little provincial capital a brilliant intellectual centre, and an
important focus of political influence. The original members of the
association or club were, Dr. Lemuel Hopkins, John Trumbull, Joel
Barlow, and David Humphreys. We may call it remarkable, because, at that
time, when Boston was as barren of literary talent as she has since been
prolific, this little town of three thousand inhabitants boasted at
least four poets who had gained a national reputation. Hopkins was born
in Waterbury, Connecticut, in 1750, was a distinguished physician, and
one of the founders of the Connecticut Medical Society. He died in
Hartford in 1801, and his grave may be seen in the old Center
burying-ground. No edition of his collected poems has ever been
published. They consisted in great part of his contributions to the
_Anarchiad_, the _Political Greenhouse_, and the _Echo_, which were
serial satires in verse by the Hartford Wits. The _Anarchiad_ resembled
the _Rolliad_ of Frere and Canning, and with the _Echo_ contained a
series of social and political satires. Hartford at this time, became
and for twenty years thereafter was, the literary headquarters of the
Federalist or Conservative party, which favored a strong, general
government, and opposed French democracy. In consequence, as party
feeling ran so high, it became a mark for obloquy and vituperation among
the Jeffersonians, which gave it an honorable resemblance to Boston in
the antislavery times.
David Humphreys was born in Derby, Connecticut, in 1753, served
honorably during the Revolution, and had the distinction of being
Washington’s aid-de-camp. He also held, after the war, the position of
secretary to the commissioners--Franklin, Jefferson, and
Adams--appointed to negotiate treaties of commerce with various European
powers. Joel Barlow is perhaps the best known of any of the Wits, and
but a small portion of his career was passed in Hartford. He took up his
residence in our town in 1782, just after leaving the army. He was then
engaged in writing his best known poem, the epic _Vision of Columbus_,
but he did much other literary work, and was also the editor of a weekly
newspaper, called _The American Mercury_, for which he wrote many
essays, said to be the precursors of the modern editorial. In 1787, he
completed the _Vision of Columbus_, and it was published by subscription
and dedicated to Louis XVI., King of France. During the next year,
1788, Barlow left Hartford to go abroad; he remained in Europe for
seventeen years, and when he returned took up his residence in
Washington. Finally, going abroad as Ambassador to France, he died in
Poland, while following Napoleon then engaged in his Russian campaign.
Richard Alsop and Theodore Dwight, Senior, were admitted into the
coterie of the Hartford Wits, and wrote much of the _Echo_, and a few
lines in this series were also contributed by Drs. Mason F. Cogswell and
Elihu H. Smith. The _Echo_ was a sort of Yankee _Dunciad_. It contained
many local allusions, as to the Blue Laws, the Windham Frogs, etc., and
was also the vehicle of much political satire on the Democrats. Theodore
Dwight, one of the Echo poets, was editor of the _Connecticut Mirror_,
and also secretary of the famous Hartford Convention.
No political subject has ever been the theme of more gross
misrepresentation or more constant reproach than the assembly of
delegates from the New England States which met at Hartford in December,
1814. After the war of 1812 had continued two years, our public affairs
were in a deplorable condition. The army intended for defending the
sea-coast had been sent to the borders to attack Canada; a British
squadron was lying in the Sound to blockade the harbors on the
Connecticut coast, and to intercept our coasting trade; the banks, south
of New England, had suspended the payment of specie; our shipping lay in
our harbors, embargoed, dismantled, and perishing; the Treasury of the
United States was nearly exhausted, and a general disheartenment
prevailed throughout the country. In this situation of affairs a number
of gentlemen in Massachusetts believed that a convention of prominent
men might do good. Many petitions from numerous towns in Massachusetts
were received, stating the sufferings of the country in consequence of
the embargo and the war, and Governor Strong summoned a special meeting
of the Massachusetts Legislature in October, 1814, when a resolution was
passed appointing delegates to a convention to be held in Hartford. The
Connecticut Legislature was in session at the same time, and received a
communication from the Massachusetts body, requesting them to join in
appointing delegates to the convention. This they did, and seven
[Illustration: OLD STATE HOUSE,
NOW CITY HALL.]
