UC-NRLF iMlllllUlllllllll ^<^ It? bT? eu/ eLLeN strong barjLett mEWf^xmMm GIFT OF THOMAS RUTHtRFORD BACON Historical Sketches OF NEW HAVEN BY ELLEN STRONG BARTLETT New Haven : Printed by Tutti,e, Morehouse & Tayi^or. 1897 ^s# Copyright 1897 by Ei^i.EN Strong BARTtETT To MY DEAR SCHOI,ARS WHEREVER THEY MAY BE (Jilis JBook IS AFFECTIONATEI,Y INSCRIBED. E. S. B. 267905 PREFATORY NOTE. These papers have appeared by request, from time to time, in The Connediait Quarterh and the New Englmid Magazine ; and as some of them are out of print, it has seemed best to bring them together in this volume. Although they are a humble contribution to the literature that is accumulating with reference to New Haven, they are the result of loving and careful research in the most trustworthy sources of information, and it is earnestly hoped that everything therein stated as a fact rests on undoubted testimony. We cannot too often recount the efforts made in planting the tree, if thereby those who eat the fruit are incited to till the soil about the roots. E. S. B. CONTENTS. The New Haven Green, ---... g A New Haven Church, --..-. 21 The Grove Street Cemetery, - - - - - 42 H11.LHOXJSE Avenue, ---... ^5 John Trumbull, The Patriot Painter, • - - - 77 Historical Sketches of New Haven. When the forefathers marked out their famous nine squares, with that in the middle set apart as a "public market-place," they fixed the center of the life of the city of Elms. The Green has been called the heart of New Haven. In absence, the name calls up stirring memories ; on return, the sight of it stirs thrills of recognition. It is only a simple grassy square, surrounded and dotted by trees, divided by Temple street, crossed by many paths for the convenience of busy people ; and enshrining three old churches. But the square has been there since Davenport and Eaton laid out the town in 1638 ; the trees have stood a hundred years ; and around the churches are entwined the historic associations of the colony and the city. The changes have been many. The alders and willows that over-hung pools of water, have gone; so, too, have the "market-house," the whipping- post, the buildings which one after another graced or disgraced its surface. The area is sixteen acres ; it is not exactly square, because the surveyor who meas- ured it in the midst of primeval wildness, was unable to be stridlly accurate, but to the ej^e this is not apparent. The surveyor was John Brockett, son of Sir John Brockett of Brockett's Hall, Herefordshire ; and perhaps a little inexacftness may be understood, if we believe the tradition that he had left all in England and had crossed the sea in pursuit of a charming girl among the Puritan band. Around the Green were placed the houses of the leaders of the colony, which was the most opulent of those that left England, and thus the Green has always been before the eyes of the citizens, and has been the short-cut from one " quarter " to another. It is itself a token that the colonists came, not to seek lo The New Haven Green. adventure or to avoid the restraints of civilized life, but with a definite purpose to found a state, with a city at its head, that they intended to be graced by order and beauty. May the good intentions of good men always be thus carried out. The building of the meeting-house, identified in New Haven so pre- eminently with the state, came foremost in their plans. The first Sabbath, April 1 8, 1638, has been often described ; and artists have been inspired by the chronicle to show us the spreading oak and the reverent company of English- men, women and children, assembled there for the worship they had crossed the ocean to maintain. This oak, under which John Davenport, the favorite lyondon THE GKEEN, SHOWING BRICK CHURCH AND CHURCH-YARD. Frotn a Painting in the rooms 0/ the Neiv Haven Colony tlistorical Society, minister, preached on " the temptation in the wilderness," was near the present corner of George and College streets, but the first house of God was as nearly as possible, in the center of the Green. This was in 1639, and on this historic spot have been placed the successive buildings of the church, so appropriately known as the " Center." Even more than in other colonies was this a fitting situation, for the founders made the law that "the Church Members only shall be free Burgesses ; and that they only shall chuse magistrates and officers among them- selves to have the power of transacfling all publique civil aSairs of this planta- tion." The New Haven Green. II The "meeting-house " was a modest little shelter for sentiments like these. It was only fifty feet square, perfe(5tly plain, with roof like a truncated pyramid, but on Sabbaths it must haye been furnished nobly with keen intelledl and high principle. We know all about the Sabbath then, the beating of the drum, the decorous walk through the Green to the meeting-house, the careful ranking of seats, the stationing of the guard to keep watch on lurking Indians. Those who go up now to worship may feel that they are literally following the foot- steps of the fathers. Through the Green was the special path allowed to the first pastor, John Davenport, so that he might walk on Sundays from his house to the pulpit in the complete seclusion befitting his dignity. Here, later, was the first school-house, a little back of the church, and alas ! in spite of all these privileges of religious and political liberty, before long a jail was necessary, that made a blot on the Green. The whipping-post was moved about until 1831, THE GREKN. From a Drawing; owned by the New Haven Colony Historical Society, when it was exchanged for the less appalling sign-post for legal notices. And the public square was not too good in early days for a pound. The old alms- house stood on the northwest corner, near College street. For its convenience was a well of excellent water, which, it is thought, has never been filled up. In 1639, Ne-pau-puck, a persistent enemy, was beheaded here, and perhaps this ghastly yielding of savage ferocity to Anglo-Saxon law is the darkest picfture the Green has offered. After the English custom, the burying-ground adjoined the church, and there were laid the wise and the good, the young and the old, of the infant settlement. Martha Townsend was the first woman buried in this ground. Sometimes, at dead of night, apart from others, the victims of small-pox were fearfully laid here. The ground was filled with graves between the church and College street ; sixteen bodies having been found within sixteen square feet, when in 1821, the stones were removed to the Grove Street Cemetery, and the ground was leveled. A few stones are left in their original places, while in the •a w « PS c K The New Haven Green. 13 crypt of the church may be seen, as they stood, the monuments of more than a hundred and thirty of the early inhabitants. Back of the church are some small, dark stones, decidedly gnawed by time. Tradition used to ascribe two of these to the resting-places of GofFe and Whalley, the hunted regicides ; and elaborate interpretations were given of the purposely brief and misleading inscriptions. Opinion now discredits this, and assigns the stone formerly called Whalley's to Martin Gilbert, Assistant Deputy. But there is no mistake about the grave of Dixwell, the third of the regicides, and the original stone, simply inscribed, "J. D. 1688-9," etc., is plainly seen, while in the same enclosure is the monu- ment erected in 1847, by the descendants of Dixwell. He had concealed his name under that of Davis. An inscription on the church-wall tells us that THE GREEN. From a Draifiing otvneii by the New Haven Colony Historical Society. Theophilus Eaton, the noted founder of the town, lies near. Over the entrance of the church are the main dates and fadls of the settlement of the town, and many a passer through the Green stops under the shade of the trees to read, and get a lesson in history. As time passed, the Green was graded and cleared. Around it lived the Pierponts, the Trowbridges, the Ingersolls, and facing its upper side were the buildings of the infant Yale. They were very simple, and afford a great contrast to the elaborate and imposing array of to-day, but the forty boys were proud of their college. The three churches on Temple street, in the very middle of the Green, are an unusual and striking feature of a public square. The North Church, now called the United Church, and Trinity Church, were built in 1814, as well as w D O The New Haven Green. 15 the present building of the Center Church, so that the three buildings were rising at the same time, during the troubled period of our second war with Eng- land. It is said that the ship which was bringing in material for Trinity Church was overhauled by a British cruiser, but that the enemy was persuaded to relin- quish that part of the booty when its sacred destination was disclosed. Besides these, no buildings now stand within the enclosure, and no further encroachment is allowed. One after another, the various strudlures which a too accommodating public allowed, have been removed. The last to go was the "old State House," in 1887. Built in 1829, by Ithiel Towne, it was the successor of several State Houses which stood in different parts of the Green. Its removal was long discussed, and the friends and the opponents of the measure were aroused to couch their argu- ments in decidedly vigorous language. Without the State House steps, classes and associations g o hunting for a place for photographic groups. The classic columns of this copy of the The- seum, mxist figure in many a pi<5ture belong- ing to by-gone days. In the latter part of the last century, the Green began to put on its present appearance. The county-house and jail were taken away in 1784. In that year, a market-house was placed near the corner of Church and Chapel streets, but in 1798, it was taken down. At that time, the square was fenced, under the diredlion of James Hillhouse, David Austin, and Isaac Beers. In 1799, permission was obtained to level the surface at private expense. Evidently public spirit was stronger in individuals than in common councils. About that time the great planting of elms began. The two famous trees, which may have set the fashion which caused Mrs. Tuthill to call New Haven the "City of Elms," were brought to town in 1686, by William Cooper, as a gift to the pastor, and were planted in front of the Pierpout house, where the Bristol house now is. There they flourished for more than one hundred and fifty years. They shaded the windows of Sarah Pierpont, that rare maiden who was " of a wonderful sweetness, calmness and unusual benev- olence," who "sometimes went about singing sweetly, and seemed to be always full of joy and pleasure," who " loved to be alone, walking in the fields and THK GREEN, FROM THE REAR OF CENTER CHURCH. TEMPI,E STREET. The Neiv Haven Green. 17 groves," and whose charms of beauty, intelleA, and good sense subjugated even Jonathan Edwards, the intelledlual giant of America. Some one has said that in the shade of those trees, these famous lovers must have often hngered. Twenty-three years after their marriage, a platform was built under the pen- dent boughs and the ' 'sil- ver tongued ' ' Whitefield preached to the listening crowd on the Green. The Pierpont elms lived for more than a century and a half. The last was cut down in 1840, having at- tained a circumference of eighteen feet. Two mag- nificent elms were also in front of the house and school of the Rev. Clau- dius Herrick, where Bat- tell Chapel now is. They too, were a century and a half old, in 1879, when cut down. At the corner of Church and Chapel streets, is the most noted of New Haven elms, the " Franklin Elm." Jerry Allen, a "poet and pedagogue," brought it on his back from Hamden Plains, and sold it to Thaddeus Beecher for a pint of rum and some trifles. It was planted on the day of Franklin's death, April 17, 1790. Its girth, two feet from the ground, is sixteen feet ; its height is eighty feet. This noble tree spreads its graceful branches as a welcome and a shelter to all who make pilgrimage to. New Haven. It seems a fitting gateway to the arcades that stretch athwart the turf beyond. In the shade of the Franklin elm is the "Town pump," one of the old landmarks which thirsty people would regret to see removed. It was given to the city long ago by Mr. Douglass, of Middletown. In 1784, the Common Council ordered the extension of Temple street to Grove street, and in 1792, Hillhouse Avenue was laid out. Col. James Hillhouse, ever enthusiastic in public works, besought the citizens to subscribe for beautifying the Green by planting trees. This was in 1787, and most of the trees were set between then and 1796. Most of them were brought from the Hillhouse farm in THE DIXWEI,I< MONUMENT. i8 The Neiv Haven Green. Meriden, and by the testimony of eye-witnesses, they varied from the size of whipstocks to a foot in thickness. The zeal of Col. Hillhouse, who often took the spade in his own hands, inspired others. The Rev. David Austin was moved to plant the inner rows on the east and west sides of the Green, and many stories are told of the enthusiasm of boys in holding trees, of girls in watering and tending them, all to help on the good work. The cool and shady streets of New Haven are a memorial of this widespread interest in Hillhouse' s plan. Such men as Ogden Edwards, United States Judge Henry Baldwin, and President Day, were proud, in mature life, to look back on their boyish participation in the work. A con.stant and varied succession of foot-passengers may be seen on the diagonal paths. There is no " age, sex, or condition " which is not to be found EI,M STREET. there during the day. Babies in summer, boys skating in winter, wise professors and students with book in hand, at all times, are surely there. Many times, thousands of children have been massed there, to add to the festivity of Fourth of July, Sunday-school, and centennial celebrations, and their choruses have carried the swelling voices of vast choirs to the cathedral arch of Temple street. Probably no famous man has ever visited New Haven without contributing his presence to the personal associations of this simple square. Nobles, scholars, poets, divines, statesmen, from all countries, have been there. Washington decorously attended church at Trinity. Lafayette reviewed troops here, and both were sometimes visitors of Roger Sherman, who lived just above the Green. After the Revolutionary heroes, the place felt the tread of Madi.son and Monroe, of John Quincy Adams, of Andrew Jackson, of Van Buren. Then came the The New Haven Green. 19 great men of the civil war ; Grant, Sherman, Sheridan, Hancock, McDowell, and many more, have bowed to the cheers of thousands crowded on the Green. Training days and county fairs must have caused the Green to smile, and even to laugh aloud, and whenever the feeling of the town has been stirred to its depths, the Green has been the spot to which every one hied to show his share in that feeling. Here the loyal subjedts of George III. cele- brated his majority, and some years later, made public re- joicing over the repeal of the Stamp A(5l. Here Benedicft Arnold, after Lexington, assembled the Governor's Guard, to lead them to Cam- bridge, to swell the patriot army ; here the citizens of a new republic crowded, to shout over the surrender of Cornwallis, and two years later, the gunners in long green gowns boomed the salutes for the treaty of peace with England. Here passed, in 185 1, the barouche which contained all the survivors of the Revolution who could be mustered for the Fourth of July parade. The year before that dirges were played here after President Taylor's death, and, ten years later, the Green was whitened by the recruiting tents of the Townsend Rifles ; and the boys of the three months' regiments made their first bivouac here ; too many, alas ! after- ward finding the "bivouac of death" on Southern fields. Here the New Haven branch of the Sanitary Commission was organized, and its chairman, Mr. Alfred Walker, sent out two hundred and eighty-seven boxes in the first month. In the State House, the New Haven Soldiers' Aid Association met for three years. Under the trees, collations were given to returning soldiers, and sad crowds assembled to witness the funeral honors paid to New Haven's sons : to Theodore Winthrop, so early sacrificed ; to General Terry and Commodore Foote, lost when ripened by experience. Great was the rejoicing when " the cruel war was over." Thousands assembled to cheer the news of the fall of Petersburg and Richmond. Then in the midst of joy came the blow of L,incoln's assassina- IHl': IKANKIJN Ki.^r. io The New Haven Greeri. tion, and a greater and a sadder crowd hurried back to the old Green than it has ever seen gathered for any other occasion. Then, on the steps of the State House, Dr. Leonard Bacon voiced the lamentation of a city bereaved of its national head, and the elms sighed over a horror-stricken multitude. It seems safe to feel that, after such a history, as long as life remains in the city, the ' ' heart of New Haven ' ' will beat on in its old place. A NEW HAVEN CHURCH. The Center Church in New Haven has been fitly called a ' ' time-piece of the centuries," and the stranger who worships there may well find his eyes roving over the dial marks on its venerable walls. In mediaeval times the church walls displayed the pidlured Bible story to all who entered ; this church in the New World bears a syn- opsis of a colony's history. Over the entrance is a concise statement of the main facts of the founding of the town. This tablet was prepared by the Rev. Dr. Leonard Bacon before he retired from his a(5live ministry, and, in a small space, it is significant with the story of the ' ' coeval beginning of the church and town." On a corner of the building is a tablet bearing the dates of the four suc- cessive buildings which have sheltered an unbroken suc- cession of worshippers from the organization until now — 1640, 1670, 1757, 1814. Thus this spot is hal- lowed by the continuous public worship of more than two centuries and a half. I'liK CHURCH, NEW HAVKN. The first simple strudlure, a few yards in front of the present building, was the center to which all turned to hear the illustrious London divines, or CENTKR CHURCH KNTRANCK. A New Haven Church. 23 for discussion of the questions, theological, political and social, which agitated that miniature world. THE MEMORIAL WINDOW. Hither came up the Sabbath worshippers at the first and second beating of the drum ; and woe to the careless or irreverent wight who was late, or 24 A New Haven Church. THE • VOICE ■ OF ■ ONE • CRYmS IN THE ■ WILDERNESS . O O C JOHN • DAVENPORT- BD(0X0N I62S) BORN IN ■ COVENTRY • WARWICKSHIRE APRIL- 1597, VICAR ■ OF 5 STEPHENS ■ COLEMAN ■ STREET LONDON ■ 1624. FLED ■ TO • AMERICA FOR ■ REU6T0US -FREEDOM ■ 1637. LAID THE • FOUNDATIONS • OF - NEW - HAVEN ■ APRIL - 1655. PASTOR ■ OF ■ THIS CHURCH FROM ITS FORMATION 1639. UNTIL- HIS -REMOVAL TO THE FIRST • CHURCH ■ BOSTON • 1663. DIED ■ IN BOSTON MARCH • 1670 O O c absent from the service. He was promptly rebuked and fined, even when pro- vided with excuses such as clothes wet in Saturday's rain, and no fire by which to dry them ! Here paced the sentinels armed against Indian attack, and here resounded Sternhold and Hop- kins's version of the Psalms, "lined off." Alas ! we learn that not the force of exhortation and ex- ample, nor the solemnity of danger, could altogether counteract the evil suggestions lurkingin " water myllions."* Here it was that the children were huddled on the pulpit stairs during the service. Not even the thunders of pulpit eloquence nor the chill of a fireless house sufficed to restrain the irrepressible spirit of childhood ; after divers long-continued public efforts to stop the disturbance, the children were wisely sent back to their parents. Here it was that the Sabbath offerings in wampum and the fruits of their fields were taken to the deacons' seat. Here it was that Davenport, when it was known that the messengers of the King would soon be at hand, eager to search for the regicides. Col. Whalley and Col. Goffe, uttered his brave words of exhor- tation to "entertain strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares." The preacher afterward proved the sincerity of his words by sheltering the fugitives in his own house for a month. What coolness, and sagacity, and courage were exhibited by that tiny colony in that crisis ! Here it was that, somewhat later, the messengers of the King were edified in the midst of their search for the judges by another Sabbath discourse by Davenport on the text: " Hide the outcasts ; bewray not him that wandereth ; let mine outcasts dwell with thee, Moab ; be thou a covert to them from the face of the spoiler. ' ' t See Foot Note. * " Wm. Pert was warned to the Court for taking water myllions one Lords day out of Mr. Hooks lot his answere was that his Mr sent him to see whether there were any hoggs within the fence and to bring home a watter milion with him he being bidd to goe through Mr. Hooks lott after the Saboth he tooke 2 watter milions he said it was the first act of his in this kind and hoped it would be the last. For his unrighteousnesse & profanesse of his sperit & way so soone thus to doe after the Saboth he was to be publiquely corrected although moderatly because his repentance did appeare." — Early Records of New Haven. t This and the nine following cuts are fac-similes of the memorial tablets on the walls of the audience room. A New Haven Church. 