USA > Vermont > Addison County > New Haven > New Haven, a rural historical town of Vermont > Part 1
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Gc 974.302 N88g 1606711
M.
REYNOLDS HISTORICAL GENEALOGY COLLECTION
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 01100 2935
NEW HAVEN
A RURAL HISTORICAL TOWN
OF VERMONT
ORATION BY
HON. J. B. GRINNELL
AND ADDRESSES
PRINTED BY REQUEST.
BURLINGTON FREE PRESS ASSOCIATION
1887
CORRESPONDENCE, ETC.
HISTORICAL DAY AND ADDRESS AT NEW HAVEN.
NEW HAVEN, Vt., Aug. 20, 1887.
Hon. J. B. GRINNELL :
Dear Sir : While you are east and setting up a memorial for ancestors in New Haven, your birth-place, permit us to request that you will consent to make an address upon the history of your town and give us such in- formation as you may possess with regard to those who have gone out of it. Will you please name a day ?
Respectfully yours,
W. P. NASH, W. B. HAGUE,
E. A. DOUD.
E. B. HICKOK,
H. C. ROSCOE, M. J. LANDON.
ROOKPORT, Mass., Aug. 26, 1887.
HON. WM. P. NASH, M. J. LANDON, REV. W. B. HAGUE, and others :
Gentlemen-Here, with my family by the ocean, I have received your complimentary invitation to address the people of New Haven, my native town. Near a half century passed has not diminished my love for the old home, nor has a busy life lessened my admiration for the sterling distin- guished men who have gone from our town. I cheerfully comply with your request, and leave to you the day, suggesting the 5th day of Septem- ter next.
Very truly yours, J. B. GRINNELL.
At the conclusion of the address Hon. M. J. Landon offered the following. Adopted : .
Resolved, That a vote of thanks be tendered to Hon. J. B. Grinnell by the people of New Haven, and visitors, for the pleasure afforded them in listening to his interesting and instructive address. May it stimulate us that are left, on whom the mantle falls to greater activity in maintaining all interests that our fathers loved best.
Resolved, That the committee of invitation request of Mr. Grinnell a copy of his address, and procure its publication.
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COMMEMORATIVE EXERCISES.
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The day was auspicious and a large assembly, including well known persons from the towns about, were present in the Congregational Church. The New Haven Brass Band volunteered fine music, and Hon. E. A. Doud, chosen to pre- side, called on Rev. W. B. Hague, who led in prayer.
Judge Doud said on introducing Mr. Grinnell : " By chance a few weeks since I met a prominent lawyer* of Chicago, himself a grandson of a chief executive of this State, a gentleman well versed in Vermont matters and in the his- tory of Vermont men. Among other suggestive things he said was this : Not long previous an eastern man said to him : 'Do Vermonters have much influence in Chicago ?' I replied, 'More than all the rest of New England. They are everywhere and at the front. The attorney who caught and caged the Anarchists is a Vermonter. A large percentage of the Judges of Chicago are Vermont born and Vermont educated ; and so in all departments.'" " And," continued the chairman, " what is true of Vermont in regard to Chicago, I suppose is true of all the great region we domin- ate 'the West.' And what is true of Vermont in general, is true of New Haven as a part thereof. Many have gone out from here who have left their impress upon those com- munities where they had lived. Occasionally they come back to us, to view the graves of their ancestors, perchance to renew the friendships of their childhood and see if the place of their birth keeps pace with the world at large. We have such one here to-day, and I take pleasure in introducing to you the Hon. J. B. Grinnell of Grinnell, Iowa, who will now address you."
*Hon. John Mattocks.
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ADDRESS OF HON. J. B. GRINNELL.
MR. PRESIDENT :
In the request to address the people of my native town, I acknowledge a pleasing compliment. To this home of my childhood, the graves of my fathers and filial devotion have made me an occasional pilgrim for near half a century, yet never have I met you under brighter skies, nor to find more affluent hospitality, which I seek to requite with more than formal compliments or with doubtful legends.
Were there ever fairer clouds hovering over the valleys, gilding the mountains, and distilling ample showers on the paths of the ploughmen, dropping fatness, maturing the oaten sheaves and golden corn, refreshing the meadows, crowding hay barns, enriching pastures from which come up with sweet breath, gentle kine and playful prancing steeds, seeming to shout, Aha ! Aha! in the challenge of high blood. It is only a reflection of the skill and care of their masters, the famed breeders and gallant yeomanry of Vermont. I look out on wonderful pear trees, loaded and suppliant, asking re- lief from their burdens, and the grape clusters and apples peep out from dense foliage to be tinted and mellowed with Autumn smiles in a profusion rarely equalled since the God- esses presided over this picturesque valley of Lake Cham- plain.
