its more specific pur- pose was to hold up to scorn the office holders of England in the colonies and thus to bring contempt upon England herself, and so help to incite the American people to active and, if necessary, bloody resistance. "Keen-sighted politicians foresaw that if the Americans could despise the English they would more boldly face them in battle; that if they could once laugh at them by their fire- sides and in the camp at night, they would beat them in the field on the morrow." To the development of this feeling Trumbull con- tributed such aid as he had to give in the form of satire and ridi cule, and judging from the immense popularity of his production his effort must have borne abundant fruit. While as a poem " Mc- Fingall " may be inferior to "Hudibras " and other supposed pro- totypes, the special claim has been justly made in its behalf "that it was written in an hour of national trial, that it was dictated by patriotism, and that it served efficiently the cause it was designed to promote."
In May, 1777, New Haven being exposed to invasion, and busi- ness having greatly declined, Trumbull returned with his young wife to his native town, and remained at the old home for four years. Here he became a sufferer from nervous prostration, the result of excessive study and the fatigue of attending court at a distance; and in the hope of improving his health he removed in 1787 to Hartford, and there before the close of the following year finished " McFingal." He continued to reside in Hartford until 1825, and then, at the age of seventy-five, removed to Detroit, to the home of his daughter, the wife of the Hon. William Woodbridge, where he died in 1831. In 1820, when he issued a collected edition of his poetical works,* "McFingal" had been reprinted more than thirty times, but without pecuniary benefit to the author. When Kettell,
* The Poetical Works of John Trumbull, LL. D., containing McFingal, a Modern Epic Poem, revised and corrected, with copious explanatory notes; The Progress of Dulness; and a Collection of Poems on Various Subjects, written before and during the Revolutionary War. In two volumes. Hartford: Printed for Samuel G. Goodrich, by Lincoln & Stone. MDCCCXX.
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POETS AND PROSE WRITERS.
in 1829, published his "Specimens of American Poetry," he was able to say: "McFingal has had a greater celebrity than any other American poem;" but he attributed this "partly to its intrinsic" merit, but more to the time and circumstances which gave it birth."
As already stated, Lemuel Hopkins was born about two months after Trumbull, in the southern section of the town. He was the fourth in descent from John Hopkins the miller. He decided, while quite young, to follow the medical profession, and having pur- sued a classical course of study entered the office of a physician in Wallingford. He began practice in Litchfield in 1776, and, with the exception of a brief time spent in the Revolutionary army, continued to reside there until 1784, when he removed to Hartford, three years after Trumbull's removal thither. He was a physician of great skill and widely extended reputation, and although pos- sessing marked eccentricities, an uncouth figure and brusque man- ners, won the confidence and affection of those who knew him in an unusual degree. He was one of the founders of the Connecti- cut Medical society.
Either shortly before Dr. Hopkins's removal to Hartford or immediately after, "a friendly club" was established there, the members of which assembled once a week for the discussion of philosophical and political questions. Trumbull was one of its most active members, and Colonel David Humphreys (after whom Humphreysville, now Seymour, was named), who was temporarily residing in Hartford, was also connected with it, as was also Joel Bar- low. After the proclamation of peace in 1783, the condition of the country afforded these men abundant food for consideration. The states were held together only by articles of confederation; each of them had its own separate policy; the country was greatly impover- ished, and discontent prevailed to so great an extent that civil war seemed imminent. In this condition of things the Hartford men of letters were the friends of good order and rendered to their country what service they could. The chief product of their liter- ary skill was a series of essays entitled " American Antiquities," con- sisting of verses, with an accompaniment of comments in prose, pur- porting to be extracts from a poem called the "Anarchiad," discov- ered in the ruins of an ancient Indian fortification. The conception was originated by Colonel Humphreys, but Dr. Hopkins "has always borne the credit," says Kettell, "of having written the most striking passages." Dr. Hopkins had a hand also in producing the "Echo," the "Political Greeenhouse," and other satirical writings; and besides these there are a few short pieces that were written by him exclu-
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HISTORY OF WATERBURY.
sively, the most famous of which are his verses "on a patient killed by a cancer quack." He died April 14, 1801, having fallen a victim, it is said, to an improper remedy which he was led to try upon him- self through his dread of pulmonary disease. Trumbull outlived him thirty years.