25 Fearlessness so magnificent as that must have made the home government quite willing to act against New Haven when the charter struggle came up. Among the worshippers in the 8orn in ■Soui-tompton €iiglm(li60) A Winitp CoUfge Otfort-teso Ccacljer of tl)is Cburfl; 1644-1656 CDapliim I'O'OliMer CTomuielland- /naai'etofl-bf SaxioyTiospihal- (■ill- tlje-clos? of'H)e Comroonuiealtl;- He-died lllaTfl) 21 -167* Iii8 Ttmaing-rtst-ir -8unl)ill 5iPli ^ -nonclon ^^^^^^Ar^l t. second house of God was that "James Davids ' ' around whom lingered a halo of mystery ; for his dignity, his reserve, his evident culture and means made the curious surmise, what was disclosed after his death, that he was John Dixwell, one of the three judges. His grave is immediately back of the church, and there may be seen what is left of the origi- nal headstone. The inscription was : "J. D., Esqr. Deceased March y'= i8th in y" 82" year of his age, 1688-9." The monument erected in 1847 by the descendants of Dixwell, commemo- rates their appreciation of the kindness shown to their distinguished ancestor by the inhabitants of New Haven, and sets forth the main fadts of his career. On the rear wall is a tablet in memory of a man second to Eaton only, Stephen Goodyear, the first deputy governor, who is buried in London ; and another which explains that until 1796 the first churchyard was here, extending from the church to College street. The third building, known as the "brick meeting-house," seems to have been removed, not on account of age or decay, but because increasing prosper- ity demanded something larger and better. The present one on the same spot", claims one's inter- est more for its associations than for pretensions to architedlural beauty. True to the London origin of the early settlement, this church was built with St. Martin' s-in-the-Fields, on Trafalgar Square, as its model. At the rear of the church are more tablets ; one in memory of Theophilus Eaton, the first governor of the colony, who died in 1657, and is buried near the church wall, outside of the pulpit window. This was the successful Lon- ir W Ricbolas Street. ^ 5ecot)d Pastor of tbis Cburct) Bono 19 Son)erset5l)ire^Ei>glai)cl.ii) l603 a graduate of Oxford UpWersitY ir) l625 Pastor of the Q)urcY) 19 Taur)tor),An5s. 1637 to 1657 Associated with) ReVjotjr) Da'^epport asleacljerip tt)5 Q)urch).5ept26«l» I659. to April. I668. aod tbep F^5tor mrtil 1^15 <katt> Apnl 22i* l674 He wa5 a Godly. Modest apdj udicious Aap, apd tbe first Pastor w^)0 died ip ^ tbe5CT\/iceof tbi5Q)urcFj (^ ^_ 26 A Neiv Haven Church. JAMES PIERPONT Born at Roitbury Moss. Jan^ 4th l639 a g'raduatt* of Harvard College m 1^81 w»« ordnined pastor of this church July 2nd l68 5 • nd having ministered-faithfully here 30 years died Nov*' 22nd IJII ■ nd is buried beneath ihis edifice He was one of the Tuunders of Yale College Hij gracious ^ifls of fervent piety persuasive eloquence and winning tnaoneps were devoutly- spent in the service of his Lord and Master ^)v^/^^^•^/WV"W^v^M^ don "merchant of great credit and fashion," who, in company with Davenport, the friend of his childhood, led the company of pioneers from London to Quin- nipiack. He was the son of a famous minister of Coventry, had been in business, had trav- eled extensively, and had repre- sented Charles I at the court of Denmark. He had with good advan- tage more than once stood before kings; his "princely face and port," his judgment and aston- ishing equanimity, his sincere religion, made such an impres- sion on his generation that only death ended his governorship of eighteen years. His was one of the houses " better than those of Boston," which astonished visitors by their size and comfort ; his ' ' Turkey carpets, and tapestry carpets and rugs," his servants, and generally opulent style of living are matters of record. The loss of property, the trials caused by a phenomenally ill-tempered wife, by disappointed hopes, and by the death of his loved ones, were all met with the fortitude ex- pressed in his lofty maxim, " Some count it a great matter to die well, but I am sure it is a greater matter to live well." The monument which showed the honor in which Eaton was held by his townsmen has been re- moved to the Grove Street Cemetery. In the vestibule of the church may be seen the names of the one hundred and twenty who sleep below. On entering, one is taken to the past by memorial brasses, and the light streams T-0 THC MEMORV Qf- JOSEPH NOYES, O BORN IN STONtNGTON OCT. 16,1688. * DIED JUNE 14,1761. GRADUATE OFAND AN INSTRUCTOR IN YALE COLLBfiE PASTOR OF THIS FIRST CHURCH 1716 1761 His Ministry was marked by ecclesiasttc&l controversies, and by social and political changes, which led to the formation of a second Church, the establishment of a separate worship in. Yale College and the organization of an Episcopal Church. By his sag-acity and prudence he retained to old age the confidence and affection of those who remained faithful to this, the Mother Church. O HfS REMAINS REST BENEATH THIS EOiriCE. o A New Haven Church. 27 Chauncey Whittelsey A gratliiate of and instructor in Yale College a member of the CoJonial Assembly and in other Public Trusts from 1738 to 1756. Fifth Pastor o f this Church frpm 1758 to 1787. His Piety and Eloquence made him dear lo his people.and with his rirmness and DDCisJon enabled him to discharge the duties of (he pastoral office vnth fiaolity and dignity during the struggle of the Revolution He died July 24th VTBl, in the 70rh year of his a^e and the 30th of his thintstry. o o in His remains rest in the crypt of this Church D through the window which tells in color the story of the first sermon ' ' in the wilderness ' ' of New Haven. The "colonial" set- ting frames the historic scene. John Davenport, under the cross-vaulting of the noble oak, dressed as befitted the dignity of his position, in velvet, with cloak hanging on his shoulder, seems to point with uplifted hand to that continuing city which his hearers knew they had not yet found. The white-haired but sturdy Eaton leaning on his gun while reverently bowing to the preacher's words, the armed men, and the women and children ready to share the peril and the enthusiasm of the new enterprise, give the whole story of the mingled devotion and warfare which characterized the New England settler's life. At the base, the seven-branched candle- stick and the seven columns symbolize the famous "seven pillars ' ' who were chosen in the meeting in Robert Newman's barn in 1639, thus beginning the church in New Haven. They were Theophilus Eaton, John Davenport, Robert Newman, Matthew Gilbert, Thomas Fugill, John Punderson, and Jeremiah Dixon.* On the right is the record of the life of the leader of the colony, John Davenport, B. D. (Oxon, 1625). * This beautiful window is the gift of Mr. E. Hayes Trowbridge, in memory of his father, Ezekiel Hayes Trowbridge, a descendant of one of the founders of the church. The design, so happy in conception and execution, was made l)y Lauber, and the work was personally superintended by Louis Tiffany. The two thousand three hundred and twenty pieces which compose it melt in the sunlight into a rich picture, and modern art once more unites with filial respect to perpetuate the memory of the past. 1786 - 1858 Pastor of this churrh t8l2 - 1822 Professor of ThtoloQv in Tate Collrgr 1822- IB^ja J\s Pastor faithful to hii Hastfr anit briourd by his propit ^s Prfarhtrof tlif riifrlflsrinfl Goaprl bold frninit and surtfssful .As Studtnt anilTVarhfr of Christian Thfolojy Pnrpminfnt in his Gfnpration ^ iaYYYYVYvyyyyvxxDtriQOQOQgi- 28 A New Haven Church. There comes to the minds' eye the early home in leafy Warwickshire, in the days when Shakespeare was alive, the scholar's haunts at Oxford, the crowds listening to the brilliant young preacher at St. Stephen's, the stress of parting with home and friends, the weary voyage, the high hopes of a model commonwealth, the disappointments, the end of all in another home. He seems to have liked to have his own way ; perhaps his dis- appointments were as deep as his hopes were high ; but he was lofty in nature, high-bred and scholarly. His unabated love of study won for him from the Indians the name of "big study man." That in those times he left more than a thousand dollars' worth of books shows how large a place they held in his esteem. He was one of the most learned of the seventy English divines who migrated hither ; and, more than that, was in advance of his fellow emigrants, for he was ready to cast off alle- giance to the King and Parliament, and so to establish an independent state. His work was not in vain, we can see now, and the impress of his character has not yet faded from the city that he founded. On the south side of the church is the tablet to William Hooke, the friend and chaplain of Cromwell. He was in the church in the wilder- ness for twelve years as ' ' teacher, ' ' an office for some time co-existent with that of preacher, a token of the thoroughness of the religious training of the colonists. He was a gentle, scholarly man, who must have been also fervid in his pulpit oratory. His sermons may still be read ; they had such ear-catching titles as "New England's Teares for Old England's Feares." Cromwell was his wife's cousin, and Whalley was her brother. The learned Hooke, driven from England on account of religious opinion, was led by his intimate friendship with the Great Protector to return during the Commonwealth to that land which he called " Old England, dear England still in divers respects, left indeed by us in our Lt>onard Baron asfrioanl of Jfiii'j CJirisI nnd of all mfn for His siihf.lifrr prrarhdl Ihf Go!>ppl for fifty ^fiifii Ufar<;. Vrarmg Cod nntt iDiuina no ftarHf'.ldr.louiTiij rlonlroii'irit'i':. nnd halinj ininultv.fririitl of Librrty and laio. hflprr ofChrislian mi«ioii'i,lrarhfr of (fachrrs.pcomotfr of pu?ry good morh. hf bipsoffl thf City and thp Nation bv rfasrifss lahor^ and a holy life, and dc- Oanrd pfarpfullv into rtsl.bftrmbfr 24. issi.irauing inp morld bdlpr for his hauing hi'Pd in it. _UOOOOCXXX)0(XXjOUO(-)UOOUOUOOOO(:g^?^ A New Haven Church. 29 persons, but never yet forsaken in our affections." There he was domestic chaplain to Cromwell in his palace of Whitehall, and was master of the Savoy- Hospital, an institution noted for its connecflion with the "Savoy Confession" of the Congregationalists, and as having been the episcopal palace of lyondon. But the sun of his prosperity sank with the Commonwealth. After a few years the Commonwealth was a thing of the past, and Hooke spent the rest of his life in more or less danger, resting at last in Bunhill Fields, the " Westminster Abbey of the Puritans." His parting gift to the church which he loved was his "home lot, " on the southwest corner of College and Chapel streets, " to be a standing maintenance either towards a teaching officer, schoolmaster, or the benefit of the poor in fellowship." This was one of the inducements which influenced the choice of the abiding place of the struggling, peri- patetic college. The church finally leased it to the college for nine hundred and ninety-nine years. It was the plan of Davenport that the " rector's house " should stand there ; and there lived all the rectors and presidents of Yale, from Cutler to the elder Dwight. Near by is the tablet for Nicholas Street, the third Oxonian on the list. His early history was for a long time uncertain, but we now know that he was matriculated at Oxford when eighteen (2 Nov., 162 1 ?), and that he was the son of "Nicholas Streate of Bridgewater, gent," who owned "the ancient estate in Rowbarton near Taunton," according to a will dated Nov. i, 1616. This estate had formed part of the manor of Canon Street, which belonged to the Priory of Taunton before the dissolution of the monasteries, and it is now absorbed in the city of Taunton, a name which must have been pleasant in his ears in the New World. He it was who said, in time of perplexing negotiations, ' ' The answer should be of faith, and not of fear." His son was for nearly forty-five years pastor in Wallingford, and the Augustus Street who gave the building to the Yale Art School was a lineal descendant, another instance of the momentum given by the desire of the founders to make New Haven a collegiate town. Around Mr. Pierpont's name associations cluster thickly. He was the first American-born pastor, he passed nearly all his public life here, and harmony and success attended him. To be sure, he was early and often a widower, but he was fortunate in seledling all three wives from the highest families of the little land, as became one who is said to have been nearly connedled with the Earls of Kingston. n j 1 |je:;f^jifXg^t*>®sS5?g2<SX*l IR mmn of m^iKiH^^KimiiiiBiii^ Beloved AS A Pastor < Honored ASA-TEACHER EMINENTASASCHOLAR BORNAT'WiLTON CONN 1780 Graduated AT Yale CoLLEGE-ngo Pastor OF THIS Church isofa-iaio Professor OF Sacred Literature in< THE THE9L0G1CAL SEMINARY Sndovcr Mass isio-m.o DIED IN 1852 =*i2®<®«XSyg^XgXVx*l L) 30 A New Haven Church. That is a pathetic little story about his bride, the granddaughter of John Davenport, going to church on a chill November day, arrayed according to the custom for the first Sunday after marriage, in her wedding-gown, catching cold, and dying in three months. We can see the pretty girl entering the little, bare meeting-house, flushed with pleasure and pride in the new position of wife of the handsome j'oung minister, a position that she might almost feel she had inherited ; and then, pale with cold, trying to make her neighbors' furtive and admiring glances at her finery take the place of the good log-fire she had left at home, and unflinchingly disdaining to outrage propriety by leaving before the service was finished. Poor thing ! She did not foresee that that winter's snows would enwrap her in the adjoining burying-ground. But Mr. Pierpont recovered from the blow, and married, two years later, Sarah Haynes, of Hartford, a granddaughter of Governor Haynes ; but she died a little more than two years after, and again he married a Hartford girl, granddaughter of "■ ■^"^"^" ■ ' ^ r-r "^ "' 'ii:y.: /::-> ::^' . ■ ::■-/■ : -.. .-.■: -^h'-..-.- :' -■. -■ ■■■ -9. ^^ R^ 1 m. ^ ^ ^ ■SaS ^^2 ^ ss m % \ ■ \ •r*! ^ mL 3 ^ ■% ^^^^^^^^HV^^^ ~^^59l ^Kt^^mtt w^ ^^hEi ■ HCii3*H:.-„^i;^t.™4. --. ;--,i5£- — -- '^" ^^ M ■ii ■ ■1 ■■ BAPTISM.\L BOWI, AND COMMUNION CUPS. the renowned Rev. Thomas Hooker, the pastor and leader of the Connecticut col- ony. She survived Mr. Pierpont many years. For him was built, by the contribu- tions of the people, that spacious house which stood for a hundred years on the corner of Temple and Elm streets, and it was as a gift to the young pastor that the " Pierpont Elms," long the oldest in the city, were brought from Hamden. Mr. Pierpont' s surest title to remembrance is that he was " one of the founders of Yale College." He was one of the famous ten ministers who made the memorable contribution of volumes from their own scanty stock to found a college library. He was indefatigable in building up that which he had begun, and it was on account of his persuasions, exercised through Mr. Dummer, Con- necticut agent in London, that Elihu Yale sent the gift which made his name a household word. But his influence on the college world did not stop there. The alliance of the Hooker and the Pierpont families was notable in itself, but was made still more illustrious in their descendants. The daughter of James Pierpont and A New Haven Church. 31 Mary Hooker, the beautiful and saintly Sarah, married the great Jonathan Edwards. Thus Mr. Pierpont was the ancestor of the second President Jonathan Edwards, of the elder President Dwight, of President Woolsey, of the present honored President Dwight, of Theodore Winthrop, and of a brilliant array of distinguished members of the families bearing those names. The name of Mr. Noyes brings up the religious disputes in which party feeling ran high and divisions, literal and figurative, were the result. Of him it has been wittily said that his force seemed to be chiefly centrifugal ; but who could have been a determining center for so erratic an outburst of ' ' new lights ' ' and " old " as disturbed the theological-political firmament in his time ? Mr. Noyes was the son and grandson of ministers in New England, and he iJ '^ a portion of ,h.„,i5i„.,B,„,i' place of New Have- u.tdfr™^ 1638 tin IS21. The earliest date oj a burial m-cribed on these old stones is 1687 the l«ie,t 1812. In 1S21 the graves outside olthf««3ll> were levelled, the monuments ind headstones removed to the Cme St. . . Cemetery. Thi. Cryp. - ,,pstored . Hou*' i-,.f Mee""-""" ifiSS. J in 166S- Tlx- ^^a.dicai'-''- .\T THIC KNTRA.NCK ()!■' THE CRVPT. had ofiiciated with great success as instructor in the young college for five years before becoming pastor. All these men were scholars, easily and frequently reading the Bible in its original languages for greater clearness in explanation. Their salaries were delivered to them in such fruits of the earth, or houses and lands, as their parishioners could muster in that age of barter. The benign Mr. Whittelsey came with tranquilizing effedl on the distraught people ; but instead of church controversies, he had to guide his flock through the momentous conflicfl with the mother state, and "old lights" and "new lights" burned together in one steady flame of patriotism. It was to the ' ' brick meeting-house ' ' that Wooster marched his men for a final ministerial 32 A Neiv Haven Church. benedidtion ; and there, after waiting outside until informed of the absence of Mr. Whittelsey, he led them into the church, ascended the pulpit, and himself expounded to his soldiers those holy words which he deemed would fortify them best ; then, in unbroken order, they marched out across the Green, and so away to war. Mr. Whittelsey belonged to the "Brahmin caste," being the son of an able minister and the great-grandson of the noted President Chauncey of Harvard. He was " well acquainted with Latin, Greek and Hebrew — — and with the general cyclopaedia of literature, and amassed, by laborious reading, a great treasure of wisdom." " For literature he was in his day oracular at col- lege, for he taught with facility and success in every branch of knowledge." ONE OF THK AI.I.JCVS. (Showing the oldest stone, the one marked 1687). Through all the troubles of the Revolution, the Sabbath service failed not here. Dr. Dana's ministry looked backward to the eighteenth century, forward to the nineteenth ; and struggles were in view on either side. To quote Dr. Smyth, ' ' Mr. Dana was a recognized champion of the old divinity, and behold ! a new divinity was already on the threshold of the century upon which he had entered." The newcomer was Moses Stuart, whose brilliant talents made him a power, whether in New Haven or Andover. Dr. Taylor, so remarkable an expounder of theology that the church had to surrender him to the college, was one more of the long list of learned and A New Havett Church. 33 profoundly moving divines whose memorials are here. In his pastorate, these present walls were reared. And of Dr. Bacon, born for leadership, what words can be more descriptive than the concise and beautiful lines that keep his memory fresh ? He explored the perishing records of the past and brought to our view those ancient divines, his predecessors, who live and move again in his pages. His energetic, enthusiastic nature communicated itself to all around him. From that pulpit he delivered his message to his people, and from it, after he had ceased to preside in it, he looked forth on the congregation, the fire not dimmed in his eye, wrapped in his fur-lined mantle, reminding one of the prophets of old. The communion silver belonging to this Church, and in present use, is itself worthy of a place in a collection of an- tiques, and it would be hard to find its equal in this country. All of the cups are the gifts of individuals, and eight of them are of historic interest and have been in use for many years. Probably the first gift of this kind to this church was the cup marked, " Given by Mr. Jno. Potler to N. haven chh." Records were not very complete then, but we know that John Potter, was at the famous meeting in Mr. Newman's barn, in 1639, and that he died in 1646, leaving an estate valued at £2^. Of this amount, nearly a sixth, £^, was diredled to the purchase of this cup. A pair of cups was probably given in a similar way by Henry Glover and his wife, Ellen. He died in 1689. The inscription is "The Gift of H. & E- Glover to y"^ chh. in N. hav." Another was given a little later by "Mrs. Ab. Mansfield," daughter of Thomas Yale. She bequeathed "four pounds in cash to be laid out by the deacons of said church to buy a cup for the use of the Lord's Table." m ■) TOMBSTONE OF MAROARKT ARNOIvD. 