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 37
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Far up the slope a winding pathway leads The forest's edge along, the summit gains; Wide now around the opening prospect spreads, Ample reward for all the traveller's pains.
Within the circle of the blue sky's rim Peer forth in sight fair towns, tall steeples gleam; The wavering lines of Hancock's brook show dim; Yonder wild Naugatuck, his mother's stream.
Mountain magnificent! still unrenowned, Unsought for delicate air and lordly view; Fields, orchards, murmuring woods, valleys profound, All aptly named " Connecticut the New."
Southward the charming landscape fills the eye,- New Haven's beauteous shades and classic ground Behind old Carmel's hills, hidden yet nigh, Close harbored on Long Island's sandy sound.
Nearer, within short distance, there discern Potucko's woods, where once for snaring game The Indian fired his brushwood ring; in turn Himself was caught, and perished in the flame.
Not three full lifetimes now had passed away Since this wild woodland planted was and claimed By his robust forefathers, old and gray, -- Farms, orchards now, and "Farmingbury " named.
Throughout his life Mr. Alcott made frequent visits to his birth- place. On these pilgrimages he always stopped at Waterbury, and in more than one instance gave conversations before jWaterbury
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audiences upon some of his favorite themes. In 1873 his list of subjects was presented in a modest card of which the following is a . fac-simile :
VIr. Alcott's
onversations
AND
0 iscourses.
1873-4.
( Character.
١
Books and Reading.
IN PARLORS : - Culture.
IN SCHOOLS : < Behavior.
Social Life.
( Art of Teaching.
ON PLATFORMS :
New Eng. Authors. New Eng. Socialism.
IN PULPITS : Worship The Mysteries.
Concord, October, 1873.
From this he selected for his monologue on November 20 of that year the subject of "New England Authors." As late as 1882 he made an extended tour through the west, giving conversations in various places. Early in October he revisited once more his native hill-top, and later in the month composed one of his last sonnets, entitled " Wolcott Hill," which contains a touching reference to the impression produced by the changes of later years:
As I behold thee, cropt, deserted, bare, Thy forests felled to glut the furnace maw, My kindred mouldering 'neath those unkempt mounds,
Their fields by strangers claimed, uncouth and raw, While desolation drapes thy untilled grounds,- Yet breathest thou still of youth, and all I see Brings back afresh my childhood's prime to me.
Mr. Alcott survived an attack of apoplexy which occurred in the autumn of 1882, and lived until March 4, 1888. The companion son- het to that on Wolcott Hill, written the following week, is entitled ' Immortality." Not alone for the Shakesperean quality of the opening quatrain, but for its noble sentiment throughout, it is worthy of quotation here:
Welcome the tribute sometimes Fortune steals From youth's exchequer to enrich old age ! What ample pension freely forth she deals To gild with glory his gray equipage; Whilst o'er Time's track slow roll his chariot wheels, Then Heaven's gate enter. He, his heritage
A. Bronson alcott
(In his eighty-second year, travelling in Iowa, 1882.)
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Of life receiving, breaks the sacred seals,- High privilege sole given to saint and sage ! Life were but ashes, and one holocaust, If no fair future welcomed from its goal, No gate swung open to admit us,-lost Were all companionship, and blank the soul,- Ah, dead to all life holds and knows its own, If Youth survive not and uphold its throne.
It is well remembered that Mr. Alcott's daughter, Louisa, whose crown of authorship is so much brighter than his, survived him but a single day. They are buried in Sleepy Hollow cemetery in Concord, between the graves of Emerson and Thoreau and near the grave of Hawthorne.