delegates were sent. On December 15, 1814, the convention, numbering
twenty-six delegates, representing Massachusetts, New Hampshire,
Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Vermont, met in the council chamber of
the State House, now the City Hall of Hartford. Among the delegates were
men of such assured position as Harrison Gray Otis, George Cabot,
William Prescott, the father of the historian, and Stephen Longfellow,
the father of the poet, from Massachusetts; Chauncey Goodrich, Governor
John Treadwell, Roger Minot Sherman, and James Hillhouse, of
Connecticut. Their deliberations continued for three weeks, and their
sittings were held with closed doors, a fact which was brought up
against them by their political adversaries as evidence of dark and
nefarious designs. During the sessions a small body of recruits for the
army, then in Hartford, were paraded in a threatening manner by the
officer in command. The proceedings resulted in the adoption of a report
and the passage of resolutions recommending amendments to the
Constitution of the United States. Among the recommendations was one
proposing that representative and direct taxation should be apportioned
according to the respective numbers of free persons in the States,
excluding slaves and Indians. This document was immediately published,
and was read with great eagerness. Those who expected to discover
sentiments of a seditious and treasonable nature were disappointed. The
report expressed an ardent attachment to the integrity of the republic,
and its sentiments were liberal and patriotic. A short time after the
publication of this document the news of the declaration of peace was
received. The people, without waiting to hear the provisions of the
treaty, showed their joy by bonfires and illuminations,--a striking
commentary upon the character of the war and the general feeling about
it. The war being over, the work of the Hartford Convention was no
longer needed, and the jarring interests of the State and Federal
governments were harmonized.
During the last century the chief business of Hartford was the trade
with the West Indies. There was also some trafficking with Ireland and
with Lisbon, timber being exported to the first named, and fish to the
latter. From 1750 to 1830, Hartford not only imported goods from the
West Indies, but was also a distributing centre for the surrounding
country, and for the region that stretches northward to the sources of
the Connecticut. During the first thirty years of this century the
wharves on the river bank were bustling with traffic and lined with
vessels, often three or four rows deep. Large warehouses extended along
the banks of the river, where beef and pork were packed for the export
trade, great quantities being brought down the river in brine, and
inspected and repacked here. The numerous scows and flat-boats in which
the up-river trade was carried on, were loaded on their return voyage
with sugar, rum, molasses, coffee, salt and other West Indian
commodities. S. G. Goodrich, in his _Recollections of a Lifetime_,
describes the city as a centre of the West India trade, and as smelling
of rum and molasses. The inland transportation of goods was carried on
by lines of freight-wagons running to Westfield, Granby, Monson,
Brimfield, Norfolk, Canaan, and the towns in Berkshire County. There
were also packet lines running to Boston, New York, Albany, Nantucket,
Baltimore, Norfolk, and Richmond. But the building of the Boston and
Albany, and of the New York and New Haven railroads cut off gradually
all the inland and up-river commerce from Hartford, and diverted trade
into other directions. This obliged the merchants of Hartford to turn
their energies to other lines of business.
One of the most successful of these, and one in which Hartford now holds
a unique position, is the insurance business. Nowhere else has the
business of fire insurance reached such magnitude as in Hartford. The
aggregate capital of the six fire insurance companies in the city is
$10,250,000, which exceeds one quarter of the capital of all the fire
companies in the country. It is supposed that the business began in
marine underwriting, as Hartford formerly had such large shipping
interests and so many vessels concerned in trade with the West Indies.
An insurance office was opened in Wethersfield in 1777 by Barnabas Dean,
presumably for shipping. Fire insurance policies were issued in 1794,
and in 1795 a company was formed for the purpose of underwriting on
“vessels, stock, merchandize, etc.” In 1810 the oldest of the present
Hartford fire insurance companies was formed,--the Hartford, with a
capital of $150,000. All the early insurance companies made the mistake
of dividing profits in periods of prosperity, reserving little or
nothing for a day of adversity. But the Hartford met with a severe
lesson in December, 1835, when the great fire in New York swept away the
capital of the company. All losses were paid in full, and the confidence
inspired by this policy increased the business of the company fivefold.
In 1871 the great Chicago fire endangered the existence of the strongest
Hartford companies, and five of them were forced to discontinue. But the
able management of the four that paid their losses and continued to do
business has given the Hartford companies a good reputation. The life
insurance business was also early organized in Hartford, which was the
earliest place, except the already great cities of New York, Boston, and
Philadelphia, to establish this system firmly, and several of the
Hartford companies rank among the leading institutions in this business
in the country. In Hartford was founded the first accident insurance
company organized in America.