34 A New Haven Church. Again we see, " The Gift of Jn" Hodson to N. Hav'n chh. 1690." John Hodshon, or Hudson, or Hodson, was a rich Barbadoes trader, who bequeathed to the church ^5 in silver to buy this cup. He is buried in the crypt below the church. One is "The Gift of Mrs. Abigail Davenport to the first chh. in New Haven. 1718." Mrs. Davenport was the daughter of the Rev. Abraham Pier- son, of Branford, sister of Abraham Pierson, the first rector of Yale, and wife of John Davenport, the only son of the Rev. John Davenport. She died in 1 717, and bequeathed " unto the church of new haven, my silver caudle cup, desiring a cup to be made thereof for the service of the church." Very for- tunately, the last wish was not carried out, and the cup remains as it was in the days of the first rector of Yale. One inscription is decidedly abridged : " Abr. ') & VBroadley." Han. ) Abraham and Hannah Bradley were the givers. He was a deacon, and he died in 1718, bequeathing, with consideration for both church and wife, his silver cup to the former after the latter should have ceased to need it. About 1670, Captain John Prout came to New Haven from Devonshire, and there married Mrs. Mary Hall, daughter of Henry and Sarah Rutherford. In her will, in 1723, she left to the church "my two-handled silver cup marked ^ ^l',, That mark indicates that the cup once belonged to her father and mother. Lovers of the antique regret that several other cups presented in a similar manner were " made over " in 1833. Three of those now in use appear to have been made from two tankards given by Mr. Francis Brown and Mrs. Sarah Diodati, in 1762. Another old cup thus subjedled to the refining influences of the melting-pot was given earlier by Mrs. Lydia Rosewell, a daughter of Thomas Trowbridge. They are all two-handled cups, of graceful design and varying size, and many of them are delicately ornamented. Some of them have adorned the corner cupboards and have been used on the tables of the first " colonial dames. ' ' There is an enticing story that one of them was brought hither in the Hector as part of the household furniture of John Davenport himself ; but the spirit of research is relentless, and the mark tells a different tale. But that very mark, while it takes away, adds historic interest ; for that and five other pieces were made by John Dixwell, the regicide's son, who was a silversmith in Boston, and they bear his initials, " I. D.," in an oval or heart-shaped die. A curious tale hangs by the christening basin, of solid beaten silver. In the last century, Jeremiah Atwater, a worshipper in the old church, wished to repair his house, and for that purpose bought a keg of nails of a Boston dealer. On opening it, something more than iron nails was found, even a large quantity of silver dollars. Jeremiah Atwater was honest, and tried to return the dollars to the seller, but he in his turn disclaimed any right to that which he had neither bought nor sold, and so the treasure-trove was unclaimed and unused until 1735, when Mr. Atwater felt his end approaching and bequeathed the coin A Neiv Haven Church. 35 to the church. From it was made this capacious basin, twelve inches in diameter, three inches deep, and more than two pounds in weight. Imagination revels in the mystery which wraps the former state of those silver dollars. Were they the hoard of a miser, the birthright of an orphan, or the booty of a robber ? Surely, if there were any original stain of guilt con- ne<5ted with this baptismal bowl, it has long ago been purified by the presence of innocent little ones and the prayers of holy men. And yet one more bit of romantic history clings to this ancient communion service. A certain Deacon Ball was its custodian at the time of the British raid on the town, in 1779. Everyone was trying to secure his most valued goods from destru(5lion, and Deacon Ball, loyal to his trust, racked his brain to find a hiding- place for the church silver. At last, the chimney was thought of, and his little girl was lifted up to secrete the precious charge in the sooty recesses. The house was searched, Mrs. Ball's gold beads were taken, but the silver was not discovered — and was brought forth afterwards for its continued sacred use. And thus, enriched by the hallowed use of many generations, those tokens of the devotion of the forefathers and the foremothers towards the worship they struggled to establish and to maintain, are still here, and help us to people the past with living figures. In one respect, the Center Church is unique among American churches ; it has a crypt. It is not like the vault of the Stuyvesant family under St. Mark's, in New York, which is so remote in the ground that a long and com- plicated process of removing flagstones is necessary before one of the Stuyve- sants can rest with his ancestors. This simply means that when the present building was planned to stand on the site of its predecessor, its greater size made it necessary to extend it over some of the graves of the old, adjacent church-yard, or to obliterate such tokens of the early days. Fortunately, the former course was adopted, and consequently, when we have descended to this strange place, we find ourselves transported to colonial times. The light of a nineteenth century sun streams through the low windows over grave-stones which were wept over before the Anglo-Saxon race had achieved its supremacy on this continent ; before the struggle for life had abated sufficiently to allow thoughts of a struggle for independence ; over dust which had been animated by the docftrinal quarrels, the political ambitions, the religious hesitation and daring which make the men and women of that time so interesting to us. The stones are thickly set, as if all had desired to sleep close under the protedlion of the church they had loved in life. Slabs and tablets of native stone, and in many cases of the finer foreign stones, stand in close array, but in a strange, diagonal fashion, at variance with all the lines of the building. There is a " method in the madness," and one is almost tempted to feel that those sturdy souls disdained to lay their bodies in conformity to any supersti- tious ideas as to the points of compass. Owing to the generosity and zeal of Mr. Thomas R. Trowbridge, who has also promoted the placing of the tablets on the walls above, and who is a lineal 36 A Neiv Haven Church. descendant of many buried here, all has been put in order ; the roughened ground has been smoothed and covered with cement, and the inscriptions have been made legible where time has taken off their first sharpness. One wanders among these stone memorials with the feeling that they are secure now from wind and storm for many a year. In such places, one seeks the oldest stone. In this case, it is a low, time- eaten slab, marking the death of "Mrs. Sarah Trowbridge, Deceased January the 5th, Aged 46, 1687." Not far away lie the grandfather and grandmother of President Hayes, and here is the first wife of Benedidt Arnold, of whom it is said that her influence might have kept him from his dastardly a6t. Still it was probably a happy fate that carried her away early, before the world had seen those traits which were undoubtedly quite too evident to her. The early members of the Trowbridge family were clustered close in death. Of the one hundred and thirty-nine persons buried here, twenty-five are Trow- bridges. He whose gravestone reads thus : " Here Lyeth Intere'' The Body of Thomas Trowbridge Esquire • Aged 70 Years Deceased The 22'' of August Anno Domini 1702." was the son of the Thomas Trowbridge who, born in Taunton, England, was one of the original settlers of New England, and his name is perpetuated to this day in his lineal descendants. He married Sarah Rutherford in 1657. Near him is the Thomas Trowbridge of the next generation. He ' ' departed this life" in 171 1, and his wife, Mary, did not rest beside him until thirty-one years later. And here is "Mr. Caleb Trowbridge who departed this life Septem' y*^ loth Anno Do. 1704." At a little distance is a curious stone, repeating in the warning " sic transit gloria mundi," the lesson of a faintly sculptured sun-dial. Beneath lies " Capt. Joseph Trowbridge," who died in 1749. A very plump and happy cherub smiles from the stone over Mrs. Sarah Whiting, the daughter of Jonathan Ingersoll, of Milford ; and it seems to show the glad contrast between her "wearisome pilgrimage" and her "joyful hope of a glorious immortality." Everyone who examines old gravestone inscriptions must be struck by the evidence that the next world seemed very near to the people of those times, that its joys grew real in proportion as the discomforts of the present life were pressing. A New Haven Church. 37 Several of the monuments are in the table form and bear long inscriptions. One commemorates the a(5tive career of Jared Ingersoll, a man of distinguished position and ability, who died in 1781, " having been judge of the Court of Vice- Admiralty, twice Agent for Connedticut at the Court of Great Britain. He was a Man of uncommon Genius, which was cultivated by a liberal education at Yale College and improved by the Study of mankind." Of these means of men- tal and spiritual advancement, certainly the third, perhaps demanding the least outlay of money and yet often the most costly, is open to us all. Here is another table, with delicately carved legs, bearing an inserted plate of finer stone on which are the names of James Abraham Hillhouse and his wife, "Madam " Hillhouse, the uncle and aunt of Senator James Hillhouse. In this quiet place is the dust of three of the early, historic pastors of the church ; Pierpont, " an eloquent man and mighty in the Scriptures, who being fervent in spirit ceased not for y'' space of 30 years to warn every one day and night w"' tears," the whole ending quaintly with " Anag. Pie repone te ;" Noyes, "patient in tribulation & abundant in labors;" and Whittelsey, who, like Goldsmith's parson, " exemplified the more excellent way." It is interesting to note the difference between the inscriptions on these tables of stone which breathe the feelings of the contemporary friends and recount those adls and qualities which were important in their eyes ; and those words in the church above, where, on tablets of brass, is recorded the calm judgment of the men of to-day. In the first, we feel the sense of present and personal loss, caused by the removal from the community of an acknowledged power ; in the second, we read the verdicfl of time on what each has done for the world's progress. 38 A Nezv Haven Church. Below the lines in memory of Mr. Pierpont are the following : " Also Mrs. Mary the 3rd wife of the above Rev. Mr. James Pierpont, who died November ist, 1740 ^tatisSuse 68." She was the daughter of the Rev. Thomas Hooker and the mother of Mrs. Jonathan Edwards. Although Madam Noyes was buried in Wethersfield, she has an epitaph beneath that of Mr. Noyes. She was a rare woman. The daughter of the Rev. James Pierpont and Sarah Haynes, she had many advantages of inherited respedt and of education, and she was, withal, so wise and gracious, so absorbed in well-doing, that she was revered throughout her life, even by those who dis- liked Mr. Noyes. She was so much interested in the education of the young that she opened a free school in her own house, and left, by her will, a sum for the future instrudion of children. She gave a farm of three hundred and fifty acres in Farmington, Conn., to the church, and the money derived therefrom forms part of the Ministerial Fund. There are children here, too ; three little baby Sybyl Trowbridges ; and there is a singular group of four Sarah I^ymans — one seventy-five years old, one twenty-seven years, one one year, and one one month — and all dying within two years. Next to the Trowbridges, the Whittelseys were brought here in greatest number, eight in all, while there are many Allings and IngersoUs, and members of the family of Hays, or Hayz. Two sisters, daughters of Samuel Broome, rest beneath one table-stone, which bears twin epitaphs ; and near by is the stone of Mrs. Katherine Dana, the wife of the Rev. Dr. Dana, marked by a slab of fine slate with a relief of an urn with drooping handles, all very delicately carved, and as fresh as if placed here yesterday instead of more than a hundred years ago. It is hard to find poor spelling, and the epitaphs are almost without excep- tion refined and dignified. The last burial was in 1812, that of Mrs. Whittelsey, widow of the Rev. Chauncey Whittelsey. One unobtrusive stone brings to mind a woman whose expressed wish has been felt in ever deepening and widening circles — Hester Coster, who is so curiously connedted with the establishment of Yale in New Haven. It was Davenport's original intention to devote the land at the corner of Chapel, and College streets to the college which they wished to have speedily. In the vicissitudes of the seventeenth century, it was sold and used for a building lot ; Joshua Atwater, a merchant from London, and one of the first settlers, had it ; then William Tuttle bought it ; and after his death it was sold to the widow Hester Coster. She died in 1691, and, by her will, left the property to the ' ' First Church of Christ, New Haven, to be improved toward the maintaining of A New Haven Church. 39 a lecture in New Haven in the spring and fall of the year." For a few years, the church leased the property, but in 1717, under a power given by her will, sold it to the "trustees, partners, and undertakers for the Collegiate School." For, in 17 16, a decision was made as to the situation of the college which had such a struggle for its infant existence ; in choosing New Haven, a condition was made that the ' ' Coster lot ' ' and the ' ' Hooke lot ' ' should be acquired by the college ; the condition was granted, and that inducement prevailed over those held out by other aspirants for the honor, and thus Yale was placed in the City of Elms rather than in Wethersfield or Saybrook. Thus did the wishes of the English divine and the country dame unite in producing results greater than they could have even dared to hope for. One wonders how Hester Coster looked, talked, and lived, whether she was a forerunner of the strong-minded woman, wishing to enforce herself on the coming generations, or one of the gentle ones who become inspired with the desire of throwing their all into the treasury of the pressing public need. Just this one flash-light is thrown on her, and then all is dark. The inscription is : M" Hester Coster Aged 67 Deceased April y'= 6'" 1691. It would be hard to speak of this church without referring to its intimate connedlion with Yale University. Among their grand plans for the future was always the darling hope of the pastors and people that the colony should be a college town. A college lot was set aside from the first, and in spite of many vicissitudes and disappointments, it was that which was finally used. Davenport was full of zeal for education, wishing "all children in his colony to be brought up in learning." He would have rejoiced to know that Connedticut was to have the first school fund. For a long time the projedl seemed doomed to disappoint- ment for reasons both external and internal, but Davenport never gave up hope or effort. In the fifth year of the colony the settlers began to send contributions of corn to Harvard, and Eaton gave money toward the buildings required at Cambridge. In 1647, the attempt was made to start the college in the house oifered by Deputy-Governor Goodyear, who is commemorated by the tablet on the rear of the church, but a remonstrance came from the Cambridge people, who said that they could not support their young institution if the New Haven assistance should be withdrawn. New Haven yielded for a time, but the matter was annually discussed in public meetings, and was always near the heart of the people. The impulse given by Davenport's fixed purpose was felt long after his removal and death, and well has it been said, " As long as the college stands, the name of John Davenport, that pioneer in the promotion of the higher education, should be remembered by its alumni with reverence and gratitude." When, after all the discussions with other towns, the efforts of Davenport and Hooke and Street and Pierpont resulted in the three-story building on the Coster lot, facing the redlor's house on the Hooke lot, it was natural that the 40 A New Haveyi Church. little band of students should form part of the pastor's flock, that the meeting- house should be the scene of all public occasions for the college, and that the growth and prosperity of one institution should be linked with those of the other. Since the removal of the college to New Haven, until 1895, ^11 commence- ments, all inauguration of presidents, besides many other ceremonies, have been celebrated within the First Church walls. So, for nearly a century and three- quarters, the Center Church and its predecessors "have been like college build- ings in the memory of the alumni." Before even the venerable elms began to cast their shade over the scene, successive processions have marched to the same place, each class to be, in its turn, the absorbing interest, and each to take one step farther on in the world's progress, each to add one more to the accumulat- ing associations of the college. Commencement days have swung from September through August and July to June, the speakers have run the .scale of the learned languages, there have been classes small and large, but until two years ago the tide of diploma-seekers has never failed to flow in and out of those church doors. Hither came the proud parents, and hither flocked the pretty girls of suc- ceeding generations, decked in all the summer finery of each passing fashion, and here for more than a hundred years these descendants of the boys and girls who giggled on the pulpit stairs of the old first church, whispered composedly and outrageously straight through the long seasons of oratoric display, until the disturbance became so intolerable that the fiat went forth that men and women should sit on opposite sides of the church. Thus, and thus only, was the irre- pressible loquacity, aroused by listening to so much eloquence, repressed. Music was not introduced to relieve the proceedings until 1819, and it was not until 1846 that it ceased to be sacred in its character. What would the fathers have said to the sound of opera airs within those walls ! Great has been the change, too, in the intelledtual part of the programme. We hear of an early commencement called ' ' splendid ' ' by President Clap, and from that time on, the desire to secure places in the audience has been such that spurious tickets have been sometimes offered. To obviate fraud of that kind, the mysterious characfters since seen on commencement tickets were adopted. For a long time, until 1868, these eager spe<5lators and listeners patiently sat through two sessions in one day. In 1781, the walls of the predecessor of this building echoed to a Greek oration, an English colloquy, a forensic disputation, and an oration by President Stiles, in which he announced his opinions in Hebrew, Chaldaic and Arabic, followed by an English oration, all in the morn- ing. In the afternoon, the indefatigable and polyglot Dr. Stiles pronounced a " Eatin discourse," and a syllogistic dispute, a dissertation, a poem, and an oration gave the finishing touches to these learned feats. These syllogistic dis- putes, which had their day for sixty years, do not appear on the records after 1787. They must have afforded something of that excitement which modern students find in the ball games. We learn that in 1730, they were given from the side galleries of the church, the disputants hurling the polished missiles of A New Haven Church. 