The poetry thus far referred to, as distinguished from the pro- ducers of it, had its origin outside of Waterbury. An exhaustive treatment of the subject would involve at least a reference to one or two men in the earlier time who remained in their native town, and whose effusions, such as they are, originated within its bound- aries. Of these was David Harrison, son of Captain Aaron Harri- son of Farmingbury, whose account of Two Weddings, in twenty- three stanzas of doggerel, was published in the Waterbury American of May 23, 1884. A later candidate for poetic laurels is Samuel Hill (the father of our architect, Robert W. Hill) who was born on East Mountain in 1784, and of whom a brief sketch is given in Volume I. He published in the Columbian Register, of New Haven, certain "Lines on Affectation," which start off in this sprightly fashion:
Why, Affectation ! why this mock grimace ? Go, silly thing, and hide thy simpering face. Thy mimic prattle and thy mincing gait- All thy false, feeble fooleries, I hate. For thou art Folly's counterpart, and she Who is right foolish hath the better plea. Nature's true idiot I prefer to thee.
Another piece, entitled "Warning," has also been preserved.
From these two men, one of whom died in 1820 and the other in [834, we pass by a single step to men of our own time,-men, too, who have filled a large place in the business life of the community end of whom, when we consider their "environment," productive- tess in verse could hardly have been anticipated. The first of these s Israel Holmes, of whom so full an account is given in a preced- ng chapter (pages 321-326), where his "faculty for verse-making" as already been referred to. The earliest of his published pro- uctions that has come to our knowledge is a poem of 185 lines
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HISTORY OF WATERBURY.
which appeared in the Litchfield Enquirer of April 23, 1840, and was reprinted in the Waterbury American, November 12, 1884. It belongs very distinctly to the sphere of party politics, and is an amusing picture of the race for office between William Henry Harrison and Martin Van Buren. The opening lines give a fair impression of the spirit and workmanship of the whole:
Awake thou, my Muse, nor thy silence prolong, Let thy notes all be joyous, all cheerful thy song; Sing the race of two horses of bottom and speed, One the people's own horse, one of sub-treas'ry breed; Sing, too, of their riders,-rare riders were they, Each one had his notions, his skill at the play; Honest Bill they named this, Crafty John they called that, One a clean-colored nag, t'other black as your hat. Sly Matty the fox seized Crafty John's mane, And glorious Old Tip held Honest Bill's rein.
Mr. Holmes lived until 1874, and throughout his life indulged occasionally in the composition of verse. A poem of a hundred lines, entitled, " The Grave where at Last I shall Sleep," with an address. delivered at the City hall for the benefit of Riverside ceme- tery on May 7, 1870, was published in pamphlet form at that time, although written and read in public several years before. A poem on the silver wedding of Mr. and Mrs. Charles Benedict, in which Adam and Eve are prominent figures, appeared in the American of October 4, of the same year. A poem on the arrest of John Brown of Kansas appeared also in the American, concerning which David G. Porter, the author of the biographical sketch of Mr." Holmes, has said: "The prediction it contains of the complete over- throw of slavery-a prediction which few in that hour of the slave- holders' triumph would have ventured to make-shows that he possessed not only the poet's fervor but the prophet's faith." The following are the stanzas referred to:
And when they lead thee forth, John Brown, On thee to do their will, Let not despair thy spirit crush Nor doubt thy bosom chill.
For thy true love for freedom, Thy pity for the slave, Shall quenchless burn in earth and heaven, Though thou art in thy grave.
And sure as God's all-righteous throne Shall never cease to be, So sure shall every chain be broke And all the oppressed go free.
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It is interesting to find that Mr. Holmes's fondness for verse- making was transmitted to more than one of his children. His son, Colonel Charles E. L. Holmes (for whom see the military chapter), was the author of several war poems, more than one of which found its way into print, and he contributed to the volume " Lotus Leaves" (Boston, 1875) two sonnets, entitled "Sunrise " and "Sunset." His sister, Mrs. M. J. Francisco, has also appeared in print. A poem of 150 lines, read by her at the dinner of the alumna of Temple Grove seminary at Saratoga in 1887, is included in a pamphlet of twenty pages containing the proceedings on that occasion, published at Rutland, Vt .*
Another of the prominent men of Waterbury who ventured into verse in his youth is the Hon. F. J. Kingsbury (page 288). When he was a Junior in college he published in the Yale Literary Magazine for July, 1845 (Volume X), a "Mathematical Love Song," written some years before, in which much ingenuity is shown in weaving into humorous verse the phraseology of the higher mathematics. He begins:
The cone of my affections, love, Hath found a base in thee; The square of joy, if thou'dst complete, Add but thy smiles to me.