But the old home as I knew it and left it, is not here in primal rural aspect. Time's effacing fingers have smoothed the stumpy pastures, the powder blast and toil have moved or buried the rocks, to give a welcome to the mowing ma- chine. Axmen have denuded the hills of the beechen trees, so alluring to truant boys in search of nuts and squirrels for game, despoiling, too, the sugar orchards, the scene of festivi- ty and many a moonlight frolic. Only your limpid streams still smooth and sweep their beds, dashing on to their mo- thers ; but with the fresher memories of the father of waters and the roar of the Oregon sweeping on to the ocean these rills are like the plaintive lullabys of our mothers over the
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cradle of infancy. Your hills and mountains, infinite barriers to our child's vision, so steep and vast, seem with contracting areas and fraternal loves nodding salutations with coquetting smiles on their hoary brows, moving near to each other under the flitting shadows, alas ! to remind,
" What shadows we are and what shadows we pursue."
But, " the fathers, where are they ?" Their children, with whom we played, and bade our adieus, launching out on the current of life ? It is not an illusion of the inverted lens ; a gloomy fancy; rather a sad reflection-they are not here ; their race is run. I walk the streets where, a half century agone, I knew every man, boisterous boy and coy maiden, now to meet the curious stare, without mutual recognition, and only in your cemeteries, far outnumbering in the dead the roll of the living, do I recall on the tombstone the endeared, and commune with spirits that once spoke from mortal clay. They shall never be forgotten, who under the kind ministries of school, church and home, many of the number finding early graves, festooned with flowers and moistened with the tears of affection, as they entered on that last journey, buoyant with immortal hope.
It was here my heart leaped up when I beheld a rain- bow in the sky, tinted and gorgeous as in no other lands. " So was it when a child." So is it now a man, and who but a dullard, alien to romance, devoid of filial affection, finds no pleasure in the study of the native grandeur of his old home, its history, growth and sons. Our pioneer fathers banished solitudes, the wilderness was glad for their presence, sweep- ing the rude harp of minstrelsy for their children in fond memories and moving to gratitude for exemption from their severe toil and great privations known to our fathers, the New Haven pioneers of nearly one hundred years ago. Let us blend the memories of youth, the struggles begotten of courage and high devotion, with the story of our time. We shall find it rich in contributions to State pride and grand National epochs, as our mountain streamlets have swelled the classic Hudson in its flow and deepened the waters of
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Lake Champlain, ever historic in the blending memories of our ancestry, who voyaged with the pleasures of gondoliers, and for our homes won the prowess of sailors and the fame of patriots.
WHAT OF OUR NEW HAVEN ?
It was a well chosen grant of about twenty-five thousand acres, from Gov. Wentworth of New Hampshire, obtained by John Evarts and others of Salisbury, Connecticut, that noted home of two of our earlier governors, Galusha and Chittenden, also Chipman, our first chief justice. It was one hundred and twenty-five years ago, and its territory has been curtailed to make a city of Vergennes, to give a slice to Wey- bridge, and even more, that Waltham might become a town. I knew not the civil engineer competent to its exact survey, for I remember as a boy carrying the chain to find " lost pitches " in the swamps. It has a leg in shape, a notch, a gore, mountain cliff and an ever-changing, meandering river boundary, but not hindering its growth of men ; stalwarts who immigrated near a century ago, from Connecticut and Massa- chusetts, with electric affinities, born of education and princi- ple, worthy founders of society and defenders of right, exemplars of religion, whereof they may boast who would make more lustrous the fame of their ancestry.
This was a stately forest, and a long remove from lake or waterfall, where this street was laid, and there came iso- lation and privations, gaunt wolves howling ; and only the skill of the fisherman and fine aim of the hunter brought food, on meagre crops of wheat and corn raised from the narrow clearing. Then these lands awakened the cupidity of foes to be met and circumvented, more formidable than the reptiles from the rocks, the scourges of flocks, or the black bears stealthily shouldering a pig or a calf, ready for a hug on pro- vocation by a pursuer.