41 their logic from side to side with all the ardor of a struggle for life. The orators stood in the front gallery, and the " audience huddled below them to catch their Latin eloquence as it fell." Just forty years ago, in 1857, there were twenty-three speakers in the morn- ing and nineteen in the afternoon. All this speech-making proved a weariness to the flesh, and the male portion of the audience was often seen reclining on the grass outside in the shade of the elms, until such time as the sergeant-at-arms of the city should muster his forces on the Green, ready for the supreme moment of taking the degrees. Then all the hundreds from the different departments of the university into which the " collegiate school " has grown marched into the time-honored build- ing, up the steep steps of the temporary platform, each squad to decorously receive the sheepskins with the Latin speech, and each to divide and descend the side steps, at great risk of collision between heads and gallery beams, all to be instantly replaced by the next oncoming squad, until all were transformed from "seniors" to " educated gentlemen." All that has yielded to the varied array of caps and gowns. Long may the old church stand on the Green, to remind us of its part in history, to symbolize the character of New England, inspired by the pa.st, stand- ing firmly in the present, and ready to go forward to the future ! ^TIOYE S'TRETT " Cemetery, "newhavek. One hundred years ago, in July, 1796, that public-spirited citizen, James Hillhouse, caused the purchase and preparation of the burial ground known as the Grove Street Cemetery. His own body was laid there when his work was over ; and before him and after him have come to keep him company so many gifted and noble ones that with truth we read that " it is the resting-place of more persons of varied eminence than any other cemetery on this continent." The roll of honored names on its stones represents brain-power that has stirred the world and has done much to make the nineteenth century what it has been. The place seems dedicated to the fame of learning and of noble lives, and as it is still in use by the descendants of the original owners, the crumbling Pa.st and the well-kept Present meet there very strikingly. It was the first burial ground in the world to be divided into " family lots," and every visitor must notice the prominence of the family feeling. Parents, children, and grandchildren are together ; those whose lives have been spent elsewhere have sought burial with their kindred, while the families that enjoyed sweet intercourse in scholarly pursuits and social courtesies are still neighbors in death. The Grove Street Cemetery. 43 The wall and gates are severely Egyptian in style, but over the massive pylons at the entrance, the words, " The dead shall be raised," testify that to the ancient yearning for a life beyond the grave has succeeded the triumphant faith of Christianity. Within is the mortuary chapel, and the golden butterfly on its front again points every passer to the soul's release from the burden of the body. The cemetery is a quiet little square of seventeen acres, separating college halls on the one hand from the stir of business on the other. It is a cheerful city of the dead, with tall trees, high-trimmed, and with evidences of scrupulous care. Thoughtful visitors are always wandering along its avenues, peering here and there for tokens of the olden time, or for memorials of revered instructors and loved classmates. Let us walk down Cedar avenue, the " famous row." Here are pioneers of American scholarship, such as Benjamin Silliman, the elder, a man whose priv- ilege it was to be indeed a Nestor in science, to open the way to the wide fields we traverse freely. The little, low, gray laboratory has disappeared from the face of the Yale campus, but does not every one who sends a telegram owe thanks to Silliman and Morse that within its humble walls they persisted in the experi- ments which resulted in the great invention ? Professor Silliman was a keen observer, a delightful writer, a noble man ; his name honors the stone on which it is inscribed. His son and successor, Benjamin Silliman the younger, is in THE HILI.HOUSE I^OT. another part of the ground ; but in the same inclosure rests a Revolutionary dame, Mrs. Eunice Trumbull, " relict of Jonathan Trumbull, late Governor of Connecticut." She was the widow of the second governor of that illustrious family which contributed so much to the success of our war for independence, 44 The Grove Street Cemetery. and she was the mother of Harriet Trumbull, who was the wife of Professor Silliman, and who lies here, too. Thus two families bearing the American patent of nobility, valor and learning, were united. The mantle fell on no less a man than James Dwight Dana, the great geolo- gist, who searched the secrets of the coral groves. His slight form and pure face, a presence seeming more spiritual than material, were a part of New Haven for many years. Now he rests here. Next is the grave of Jedidiah Morse, the " Father of American Geography." A shaft bears aloft a globe, commemorating the service that Morse did in placing geography in the realm of systematic knowledge. Any one who has seen a copy of Morse's first edition, two stout octavo volumes bound in calf, will be apt to deem it at least as far removed as a great-grandfather from its modern descend- ant, the floridly embellished and tersely written school geography. His work, which may have been called for by the needs of the girls' school which he had in New Haven the year after his own graduation in 1783, is many TO JEDIDIAH MORSE, BENJAMIN SIWMAN, AND JAMES DWIGHT DANA. The Grove Street Cemetery. 45 times amusing when the author least intends to afford diversion. The title page runs thus — "The American Universal Geography or a View of the Present State of all the Empires, Kingdoms, States, and Republics in the known WORLD and of the United States of America in Particular." Some of the "particulars " are not un- pleasing reading for Connecticut people ; as for instance — " Connecticut is the most populous in proportion to its extent, of any of the thirteen states. A traveler, even in the most unsettled part of the state, will sel- dom pass more than two or three miles with- out finding a house or cottage and a farm under such improvement as to afford the necessaries for the support of a family." Again, " In no part of the world is the education of all ranks of the people more attended to than in Connecticut." The high regard in which the legal pro- fession has always been held here finds an explanation in its pages. "The people of Connecticut are remarkably fond of having all their disputes settled according to law. The prevalence of this litigious spirit affords employment and support for a numerous body of lawyers." But the lawyers were not to be left in undisputed possession of legal mysteries, for Morse says that, "In 1672 the laws of the colony were revised, and the general court ordered them to be printed, and also that every family should buy one of the law, books ; such as pay in silver to have a book for twelve pence, such as pay in wheat to pay a peck and a half a book, and such as pay in peas, to pay two shillings a book, the peas at three shillings the bushel." How intimately the pursuit of agriculture and the book trade were associ- ated in those days ! Morse sagely remarks, " Perhaps it is owing to the early and universal spread of law books that the people of Connecticut are to this day so fond of the law." This is his testimony for the state which had the first school fund: "A TO THEODORE WINTHROP. 46 The Grove Street Cemetery. To KI-I WHITNKV. thrift for learning prevails among all ranks of people in the state. In no part of the world is the education of all ranks of people more attended to than in Connecticut." Now, in 1896, there comes a voice from a son of Connecticut, who has spent nearly half a century in the sunny land of cotton : "As I grow older, my opinion is stronger than ever that the ancient state has done more for the education and general advancement of all the people of this vast coun- try than any other." Con- necticut educators have a great past to live up to. The salutary influence of the clergy, described as "very respectable," is noted as having preserved a kind of aristocratic balance in the very democratic government of the state. What do the members of the medical profession, and tobacco-raisers think of this " act of the general assembly at Hartford in 1647, wherein it was ordered, ' That no person under the age of twenty years, nor any other that hath already accustomed himself to the use thereof, shall take any tobacco until he shall have brought a certificate from under the hand of some who are ap- proved for knowledge and skill in physic, that it is fit for him, and also that he hath received a license from the court for the same.' All others who had addicted themselves to the use of tobacco, were, by the same court, prohibited tak- ing it in any company, or at their labors, or on their travels, unless they were ten miles at least from any house, or more than once a day, though not in com- pany, on pain of a fine of sixpence for each time ; to be proved by one substantial evidence " ? Oh ! the vicissitudes of time ! But the laws of Connecticut were again revised in 1750, and of them Dr. TO I.YMAN BEECHER AXL> .NOAH PORTER. 77/1? Grove Street Ceynetery. 47 Douglass observed, " That they were the most natural, equitable, plain, and con- cise code of laws for plantations hitherto extant." Morse died in 1826, after a varied life, which brought him honors, among them a degree from the University of Edinburgh, and the office of U. S. Com- missioner to the Indian tribes. Here also is his wife, Elizabeth Anne Breese, granddaughter of President Finley of Princeton. So there is a family history in the names of Samuel Finley Breese Morse, Morse's illustrious son, whose first wife, Lucretia Pickering, took her place here at the age of twenty-five, not knowing what fame was in store for her husband. See this cross which bears the name of Theodore Winthrop — a name that summons the tragedy of the civil war, the blighting of a promising literary career, all too soon for achieving fame in battle. In that gifted man met the inheritance of the families that New England counts among her proudest possessions in the past, the Woolseys, the Dwights, the Winthrops. The call of Sumter roused the patriotism in the .scholar's heart, and in three months promise and yH«-H performance were alike ended. Much can be read V> H between the terse lines, "Born in New Haven, % B| vSept. 22, 1828. C * ♦ Fell in Battle at j | ,y m Great Bethel, Va., June 11, 1861." College honors, travel in lands, old and new, the love of friends, the unfolding of fame in letters, the glow of patriotism, all led to that supreme moment, when, leap- ing up to urge on his men, he fell. The pathos of his death casts a spell over us when we turn the pages of ' ' Cecil Dreeme" and "Edwin Brothertoft," of " L,ove and Skates," and of those descrip- tions in the Atlantic of that memorable first "^^ J"«^' ^^^ ^.ovf.i.^.. march to Washington, which made him speak to the whole nation after his pen and sword were laid aside forever. Next is a name no less famous, that of Eli Whitney, ' ' the inventor of the cotton-gin, 1765-1825. TO NOAH WEBSTER. 48 The Grove Street Cemetery. the kind-hearted, swift-footed, We all know what Horace Greeley has so strikingly set forth, that the United States and the civilized world are richer because the inventive genius and courteous helpfulness of that young Yale man offered a friendl}^ hand to southern labor. What modern commerce would be without the cotton-gin, it is hard to say. Lyman Beecher, great father of great chil- dren, lies near, beneath a block of stone bearing a cross in relief; and next are the Taylors, Dr. Taylor of theological renown, and his daughter, Marj', the wife of Noah Porter. She is beside clear-headed, eleventh president of Yale. And in this neighbor- h o o d of death is the grave of Noah Web- ster, 1758- 1842. Veri- ly, he "be- ing dead, yet speak- eth," for do not millions of us im- plicitly obey TO mary ci.ap wooster. his orders given in the famous spelling-book, and in the "Unabridged," inspired by him with a life which keeps it in vigorous growth while generations pass away ? The speller attained a sale of sixty-two million copies long ago ; and although his royaltj' was only a cent a copy, that supported his family for years. Webster was a typical son of Connecti- cut in his versatility. Of Hartford birth, a graduate of Yale, he was teacher, lawyer, judge, politician, magazine editor, author of text-books, one of the founders of Amherst, and lexicographer, as occasion de- manded. The renown of his dictionary perhaps causes us to forget that his words were a prime mover for the call for the convention which gave to the TO TIMOTHY DWIGHT. The Grove Street Cemetery. 49 United States their revered constitution. He lived in sight of his final resting- place. On the opposite side is the grave of Joel Root, the model of high-bred integrity, whose adventures in a business voyage of three years around the world in the first years of the century read like a second Robinson Crusoe. . Turning to another avenue, we find an educator of a later generation, but of wide influence, John Epy Lovell, ' ' founder and teacher of the I,ancasterian school." He was born in 1795, and lacked but three years ot a century of life when he died in 1893. For years he carried out in New Haven his peculiar ideas of methods of instruction, and although the "monitor system" is an educa- To THEODORE DwiGHT WOOI3EY. tioual fashiou long since laid aside, the memory of the genial and talented teacher is still green. In 1889, Mr. Lovell appeared in the procession which celebrated the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the town. Every eye was turned on the veteran, who, in his ninety-fourth year, was already in the halo of the past. He sleeps beneath granite blocks picturesquely piled, a monument given by an associa- tion of his pupils. These stones commemorate the Clap family, "The Reverend and learned Mr. Thomas Clap, late President of Yale College," in days so far away (1740-1765), thathe could show his enterprise by caus- ing the first cata- logue to be prepared for the library, that library so asssociated with the foundation and continued life of the college, by compiling the college laws (in Latin), the first book printed in New Haven, and by securing the new charter with the style, " the President and Fellows of Yale College in New Haven ; " Mrs. Clap, and their daughter, Mary Clap Wooster, "widow of Gen. David Wooster, of the Revo- lutionary Army." To PROFESSORS I,OOMIS, TWINING, AND HADI<EY. 50 The Grove Street Cemetery. She was the "Madam Wooster" whose namesake is the New Haven Chapter of the Daughters of the Revolution. Another Yale president is in this scholastic ground, the first President Dwight. Of all the praiseworthy acts of his able career not one was more laudable than begin- ning the work of breaking down the old-fashioned b a r - riers which separ- ated classes and facul ty . His ' ' reign ' ' naturally trebled the number of students. Six headstones in a row, each one bearing the name of Olmsted, tell of death's ravages in one family of sons. The father, Denison Olmsted, '"' "'^'•'^ ^"^'^"^ ^^° i-kon.^rd bacon. the loved professor of Natural Philosophy and Astronomy, before the days of specialists, and five sons, lie here. Of the sons, all but one Yale men, one died at twenty-two, two at twenty-five, one at thirty, and one at thirty-five. Near the rear wall is the burial-place of another revered Yale president, Theodore Dwight Woolsey. Perhaps the extent of his fame as a scholar was never better seen than when one of the Chinese embassies brought over as a gift to him his work on International Law translated into Chinese. Most pathetic is the inscription over the graves of the two daughters who died of Syrian fever in Jerusa- lem, only two days apart. "In their deaths they were not divided." Three great scholars repose together in death even as they labored together in life, Professor Twining, Professor Hadley, Pro- fessor LrOomis. Professor Twining made the first railroad survey in the state, and therefore one of the first in the country. It was in 1835, for the Hartford and New Haven railroad. The books which Greek and mathematical students have pored over ■(."ixSk'S'.mM-- THE GERRY MONUMENT. The Grove Street Cemetery. 51 TO GENRRAI, TKRRV. for so many years have been the best monument for Hadley and L,oomis. After the latter' s burial, there came warning telegrams from the chief of the New York police, and a strict guard was necessary every night until the heavy base of the monument was laid, and there was no further opportunity to pry into the secrets of that powerful brain. ' ' Leonard Bacon ! ' ' What memories his name brings up of work and inspiration for more than fifty years of pas- toral life in New Haven. Some one said of him that while really a man of low stature, he always gave the impression of being of commanding height. Such was the effect of his master- mind. "After hfe's fitful fever," here sleeps his gifted and disappointed sister, Delia Bacon, the prophetess of the Baconian theory of the authorship of Shakespeare's plays. A cro.ss is the symbol above her, with these words, " 'So he bringeth them to their desired haven.' In grate- ful remembrance, this monument is erected by her former pupils." Rest, now, perturbed spirit, in that realm where perplex- ities are resolved into glad cer- tainty. Here is Charles Good- year, the great inventor, one of America's bene- factors. He was preeminent in the talent which is a chief characteristic of Connecticut men, and his struggles for nearly thirty years with poverty and debt and injustice while he wrestled with To ADMIRAL FOOTK. 52 The Grove Street Cemetery. TO JOSEPH EARL SHEFFIEI<D. the problem, the solution of which transformed caoutchouc into vulcanized rub- ber in its hundreds of useful forms, border on heroism. Like many other great inventors, he was rudely treated by Fortune, who bade him take fame and foreign medals, while she poured the earnings of his brain into the hands of those who borrowed his ideas. General Terry and Admiral Foote, our heroes in the civil war, are here ; and reminders of the Rev- olution are not lacking. The days of alarm and dis- tress when the rough "redcoats" were maraud- ing in the streets of the quiet little town, are brought to mind by the time-worn monument of the great-grandfather of ex-Gov. English, bearing the words, "Benjamin English, died 5 July, 1779, aged 74. He was stabbed by a British soldier when sitting in his own house." In another part of the ground is the grave of another aged man who met death in a similar way during the same raid, Nathan Beers, the father of the Revolutionary soldier. Deacon Nathan Beers. Let us be thankful that the days of arbitration are at hand. Here, too, rests Colonel David Humphrey, the trusted aid-de-camp of Washington. The old New Haven families, the Trowbridges, the Ingersolls, the Hillhouses, have come here for their long home ; of governors who have honored the old state, such as Governor Dutton and Gover- nor Baldwin, the defender of the famous Amistad captives ; of learned professors, such as Thacher, the Latin scholar, and Eaton, the botanist ; of men eminent in all professions, such as Dr. Levi Ives, "the beloved physician," Henry R. Storrs, the jurist and orator; of benefactors, of patriots, the list grows as fast as one walks about. William Dwight Whitney, whose fame as a philologist and Sanskrit scholar is world- wide, and who was a member of so many learned foreign societies that a whole To ROGER SHERMAN. The Grove Street Cemetery. 