After thirty lines of this scientific love-making he exclaims at the end:
Oh thou perimeter of hope And segment of my soul!
* An account of the death of two of Mr. Holmes's children and a "hired man" in the fire which destroyed the old Judd house is given on page 111. In an article by C. U. C. Burton in the National Mag- azine for October, 1857 (pp. 290, 291), the following additional statement is made: "The citizens of Water- bury erected a monument upon the spot where the victims were interred in the old burial ground. The monument is inscribed on one side to John N. Tuttle, with the following lines from the pen of Mrs. Sigour- ney :
'Thou who yon sleeping babes to save Didst sink into a fiery grave, When the last flame with vengeance dread Hath on the pomp of heroes fed, A deed like this, undimmed and bright, Shall stand before the Judge's sight.'
The opposite side of the monument is inscribed to the lost children, with the following lines from the same gifted writer:
' The midnight fire was fierce and red. Sweet babes, that wrapped your sleeping bed, But He who oft with favoring ear Had bowed your early prayers to hear Received beyond this mortal shore The sister souls to part no more.'"
Mrs. Sigourney's contribution to the epitaph literature of Waterbury ought not to be overlooked in a chap- ter like this. In her " Letters of Life" (New York, 1866) Mrs. Sigourney makes an interesting reference to it (p. 371). The monument here described was removed to Riverside, and placed in the Holmes lot, long before the abandonment of the Grand street cemetery.
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HISTORY OF WATERBURY.
but sees fit to add in a postscript:
Should'st thou my proposition scorn, With hempen line I'll dangle, And howling winds shall waft the sighs Of thine own GEORGE TRIANGLE-Q. E. D.
In November of the same year he contributed to the same mag- azine (Volume XI) a poem entitled "The Lost Student," a tale of a youth whose
form grew dim and his eye grew wild, And the people thought him mad, Till, when one morning they wanted him, He was nowhere to be had.
But the dénouement must be sought for in the back number in which the story lies hidden. More remarkable than either of these is a poem entitled "Erratics," which appeared in the Editor's Table of the Yale " Lit." for August, 1845. It relates what happened to a well known person of a past generation in Waterbury, a "fat butcher" whose "name was Joe." The fellow was
droll as a brick, And as short and as thick, Or at any rate not at all tall, With a neck that grew tight To his shoulders and chin, Or a sort of indefinite crease in the skin,
and when suddenly surprised, had a curious way of exclaiming, "I" was thinking of that," "as if it had been for a week in his head." It seems that Joe and his companions, bent on a midnight spree, had resorted to the meeting-house to see how much of a stir could be produced in the quiet village by an alarm of fire. What hap- pened, and how Joe took it, is related as follows:
Well, Joe was ringing the bell. What a horrible fright, That night, The people all were in!
And the bell was a dinging And ringing And whirling and spinning, And Joe was laughing And shouting and grinning As if he would split his skin,- When, strange to relate, Round that thick neck of Joe's The rope took a turn
Just under his nose, And the bell kept whirling And the rope kept curling And lifted him off from his toes! Up, up went Joe To the belfry floor
(It was fifteen feet, or twenty, or more), Like an arrow shot out of a bow. Joe was frightened to death (As people say When they mean a man's senses Are all gone away,
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POETS AND PROSE WRITERS.
Which is almost as bad, you know). If he was n't hung It's clear he was swung; For Joe let go
Down, down with a dump And a bump, Or a thump, Like a lump
Of cold lead, came Joe.
