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 38
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of Mr. and Mrs. B. H. Andrews, which was reproduced in full in the American. A similar service was rendered, in a poem quoted on page 301, at the sixtieth wedding anniversary of Mr. and Mrs. Aaron Benedict, and other poems have been read on special occasions as follows:
"In Memoriam: John Graeff Barton;" at the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Phrenocosmian society of the College of the City of New York, May 25, 1877.
" Robert Burns;" under the auspices of the Waterbury Caledonian club, Janu- ary 25, 1878.
" Creed and Conduct; a Scottish Parable;" on a similar occasion, in the Scottish dialect, January 24, 1879.
"Our Old Friends;" at an Alumni Dinner (College of the City of New York), February 2, 1886.
These are all of considerable length and have all appeared in print; but they are much less likely to be kept in sight by "posterity" than a poem of two stanzas which Dr. Anderson contributed in 1885 to the north side of the Waterbury Soldiers' monument, and which is included in Volume XI (page 336) of the "Library of American Literature." He has also given to the press numerous short poems, including a few hymns and several sonnets. The following is the first of a group of sonnets published in the Bermuda Royal Gazette in 1888, and reproduced in the American. It is entitled "Sunday on the South Shore":
Upon the jagged rocks we sat that day- That day so filled with sunshine and glad rest. The low hills, cedar-clad, stretched to the west;
The snow-white beach gleamed in the far-off spray. Below us rolled the sea in its wild way,
In changing greens and purples richly dressed. Wave upon wave, bedecked with foaming crest, Went sweeping past, to break within the bay. How long we sat !- while all low cares took flight- Gazing far out upon the boundless waste, Watching the surf, near by, upon the reef. What themes we touched, with little thought of haste ! And found-how soon ! how soon !- that life is brief. But ah ! such days fill life with heavenly light.
Another sonnet, entitled, "To her Eyebrow-and Beyond it," ap- peared on February 14, 1893:
" And then the lover, Sighing like furnace, with a woful ballad Made to his mistress' eyebrow."-As You Like It, ii. 7.
I give thee praise, O eyebrow arching finely- Each dark hair gently curving to its place; But praise far more those eyes that beam benignly Forth from their prison in a patient face.
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They beam benignly and anon flash keenly,
To match the changes of the thought within, Now filmed with bitter tears, now gazing queenly
On all the strife and sorrow that have been.
Beneath those brows and in those dark orbs glowing
I see a soul that hides itself apart,
Yet sometimes swift assurance gives of knowing The sweetest balm to heal a broken heart.
This subtle grace-whence comes it? or who taught it ? From heaven, I think, her childhood's angel brought it.
At the time of the appearance of "Two Victories," or soon after, a young man became a resident of Waterbury for a while, who, although only twenty-three years of age, had already been a poet and a soldier, and who has in recent years acquired distinction as a judge-namely, Augustus H. Fenn (see page 822). His achieve- ments on the battle field and in the field of law are well known; but the fact that his aspirations were once poetical is probably known to very few. The evidence, however, is unassailable; it has survived in the form of a little volume of sixty pages, with a white and gold cover, "published by the author " at "Plymouth, Conn., 1859," when the author was aged fifteen. Judge Fenn, in sending the writer a copy of it, expressed himself in the following pathetic terms:
I enclose the little pamphlet you asked to see. It is the last I have; and if, after you have satisfied your curiosity, you will kindly-destroy it, I shall be much obliged.
Among the various Waterbury productions which appeared be- tween 1870 and 1880, mention should be made of " Crowns of Victory," a poem of fitty-three stanzas read by Ellen I. W. Platt (Mrs. Wal- lace H. Camp) on graduating at Miss Earle's school; also of "lines " written in 1873 at C. N. Wayland's Little Pumpkin Island by E. W. J. (Mrs. Horace C. Johnson), who paints an alluring picture of an " island home":
Follow me to the tangled shade Where are blended odors of bay and pine, Where the sweet wild rose its home has made, Mingling its breath with the fragrant vine.
In the swinging hammock's dreamy rest, When the noontide sun burns bright and high, Rock like a bird in its wildwood nest, And watch the white-winged ships go by.