53 alphabet seemed to follow his name, has taken his place among the illustrious dead. Joseph Earl Sheffield lies in sight of his home on Hillhouse avenue and of the buildings of the lusty, ever growing Scientific School which was his noble gift to Yale. His example of bestowing what he had to give while he was alive to watch the growth of his plan ought to be followed by millionaire philanthropists who wish to secure his success. The grandfather of President Cleveland, the Rev. Aaron Cleveland, was buried on Linden Avenue, in 18 15. The bones of New Haven's first governor lie near the Center church, where the earliest interments were made, but the monument is here with this inscrip- tion : " Thkophhus Eaton, Esq., Governor. Deceased Jan. 7, 1657, Aetati.s, 67. Eaton, so famed, so wise, so meek, so just. The Phoenix of our world here hides his du.st. This name forget. New England never must." Wherein the sentiment is more laudable than the poetry. Is there a name more honored in Connedticut's revolutionary history than that of Roger Sherman, one of the immortal five who presented the Declaration ? He is buried here. The lines on his monument show that his fellow-citizens left him little time for private life. He was " Mayor of the city of New Haven, and senator to the United States." " He was nineteen years an Assistant and twenty-three a Judge of the Superior Court, in high Reputation. He was Delegate in the first Congress, signed the glorious A6t of Inde- pendence, and many years displayed superior Talents and Ability in the National Legislature. He was a Member of the general Convention, approved the federal Constitution, and served his Country with fidelity and honor in the House of Representatives and in the Senate of the United States." We know that there is no flattery in the quiet eulogium that follows : " He was a man of approved Integrity, a cool, discerning Judge, a prudent, sagacious Politician, a true, faithful, and firm Patriot." Full of pathetic suggestions is the " college lot," where, in days gone by, those who died in the midst of their course, away from home, were laid, having found their long home in the town to which they came with aspirations for lay- ing the foundations of great careers. Most of these monuments are of like pattern and have been placed there by classmates. The inscriptions nearly all express in Latin the regret of these class- mates, and have dates of long ago, when it was necessary that death and burial should occur in the same place ; but one is recent, 1892, and is the memorial of Kakichi Senta, Japan. An ocean and a continent separate him from his gentle, dark-eyed friends in that wonderful West of the Orient. On the tombstone of little Susie Bacon, who died in Switzerland in her fourth year, are her touching last words, " Der liebe Gott liebt Susie, und ich soil Ihn sehen." There are not many of the mirth-provoking epitaphs which one sometimes 54 T^f^^ Grove Street Cemetery. sees in old churchyards. Sidney Hull and his five wives may draw a sigh from some, a smile from others. But one of the most interesting features of this burial ground is the long line of ancient headstones resting against the wall. A great part of two sides is occupied by these memorials of the colonial dead, brought hither in 1820, when the graves in the Green were leveled. Here we read history by fascinating hints and snatches. The stones are sometimes of slate, but oftener of sandstone, which has proved in many cases a treacherous record-bearer by flaking off in layers, thus leaving a painful blank where once appeared the name and station of him ' ' To the Memory ' ' of whom the stone was raised. Many of them are bordered by scrolls and vines, and are surmounted by cheerful death's heads and cherubim. Some are the rude efforts of unaccustomed hands, trying to preserve the memory of dear ones, when it was difficult to carve even a few letters, and some show that, as years passed, the stone-cutter had taken his place as a recognized work- man. By the irony of fate the date for which a curious visitor looks most eagerly is often the very part of the inscription which is illegible, but the stones belong to the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. In those days they were strenuous to insist on the social standing betokened by "Mr." and "Mrs." as, "Mr. David Atw.a^ter, A noted apothecary, and a fimi advocate for his country, in defense of which he fell a volunteer in the battle at Gunipo Hill, 1777." Another shows that phonetic spelling had its adherents, "Joseph Aij.sup Deseased in ye 42 yeare of hi.s age, January the 12, 1691." There are many double stones and almost all have rounded tops. Here is a "doleful sound" from the stone of Mrs. Betty Colt, who died in 1765, aged twenty-two : " Passenjers, as you pass by, Behold ye place where now i lie, As you are now, so once was i. As i am now, so j-ou must be. Prepare to die & follow me." Sometimes the words proved too much for the sculptor and he was forced to divide such a word as "d3'ed," placing one part on one line and the other on another. Allings and Atwaters and Mixes and Bradleys and Beechers abound, and the military titles of those who died in the early part of the eighteenth centur}- remind us that peaceful homes were not secured without fighting. A glimpse of the loyalty to the old home is seen in the following : " In memory of Mr. Josiah Woodhouse, who was born in ye city of London, in old England, and died in New Haven, vSept. 7, 1761, in his 43d year." Some of these old stones have been broken in half lengthwise, and when one portion has entirely disappeared, the remaining half gives tantalizingly partial The Grove Street Cemetery. 55 record. For example, of some nameless one, we have yet this tribute of aching hearts : " Aged 19 years Beloved in life And much bemoaned in death." The sole legend on another is, "A. B." On another, "R., 1686, F.'p." These alphabetical memorials were full of meaning once to some fond ones ; now they only say that some one died, and some one lamented. One, like a part of a puzzle, gives us an opportunity to guess the whole : James Rice friend of nd religious order emed and useful in his life death sincerely lamented. He died the yellow fever September 29, 1 794. 65th year of his age. Happy the man, who, when his life's records are shattered, can leave frag- ments that point to such a whole ! The sexton's bell rings, the gates will close, and we leave the honored dead to their eternal peace in the midst of that city which they blessed by their lives. JAMES HILLHOUSE. From the painting by V^anderlyn. ' But in those hours when others rest^ Kept public care upon his breast.''' — Sachem's IVootf. Perhaps the charm of Hill- house Avenue may lie in the very limitations of space which give it an air of daintiness and finish. Not more than a quarter of a mile long, it lies between the Hillhouse grounds at the head, and the Historical Soci- ety's building, the gift of Mr. Henry English, at the foot ; and the eye, at one glance, takes in the whole arcade of the graceful, shadowy elms that lift their glorious crowns to the sky. In 1792, Senator James Hill- house laid it out, one hundred and five feet wide, through the "Hill- house Farm," and he planted the elms which for all these years have made a royal canopy. A young man in the employ of Mr. Hillhouse drove the stakes and helped to set out the trees. That young man was proud to recall the fact when he walked beneath those elms as President Day, of Yale. Time has justified the foresight of the owner of the land ; the homes of wealth Hillhouse Avenue. 57 • ...i?e"^^- % if!* . ^ - V W^^* \ M v-',K-^ ■i^^. fflj&^^J^ ^ ^ i v'-^l^y^-.:- ' ^ Hf- ' -M 1 i ^-i :':',"■,■''■ r <^^" THK HII.I.HOUSE PLACE, SACHKM ~ U'it/t the kind pej-missioH of the Kim City Nursery Co. and of learning are on either hand, and in this "cathedral city, whose streets are aisles," there is no street more beauti- ful than this. Just as his early home, the house of his uncle, James Abraham Hillhouse, was at the head of Church street, so Mr. Hillhouse' s own dwelling, now gone, was then at the head of Temple street, and he moved away a part of it, so that the street could be extended to join the Hartford turnpike where Temple and Church meet in Whitney avenue. From that house, when an angry mob threatened to tear down the Medical School, then in what is now Sheffield Hall, because the body of a beautiful young woman, stolen from her grave, was supposed to be secreted there, Mr. Hillhouse went forth in the majesty of the trusted and trustworthy citizen — and the surging, infuriated crowd was still. historical socikty's biildino. 58 Hillhouse Avemie. For the mansion of his son, James A. Hillhouse, the poet, he seledled the high ground, which rose among the oaks, and there were spent ^ THE SHEFFIEI.D PI<ACE. the declining years of his own life. Hillhouse avenue, which was first called Temple avenue, was private property, and, until 1862 — when the city assumed jurisdi6lion — Mayor Skinner and Mr. William Hillhouse, the nephew whose house is near the gate, used annually, on some Odlober night, to stretch the chain across the entrance, in compliance with the law. On one corner, as you approach, is the pi6turesque "Cloister," a build- ing not wholly con- secrated to ascetic vigils ; on the other, the vacant space, which was the old Botanical Garden, is dignified by the " Nathan Beers " elm, the tallest and mightiest of all New Haven elms. It was THE RAII^ROAD CUT. Hillhouse Avenue. 59 planted by the noble man whose name it bears. In front of the " Garden " is a well, now covered by the turf that borders the sidewalk, and it probably be- longed to the old house with long, sloping roof which was near the present Sheffield house. The old house was the home of Nathan Beers himself, who was one of the charadteristic men of the revolutionary period. A son of the Nathan Beers who was killed in his own house by the "redcoats" in their attack on New Haven, he had himself gone with Arnold at the outbreak of fighting, and later was one of the guards of the unfortunate Andre during the last night of his blighted life. What were the thoughts of the young men during those solemn hours, we know not. Beers described Andre as outwardly calm, except for the nervous rolling of a pebble under his foot. Before his execution he gave his gentle- faced keeper a pen and ink portrait of himself, which he had made by the aid of a mirror the day before. That sad lit- tle bit of paper is now in the Yale College library. Mr. Beers was a lieutenant and paymaster in the army, and so saw much of Washington. One still living re- members that he often spoke of seeing the harassed commander withdraw into the forest, before a battle, to invoke the Lord of Hosts. After the war, Mr. Beers, who had abundant means for those days, was persuaded by the first President Dwight to purvey for the college commons. Alas ! there was a lamentable discrepancy between the appetites of college boys and their ability or willingness to pay — debts rapidly accumulated and Mr. Beers was left a poor man, unable to meet his obligations. After so many j^ears had pa,ssed that the claims against him were several times outlawed, he succeeded in getting a pension ; but, instead of THE BEERS ELM. 6o Hi/ I house Avenice. applying it to personal needs, he spent it all in paying his creditors or their descendants, whom he sought out with great pains. Such a man deserved the love and respedl which attended him even to the extreme age of ninety-six. Well for the old North Church that it kept him as its deacon for many years ! He became extremely deaf in old age ; and on one of the occasions when the Governor's Guard marched to his home to salute him, he acknowledged the compliment by : " Boys, I can't hear your guns, but your powder smells good !" He was noted for that unfailing courtesy and gracious dignity which his admirers called Washingtonian. Why are we not ashamed to speak of good manners as "old fashioned?" With all the present revival of the past, let us bring into vogue the "old school" of high breeding and true culture. The portrait by Jocelyn, of which a copy is given, was painted in the old age of Mr. Beers and belonged to his grandson, Dr. Levi Ives, being now in the possession of the latter's son, Dr. Robert Ives. The imposing front of St. Mary's Roman Catholic church, and, opposite it, the Shef- field house, recall us to modern times. That house was built by the distinguished architedt, Ithiel Town, for his own use. Then, after Dr. Peters had lived in it, Mr. Sheffield bought it and added the extremities of the wings, which were not in the orig- inal plan. Many can re- member the handsome old man in the window, peace- fully enjoying the evening of life. He completed his noble gifts to Yale by be- queathing to her his house and grounds, and so a biolog- ical laboratory adds the asso- ciations of science to those of patriotism, art, and philan- thropy, already connected with the place. A little north of the spot where North Sheffield Hall is, but facing the ave- nue, was the old Mansfield house, that, to the day of its downfall, bore the bullet NATHAN BKERS. THE CLOISTER. Hillhouse Avenue. 6i marks left by the British ; four maps, now in the New Haven Historical Society, were in the house then and were pierced by the shots. The story goes that Mrs. Mansfield, whose husband was a Tor\', while her sons were patriots, had just bowed to hear her little one say his prayers, when a bullet passed immedi- ately over her head. The old building standing where Sheffield Hall now is was occupied as a guard-hou.se by the British, whose appreciation of Mr. Man.s- field's tory principles did not prevent them from stealing from his house a silver tankard which was secreted in one of the beds. The famous Farmington Canal passed diagonally across the avenue, and the cut was u.sed by the Canal railroad, when it was built. Children used to linger on the bridge to look at the boats as now they do to see the trains. The railroad station was, for a year or two, near Temple street, at the rear of the place of Mr. William Hillhouse. Senator Hillhouse was interested in the opening of the canal, which, in the world's ignorance of the railroads that were soon to be, prom- ised well. He gave eclat to the enterprise by breaking the earth, and the .spade which he used, now adorned with his portrait, is in the rooms of the New Haven Historical Society. Many eyes have turned to the house behind the rho- dodendrons, on the corner of Trumbull street and the ave- nue, because for nearly forty years, it was the home of the famous geologist and miner- alogist, Professor Dana. His books and his teachings have made him a light in the path of science ; his enthusiasm and success in his chosen pursuits, combined with his spotless character, made his presence a power, and his going has left a sad vacancy. The home of the elder Professor Silliman, a man of high position in the scientific and the social world, was once on the corner of that street and the avenue. It was built by the Hillhouses, and was for a long time a solitary house. Professor Silliman bought it in 1809, and he was regarded as living far out of town. To it he brought his bride and in it he died in 1864. The house had several additions, which were taken away or changed when it was moved to Trumbull street. A low, arched opening could be seen at one side in the thick stone wall of one of those wings. Although only a prosaic means of access to the kitchen, the students of the day persisted in conne<fling it RESIDKNCK OF WII.I.I.^M HII^I.HOUSK. 62 Hillhouse Avenue. with the novel and profound scientific investigations of the famous and learned professor, and looked on it as a mj'sterious entrance to occult and questionable rites which were not divulged to the outside world. Had he lived five hundred years earlier, Silliman might have shared the fate of Roger Bacon. This arch, as well as a canal boat and a canal bridge, belonging to the Farmington canal, can be seen in the accompanying cut, taken from an original drawing by Mr. Robert Bakewell, a New Haven artist of note in his generation. The drawing is in the possession of Professor Silliman's daughter, Mrs. James D. Dana, who, with her sister, is represented in the fore- ground. Once, to light the carriages bearing guests to the wedding of one of his daughters, he hung a lantern on a tree at the entrance of the avenue. The staple remained, was forgotten, and years after, when the tree was cut down, HOUSE OF PROFESSOR SIIJ4MAN, THE ELDER, ABOUT 1836. was found imbedded within the trunk. It was the cause of great bewilderment, until Professor Silliman explained the mystery. His first wife was the daughter of the second Gov. Jonathan Trumbull. Madam Trumbull passed the last nine years of her life in the house of her son-in-law, and for her, Trumbull street, at first called New street, was named. Here it was that I,afayette, in his triumphal last visit to us, in 1823, paid his respe<5ls to her as a survivor of the friends of his brilliant youth. We can fancy the procession arriving with all civic and military parade, and onlookers and Hill house Avenue. 63 escort waiting with eager reverence, while the veteran and the dame looked back across the vale of years to the heights of revolutionary trials and triumphs ; and then the departure through the leafy street, all knowing that it was the last time. Mrs. James D. Dana was then a baby, and had the honor of being kissed on the occasion by the gallant old Frenchman. Col. John Trumbull, the painter, Mrs. Silliman's uncle, was for some years an inmate of the house. To it came Agassiz, with his wife, for their first visit in this country, when he was in the glow of his beauty and enthusiasm ; and throughout his life, at this house and that of Professor Dana, he was a frequent visitor. Professor Silliman's high position in the scientific and the social world brought to him during his long life on the avenue many other illustrious ones, Sir Charles and Lady Lyell ; Basil Hall, the English traveler ; Dr. Hare, of Philadelphia ; President John Quincy Adams, among them. In fadt, it would be safe to say that few men of literary, scientific, or artistic distindlion have visited New E)ngland without being domiciled some- where on the avenue. Under Professor Dana's roof have come such men as Wendell Phillips, Professor Guyot, Pro- fessor Gray, of Cambridge ; Professor Baird, of the Smith- sonian Institute. Freeman, Farrar, and Dean Stanley, church digni- taries and historians galore, Ian Maclaren last but not least, have been entertained \)y Pro- fessor Fisher, the church his- torian, who has compressed the learning of a lifetime into the "History of the Reforma- tion," the "History of Chris- tian Do<5trine, " the " Outlines of Universal History," etc., works whose erudition and candor have made him known on both sides of the Atlantic. The first eredted of the houses now standing on the avenue was built by Mr. William J. Forbes for his daughter, the wife of the second Professor Ben- jamin Silliman. It was one of the first houses in the city in which were employed certain features of interior decoration now often seen. It was for years a center of gracious culture and hospitality. Famous people were often ST. M.VRV'S CHURCH. 64 Hillhouse Avenue. THE DANA HOi:.SK. there ; recently, Dr. Dorpfeld, the coadjutor of Schliemann in digging out from the earth the secrets of Greek history, has been the guest of Professor Seymour, the learned Greek scholar, the present occupant of the house. Next in time to the elder Professor Silliman's house was that' of Mrs. Whelpley, which at first stood on another street. She was the sister of Mrs. Apthorpe, and the mother of Melancthon Whelpley, one of the wretched victims of the Nicarauguan expedition. It was afterwards the home of President Porter, who received there a long procession of men of note in all departments of learn- ing. As we go on to the house of Profes- sor Hoppin, whose "Old England" has been a guide to manj' a wanderer in the mother island, even as his le<5tures in the Yale Art School have led the way to clearer insight in the paths of art, we remember that Phillips Brooks ; the Bishop of Manchester, England ; Lady E. Fitzmaurice, the author, and the friend of Browning ; Herkomer, the painter ; Augustus Hoppin, the artist ; Amelia B. Edwards, learned "in the wis- dom of the Egyptians," have enjoyed hospitality there. Midway on the street is the home of Mrs. Boardman, the giver of the Manual Training School. The house is also a.sso- ciated with Mayor Aaron Skin- ner, who was, during his life, a steadfast promoter of New Haven's welfare, a citizen who left many traces of his good taste, notably in the gateway and walls of the Grove Street Cemetery. He built the house for a boys' school, which for years existed there beside the girls' school, conducted by the Misses Apthorpe, in the house now in the possession of Yale University, and occupied by Mrs. Cady's .school. H(H"SE WHKRK I,IVl';i I'm: i:i,iii:r pro SI1.I,I-MAX. Hillhouse Avenue. 