Now, though Joe was quite fat,
'Twas a terrible spat;
Stuck out so straight,
But in less than a jiffy,
And the rope was stretched
In a terrible tiffy,
With all his weight.
Before you'd say "Scat "
But, all of a sudden
He had picked up his hat;
The rope uncurled,
And before all the fellows
Knew what he was at,
With his hands both behind,
He gave vent to his mind.
And for all the world Like a log, Or a hog That's been hung, Or a dog,
" By George, though," said Joe, "I was thinking of that."*
Mr. Kingsbury entered college (and wrote his mathematical love song) in 1842. The next year another Waterbury man graduated from Yale who secured for himself an almost national reputa- tion by virtue of a single contribution to the Literary Magazine. This was John Kendrick (see page 802), and his contribution was the famous macaronic poem, "The Mice and Felis; a Fable." It appeared in Volume VIII, in the Editor's Table for March, 1843, and is reproduced in this History of Waterbury almost as a matter of course:
Felis sedit by a hole, Intenta she cum omni soul, Prendere rats. Mice cucurrerunt over the floor, In'numero duo, tres, or more, Obliti cats.
Felis saw them oculis: " I'll have them," inquit she, " I guess, Dum ludunt." Tum illa crept toward the group, " Habeam," dixit, "good rat soup; Pingues sunt."
Mice continued all ludere, Intenti they in ludum vere Gaudentur. Tum rushed the felis on to them, Et tore them omnes limb from limb Violenter.
* " King Jowl suggested," the editor adds, "that as a treasury of all the metres invented, from Mr. Jubal to Mr. Poe, this poem should be inserted in the records, for the special accommodation of the rhym- ing portion of the club. This rare honor was conceded by a unanimous vote."
With both his hands, And his legs Like pegs
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HISTORY OF WATERBURY.
Mures omnes! nunc be shy, Et aurem praebe all mihi, Benigne. Si hoc facis, verbum sat, Avoid a devilish big tom cat, Studiose .*
Four years later Mr. Kendrick published in the New Haven Courier another macaronic poem, much longer than the first, entitled "Santa Anna et Americanus Dux." It is a poem of the Mexican war, and was so popular when it first appeared that it "was read on the floor of Congress by a representative from Virginia amid the uproarious laughter of the whole house." A "free history of the battle of Saltillo," it relates how
Santa Anna, antedictus, (Homo qui never yet has licked us) Multum jactatus that he could Split Taylor into kindling wood, Marched boldly up, confiding in These twenty thousand scamps to win The bloody pugnam and to crack Alike the head and hopes of " Zack."
But the Mexican leader labored under a wrong impression:
Jam little novit Santa Anna Of our brave boys who never ran a- Way from diabolus vetus ipse, Much less from such half-starved and tipsy, Swarthy, diminutive Mexicani, But always thrashed them, few or many. Apud Saltillum Taylor fuit. It seems that Santa Anna knew it, So led his copias straight up to it Et down on Taylor ille ruit.
The course of the battle is described, and the result of it, and the poem ends as follows:
Noster advice to Santa Anna Is that he go back to Havana, Or, if he's still resolved to wield His trenchant blade on battlefield, Jactare less, pugnare more, Or he'll get thrashed, as oft before.
* In Richard Grant White's edition of Burton's " Book Hunter " (New York, 1863) Mr. Kendrick's poem is reproduced with the remark that "perhaps this specimen of the style is good enough and not too well known to be quoted entire in illustration " of macaronics. White's version exhibits a number of variations, such as "intentus he" instead of "intenta she " and "ille " for "illa,"-these perhaps with reference to the "tom cat " at the end.
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POETS AND PROSE WRITERS.