All these, however, are eclipsed by an anonymous poem entitled " Mary's Vision," given to the world in book form in 1874. The author's name does not appear in the volume, but it was written by a retiring and quiet old gentleman who was for many years a citi-
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zen of Waterbury-James M. Webb. Some months before it went to press, the writer of this, having occasion to call at Mr. Webb's, found him absent. "He has gone to New York," said his faithful wife, "to see about publishing his poem." When the question was asked, " Has he found a publisher ?" "No," she replied; "but," she added naïvely, "he has found some one who has promised to read it." Whether this promise was ever fulfilled, or whether any one except the proof-reader has ever read it in print we cannot say; but if not, it is not because in its 180 pages there are no wise thoughts or noble sentiments or poetic phrases. There are six books, con- taining altogether about 4500 lines, mostly rhymned pentameters, and they reveal throughout a correct ear, a quick sense of the music of words and unusual fluency of style. But there is no consecutive- ness in the thought, nor any "argument" which can be traced. The following lines from the description of Wisdom exhibit the author at his best:
She stood majestical, and reaching forth Lit up the spacious chambers of the north; Then stooping slowly to the violet meek Touched her light pencil to its little cheek. The sea-bird learned from her to poise his wing,
The little tenant of the grove to sing. She taught with patient care the insect throng To tone and modulate their evening song. Where'er she stood, upon the sea or land, Strange forms of beauty sprung beneath her hand, And down below, amid the fountains cold- The place of sapphires and the dust of gold- She passed, and jewels glittered in the gloom, Like lover's watch-light shining in the tomb.
In 1876 appeared a "poem" containing eleven stanzas of eight lines each, intended to be humorous, and entitled "Owed to Water- bury." The " nutmeg state" is described as
A state renowned for various commodities, All made to sell, necessities and oddities,
and Waterbury figures as
a very prosy place composed of houses, Factories and stores, and folks whose great ability Is only equalled by their rich fertility In ways and means of how to bring to pass, The getting of money by their thrift and-brass.
But unfortunately the writer had no sense of metre and not much "ear" for rhyme, and his eighty-eight lines are as "prosy" as the city of his muse's dream.
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HISTORY OF WATERBURY.
As the procession of poets passes before us, we are impressed by the prominence in it of the clergy. The Rev. G. A. Stark- weather published in the American of November 27, 1874, a poem on Thanksgiving Day, long enough to fill more than a column. The Rev. Frederic E. Snow, born and brought up in Waterbury, became settled in a pastorate in 1878, and so ceased to be a citizen of Waterbury, but did not cease to be a poet, and published various poems afterward, chiefly in the Hartford Courant. In July, 1878, the Rev. John Pegg, Jr., published a poem read at the crystal wed- · ding of Mr. and Mrs. J. G. Cutler, and a few days later sang the praises of High Rock Grove; and in October of the same year the death of Bishop Galberry called forth a memorial poem from the heart of "A Convent Pupil." But the most conspicuous place in the line of clerical bards is occupied by Dr. John G. Davenport, who was called to Waterbury in 1881, and who had already, before com- ing here, done considerable service as a poet of commemorative occasions. Reference to his centennial and bi-centennial poems has already been made on page 605. Mention should also be made of his Memorial Day contributions in 1884 and 1889, his poem relating to the Waterbury Soldiers' monument in 1885, his ode at the dedication of the Wayside Inn in 1894, which in its rhymes almost rivals Southey's "Lodore," and his sonnets. The following sonnet, entitled "May-time," appeared in the Congregationalist in May, 1892:
We wandered forth beneath the skies of May; The air was soft and sweet with breath of flowers; We trod the greensward fresh from balmy showers, And plucked the columbine's ethereal spray. Charmed with the genial hours we could but stray Amid the upland pastures where the bowers Their whispering ceased not, nor regarded ours, As, tremulous, they drank the perfect day! Within this Paradise, while flitting birds Chanted the Eden song of rapturous love, I freely offered her my heart, my life! And as I, breathless, waited for her words, She plucked an oaken wreath that hung above And crowned me victor in the fateful strife!
His sonnet in memory of Theodore Ives Driggs was published in the American of June 29, 1892:
He walked among us in the winning guise Of manhood pure and genial, strong and sweet, Treading the worthy path with eager feet- The glow of kindness in his deep-set eyes;
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Determination, calm and cool and wise, Finding on lip and brow expression meet; His soul with pulsing harmonies abeat; His life accordant with the rhythmic skies! The city yields him gratitude and praise. He served it well in many a place of trust, The impress of his hand 'twill ever bear.
A shadow falls along its crowded ways
As sinks his honored, noble head to dust. Tears for the dead! for stricken hearts a prayer!