65 THE RESIDENCE OF PROF. THOMAS D. SEYMOUR. {Formerly the home 0/ Pro/. Benjamin Siiiiman, the younger.) On the other side lived Henry Farnam, the giver of Farnam College, and of that triumph of road-making, the ever beautiful Farnam Drive in East Rock Park. The house and grounds are to be the prop- erty of Yale at some time ; the new operating theater at the Nevp Haven hospital is the gift of his widow and his son, Professor Farnam ; and in many ways the family name is associated with ben- efactions to the city. Around all lingers the memory of that remarkable man who made his own monument in this beautiful street. We hope that he was gifted with a prophetic vis- ion of his completed plan ; and, indeed, some now liv- ing remember his tall form striding up and down the avenue for many years after it was opened. The Hillhouses were a Protestant family of importance in Ireland, having an estate at Arti- R ^^^flHHJ^" * '"'r^^'^^ Mf'^^^iulf^ kelly, near Lon- donderry, whence a Rev. James Hill- house, born in 1687, came to New Hamp- shire about 1719, and thence to Mont- ville, near New Lon- don. There two sons, William and James Abraham, were born. His wife, Mary Fitch, was a great grand- daughter of Captain John Mason, of Pe- quotfame; and thus, although the Hill- house family came to America nearly one hundred years after the landing at Plymouth, these sons WHKRK PRHSIDKNT I'ORTER I.IVKD. Hillhouse Avenue. 67 were descended from one of the most valuable of the early settlers. William married a sister of the first Governor Griswold, and of their numerous sons, the second, James, was adopted by his uncle, James Abraham, who had been grad- uated from Yale in 1 749, and had become a lawyer in New Haven, distinguished for ability and uprightness. The little seven-year-old boy was undoubtedly warmly welcomed in the big, childless Hillhouse house on Grove street, but probably no one dreamed that his name was to be inseparably associated with benefits to New Haven. The father, William, of Montville, was himself a striking charadler, and filled an important place in public life even to his eightieth year, serving in one hundred and six semi-annual legislatures. For these frequent trips to Hartford and New Haven, he scorned such new- fashioned luxuries as wheeled carriages, re- garding such tokens of eflfeminate degen- eracy much as did the Gauls the saddles of their neighbors ; and he invariablj' performed the jour- ney in one day, and on horseback. His grandson, James A. Hillhouse, the poet, has left, in his notes to ' 'Sachem's Wood, ' ' the following pictur- esque description of his grandfather : " Venerable im- age of the elder day ! Well do I remember those stupendous .shoe-buckles : that long gold-headed cane (kept in madam's, thy sister's best closet, for thy sole annual use) ; that steel watch chain and silver pendants, yea, and the streak of holland like the slash in an antique doublet, commonly seen between thy waistcoat and small clothes, as thou pas.sedst daily at nine o'clock, a. Ji., during the autumnal session." And again: " As the oldest councilor, at the Governor's right hand, sat ever the patriarch of Monticello (a study for Spagnoletto), with half his body, in addition to his legs, under the table, a huge pair of depending eyebrows con- cealing all the eyes he had till called upon for an opinion, when he lifted them up long enough to speak briefly and then they immediately relapsed. At his leave-taking (when eighty years old) there was not a dry eye at the council board." THE BOARDMAN RESIDENCE. 68 Hillhouse Avenue. In a New Haven newspaper of December 21, 1791, we find the following announcement of holiday cheer and charity : " A X(MV)mas ox will be distributed on Saturday next, and the needy are requested to apply. William Hillhouse." Quite a contrast to the organized charities and the tramps of to-day ! One likes to pi(5lure the jovial scene when the needy ones so politely invited crowded around to receive the bountj^ of the generous man. Probablj' there were grumblers even then. William Hillhouse, of Montville, lived to see his son a success. He died in 1816. That son, coming from the large family in Montville, found himself in the position of only child in his uncle's family in New Haven. He was a student in the Hopkins Grammar School, and afterward at Yale, in the class of 1773. The serious discussions of the time did not wholly repress youthful festivity, for, at the anniversary of the lyinonian Society, in 1772, the " Beaux's Stratagem" was given, and Nathan Hale and James Hill- house were among the adtors. The faculty did not cover so many pages then as now, five names composing the list : the Rev. Dr. Daggett (adling President), who, later, distin- guished himself by marching in solitary defiance against the British invaders of New Haven; Nehemiah Strong, Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy, and three tutors. But one of these tutors was afterwards the first President Dwight, and he interested himself in young Hillhouse enough to rouse him to do his best, and thus he gave the impulse which seems to have diredled a noble career. One very important influence must have come from the aunt, under whose roof he lived. She was Miss Mary Lucas before marriage, a stately woman of French descent, and she brought much land in the region of Temple street into the family. Her husband, James Abraham Hillhouse, died in 1775, in mid- career, but she lived to old age in the family mansion, which is now called Grove Hall. As long as she lived the family meeting for Christmas dinner was at her house ; and as long as she lived her adopted son never failed, when in New Haven, to pay her a daily visit of respedt. Before his death, the uncle had forbidden his nephew to leave his law studies to follow Arnold at the outbreak of hostilities, but when the invasion of the town roused all patriots to excite- ment, young Hillhouse, who had already issued a stirring call for enlistments, THE HENRY FARXA.M Kl-Sl DliXClC. Hillhouse Avetiur. 69 led out, as Captain of the Governor's Foot Guards, the little company of defenders. Aaron Burr, then in his brilliant j-outh, was visiting his New Haven friends and volunteered to lead one company. What a hurrying and skurrying there must have been on that fifth of July, which was to have seen the first celebration of the " glorious Fourth !" What a change from the cheerful discussions of jubilant festivity to the hasty prepar- ations for defense ! Captain Hillhouse was full of acflivity. He led his men across the fields to W^estville bridge, he fought, he captured prisoners, and in one way and another achieved the desired objedl of delaying the enemy for many hours, so that those who tarried behind had an opportunity to remove much valuable property. When the pillaging of the town could be no longer averted, the Hillhouse home was rescued from plunder and destruc- tion by the respedt felt for Madam Hill- house, who was well known as an adher- ant of the king and the Church of Eng- land. She entertained the British officers with all the hospi- tality at her com- mand, very likely in- wardly hoping thus to mitigate the se- verity of the treat- ment of her friends. What must have been her consternation in the midst of courtesies exchanged, to behold a newspaper, unwittingly left in sight, drawn forth, and the highly treasonable condudt of her nephew made evident by his printed call for volunteers. All seemed lost ; but the dignified old lady took truth for her defender, and did not deny that her young relative, in her esti- mation misguided, was doing his best to defeat his majesty's forces; but she explained that the house, like her opinions, was her own, and thus wrath was appeased and the house was saved. Hostilities over. Captain Hillhouse, who was already an able lawyer, noted for never undertaking a case unless he had implicit confidence in its justice, was introduced to political life in the State L,egislature, in 1780. Although very young for the honor, he was sent to the Council in 1789, and, in 1790, to Congress. For fourteen years he served the country as senator, THE CHARLES H. K.\RNAM RESIDENCE. 70 Hill house Avenue. gallantly representing the land of steady habits. He was a Federalist, and accordingly a fervent admirer of Washington, but he learned to dread the effeifl of presidential elediions. It is reported that he sometimes said to his friends that " the presidency was made for Washington ; that the convention in defining the powers of that office, and the states in accepting the constitution as it was, had Washington only in their thoughts, and that the powers of that office were too great to be committed to any other man." So, in April, 1808, he proposed to the Senate a plan for reducing the term of office ; for representatives, to one year ; for senators, to three ; for president, to one year. The president was to be seledled by lot from the Senate. He said, " The office of President is the only one in our government clothed with such powers as might endanger liberty, and I am not without apprehension that, at some future period, they may be exerted to overthrow the liberties of our countr3^" He thus describes an eledlion going on at that time : "In whatever dire<5tion we turn our eyes, we behold the peo- ple arranging them- selves for the pur- pose of commencing the eledlioneering campaign for the next President and Vice-President. All the passions and feelings of the hu- man heart are brought into the most adlive operation. The eleAioneering spirit finds its way to every fireside, pervades our domestic circles, and threatens to destroy the enjoyment of social harmony. The candidates may have no agency in the business. They may be the involuntary objeds of such competition, without the power of diredling or controlling the storm. The fault is in the mode of election, in setting the people to choose a king. The evil is increasing, and will increase, until it shall termi- nate in civil war and despotism." This naturally excited much comment. But Mr. Hillhouse expressed opinions entertained by other thinking men. Chan- cellor Kent wrote to him ; " We can not but perceive that this very presidential question has already disturbed and corrupted the administration of government. Your refledtions are sage, patriotic, and denote a deep and just knowledge of government and of men." Chief Justice Marshall wrote, in 1831 : "The passions of men are inflamed to so fearful an extent, large masses are so embit- tered against each other, that I dread the consequences. The eledlion agitates RESIDKNCK OF PROKK.SSOR FISHER. milhoicse Avenue. 71 every sedlion of the United States, and the ferment is never to subside. Scarcely is a President eledled before the machinations respecfting a successor commence." Crawford, afterward Secretary of the Treasury under Monroe, seconded the motion. Crawford wrote : " Eledtive chief magistrates are not, and can not, in the nature of things, be the best men in the nation ; while such eledtions never fail to produce mischief to the nation." We have outlived the dread of a king ; but, just after the stress of one of the most intense of presidential campaigns, what strange significance is attached to these forebodings of the serious men of almost a century ago ! It is very evident that Mr. Hillhouse was the proper type of man for political life, for his zeal and ability were expended in efforts truly disinterested. He seemed to have no thought of self-aggrandizement, either financial or political. The success with which he managed - ^-- ^^ his own affairs gave men confidence that he could carry on the business of the pub- lic, and never did he disappoint or betray that confidence. His unceasing exertions for his town and .state were the result of an affecftion that knew no weariness. Per- haps in no way did he accomplish a more lasting benefit for the state than when he restored the school fund to a paying con- dition. In 1786, Conne(5licut reserved to itself from its original grant, which extended to the Pacific, a tradt in northern Ohio between the same parallels that formed its own boundaries. Some of this land was given to those who had suffered at the time of the British invasion ; the remainder, three million three hundred thousand acres, was sold to a company of capitalists, and was applied to the support of the public schools. As is well known, this is the first school fund. But interest was not paid, affairs fell into disorder, and, in 1809, the whole fund seemed in jeopardy. Then it was that the public eye was turned on James Hillhouse as the only man who could relieve the state from its difficulties ; and, in place of a Board of Managers, he was appointed sole Commissioner. Then it was that he gave up his seat in the Senate and devoted fifteen years of perplexity and toil to straightening the knotty problem given him. By processes of busi- The hoTchki.ss ki'.siui:.nck. 72 Hillhoiise Avenue. ness, the original thirty-six bonds had become nearly five hundred. The debtors were scattered, and they were secured many times by mortgages on lands in different states, then not easily accessible. " Without a single litigated suit or a dollar paid for counsel, he restored the fund to safety and order." He used all his ingenuity in dealing with individuals, and in seeking that which was appar- ently lost, so that he not only secured the original sum, but added a half million to it, leaving it one million, seven hundred thousand dollars at his retirement. Such results were not attained without indescribable exertion. In sun and storm, through the wilds of a new country, wading deep fords, threading mazy forests, in spite of fever's heat and winter's cold, even when in danger of imprisonment under the false accusation of an enemy, he persevered to the desired end. For seven or eight years his journeys were performed in a light sulky, drawn by his famous "Young Jin," as indomitable as her master. Sometimes he drove her seventy miles in a day. Once, after twilight, in a lonely region, he drove her at full speed for thirty miles, because he was dogged by two ruf- fians who tried to stop him and snatch his trunk. They would have been still more enraged at being foiled than they were, if they had known that twenty thousand dollars were locked in that trunk. Poor Young Jin was blind after that forced march. Again in the silent forest, an Indian, as silent, appeared at his side and kept himself abreast for miles. At last, Mr. Hillhouse stopped, gave him a coin, and the man of the woods vanished as he had come. Mr. Hillhouse himself by exposure to cold, lost the use of one eye for a whole winter, but the well eye was made to do double work. Instead of making enemies by his demand for lost property, he often gained friends, and some debtors were restored from poverty to wealth by his sympathetic management of their affairs, making his interference a mutual benefit. In the case of the estate of Oliver Phelps, the indebtedness had amounted to three hundred and fifty-six thousand dollars. Mr. Hillhouse went to the very spot where lay the land involved, and so extricated it from embarrassment that he gained the whole sum for the fund and left the family rich. Fittingly, they presented him with six thousand dollars as a token of appreciation ; but MRS. CADY'S SCHOOI^. Hillhouse Avenue. 73 he declined to accept it for himself and gave it with about four thousand dollars more sent to him for similar reasons, by others, to the fund. Surely every boy and girl in Connedlicut who enjoys the advantages of public schools ought to be taught to revere the man whose disinterested and skillful labors secured these benefits, and should learn to regard the qualities which the first commissioner displayed, as the copy above all others to be imitated in forming that true and upright charadler which is the most precious treasure the citizen can bring to the state. In still one more office, that of treasurer of Yale, held for fifty years, from 1782 to 1832, he achieved a benefit lasting and widespread in its influence. In 1 79 1, the college was under an exclusively clerical corporation, which caused some dissatisfaction ; and there were forcible suggestions of another in- stitution to be under state control. At this crisis, Mr. Hillhouse proposed that the Governor and Lieutenant Gover- nor and six ' ' senior assistants " (after- wards six senators) should be added to the corporation, and he conceived the idea that the money raised throughout the state for paying state revolutionary debts, debts which had just been as- sumed by the United States government, should be in part given to Yale. Thus about forty thou- sand dollars were added to the slender college purse, and with that, under the direction of Mr. Hillhouse and of John Trumbull, the artist, needed buildings were ere<5ted from time to time. Just after meeting the prudential committee of the college to present his report, this noble man excused himself from the family circle at Sachem's Wood, retired to his own room, and gently closed his eyes on the adtivities of this world, December 29, 1832. Hopeful amid difficulties, untiring in labors, unmoved by temptations of public life, brave and patient in peril, full of all good and lovely impulses, and endowed with sagacity and ability to carry out his design, James Hillhouse was a man whose like does not appear in every generation. We are too apt to feel that the virtues of our forefathers belonged to a past age ; that they are superseded in common with the stage coach and the flint lock, CROVK AT SACHICM'S wood. 74 Hillhouse Avenue. and that any attempt to reinstate them in their former prominent place in the public estimation would be like the efforts to call back the candle light and the spinning wheel of other days— charming, but not pradtical. But while, in the kaleidoscope of life, circumstances and conditions never repeat their grouping, there is always a place for the main pieces of integrity, single-heartedness, and patriotism ; and uprightness and unselfishness ought to be admired and culti- vated as much in the end of the century as in the beginning. Mr. Hillhouse's first wife died young. His second wife was Rebecca Wool- sey, of Dosoris, L. I. Of his children, one, Augustus, passed many years in France, where he died ; another son, James Abraham, the poet, developed liter- ary talent and devoted himself to writing. He delivered some fine addresses and poems on special occasions. Among his works, "Sachem's Wood," a beautiful description of his home ; " The Judgment ;" and "Percy's Masque," are best known. The latter, with Hotspur's son, the last of the Percies, as hero, pictures the time of Henry V., and was admired on both sides of the water. The third child, Mary Lucas Hillhouse, lived to old age, in the house upon the hill, and displayed, from three years up, her father's sagacity and interest in public affairs. She was strenuous in insisting that sewing ought to be taught in the public schools ; and, to her, the colored people of New Haven owe their school on Goffe street. Always a promoter of good works, she was so constant a reader and student, that her society was sought by the learned, and, as an acknowledgment of favors received from her father and herself, a professorship was honored by the family name. She loved to talk of the past, and to few has childhood furnished so many interesting memories. When eleven years old she went with her father to the session of the Second Congress, in Philadelphia, during the last winter of the presidency of Washington, who petted and remembered the little girl. She heard his last address, was allowed to witness his last birthnight ball, saw the inauguration of President Adams, at which she sat in the lap of Mrs. Madison. Her father, in writing to her mother, February 23, 1797, said : " Mrs. Wolcott was so kind as to take Mary under her wing, by which means she was honored by a seat in the President's box through the whole evening, and a seat at the first supper table near the President, and by that means had an opportunity of seeing the brightest and most pleasing part of the whole scene ; and, indeed, she did appear to be highly delighted. Mrs. Washington took very particular notice of her, and often spoke very kindly to her, which caused her to be inquired out and noticed by ladies of the first distincflion, who naturally resorted to the President's box as the most honorable seat. One circumstance of good fortune which has attended M. in this business I have not mentioned, which is that no ladies under sixteen are admitted to these balls ; but Miss Mary had a ticket sent her by the managers unsolicited. Under these circumstances I did not think it was proper to admit of her going upon the floor to dance, though it was urged by some." Not only to public functions was the little girl admitted, but she was privi- leged to have a "private view " of the "first gentleman and lady " of the land ; Hillhmisc Avenue. ^5 for Mary and her father were invited to tea at Mrs. Washington's. " I went with them on Thursday evening. We met a polite reception, and the President took Mary by the hand, and spoke to her in a very kind and aifedtionate man- ner, with which she seemed not a little pleased. They were not thronged with company, which gave us an opportunity of spending the evening very agreeably. Mrs. W. presided at the tea urn, and sent the cups around to the guests ; but she and I^afayette's son, the only children there, sat by her at the table and chatted together. ' ' What a pretty pidlure of the children of the republics of the old world and the new, making acquaintance with the happy rapidity of childhood, under the approving glances of their elders, who did ' ' sometimes counsel take, and some- times tea !" It is hard to believe that Washington was so stiff as some would represent him, when we see him yield thus readily to the sweet influences of children. Little Miss Mary's eyes were open to all the sights of the "republican court," and her pen was dipped in spicy ink. She wrote, December 12, 1796: "I went on Wednesday last to hear the President's last speech to Congress ; the house was very much crowded, but I got a very good place, for the ladies crowded me quite into the room ; but papa, who sat about a yard off, took me before him, and I saw everything. The Presi- dent is the handsomest man that ever I saw, but Mrs. W. is not near so handsome. I saw all the foreign ambassadors except the French. The English, Mr. I/., was dressed in a black coat, lined with white satin, and a very fine white satin waist- coat embroidered with gold and silver and colored silks, and a fine sword with ornaments, and a monstrous bag wig ; he is about seventy years old and a very ugly man as ever I .saw. He had very fine lace rufiles on. The Portuguese ambassador was dressed in the same manner as the English, only much finer, with a blue coat and a large silver star in the same manner as the king of Eng- land's picture. But the Spanish ambas.sador I liked much the best. He ap- peared to be about eighteen years of age ; he is quite pretty, and was dressed in a silk coat, with his hair dressed all around and his hat lined with white fur, and a star with a bunch of blue ribbons on it. The President was dressed in a black velvet coat, and wholly in black, and clean cambric ruffles, which I liked much better than the yellow lace of the fine ambassadors, who, notwithstanding all their finery, were far surpassed by the plain neatness of the President." Mr. Hillhouse wrote of a visit toMt. Vernon, soon after Washington's death : " Mrs. W. was very particular in asking after Mary, whom she fully and per- fedtly remembered, and expressed a strong desire to see her— wished she had been with me, and said I must bring her the next time I came to Congress. Mrs. Lewis, who was Miss Custis when Mary was in Philadelphia, was also particular in her inquiries after her, and said they were building a house about four miles from that place, and expedled next spring to go to housekeeping, and should be very happy to have M. spend some time with her. I must own I was not a little gratified to find the family so partial to M., the only one of our flock they had an opportunity of knowing." 