We have spoken of the country newspaper as a foster-mother of poetry. The Waterbury American was at the outset a country news- paper, and the streamlet of verse which began to flow through it at an early date grew larger for a number of years. One of the earliest contributions we have culled from its columns is (to use King James's expression) "a counterblast against tobacco." It appeared in September, 1846,* and the first stanza will serve as a sample of all:
What is the leaf, so broad and green, In southern vales so often seen, Making the plains so poor and lean ? Tobacco.
In October, 1858, appeared a "sportive rhyme " touching a certain game of wicket, in which a large number of the men of Waterbury figure,-
Atwater, Abbott, Blakeslee the bonnet-maker, Benedict, Bailey, Burrall the undertaker, Carter, Castle, Church and Coe, Davis, Dikeman, Daniels, Milleaux,
and so on, down to the end of the alphabet. In April, 1861, Eliza- beth G. Barber published in the American a "lengthy " poem relating to the early life of Luther, entitled "Martin the Singer," and the edi- tor liked it so well that he said of the author, " We do not hesitate to say that she ranks among the highest class of American poetesses now before the public." A poem in blank verse, addressed "to the comet," and published in the American on August 2, 1861, bears the initials H. F. B., and reveals the fact that once, at least, our staid and scientific friend who presides at the Bronson library winged his flight recklessly amidst the stars. The war of the rebellion is recognized in the poem in passionate words:
Tell not to other spheres That ours is wrapped in battle smoke and drenched In crimson tides of brothers' blood; that right Still bleeds, and feels the hellish hate of wrong; That blood still taints the breeze and stains the sod.
* One of the earliest, if not the very earliest, of the New Year's addresses of the carrier of the American has survived, dated January 1, 1847. After a few introductory lines, it devotes an acrostic stanza to each of the months. The September stanza is one of the best:
"Shall war forever scourge the human race ? Eternal God, in mercy still its rage! Pale death stalks forth with unrelenting pace; There Res'ca de la Palma (in this age Ennobled by philanthropy) is red- Most sadly stained with,'streams of human gore.
Brave were the men whom gallant Taylor led! E'en though stern justice we may well deplore, Resounding Fame's loud trump is heard once more."
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HISTORY OF WATERBURY.
The war time, naturally enough, stirred a good many versifiers into song. In October, 1862, appeared "A Tribute," written by E. D. Root, "to the memory of Captain N. S. Manross of Forestville, who was killed in the late battle of Antietam," and in August, 1863, "A Tribute to the memory of Colonel J. L. Chatfield," came from the pen of " Fannie," beginning,
Weep for the hero, O daughter of tears, Who was laid low in the pride of his years.
Three months before, the same writer had contributed to the American some stanzas entitled, "A Voice from the Seat of War," so full of indignant loyalty that they prompted the gallant editor to say :
The felicitous muse of " Fannie," so much at home in the beautiful and tender, it will be seen by the following spirited lines is capable of uttering the most lofty sentiments of patriotic fervor. Such inspired sentiments from a young and diffi- dent maiden should put to shame the dastardly politicians who turn their backs upon this great contest which is to decide the fate of this imperilled Union for ages to come. May her appeal be answered, and victory triumph in the end.
The Fannie who is so unreservedly endorsed was Fannie A. Foote who afterward became Mrs. W. R. Seeley. Her first effusions were of a still earlier date than this, and she has continued to furnish contributions for the "poet's corner " of various newspapers down to the present day. At least a hundred poems, longer or shorter, have appeared in print, and there are probably twice as many more that have not seen the light. Some of Mrs. Seeley's later verses show a great advance upon her earlier work both in the quality of their thought and in their workmanship. Such stanzas as these, for example, entitled "Dog Days," published in the American in August, 1887, reveal a daintiness in the selection of words and a skill in the construction of rhymes which are quite unusual in news- paper verse:
By slow brook edges the tangled sedges In rude luxuriance grow, And bending over, they half way cover The shallow stream below; Which drawls and drones o'er the slimy stones With lazy, sluggish flow.
In wood and valley the damp fogs dally And steal the sunlight away; O'er dank pools weedy and marshes reedy They hang their curtains gray. Along the shallows and down the fallows They creep the livelong day.