Close after Dr. Davenport, in chronological order, comes a poem read at the dedication of the Masonic monument in Riverside ceme- tery, October 12, 1882. It was written by Henry C. Hayden, who was for a few years a resident of Waterbury. It was published in pamphlet form, with the addresses delivered at the dedication, but was afterward included in a volume of Mr. Hayden's poems (86 pages) printed in Boston in 1887. About this time appeared in the Philo Mirror, of Andover, Mass., a poem entitled, "Two Songs of the Sea," which was copied into the Waterbury Republican with strong words of praise. It was written by Herbert L. Grant, who grew up to manhood in Waterbury. The first "song" begins:
I am the sea, the bright blue sea, The entrancing, glancing, dancing sea. I laugh and sport with careless ease, As I toss my head to the freshening breeze.
The second presents a very different picture:
I am the sea, the gray old sea, The fierce, relentless, terrible sea.
Throughout the poem vigorous thought and feeling are combined with musical expression to an unusual extent,-so that the reader can hardly help wishing that the writer in his more mature years and amid the hurry of professional life might find opportunity to "try again." Another young man who grew up to manhood with us and then went away-Professor F. S. Goodrich-has ventured into the difficult field of hymn writing. His Advent hymn, " The Triumphal Entry," is worthy of notice. We may add to the list Alexander S. Gibson, who was the organist of the First church for nine years. One of his "slumber songs " was composed for a lullaby of his own, beginning, "The little birds are gone to rest." But the most productive of Waterbury verse-makers at the present time seems to be a young Scotchman, James C. Whiting, whose poems, serious or humorous, appear from time to time in our local papers.
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HISTORY OF WATERBURY.
To the latter class belongs his bicycle ballad, "Lord Lovell;" to the former his little poem, "To Scotland," on the death of Robert Louis Stevenson, which opens thus:
O stern auld mither Scotland, though far from thee he died, He loved thy rugged beauty, thine independent pride; He loved thy peaceful present, thy wild and gory past, And though it drove him from thy breast, he loved the northern blast.
There remains to be noticed a little group of "tuneful women," who came upon the stage some years later than Mrs. Fannie Seeley, already mentioned, who have done work which the editors of our great magazines have considered worthy of publication, and who give promise of yet better things to come. Perhaps the first of these to venture into print was Kate Woodward (now Mrs. Oscar W. Noble), a granddaughter of Dr. F. B. Woodward of Water- town. She was born in Wisconsin, but since 1883 has been an active and useful resident of Waterbury. Her "Defessus" appeared in the American in 1872; other verses at a still earlier date; and she has not yet laid aside her pen. Perhaps her most successful poem is that entitled "Love and I," which first appeared in a Florida newspaper, The Commercial. It is seldom one meets with more melodious verse:
All in the pleasant April morning, Just as the dawn tinged the eastern sky, 'Mid song of birds and scent of blossoms Waked we together, Love and I. I, in the flush of my strong young manhood Greeting with song the opening day; Love, the child, in his dimpled beauty Scattering flowers along my way. Oh, the joy of the April morning, Oh, the songs in the azure sky, As just in the rose-tints of the dawning Waked we together, Love and I.
Faint in the heat of the summer noon-tide, When drooped the blossoms, parched and dry, Up the slope of the dusty hillside Toiled we together, Love and I. I, grown older and sad, still upward Trod the pathway, with bleeding feet;
Love, the child, still cheered my journey Whispering words of comfort sweet,
Oh, the heat of the summer noon-tide, Oh, the glare of the pitiless sky, As up the slope of the dusty hillside Toiled we together, Love and I.
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Now in the peaceful autumn evening,
When sinks the sun in the crimson sky,
By the side of the darkly-flowing river Rest we together, Love and I.
I, gray-headed and spent and weary, Wait the call to the other shore;
Love the deathless, the child immortal, Whispers his words of cheer once more.
Oh, the peace of the autumn evening, Oh, the glow of the sunset sky,
As here, by the shore of Death's dark river Rest we together, Love and I.
A gift of a very different kind is revealed in her poem, "Pat's Opinion," which was read at one of the crowded meetings of the " Murphy campaign" in October, 1893, but the authorship of which was then unknown to the public.