Hartford possesses a number of well-known educational and philanthropic
institutions,--Trinity College; the Wadsworth Athenæum, containing the
Watkinson Library of Reference, the Connecticut Historical Society’s
collections, the picture gallery and public library; the Theological
Seminary, the School for the Deaf, the Retreat for the Insane; all
founded in the first half of this century.
First, chronologically, comes “The American Asylum for the Education and
Instruction of Deaf and Dumb Persons,” the mother-school of all similar
institutions in this country. In 1887, when the recurring years brought
about the one hundredth anniversary of the birth of Thomas Hopkins
Gallaudet, the founder of this school for the deaf, the day was
celebrated by all deaf-mutes throughout the United States, and
commemorated by public services and general festivities. In a building
on Main Street, now constituting the southern end of the City Hotel, the
American Asylum gathered its first seven pupils, April 15, 1817. The
starting-point of the enterprise was the eager desire of Dr. Mason F.
Cogswell to secure an education for his daughter, Alice, a deaf-mute,
whose infirmity was caused by an attack of spotted fever. In 1815,
several prominent gentlemen in Hartford took steps towards the
organization of such a school at the instance of Dr. Cogswell, and
decided to send the Rev. T. H. Gallaudet, then just out of the Andover
Theological Seminary, to Europe, for the purpose of acquiring the art of
instructing deaf-mutes. Accordingly, Mr. Gallaudet proceeded to Paris,
where he was cordially received by the Abbé Sicard, the Director of the
famous Institution for Deaf-Mutes, founded some years earlier by the
Abbé de l’Epée. Here every facility was accorded to Mr. Gallaudet, and
when he was ready to return to America, one of Sicard’s pupils--Laurent
Clerc by name,--offered his services as an instructor in the school to
be founded in America, and as he was himself a deaf-mute he was a living
demonstration of the fact that a very high degree of education was
possible to deaf-mutes. In 1818, the number of pupils having increased
to sixty, it appeared to the directors that their work was likely to
become national, and it seemed proper to invoke the aid of Congress. A
petition was accordingly sent to Congress, and was strongly supported by
the Connecticut members, by the Speaker, Henry Clay, and by many other
influential and philanthropic men. Congress responded by an
appropriation of an entire township, comprising 23,000 acres of land.
This grant was judiciously converted into cash and invested, and the
income thus received has enabled the institution to receive pupils at
about one half the actual cost of their education. The building now in
use was completed in 1821. Since 1825 pupils have been received from the
States of Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine, Vermont, and Rhode
Island, under an arrangement made with the official authorities in those
States. While a large proportion of the instructors have always been
college graduates, at the same time industrial instruction has, since
1823, been an essential feature in the training, thus rendering the
pupils self-supporting members of society.
Another evidence of the philanthropic feeling animating the citizens of
Hartford about the same date as the foundation of the Deaf and Dumb
Asylum, was the establishment in 1824, of the Connecticut Retreat for
the Insane. At that time there were only two other institutions in the
country for the exclusive care of insane persons, and the importance of
restorative treatment was but little understood.
Many citizens of Hartford signed the petition requesting the General
Assembly to pass an act of incorporation for Washington College, and
when the news of its passage was received, May 16, 1823, their joy was
manifested by the lighting of bonfires and the firing of cannon. The
people of Hartford surpassed all others in raising money for the new
institution. More than three fourths of the sum appropriated by the
State, $50,000, was contributed by them, and their city was therefore
selected as the seat of the College. A fine site was secured on an
eminence overlooking the Little River, the hill now crowned by the
beautiful State Capitol, and in 1825 two buildings were ready for
occupation. The College was opened under the presidency of the Rt. Rev.
Thomas C. Brownell, Bishop of Connecticut, and at all times since its
foundation the institution has been administered by men of learning and
wisdom. The name was changed in 1844 to Trinity College. In 1871, when
the city of Hartford decided to offer to the State a site for the new
Capitol, it was proposed to purchase the College campus for that purpose
and in February, 1872, the trustees sold the grounds to the city,
reserving the right to use them for five or six years. In 1873 a site
of
[Illustration: STATUE OF ISRAEL PUTNAM.