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POETS AND PROSE WRITERS.
'Mong grasses tangled, by dewdrops spangled, A silvery web is seen; O'er the rocky cleft its delicate weft Is trailed like a fairy screen; Where the clambering vine doth its tendrils twine It mingles its misty sheen.
" The Belfry Clock " published about the same time in Mr. Satch- well's Brooklyn Observer, is very different from the other, belonging as it does to the didactic variety of verse, but is good of its kind. The last stanza is as follows:
The years will come and the years will go, And still from the belfry, high and gray, Our faithful monitor, true to its trust, Will count the hours as it does to-day,- Hours of labor and hours of loss, Hours of sunshine, of shadow and pain;
But those we dropped from neglectful hands We never can gather and clasp again.
Mrs. Seeley is also the author of six or seven stories that have appeared in the American and other literary papers.
During the war period the American became the receptacle of poems whose authorship was hidden (and remains so) under such musical pseudonyms as Claudine Clifton and Geraldine Lee and Jennie Juniper and Euclid, and under solitary initials, such as "G," which, by the way, is affixed to a marine piece entitled, " I'm Sail- ing with the Angels." David Conway in those days addressed five long stanzas to the Naugatuck river, in one of which he says:
From the heights over Derby thy course I've surveyed, or At morn I have looked from the hill Abrigador, And I saw thou wast-far as my vision could scan- An object of beauty, a blessing to man.
During the same period John L. Swift, also, who is still with us, con- tributed "A Tribute to the Housatonic "-one of numerous poems that have proceeded from his pen. His poem, " The Bells," pub- lished in June, 1880, goes over ground made familiar to us by Poe, but in a much less antic way. It was in this same period (as early as 1862), that William Patton began inserting in the American his versified advertisements, exhibiting therein unusual skill and fluency in verse-construction. An advertisement of his which appeared in 1878, entitled "Waterbury Then and Now," is worth quoting in part, alike for its form and its theme:
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HISTORY OF WATERBURY.
Less than one hundred years ago,
When times were dull and business slow,
And enterprises did not grow With such extreme rapidity,
This town was quite unknown to fame; Honor and wealth it could not claim,
Its site and even its very name Were shrouded in obscurity.
But now it shows another sight, With wealth and all its trophies bright;
Its business plans-gigantic, quite- Bespeak a great futurity.
Palatial mansions rise around, With wealth adorned, with splendor crowned, Churches and schools and halls abound, In multiform variety.
And mingling with the cheering sight, Made by successful effort bright, The Book Haunt sheds a stream of light Enhancing its prosperity.
There remain to be mentioned two poems of the war which appeared after its close. One was a humorous and satirical pro- duction read by Professor A. N. Lewis to a company of " fantastics" at the memorable Fourth of July celebration of 1865, published in pamphlet form, with John Kendrick's oration, and republished in the American on July 3, 1893. The other was a serious and ambi- - tious " effort," entitled " Two Victories; a New England Idyl," by the Rev. Joseph Anderson. This poem, of 536 lines in blank verse, was read before the Associate Alumni of the College of the City of New York at their anniversary, July 9, 1866, and read again at the Young Ladies' Collegiate institute (afterwards St. Margaret's school) on October 16 of the same year, and " published at the request of citizens of Waterbury who then heard it." They must have been of the same mind with the Waterbury correspondent of the Hartford Press, who said: "By this effort Mr. Anderson has shown himself worthy at least of hopeful consideration." Alimited edition of the poem, of twelve copies on heavy paper, appeared in book form, constituting probably the first bound volume of verse produced in Waterbury. Mr. Anderson had ventured into verse before this. His commencement oration was a " poem " on Beauty. He was a contributor in June, 1865, to the second number of Hours at Home (afterwards developed into the Century Magazine), and shortly after coming to Waterbury had read a poem at the golden wedding
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