The name which comes next is that of Mrs. Simeon G. Terry, a daughter of Charles I. Tremaine, so long a resident of the city. Since her return to Waterbury her pen has been rather inactive; but during her residence in Pittsfield, Mass., she contributed a number of pieces to the Pittsfield Sun and to some of the maga- zines, and collected a few of these into a booklet, entitled "Home Echoes for Christmas Firesides." Most of her poems are very unassuming expressions of the domestic affections. Of a different sort are "Trout Fishing," written for the Rod and Gun club of Pitts- field, and the verses to "Onota Lake," published in the Sun in 1880:
Violet and golden are the clouds That gather in the west, And not a ripple now disturbs Onota's peaceful breast.
The birds are twittering sleepily,- We hear no sound beside, As silently we dip our oars And over the waters glide.
Old Greylock, in the distance proud, Lifts up his noble crest, While golden beams from the setting sun Kindle with fire his breast.
The voices of the fishermen Ring out in shout and song;
The echoes answer cheerily From all the shore along.
Here, far away from noise and strife, The turmoil of the town,
We breathe a newer, fresher life And cares and troubles drown.
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HISTORY OF WATERBURY.
O fair Onota ! slumber on In peace and quiet there; Ere long the cruel Frost-king Will change thy face so fair.
But as the seasons roll, we know, The summer sun will shine, And thou wilt melt beneath his smile, A newer beauty thine.
In July, 1882, the American copied from Our Continent a humorous little poem, entitled, " Ma Fiancée," written by Antoinette Alcott Bassett. It relates how
All day my fair lady goes singing the praise Of the costumes and manners and old-fashioned ways Of the people who lived in colonial days,
and, after setting forth in detail her devotion to the past, concludes:
Still, if I must share her dear heart with another, 'Tis most reassuring to know that that other Is only the shade of her great-great-grandmother.
The "Venus of Milo" and others followed, exhibiting piquancy of thought or daintiness of phrase, or both; but we can reproduce here only one of them-the poem, " On the Edge of the Marsh," which appeared in Harper's Monthly for June, 1883:
IN NOVEMBER. Dead sienna and rusty gold Tell the year on the marsh is old. Blackened and bent, the sedges shrink Back from the sea-pool's frosty brink.
Low in the west a wind-cloud lies
Tossed and wild in the autumn skies,
Over the marshes, mournfully, Drifts the sound of the restless sea.
IN JUNE.
Fair and green is the marsh in June;
Wide and warm in the sunny noon. The flowering rushes fringe the pool With slender shadows, dim and cool.
From the low bushes "Bob White" calls; Into his nest a rose leaf falls; The blue-flag fades, and through the heat, Far off, the sea's faint pulses beat.
One more poet remains to be entered in our list-Mrs. Annie L. B. Brakenridge. She has been a resident of Waterbury for a dozen years or more, and amid the many cares of a busy housewife has
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found opportunity to embody sweet thoughts and noble aspirations in harmonious verse. We conclude our record with her little poem entitled, " My Guest," published in May, 1890, in Kate Field's Wash- . ington:
At early dawn I woke.
I heard a robin singing and looked out; Beneath my window where the roses bloomed, Love stood in blushing doubt.
His smile was very sweet, But yet his lips did not his name disclose.
I knew him not; and soon he went away, Bearing one crimson rose.
Beneath the high noontide I met him by the shady garden wall;
We spoke of many things-he clasped my hand- One kiss, and that was all.
Alas ! I knew him not, And yet he wore my rose upon his heart !
But still the perfume of his kiss remains,
Though I let Love depart.
The day wanes. Toward the west I lift my eyes-and lo ! he comes once more.
He comes a victor, for I know him now, And open wide my door.
My rose is now his sword, My will to conquer and my pride to slay;
But song and sunshine fill my happy heart, For Love has come to stay.
WATERBURY PROSE WRITERS.
So far as the present writer knows, the first printed book pro- duced by a Waterbury author was written by the Rev. Samuel Hopkins, the fifth son of John Hopkins, the miller. He was born in 1693, graduated at Yale college in 1718, and was ordained at West Springfield, Mass., in 1720. The fact that he was born in Waterbury and spent the first twenty-five years of his life here, justifies us, of course, in reckoning him among Waterbury authors. The full title of his book, which has in a way become famous because of its scarcity, as as follows:
Historical Memoirs, Relating to the Housatunnuk Indians: or, An Account of the Methods used, and Pains taken, for the Propagation of the Gospel among that Heathenish Tribe, and the Success thereof, under the Ministry of the late Rever- end Mr. John Sergeant: Together, With the Character of that eminently worthy Missionary; and an Address to the People of this Country, representing the very great Importance of attaching the Indians to their Interest, not only by treating
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HISTORY OF WATERBURY.
them justly and kindly, but by using proper Endeavors to settle Christianity among them. By Samuel Hopkins, A. M., Pastor of a Church in Springfield. Boston, N. E. S. Kneeland, 1753.