It is no figure of speech, " as the mountains were round about Jerusalem," so were they round about our New Haven home. Look out on Bristol bold rocks, Lincoln steeps ; the classic Hog's Back, Buck and Snake, all mountains suggestive
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of deer haunts, the home of reptillian races, or of tall look- out trees, where burned the watch fires of our enemies long before the revolution, and down to our acknowledged sister- hood, in 1891, as a State. I name these facts as the indices ; more, the promoters of that stability and sagacity which were born of adversity and ambition which throbs in swollen veins and livid currents down to the third and fourth generation.
There was the ambition of New Hampshire on the east, which sought to win by bribes and diplomacy, west to the summit of the Green Mountains. New York with cupidity and threats proffered gold, and sent the courtly Patroons, with unavailing blandishments, to return with spies carrying the "beech seal," another name for the stripes of our modern Judge Lynch, when claim jumping and mock elections found no statutory defence.
Long baffled, our neighbors sent the stealthy Indian to frighten unprotected mothers, returning only to find stock killed and cabins in ruins. Mercenary tories were the spies of the day, cojoling the poor with gold, and alluring many to Canada as the only hope of peace .*
Such were the enemies, a triumvirate-white neighbors on our borders, savages, and a more dreaded foe, the tories, plying their arts on this very spot in the courtship of the daughters and the proffer of pensions and high honors in reward for allegiance to the King. Truly they were the days of winnowing the wheat from the chaff, and the dropping of seed corn on these farms, where manhood passed through the fiery alembic and came forth to extol manliness, and also cul- tivate those rare feminine graces ever the pledge and prom- ise of feminine virtues becoming bold decendants. The defiances of Ethan Allen in his words and life become a study, for he trod this " bay path of the wilderness," and his
* It is a fact of history that one Sherwood, -I trust he has no blood here,-became possessed of early town records, and by tradition buried them on the Elias Bottom farm under an iron kettle, and there is only the prospect of recovery of that of the long concealed treasures of Capt. Kidd. He fled to Canada, and was pensioned by the crown, but that never con- doned nor was even an excuse for his treachery.
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bronze statue in Burlington overlooks the soil he gallantly defended, inspiring the challenge in verse,
" Come York or come Hampshire, come traitors and kna ves, If you rule o'er our land ye shall rule o'er our graves ; Our vow is recorded, our banner unfurled,
In the name of Vermont, we defy the world !"
Let me drop generalization for a specific mention of the
PIONEER FATHERS AND THE CHILDREN.
It was Lord Macauley who wrote : " A people taking no pride in the achievements of remote ancestors will never have anything worthy to remember by remote decendants."
Thus to minister to a laudable pride, and as an incen- tive to worthy endeavor, I offer an opinion, rather than make a challenge, that no Town known in our annals, distant from the sea, beyond the shadow of college halls, without the aid of official patronage or rich legacies, numbering 1,300 people, has in the first century of its career educated firmer or more intelligent citizens-more justly proud of the splendid achievements and beneficent service of their chil- dren.
I find all progress related to, and men of mark revolving like satelites around the minister of the parish in whose creed there has been an assent, and in life a forceful inspir- ing example. The first minister accepted as the device of honest poverty a salary voted in this language : " Five dol- lars a Sabbath, one-fourth cash in the Spring and three- fourths cattle in the Fall." The second, Rev. Josiah Hopkins, lived in the service 21 years, closing his labors in 1829. When the church was without stoves, and had for years been left unfinished, his sermon on " dwelling in ceiled houses" while the Lord's was neglected, brought early a decoration. His theology was gained, a student of the celebrated mulatto divine, Rev. Lemuel Haynes, and was preached for 20 years in Auburn, New York, to a large church, in the shadow of a Theological seminary, ending his days at Geneva, N. Y., at four score years, in 1853.
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Mr. Hopkins was an entertaining story-teller, profound in the pulpit, devout, inured to farm labor, in boyhood, and on his settlement here craved the use of land for exercise and to lighten the burdens of the parish. It was my grand- father, Reuben Grinnell, who made the generous sacrifice of a tract of 20 acres from the home farm, on which was built the neat house kept now in good order by the owner, H. C. Conant. This home became the seat of a Theological school, the only one in Vermont, and that over an unfinished wood- shed. But the rude structure was no indication of the depth of the theology taught nor the eminence attained by the pupils. The fathers will recall in these names, many who sang in the choir, were school teachers, exhorters, and by whose longer service and the sterling virtues of their chil- dren, the Reverends have left fragrant memories. These was S. L. Herrick, B. F. Wild, Dana Lamb, T. M. Hopkins, Smith, Tuttle, Messer, Brown, Coan, Pettibone, Boyington and Rev. John Ingersoll-the latter father of the celebrated Robt. G. Ingersoll, who by the latest advices did not gain, and does not charge his theology to tradition, heredity or the sorcery of imputation.