J. Q. A. WARD, SCULPTOR.]
some eighteen acres on the slope of Rocky Hill, commanding a beautiful
view in every direction, was purchased by the College. Ground was broken
on Commencement Day, 1875, with impressive ceremonies, and two large
buildings were ready for occupation in 1878. The erection of the Northam
Gateway, in 1881, unites the buildings and completes the western side of
the proposed quadrangle. The lofty towers have added greatly to the
appearance of the structure. The style of architecture is secular Gothic
of the early French type.
The buildings of the Theological Seminary on Broad Street attract
attention by their size and dignity. The institution was established in
East Windsor in 1833, and was removed to Hartford in 1865, occupying the
old Wadsworth house and other buildings on Prospect Street. In 1879, the
present structure was occupied, and it has since been enlarged by the
addition of the Case Library.
The first great manufacturing enterprise in Hartford, and still perhaps
the best known and most important, is the Colt’s Patent Fire Arms
Manufacturing Company, established by Colonel Samuel Colt in 1848.
Colonel Colt
[Illustration: KENEY MEMORIAL TOWER.]
planned his works on a magnificent scale, and time has proved the wisdom
of his plans. To pistols, rifles, and shotguns the company has added,
from time to time, the manufacture of gun machinery, Gatling guns,
printing-presses, portable steam-engines, and Colt automatic guns. Aside
from the output of weapons and machinery, the Colt works have been of
great value as an educating force in applied mechanics, and they have
turned out many men who have founded large manufacturing establishments.
The armory grounds now include two memorial buildings, the Church of the
Good Shepherd, built in 1868 by Mrs. Colt, in memory of her husband, and
a companion to this, built in 1896, a parish house, in memory of
Commodore Caldwell H. Colt, a structure complete and satisfying in all
its decorations and appointments. Another memorial structure in the city
is just approaching completion,--the Keney Memorial Tower. In this,
Hartford will possess an architectural feature unique in American
cities,--a Norman bell and clock tower, with fine carvings.
The Messrs. Keney have left another memorial of themselves in the Keney
Park, a fine addition to the Hartford park system. The beauty of
Hartford and its desirability as a residence have both been much
increased by the munificence of individual citizens, and the wise policy
of the city government in creating a system of public parks. The first
of these, Bushnell Park, the city owes to the wise forethought of Dr.
Horace Bushnell, one of her most distinguished citizens. Laid out in
1859, it is, probably, after Central Park in New York, the oldest public
city park in the country, and it was obtained in the face of much
opposition by a man possessed of great intellect and foresight--for whom
it was named in 1876. The building of the Capitol on the brow of the
hill overlooking the Park, and the construction of the Soldiers’
Memorial Arch in 1886, have added much to its beauty and completeness.
In 1894, Hartford acquired another park the gift of Col. Albert A. Pope,
the head of the Pope Manufacturing Company. This park is situated in the
south part of the city.
[Illustration: THE CAPITOL.]
Very soon afterwards, by the will of Charles M. Pond, the city became
possessed of a valuable tract of land on Prospect Hill, the former
residence of Mr. Pond. This he desired should be called Elizabeth Park
in memory of his wife. Now the Pope, Elizabeth, Keney, and Riverside
Parks, the latter on the north meadows and near the city water-works,
make a boulevard around Hartford, which will add much in the future to
the beauty of this already beautiful city.
After the brilliant galaxy of the “Hartford Wits” disappeared, a graver
class of literary men took their places: Noah Webster, with his
spelling-book and dictionary (he was born in Hartford, West Division,
Oct. 16, 1758); Samuel G. Goodrich (Peter Parley); Mrs. Lydia Huntley
Sigourney, who obtained the title of “the American Hemans,” an almost
lifelong resident of Hartford, where her first volume of poems was
published in 1815; George Denison Prentice and John Greenleaf Whittier
both lived in Hartford for a time, doing editorial work, when they were
yet young and unknown men; Henry Barnard, LL.D., distinguished for his
labors in the cause of education, was born in Hartford in 1811, and is
still enjoying an honored old age in his native city. But the man of
highest genius in Hartford’s list of authors during the first half of
this century was Horace Bushnell. He came to the city in 1833, as pastor
of the North Church, and remained until his death, in 1876. His sermons
and essays all show
[Illustration: SOLDIERS’ MEMORIAL ARCH.]
great imagination and beauty of style, as well as great power of
thought. In 1864, Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe, who had once before lived
in Hartford as a teacher in the famous school of her sister, Miss
Catharine Beecher, again took up her residence in the city, and
continued to live here until her death, in 1896.