The " Anarchiad " was aimed at those who were fomenting the political troubles of the time, and was afterwards believed to have had a very considerable influence in developing a love of union and in intimidating the promoters of discord and anarchy. Why it should have had so marked an effect, it is difficult for the modern reader to understand, for while he perceives, if he samples it, that it is an unusually correct piece of composition, he finds it very hard and tiresome reading, and wonders how his disorderly and rebel- lious ancestors could have waded through it. The following lines may serve as a sample of the more powerful passages in the poem:
Nor less abhorred the certain woe that waits The giddy rage of democratic states. Led by wild demagogues the factious crowd, Mean, fierce, imperious, insolent and loud, Nor fame nor wealth nor power nor system draws; They see no object and perceive no cause, But feel by turns in one disastrous hour The extremes of license and the extremes of power.
It will appear in the next chapter that Waterbury became the "home" of a weekly newspaper, and thus in a certain sense the foster-mother of newspaper poetry, in 1845. During the sixty years that elapsed between the culmination of the literary activity of the " Hartford wits" and this date, there were very few tokens in Waterbury of the existence of the poetic gift. Dr. Lemuel Hopkins had a second-cousin, Jesse Hopkins, a son of "Judge " Hopkins (page 793), who, it is said, "often wrote poetry with much taste and fluency;" but, like his more famous relative, he did not blossom into song until after he had left his native town. He was born in 1766 and removed from Waterbury in 1800. In Bronson's History and in Hough's "History of Jefferson County, N. Y.," a sufficient account of his life may be found, and some reference also to a work on Revolutionary matters which he published in 1828, entitled " The Patriot's Manual." The Rev. Dr. Tillotson Bronson belongs to the same category. It was after he had resigned the charge of St. John's parish, in 1806, that he became the editor of the Churchman's Magazine, and published in it various " short pieces of poetry." One, entitled " The Retrospect," which appeared in Volume V, describes the wild scenery surrounding his youthful home on the Naugatuck,
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POETS AND PROSE WRITERS.
at Jericho, and, "if it does not reach the highest standard of excel- lence, is superior to much that goes by the name of poetry."
Here as appropriately as anywhere may be introduced Dr. Bron- son's famous kinsman, A. Bronson Alcott. He was born, it is true, after Wolcott became incorporated as a separate town-his birth having occurred on November 29, 1799-and his birthplace on Spindle hill was on the Wolcott side of the boundary line. But the humble home from which in his early manhood he went forth to make his way in the world, was within Waterbury limits, and he was identified with Waterbury in many interesting and inti- mate ways through- out his life. He claimed Waterbury very positively as his own, and Waterbury need not hesitate to claim him as hers. And surely no other of her sons has secured so large recognition A. BRONSON ALCOTT'S SECOND HOME. as he in the realm of literature,-not so much, however, by virtue of what he has done in the walks of authorship, but because of his close associa- :ion with Emerson and other men of letters of the period to which le belonged. The events of his quiet life have gone on record in so many forms, and his biography has of late (1893) been so fully written by his friends, F. B. Sanborn and W. T. Harris, that it is needless to enter into biographical details here. Suffice it to say hat Mr. Alcott, although he compiled many volumes (seventy, it is aid) of newspaper cuttings and manuscript memoranda relating everything he had ever seen, heard or read about, came before le public as an author quite late in life, and was known as a prose riter rather than as a poet, and still more widely known as a con- ersationalist. He published a volume of "Sonnets and Canzonets," id after Emerson's death, "Ion, a Monody," which was read before e Concord School of Philosophy, July 22, 1882. There came from s pen also, in 1881, a volume "privately printed," entitled "New nnecticut : An Autobiographical Poem," the name being an alias r Spindle hill, and much of the matter (and many of the notes)
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HISTORY OF WATERBURY.
relating to his early life in Wolcott. Part First opens with the following description of his boyhood's home, the verse being per- haps more rough and unmusical than the average of what fills the volume :
Beneath the mountain's brow, the o'erhanging wood, The farmer's boy had here his humble birth, From towns remote, in rural neighborhood; His education at the homely hearth.
A highland district and a rugged soil, By rough roads crossed and dangerously steep; Mad River's mill-stream tumbles with turmoil O'er its rash cataract with furious leap.
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