Pausing in this vein of biography, at the risk of seeming egotism, I mention the gratitude of Dr. Hopkins for his home and the memory of my father, 57 years deceased ; that 40 years after he became a New Haven land-owner, he in- vited a grandson, myself, to be his guest as a Theological student at his home in Auburn, N. Y. After the last fare- well of 40 years, I would offer a tribute to his virtues by in- cident and story cognate to our early novel history. There was the donation visit of 1829, really a frolic, one of the most novel on record, in the interest of a minister who was " lost in his books." On Saturday P. M., the wife of Dea. Tripp called on the family, to find a cold room in mid-winter, there- upon Mrs. Hopkins informed the Doctor in his study over the wood-shed, that there was no wood in the house, to gain the reply, " neither is there outside, and Sunday is upon us." That was an announcement-a bee in the bonnet of the
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deacon's wife that buzzed over Sunday, bringing out a cap- tain for a frolic, enjoining a surprise with a load of wood from every parishioner, fowls plucked and in feathers, pork and beef, in halves and quarters, urging a contribution from every heated oven, and the presence of matrons and young maidens. The surprise was only more perfect than the car- nival was gay, in a house overflowing with gifts and guests, the tea cup stimulating within, and the flask, bottle and the jug without, up to the going down of thesun, when the house became too narrow for the provisions, and the wood yard and garden too small for the loads of maple and beech, from the trees filled from the parish lot and those gained by trespass over the fence from the Grinnell woods. Within the house there was reported seven cheese tubs of cake and pastry, and thirteen quarters of beef; and the greater curiosity, a wood pile not fully worked up and burned for ten years. It was the scene of hilarious conviviality and on the departure of the guests the minister was called on for a speech, which he gave from the top of the wood-pile, as recalled after twenty-five years.
" Friends, I am cornered, not 'corned,' but crippled in my labors, ruined as to my garden, covered with logs from the sugar orchard. If you wish me to save you from a suit for trespass on the Grinnell woods, over the fence, I will make your plea-' the deep snow covered fences.' Do you think I can live long enough to burn up this wood pile? It will be only by a providential interposition and years far into do- tage. I was a chopper in my day, but it calls out the per- spiration to think of these huge logs. Can I ask a favor that you relieve the house by taking back or to your neighbors loads of provisions more than my horse can draw ?" The crowd shouted, "No, No!" " Then if I am to distribute, you may understand that preaching in the parish is suspended until spring."
Great red letter day for the parish, but the loud calls from other churches with friction growing out of the Masonic excitement, led to a dismissal for Auburn, with warm council- praise and sorrow in the town.
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In this connection, while the minister maintained neu- trality on the exciting topic, one party complained that the governor was often forgotten in the Sunday prayer. This the doctor sought to remedy, by asking wisdom for the executive, in a prayer for "O, Lord, thou knowest that he needs it," which was construed to be anything but a paren- thetic remark-rather an offensive declaration as to the ignor- ance of the governor, however well meant, and was the occasion of heated discussion and unsettling the pastor.
Shall I recite the wolf hunt story !
In the early days depredations on the flocks aroused the neighborhood for a hunt, if the invaders did not early escape to their lairs. These occasions were usually in the line of special providence which often makes doctors busy Sunday, and the day of great battles. At this time the men of the con- gregation were missing, and the excitement of the ring near withdrew a majority of the women, and what was there but for the minister to follow; and having some repute as a good shot, a youngster in line passed his gun, and as he told it, " the wolf coming in sight, the parson shut his eyes, saying, ' Heaven direct the shot" then aimed, but he didn't, firing, touch a hair." One questioning the propriety of this clerical episode, was answered, "My firing was as thoughtless as the shot was harmless, and I was disposed to fall back on the New Haven boy, who, a few years after, being questioned about fishing in the trout streams, said it was 'poor, for he was down yesterday.' What, Sunday ? Yes, but didn't stay long, and he cut short my gentle reproof in a boyish rebuff, 'guess I didn't break Sunday much, didn't cotch nothing,' which is akin to my apology. I neither loaded a gun nor killed anything, but it was my last appearance in a wolf hunt."