[Illustration: H B Stowe]
[Illustration: DR. HORACE BUSHNELL.
FROM A CRAYON DRAWING BY S. W. ROWSE.]
During this period a number of her later works were written.
Of living authors, Charles Dudley Warner and Samuel L. Clemens (Mark
Twain) have a world-wide reputation. Mr. Warner came to Hartford in
1860, as one of the editors of the _Press_, and subsequently became one
of the owners and editors of the _Courant_, with which paper he is still
associated. His _Summer in a Garden_, which first brought him into
notice, appeared in the columns of his newspaper in 1870, and since that
time he has written many essays, novels, and books of travel. Mr.
Clemens was born in Florida, Missouri, November 30, 1835, has lived in
Hartford since 1871, and all his books which have appeared since 1872
have been written in our city, except his latest, _Following the
Equator_. John Fiske, the historian and essayist, was born in Hartford
in 1842, but he left the city at an early age, and his reputation has
been won elsewhere. The same can be said of Edmund Clarence Stedman, the
poet and critic, who was born in Hartford in 1833.
James Hammond Trumbull, LL.D., born in Stonington in 1821, but almost a
lifelong resident of Hartford, dying there in 1897, was
[Illustration: J. HAMMOND TRUMBULL, LL.D.]
one of the most distinguished philologists and antiquarians in the
country, and his great familiarity with the Indian tongues made him an
authority on that subject. Dr. Trumbull’s brother, Rev. Henry Clay
Trumbull, D.D., of Philadelphia, since 1875 editor of the _Sunday School
Times_, was a resident of our city from the year 1851 to 1875, and
during that period he published some of his religious and biographical
works. Two other members of the same family, a sister and daughter of
Dr. J. H. Trumbull, Mrs. Annie Trumbull Slosson, and Miss Annie Eliot
Trumbull, have distinguished themselves in literature, by their novels
and short stories, some being character studies of New England life. In
this line also another Hartford writer excelled, Mrs. Rose Terry Cooke,
who was born in Hartford in 1827, and died in Pittsfield, Mass., in
1892. She contributed many graphic stories of rural New England life to
the pages of the _Atlantic Monthly_, _Harpers’_, and other magazines,
which stories were afterwards collected and published in book form.
Richard Burton, born in Hartford in 1858, recently appointed Professor
of English Literature in the University of Minnesota, has already made a
name among the younger men as a poet and critic. Frederick Law Olmsted,
born in Hartford, November 10, 1822, now a resident of Brookline, Mass.,
is well known as one of the foremost landscape-gardeners in this
country, and he has also made valuable contributions to the literature
of travel and horticulture. Many other persons, either natives or
residents of Hartford, have won renown in various fields of authorship.
In the art world, Hartford claims Frederick E. Church and William Gedney
Bunce, the painters, E. S. Bartholomew, the sculptor, and William
Gillette, the actor and playwright, all natives of the city.
Hartford citizens have borne their part in the councils of the nation.
Gideon Welles was Secretary of the Navy under President Lincoln during
the Civil War, and until 1869. Isaac Toucey held the same office under
President Buchanan. Hon. John M. Niles was Postmaster-General in 1840,
under Van Buren, and also Senator for a long period. The Hon. Marshall
Jewell was appointed by President Grant United States Minister to Russia
in 1873, and in 1874 he was recalled to enter the Cabinet as
Postmaster-General. In later years the Hon. James Dixon and General J.
R. Hawley have been prominent in the United States Senate.
Hartford has increased largely in population during the last decade, and
the numerous trolley lines that have been built, running like the spokes
of a wheel into the surrounding country, have contributed much to the
prosperity of the city. Many handsome residences have been built, new
streets have been laid out, and our city appears to have entered upon a
career that promises increased wealth and success.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
NEW HAVEN
“THE CITY OF ELMS”
BY FREDERICK HULL COGSWELL