It is a volume of 188 pages, the preface of which is dated Novem- ber 14, 1752. The "address" included in it was reprinted in 1757 at Philadelphia, by Benjamin Franklin and D. Hall, in a pamphlet of twenty-seven pages, and again, the same year, with additions, in a larger form. Sabin, in his "Dictionary of Books relating to America," says of the "Memoirs" that it is "one of the rarest of works relating to New England, as it is one of the most intrinsic- ally valuable." Bronson in his History (p. 399) mentions that Mr. Hopkins is said to have written 1500 sermons, but nothing seems to have gone into print excepting his "Historical Memoirs." Sprague, in his "Annals of the American Pulpit" (Volume I, page 520), says of him:
I have read Mr. Hopkins's diary, as well as a number of his manuscript sermons, and have conversed with several persons whose early years were spent under his ministry; and from all that I have been able to gather I conclude that he must have been a man of excellent judgment, of fine moral qualities, an evangelical and instructive, but not very popular preacher, a faithful pastor, and held in high esti- mation by his brethren in the ministry and by the community at large.
On June 28, 1727, he married Esther, daughter of the Rev. Timothy Edwards and sister of President Edwards. He died suddenly in October, 1755, two years after the publication of his little book.
As we have seen, the first author in our list belonged to the ministry. The same is true of the second, and of several others. immediately following. We have already (on pages 829 and 830) referred to the election sermon preached in 1772, by the Rev. Mark Leavenworth, pastor of the First church, and have quoted from it his appeal in behalf of the better education of physicians. There is another published discourse of his, which appeared nearly twenty years earlier than this, bearing the following title:
A Sermon preached in Waterbury, January 20, 1754, Occasioned by the Death of Daniel Southmayd, Esq., Who departed this Life the 12th of the same Month. Boston: J. & T. Leverett, 1754.
Mr. Kingsbury, in his address at the celebration of the bi-centenary of the First church, referring to the fact that at the preaching of this sermon "the whole congregation were thrown into tears," remarks: "The sermon is still extant; but the excitement, the personal element and the sense of loss can not be reproduced. Like many another traditionary burst of eloquence, its power can only be estimated from our knowledge of its effect." *
* " The Churches of Mattatuck," p. 203.
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Five years after the publication of Mr. Leavenworth's sermon on Southmayd, that is, in 1759, there came from the press "a pamphlet of eighty pages" which attracted much attention because of the boldness of its theology, and which was the first of a long series of theological and other works written by the most famous man to whom Waterbury has given birth. The pamphlet was entitled:
Sin, through Divine Interposition, an Advantage to the Universe, and yet this no Excuse for Sin or Encouragement to it; Illustrated and Proved; and God's Wisdom and Holiness in the Permission of Sin, and that his Will herein is the same with his Revealed Will, Shown and Confirmed: in Three Sermons, from Rom. iii, 5, 6, 7, 8. By Samuel Hopkins, A. M., a Minister of the Gospel at Sheffield.
This was the Samuel Hopkins who afterwards became so widely known as a theologian and a philanthropist, the founder of the Hopkinsian school in theology and one of the leaders in the pro- tracted crusade against American slavery. He was a nephew of the Samuel Hopkins already mentioned and a son of Timothy Hopkins, and was born probably in a house that stood on the corner of East Main and Brook streets. His biography has already been given in our first volume. It may be added here that from his thirty-eighth year, when this treatise was issued, until his eighty-third year, in which he died, Dr. Hopkins did not cease to contribute to the press treatises on theology, volumes of sermons, discussions on slavery and miscellaneous essays-not to mention his correspondence, his autobiographical sketches and his editorial labors. His writings are so deficient in the graces of style that one is tempted to deny them a place in the category of literature; but as an author of power, courage and wide influence, he stands in the first rank of eighteenth century Americans. His collected "Works," published by the Doctrinal Tract and Book society of Boston in 1852, fill three octavo volumes of 2073 pages, and the edition of 1854 contains, in addition, a memoir of the author (266 pages), with many details in regard to his writings, by Professor Edwards A. Park. It is worth while, also, in this chapter on the place of Waterbury in literature, to remind the reader that it is this Dr. Samuel Hopkins who is the hero of Mrs. Stowe's novel, " The Minister's Wooing."
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