The traditional jug story I learned from original sources given in gleeful recollection. On the temperance awakening, when the distillery under the hill was a large and prosperous institution, the hard drinkers distrusted the strict abstinence of the zealous reformers, including the minister. They would " all take it in secret behind the door," and to confirm
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the opinion one of the thirsty doubters met Mr. Hopkins, and espying a brown jug in the parson's wagon, himself on the way for a dram, said he would say nothing about it, for the best of people would have it in the house, and most would drink on the sly. The jug was just filled with new yeast-" emptings" from the still house, and there was a suggestion in a sportive mood, that as we were under the hill there would be no scandal in taking a drink, an opinion which was quite mutual, and the thirsty customer fixed his lips for a full hasty dram, his companion holding up the jug at a proper angle, to conceal the contents and insure a full delivery on the drawing of the plug, which saturated the person of his strangled victim, who found a swift emetic rather than a pleasing elixir ; one of those practical severe jokes which few could better devise and none more heartily enjoy than the dignified doctor, who said the ludicrous treatment of his parishioner and patient was salutary, never afterwards being accused of drinking behind the door.
The large and stable society and church which a great mind had cultured and theological students greatly stimulated in growth, easily obtained eminent successors, preachers of ability, including Silas Bingham, the first pastor, followed by Josiah Hopkins, Joel Fisk, Enoch Mead, James Meacham, afterwards professor in Middlebury College, and member of Congress, Samuel Hurlburt, C. B. Hurlburt, S. Knowlton, C. S. Sargent, Rev. W. B. Hague, expectante, soon to be installed.
Liberal were the devices and broad the plans of our fathers. Huge barns, broad orchards, spacious burying lots, a great church, ample in the "sheep pen " sittings for all the people, and roomy houses were in order for the expectant. desire for large families and a fashion approved by an in- scrutable, rather than by later opinion, an unscrupulous providence.
The time came when the nest was overcrowded, a push- ing out from the small farms was a necessity, but with the paternal blessing ; there were rugged virtues, ambition and the forces found in noble blood, now known in humble life,
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and felt in many high posts of honor and service. Repeating the challenge for our town, I indulge in a
MENTION OF NAMES.
The first may embrace a class, if not eminent saints-par- don the paradox-rather lovely sinners. New England has furnished but one citizen knighted by a British sovereign, that is the late president of the Atlantic Cable Company, who endowed your Mills School, the lamented Sir Curtis Lampson, of London, a native of New Haven.
The distinguished enterprise in building more miles of railway than any American is reserved for a late citizen of New Haven, Hon. R. B. Langdon of Minneapolis.
That man in Chicago, who has by his steam elevator tolled and stored more grain for twenty years than all the consumption of Vermont for that period, in tribute to a rare person, an honest miller, is Hiram Wheeler, proud of his New Haven birth.
It was reserved for years, and not long ago, for another New Haven boy to sell annually groceries, not intoxicants, equal to the consumption of the entire popula- tion of Vermont, Wm. M. Hoyt of Chicago, whose wife honors her Phelps and Landon blood.
That corporate wonder of the West, the North Western Insurance Company, has a Bank President for its Treasurer, who survived the New Haven flood, and one of her fortunate sons who daily turns his key on over twenty millions of cash and securities, equal to the banking capital and saving depo- sits of the State of Vermont-Charles D. Nash of Milwaukee.
Another favorite son, philanthropist, savant and gentleman, the companion around the world of President Fillmore, the only New Haven boy presented to the Pope at Rome, and waving the salutation by a kiss of the toe of his Holiness- was Elam R. Jewett of Buffalo. For another, thirty years in the consular service in Russia, allied to the nobility, of a Muscovite wife there, is the Middlebury scholar and our townsman, Timothy C. Smith. Nearer and better known, one not forgotten in the pride I cherish for a young district
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school pupil, ever equal to the occasion, financier, law maker, an Alumnus and Treasurer of Middlebury College, is Hon. L. D. Eldridge. He is pleasingly associated with the boy of ten years who was to be one of the young orators " on the last school day." The remaining actors were absent from fright or allured by sports, and I found Master Eldridge, " the boy father of the man," solus, and with eloquent apt- ness declaiming : "The boy stood on the burning deck whence all but him had fled," and knowing the boy, confi- dently predict he will never hie to Canada, nor vacate his trust so long as he can mine in your plethoric pockets, nor fail to linger at the homes where therein is a ray of hope in bequest or codicil for the grand historic college of his love. I could too give you the name ofthe son of one of your clergy- man, an eminent Banker, if permitted, bravest on a theatre of Bulls and Bears in New York. Then another minister's son, whom I remember by the beauty of his mother, Senator James Mead of Kansas, quite too exalted in the state of his adoption to be reached by praise of mine.
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