76 Hillhouse Avemie. Miss Mary Hillhouse was born in New Haven, in 1783, and died there in 1871. Senator Hillhouse was often called the "Sachem" in Congress, on account of his strong Indian complexion and features, and a frequent joke was that he kept a hatchet under his papers on his desk. His favorite toast was, " Let us bury the hatchet." The name which clung to him has been perpetuated in Sachem's lane, now Sachem street, which crosses the avenue at the foot of his place, and in the name of the estate itself, "Sachem's Wood," although it was at first "High wood." The avenue would be like the arch without the keystone if it should lose the stately Hillhouse place to which it leads. Nature has showered her treas- ures on the spot. In full view from the hilltop, West Rock and East Rock lift their ruddy, columned fronts, and city and country are pleasingly mingled. The park-like grounds are diversified by the undulations of hill and valley, and the original forest trees cast their flickering shadows on the turf. The flower garden is a mass of color to inspire a Persian poet, and the wild flowers pass in long procession under the sheltering trees. Best of all, the gate stands open to all who wish to enter and enjoy the sylvan retreat. In spring the children seek there the early wild flowers, and in winter their snowballs fly with merry shouts among the trees. Strangers drive there without rebuff', and the contemplative may sit on the grassy slope and muse away an hour, while the grey squirrels skip about with all the fearlessness that comes from ignorance of harm. It is hard to estimate the amount of pleasure that has come to the inhabitants of New Haven through this generous conduct of the owners of Sachem's Wood. The public owes a debt of gratitude that for generations the charms of nature have been free to all who chose to go to enjoy them. It is well that that public has shown itself worthy of the confidence reposed in it, that marauding hands are not laid on tree or shrub, and that the traces of vandal fingers are seldom seen. "Amid those venerable trees, the air Seems hallowed by the breath of other times, Companions of my Fathers ! )-e have marked Their generations pass. Your giant arms Shadowed their youth, and proudly canopied Their silver hairs, when, ripe in years and glory, These walks they trod to meditate on Heaven." Percy's Masque^ Act. II., Sc. i. John Trumbull, the Patriot Painter. Painting is now an established profession in America ; but not so was it a century and a quarter ago, when John Trumbull was growing up in Lebanon , Connecticut, a village idyllic in its natural repose, yet during his youth thrilling with the activity of martial business. For John's father was no less than Jonathan Trumbull— the man who was governor for fourteen trying years ; who was proudly called "the only Colonial governor who held office during the Revolution ' ' ; and to whom Washington fondly referred as ' ' Brother Jonathan," thus originating the name for the pure Ameri- can. It was fine old stock, of Scotch-English origin, puri- fied and intensified by New England colonial life, and enriched by the best education the land could afford. The gov- ernor himself, and his sons, had gone to Harvard with divinity in viewi but some impulse seemed to urge them away from the pulpit toward the bar, the counting-room, and the magisterial chair. John's mother. Faith Robinson, was a descendant of the famous Priscilla and John Alden. To this mother we undoubtedly owe the preservation of the intelledlual powers which gave us a history on canvas. For during the early months of the future painter's life, he was subjedl to convulsions. A wise physician examined the baby's head, and said that no medicine could help, for the trouble arose from compression of the brain, caused by the overlapping ot the bones of the skull. Death or idiocy must come unless the mother would patiently and persistently press apart the displaced edges. Faith Trumbull rcas PORTRAIT OF TRUMBUI,I„ By Waldo and Jewett. /« //le Vale Art School. 78 John Tru7nbidl, the Patriot Painter. patient and persistent, — and hence the painter of our Revolution, with a mind clear until death in his eighty-eighth year.* Lebanon possessed a school famous as perhaps the best in New England, kept by Nathan Tisdale, a Harvard graduate. It drew pupils from the South, and even from the West Indies. What the boys of to-day would say of a school without vacations, like the "congregations" that "ne'er break up," is not hard to guess. The result in this case was that at six the little John won in a contest in reading a portion of the Gospel of St. John in the original Greek. He says that his knowledge was that of a parrot ; but we certainly do not see many such parrots now ! Governor Trumbull believed in the education of women as well as of men, and his two daughters were sent to school in Boston. There they learned to embroider (those wonderful tombstone samplers, probably) and to paint in oil. The trophies, " two heads and a landscape," were hung in the parlor, and little John gazed on them. He was a born artist, and he tried to imitate. He used the sand on the floor for a drawing-board. We do not learn that kitty's fur suffered, as in the case of West ; but it was still genius triumphing over obstacles. On the inside of his closet door, the boy painted, with success remarkable for untutored fingers, a spirited figure of Brutus. The celebrated Professor SilH- man, the elder, of Yale, who married Harriet Trumbull, the daughter of the younger Gov. Trumbull, removed this panel, and it is now in the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, a curious and treasured specimen of the boy's first attempts to paint. Around the figure, with its flying drapery, are scattered the dabs of paint made in trying the brush. The childish fondness for pidture making did not depart ; and when, at fifteen and a half the boy was ready to enter Harvard in the .second half of the junior year, he pleaded with his father to be allowed to study painting instead. At that time Copley was in Boston, with a great reputation ; and young Trum- bull thought that he might gain a profession while studying with him, for the same money that would take him through college. Economy was to be con- sidered, for his father's fortune had been swept away by the storms of the sea. The war governor must have been generations in advance of his time ; for he did not ridicule or reproach his son for having peculiar aspirations, but mildly overruled him and sent him to college. The school without vacations, and the diligent reading of all the history and of all the Greek and Latin authors at command in Lebanon not only placed him in the junior class, but made it an easy matter for him to keep in advance of most of his classmates. So he filled his leisure hours by studying French with a French family of Acadian exiles, slyly paying for it out of his pocket money, and thereby afterwards giving a pleasant surprise to the father in Lebanon. He had a great treat in going to see the paintings of Copley, then living by the Common. Copley was going out to dinner, and quite dazzled the boy by his maroon suit and gold buttons. In his researches in the college library he had found a few books on art and some fine engravings, besides Pira- nesi's prints of Roman ruins and a pidlure of the eruption of Vesuvius. A copy * From his Autobiography. John Triutibull, the Patriot Painter. 79 which he made in oil of an engraving of a painting by Noel Coypel, represent- ing Rebecca at the Well, was approved by Copley, and is now in Hartford. He was, of course, dependent on his taste for supplying the colors. Graduated in 1773, he took up the task of teaching in behalf of his old master, Mr. Tisdale, who was ill for several months. Here was a boy of seven- teen instructing a school of seventy or eighty, decidedly mixed, as the subjedts for study varied from A B C to Latin and Greek. But the sound of war was in the air. John's father was the only patriot gov- ernor in the Colonies, and his house was a centre for discussions of the burning questions of the day. John caught and fanned the enthusiasm, drilled a company, and after the magic call of Lexington hastened to Boston, as a kind of aid to General Spencer. There he witnessed, from Bunker Hill, the fight which he has made it possible for us all to see again on his canvas. He was in no small danger himself on that day ; and his beautiful sister, the wife of Colonel Huntington, who had gone with a party of young friends to Boston to en- joy the novel scenes of a camp, beheld all too soon the hor- rors of real war, and, shocked by the apparently impending fate of her husband and brother, lost her reason, and died in the next November. It is not strange that the " Death of Warren at Bunker's Hill" surpasses all of Trum- bull's paintings in the whirl and rush of the combat, the fervor of patriotism, the con- trast of opposing passions, the pathos of death. We all know Bunker Hill. How easy now to place on it, as Trum- bull shows us, the form of Warren, sinking in death, but glowing with enthusiasm ! Pitcairn, mortally wounded, is falling into the arms of his son, and the artistic grouping brings the patriot and the red-coat into striking opposition. The British General Abercrombie has just fallen at Warren's feet, and a grenadier aims his revenging bayonet at Warren, while the benevolent Colonel Small, his former friend, inter- 'I'-K^ c/iL- ^r ^ ^4^ A/i/: /7S(i> _ John Tncmbnll, the Patriot Painter, 81 poses with uplifted hand to save the dying man. nam, the last loath to hind. At one side, evidently a hasty figure and dress, while his negro ser- a backward gaze of fright. Dimly in the fighting and retreat- while the ships below of smoke tell the tale town. Surely the his theme and his of that memorable lost the battle, but The faces with their are nearly all por- tion is fine, the crowded nor theatri- their own story of GOVKRNOR JON-.. ...>-. iKUMBOIJv, JR In the I 'ale A rt School. Howe and Clinton, and Put- retreat, are seen be- a young American, volunteer, of elegant turns away in horror, vant rolls his eyes in mingled curiosity and background are seen ing lines of troops ; and the lurid clouds of burning Charles- artist was inspired by glowing recollections combat, where we we "kept the hill." varied expression, traits, the composi- figures are neither cally posed, and tell the thrilling moment. This, and the " Death of Montgomery, " a piece somewhat similar in spirit, with the light streaming on the central figures, are justly called the finest examples of American historical painting.. To return to 1775. After Washington's arrival, a plan of the enemy's fortifications, stealthily made by Trum- bull, attracted the notice of the com- mander-in-chief, and procured him an appointment as second aid, Mifilin being first. After a time, Trumbull became major of brigade, and in the spring went to New York under Gates, who, on receiving his own appointment to the charge of the northern depart- ment, made Trumbull his deputy adju- tant-general. Then came the varied scenes of army life, during the campaign around Crown Point and Ticonderoga. Trumbull speaks of a voyage by sloops up the North River as occupying seven or eight days. The young adjutant was busy in preparing and submitting plans for the defence of strategic points ; and it seems now as if much time and blood might , , ,,,,.., , GENERAI, DAVID HUMPHREYS. have been saved had his ideas been m the vaie An school. 82 John Trumbull, the Patriot Painter. accepted by Congress. He perceived and proved that Mt. Defiance commanded Mt. Independence, and urged that it be occupied instead of the latter. John Fiske says that he then showed himself superior in military sagacity to all the older officers who were around him. Sad duties there were, too ; for small-pox and a kind of yellow fever broke out among the troops, and Trumbull had to make careful examinations and returns. He says : — "I found them dispersed, some few in tents, some in sheds, and more under the shelter of miserable bush huts, so totally disorganized by the death or sickness of officers that the distin(5lion of regiments and corps was in a great degree lost, so that I was driven to the necessity of great personal examination ; and I can truly say that I did not look into tent or hut in which I did not find either a dead or dying man." After the defeat of General Waterbury, Trumbull met the prisoners returned by Sir Guy Carleton, and with unusual acuteness for so young a man he per- ceived the policy of the British commander's too propitiatory kindness. He hastened with his forebodings to Gates, who ordered that the returned men should be forwarded to their destination without communicating with their former comrades and therebj' reviving any latent affection for the mother country. Trumbull had been serving for months as deputj' adjutant-general under the appointment of General Gates, who was instrudled by Congress to make such selection for the office as he saw fit ; but that whimsical assembly delayed send- ing the commission, and when the delay had become almost inexcusable, sent the commission dated three months late. This affront was too much for Trum- bull's sensitive spirit ; he declined the commission. Conscious of having served with disinterested zeal, and of having gained the approval of his general, he perceived the tokens of jealousies among tho.se in high places. While Trumbull, for instance, was aid to Washington in 1775, Hancock had remarked that "that family was well provided for," — two brothers of John being in high position ; to which John dryly rejoined: "We are secure of four halters, if we do not suc- ceed." There was a long correspondence about the commission ; but Trumbull was firm in his refusal, and, full of disappointed patriotism, rettirned to Lebanon in the spring of 1777. His first love, art, claimed him then, and he went to Boston to study. There Smybert, most wooden of painters, but deserving lasting remembrance as the first man who made pidtures in America, and as one who stimulated Copley and Trumbull, had left a studio. Trumbull hired it, and found there several of Smybert' s copies of celebrated paintings. Among these, Vandyck's head of Cardinal Bentivoglio, and Raphael's Madonna della Sedia aroused his ad- miration. Nevertheless, he says, " the sound of a drum frequently called an involun- tary tear to my eye." Naturally, when General Sullivan and Count d'Estaing combined to rescue Rhode Island from the enemy, Trumbull vohinteered to give his services as aid to Sullivan. The offer was accepted, and he took an adtive part in the short and stirring campaign, which failed in its principal objedl because the French fleet departed. Jolm Trumbull, the Patriot Painter. 83 Then it was that Trumbull, arrayed in a nankeen suit and mounted on a powerful baj' horse, rode about in full view during the long summer day, with a white handkerchief tied around his head, because the wind had taken off his hat in the morning and, as he says, "it was no time to dismount for a hat !" He was sent by General Sullivan to the top of Butts's Hill, with an order to Colonel Wigglesworth. He had to climb a continuous ascent of a mile in full view of the enemj^, and for the last half mile amid a hailstorm of bullets. He met one friend with an arm shot off, another shot through the back, a third borne away to have his leg amputated. On went the volunteer aid, to receive from Colonel Wigglesworth the charac- teristic greeting: "Don't say a word, Trumbull ! I know your errand, but • don't speak, — we will beat them in a moment." Oh ! what stuff was in those .r ^OMyCr^ — - */' <f c GENERAI, HUGH MKRCHR. From a Pencil Sketch . I' rum Trving's " Washington," by iiermissif)n of G. P. Putnam's Sons. impromptu soldiers!" Sullivan, who had watched him on his dangerous mission, regarded his safe return as a miracle. But the brief campaign ended, and Trumbull, almost ill, returned to Bos- ton. The army seemed closed to him ; painting lured, and for a year he studied his art diligently in Boston, where he became acquainted with the consul-gen- eral of Great Britain, Mr. Temple, afterward Sir John Temple. Undoubt- edly the spedtacle of a native of that country which had but barely emerged from pioneer life and was in the midst of a struggle for independent existence devoting himself to the art of painting. 84 John Trumbull, the Patriot Painter. without galleries, schools, or teachers, almost without an example for imitation, produced a deep impression on an envoy of a country which had been the home of Vandyck, and even then boasted of Sir Joshua. He advised the young soldier-painter to go to London, under the protedlion of his art, and to study with West. Through him, Lord George Germaine promised that Trumbull's rebellious family and his own participation in war should be overlooked, on condition that he would devote himself unreservedly to study. Besides that, his case came under the amnesty proclaimed by George IIL in 1778. Evidently there was a general impression that he partook of the Trumbull ability, for he was asked to take charge of a business venture which involved crossing the ocean ; so with two objedls in view he sailed, in May, 1780, from CAPTURE OF THE HESSIANS AT TRENTON. In ihe Yale Art School. New London for Nantes. After a quick passage of five weeks, he landed in France, only to find that British success at Charleston had so lowered American credit as to make his commercial scheme impradlicable. In Paris he found two future presidents, John Adams and John Quincy Adams, the latter then a boy at school, besides Franklin and his grandson. Temple Franklin. Franklin gave him a letter to West ; and, happy in the expec5lation of at last enjoying pro- fessional instru(5lion, he went over to London, where he was received by West with charadleristic cordiality. At that time, Trumbull had never had a teacher in painting, and had acquired what skill he had from copying such paintings and engravings as he could find. He had not even learned to help himself by laying off the work in John Trumbull, the Patriot Painter. 85 squares ; and West looked in astonishment as he proceeded with his first task, that of copying the Madonna delta Sedia. When it was done, the generous master cried, "Nature intended you for a painter ! " At this time Stuart was also a pupil of West. Those must have been blissful months for the young devotee of art. We know that he loved the work, because he did not let anything, even the wonders of London, interfere with it. He kept his part of the contract with the British government, and the horizon seemed clear. But in November up came a cloud of the darkest hue. Arnold, whom he had known as a brilliant patriot, had plunged into infamy. Andre had suffered the penalty of a spy ; and the wrath of England gave the American tories in lyondon a chance to carry out their spite toward the jealously ernor Trumbull, friend. How Trum- place himself in such almost inconceivable; intentions and the dudt probably led same in other people, nation on being sud- high treason ! Listen high-spirited youth, home, when he bursts of the tedious exam- clamation : " I am an is Trumbull ; I am a you call the rebel cut ; I have served army ; I have had CAPTAIN THOMAS SEVMORE. In the Vale Art School. watched son of Gov- Washington's trusted bull had ventured to a den of lions is but the purity of his rectitude of his con- him to expecft the Judge of his conster- denly arrested for to the impetuous and proud of his place at into the impertinence ination with the ex- American ; my name son of him whom governor of Connecti- in the rebel American the honor of being him whom you call an aid-de-camp to the rebel General Washington !" After this concise autobiography, he was treated with more respedl ; but no representations of neutral condudt saved him from a night in Tothill-Fields Bridewell. He slept that night in the bed of a highwayman ! Visions of the dignity of the governor's home in shaded Lebanon must have risen often that night, with the wondering thought of what father and mother would think of art now. By his own quickness and the intervention of Lord Germaine, he was saved from imprisonment in Clerkenwell, the only criminal prison then left in Lon- don, and was enabled to choose his cage. Rejecting the costly dignity of the Tower, he preferred to return to Tothill-Fields Bridewell, where, for a guinea a week, he had a good room in which to be locked up for eight months. West, himself on rather insecure ground as a lover of his native land, obtained an audience with the King, who, after hearing the story, ejaculated : " I pity him from my soul ! But, West, go to Mr. Trumbull immediately, and 86 John Trumbull, the Patriot Painter. pledge to him my royal promise that, in the worst possible event of the law, his life shall be safe." At last, through Burke's intercession, and with West and Copley as sureties, he was told that he might go, not to return until peace should be restored. With great store of meditation on the vicissitudes of life, and a copy of a Correggio made during his imprisonment, the Madonna and infant Saviour from the St. Jerome at Parma, now in the Yale Gallery, he sought Amsterdam, as the best port of embarkation. There he found letters from his father, empowering him to negotiate a loan for Conne(5ticut. John Adams was there on the same errand for the United States, but for both bad news from America rendered the attempt vain. THOMAS MIFFI,IN. OIJVER EIvIvSWORTH. In the Yale Art School. Setting out on the famous frigate South Carolina, Commodore Gillon, August 12, Trumbull experienced adventures enough to fill a second ^neid. During the voyage of four months, they were tossed about from the Texel to the mouth of the Elbe, from the Orkneys to Spain, from the Bay of Biscay to Boston Harbor. Once Commodore Barney, who was returning from imprisonment in England, rushed on deck and saved them from imminent wreck ; and again, their last dollar was required to pay Spanish boatmen to overtake their retreating ship. Having escaped perils of fogs and gales, of loosened cannon, of lack of food, of British cruisers and Spanish detentions, of Cape Ann rocks, and of three days' Massachusetts snow-storms, the wanderer at last reached Lebanon alive, in January, 1782. It is not surprising that he was ill for months. Nothing daunted his zeal for art ; and after recovery he had one more con- ference with his father on his life work. Painting won the day over law ; and, satisfying himself with the parting shot, " Conne(5licut is not Athens !" the old governor yielded. In December, 1783, John returned to London, and to West's studio. At this time Lawrence was often a fellow painter. This sojourn in Jolui TruinbuU, the Patriot Painter. 87 London was a very important one for Trumbull, for during it he really decided on his career as a historical painter. His first composition of that kind was done while visiting the Rev. Mr. Preston in Kent. It was on paper, in India ink,— "The Death of General Frazer." Both " Bunker's Hill " and the "Death of Montgomery ' ' were painted in the studio of West, who urged him to devote himself to scenes of the American Revolution. It was then that Sir Joshua Reynolds, at a dinner given by West, admired the yet unfinished "Bunker's Hill," attributing it to the host and complimenting him on his improvement in color. It happened that some months before Trumbull had taken to Reynolds for advice some portraits of Colonel Wadsworth and his son, only to be snubbed COLONEI- JKRKMIAH WAUSVVORTH AND HIS SON DANIET,. Fainted in London by Tritnibidl. DANIEL WADSWORTH, Of Hartford. From t/w portrait by 7'rumbull, by a snappish remark about " the coat looking like bent tin."* Sir Joshua's confusion on finding out who was being praised quite satisfied the young painter. The best way of making these historical pidlures pay was to seek sub- scribers for engravings of them ; and the effort to procure the plates and the subscriptions involved much travel, delay, and expense. In the course of these journeys, the painter met both adventures and great men. A letter to Le Brun in Paris introduced him to the artistic world there, and notably to David and the English miniature painter, Cosway. Jefferson was then in Paris as our minister to France. He was greatly inter- ested in the projedlof a revolutionary series, and invited Trumbull to visit him at his house, the Grille de Chaillot. Thus, with the advice and adlually under * The pidlure is now in the Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford. 88 JoJui Trtimbull, the Patriot Painter. the roof of the writer of the immortal paper, the painting of the " Declaration of Independence" was begun. Trumbull took unbounded pains in making this a trustworthy memorial of the momentous scene, and years were spent in securing the portraits. Says he : " Mr. Hancock and Samuel Adams were painted in Boston ; Mr. Edward Rutledge, in Charleston, S. C. ; Mr. Wythe, at Williamsburg, in Virginia ; Mr. Bartlett, at Exeter, in New Hampshire, etc." Of some of the signers, already dead, no portraits existed ; but no imaginary heads were introduced. What an achievement it was to fix on canvas the features and expression of forty-seven men who were in Congress assembled on that July day ! THE DECIvARATIOX OF INDEPENDENCE. I» the Koiunda of the Capitol^ Washington. When we enter that sacred room in old Independence Hall in Philadelphia, the present fades away; the assemblage conjured to life by Trumbull's wand rises as the reality. Every schoolboy knows it, — the colonial room, the dull red curtains, the flags taken at St. John's, the dignified dress and furniture, the groups of expedlant members, the alert, attentive face of Hancock in the chair, the solemn hush over all, as the five men, grouped by the artist as they truly are in our thoughts, present the paper fraught with such consequences. There they are : John Adams in brown cloth, his broad, enlightened views showing plainly on his handsome face ; Roger Sherman, firm as a rock, with his tall form, and face full of common sense ; Livingston, looking at it as a wise business transaction ; the venerable Franklin, his eyes turned to heaven in philosophic contemplation of the results of their adl ; in the middle, the fiery Jefferson, in plum-colored velvet coat, one step in advance, while presenting the document John Trumhdl, the Patriot Painter. 89 for which his pen is responsible. You feel the silence which in one moment will be broken by irrevocable words ; you know that soon one after another will come forward to sign away his safety with England, — that the Liberty Bell will peal forth above their heads,— that a nation will be born. But it was long before Trumbull completed the work so auspiciously planned in company with Jefferson. In 1786, happy in the approbation given to his pidlures in Paris, he left the brilliant society there, splendid even when within the shadow of coming events, and travelled to Stuttgart to attend to the engrav- ing of his two historical works. He had, as usual, a series of interesting experi- THE SURRENDER OF CORNWALIJS. In the Rotunda o/ the Capitol. ences. He was alert for everything pi(5luresque ; old castles and churches, peasant life, galleries and all. His pencil sketches made during the trip refledt the varied interest of what he saw. The Rhine smiled and frowned as is its wont ; and even now the painter's words sparkle with the fun of one day's voyage in a kind of row-boat, with a small mixed company of queerly assorted but really congenial people, who ate their cold chicken from pieces of paper, distributed the two wine glasses between the men and the women, and all chattered in their various languages. Then a fierce storm swept down on them, driving them to the bank and the shelter of osiers. Through storm and sunshine, on her way home after two years in Lausanne, flits the lovely daughter of Gen. Gresnier de Breda with her pretty face and bewildering flutter of piquant headgear. The tale ends properly with a dinner invitation and addresses exchanged with the pretty girl's papa and mamma. WASHINGTON. In the Yale Art School. John TnimbuU, Uic Patriot Painter. 91 In London again, he gave careful study to the composition and preparation of those war scenes which were then his absorbing interest. Then he painted John Adams with "the powder combed out of his beautiful hair," and the "Sortie from Gibraltar," called by Horace Walpole "the finest pidlure he had seen painted north of the Alps." It made enough of a sensation to arouse the Marquis of Hastings to forbid British officers to patronize anything "done by a Trumbull." Trumbull refused six thousand dollars for it. The painting is now in the Boston Athenaeum. It is not strange that one so constantly in the societ}' of famous men in L,ondon and Paris should multiply the number of his portraits of American and English and French officers. Trumbull witnessed the outbreak of the French Revolution in Paris in 1789, saw the Bastile fall, and attended L,afayette when he calmed a French mob. While they were breakfasting together, Lafayette spread before him the true objecflof his party, and uttered prophetic warnings as to the danger which would follow any ascendency of the Duke of Orleans — words printed on Trumbull's mind by succeeding events. Lafayette wrote to him in later years, expressing most lively appreciation of his works and asking him to paint the Battle of Mon- mouth,* as involving many portraits precious to himself. The French Revolution in many ways was a decided blight to Trumbull's prosperity. Jefferson, still our minister in Paris, offered him the position of his private secretary. He declined this, as well as a mission to the Barbary States, mainly because he wished to devote himself to finishing his historical paintings and securing subscribers for engravings from them ; but he had the chagrin to find, on returning to the United States for that purpose, that the whole population was so absorbed in abusing or advocating the performances of the French as to leave small chance for interest in the portrayal of the struggle through which we had just passed. Still the subscription list was headed by the name of Washington (four copies), followed by Hamilton, Jay, Adams and all the leading men of the country. When Jay went to England as envoy extraordinary to negotiate a treaty, Trumbull accepted an offer to be his secretary. After several busy months, the treaty was completed. Apparently, the memory which was strong at six, had not failed at thirty-eight ; for when Jay asked him to commit to memory, word by word, the whole treaty, in order to transmit it safely to Mr. Monroe in Paris, he did so. Col. Trumbull had been arrested in London for high treason, and now found himself under injurious suspicion in Paris. However, claiming immunity as an artist, he pursued his way to Stuttgart, to hasten the delayed engraving. But the way was beset by perils of contending armies ; and one night at Miihlhausen, he was barred from either bed or carriage by the presence of the French general who had his headquarters there. In the crowd he met the old general, who "looked at me keenly and asked bluntly, 'Who are you — an Englishman ?' 'No, general, I am an American of the United States.' 'Ah! do you know * A painting of the Battle of Monmouth, by Trumbull, but not quite finished, is in the Young Men's Institute Library, in New Britain, Conn. 92 John Trumbull, the Patriot Painter. Conned;icut?' 'Yes, sire, it is my native state.' 'You know then, the good Governor Trumbull?' 'Yes, general, he is mj^ father!' ' Oh, mon Dieu, que ie suis charme ! I am delighted to see a son of Governor Trumbull. Entrez, entrez, — you shall have supper, bed, everything in the house.' I soon learned that the old man had been in the legion of the Duke de I^auzun, who had been quartered in my native village during the winter which I passed in prison in London, and he had heard me much spoken of there. Of course I found myself in excellent quarters. The old general kept me up almost all night, inquiring of everything and everybody in America, especially of the people in Lebanon, and above all, the family of Huntington, with whom he had been quar- tered." Again, in 1797, on Trum- bull's last visit to France, he was in still greater danger from the Terrorists. His favorite dress, gray cloth with black velvet cape, happened to be of the colors regarded by the revolutionists as a badge of hostility. He was suspedted, watched, followed. With difficulty he procured a passport for a necessary trip to Stuttgart. On his return to Paris the espionage was still closer, and he, in common with our envoys, felt that the worst might come at any moment. During his stay in America, Talleyrand had been treated with great hospitality by Trumbull's brother, then speaker of the house, as well as by King and Gore, friends of Trumbull ; but now he left his letter unanswered for weeks, and was unmoved by his appeals, even while inviting him to dine with Mme. de Stael and Lucien Bonaparte. At last, to his dismay, he found that his name was on the list of suspedled. Was the guillotine to be the end ? Then, in despair, he bethought him of his former friend, the great painter, David. David, who, although deeply infatuated by the carnage due to his party, could yet stop to do a friendly deed, greeted him cordially, told him to get the Bunker Hill pi(5lure, and to go with him to the police. What a change ! When he entered arm in arm with the " Citoyen " David, and bearing the memorial PRESIDENT DWIGHT. In the Yale A rt School. John Trumbull, flic Patriot Painter. 93 of a fight for Freedom, the sneers of the Frenchmen became smiles, and the pass- port was readily given, with many apologies. We can understand how Trumbull lost no time in hastening from Paris, his route to Calais even then beset with adventures, and how he eagerly offered seventy guineas to be taken out to the Dover packet, then in the roads. Even when on English soil, he must have felt twice to be sure that his head was on his shoulders ! During this time, he had an opportunity to know Jay thorough- ly, and we can perceive that intimate knowl- edge in the portrait he has left of the stain- less judge. Various positions of trust were offered by govern- ment ; he accepted that of fifth commis- sioner on the board ap- pointed by the two nations to execute the seventh article in the ' ' treaty of amitj^ com- merce and naviga- tion," just concluded. It was a position of great delicac}^ involv- ing both impartiality and firm decision. He seems to have per- formed his duties ably and conscientiously. The other commis- sioners were John Wickoff, John Anstey, Christopher Gore (his college friend) and William Pinckney. The work of the commission went on from 1796 to 1804. The report of the proceedings, sub- mitted to our government, perished in the flames of the war of 181 2. About 1800, Trumbull had married the beauty whose portrait is almost her only history. It has been said that "Her early name and lineage were never divulged." But we know that she was an English woman, Sarah, the daughter of Sir John Hope ; and as we gaze on the exquisite portrait which is her hus- band's memorial of her in the Trumbull gallery, we feel that we do not need to know more. Daintiness is written all over her delicate features, her rose-leaf skin, her ruffles, her fluffy locks escaping from the coy cap, and that evanescent. AtEXANDBR HAMILTON. Front the painting in the Essex Institute, Salem, Mass, \ 94 John Trumbull, the Patriot Painter. enchanting smile. Many stories are still told of her eccentricities, of her unfort- unate seasons of being overcome by something stronger than tea ; but Trum- bull's tribute was : — "In April, 1824, I had the misfortune to lose my wife, who had been the faithful and beloved companion of all the vicissitudes of twenty -four years. She was the perfe6l personifi- cation of truth and sincerity, — wise to counsel, kind to console, by far the more important and better half of me, and with all, beautiful beyond the usual beauty of women." After sixty-three days spent on the Atlantic, Trumbull landed once more in his own country. He found himself welcomed by his family and by the Cincinnati of New York, but under a political cloud as a Federalist and follower of Washington rather than of Jefferson. Shut out from painting in Boston by the fadt that Stuart had just been invited to settle there, he selecfled New York for the pradtice of his profession. Then it was that he painted the portraits of Jay and Hamilton for the City Hall, and those of Stephen Van Rensselaer and the first President Dwight, now in the gallery of the Yale Art School. He met Hamilton and Burr at a dinner on the Fourth of July— the one brilliant, the other silent ; a few days later, the nation was in mourning over that fatal duel. At various times Trumbull had tried business ventures, investing in valu- able paintings, or in wine and brandy, as opportunity offered ; but the winds and the waves were always destru6live when his cargoes were on the sea. London drew him once more across the water, in 1808 ; and the congenial atmosphere helped him to produce his best works there. The crudity of our own life then afforded little encouragement for the aesthetic . The war of 181 2 prevented return from England, and involved him in debts which weighed him down for years. But after his return, in 1815, the cheriished idea of a series of national pidtures was presented to Congress, and was urged by Judge Nicholson and Mr. Timothy Pitkin. It met favor, and, in 1817, Congress formally com- missioned Trumbull to execute for the Capitol four commemorative paintings. He had hoped for eight ; but, in consultation with President Madison, who was empowered by Congress to assign the subjects, a satisfadlory choice was made. The Declaration, of course, stood foremost. The two surrenders of entire armies, Burgoyne's and Cornwallis's, extraordinary and momentous events, came next ; for the fourth, Trumbull suggested Washington resigning his commission, as of moral significance. After more than seven years these works were com- pleted and carefully placed in the Rotunda of the Capitol at Washington, where for generations the crowds of visitors have paused to gaze upon them. Trumbull had been coUedling portraits for these works for years ; he had studied the details of dress and weapons ; he had visited the .scene of each event. He felt it to be the work of his life, and he spared no effort in the execution or in arrange- ments for the preservation of the pictures after they were placed on the wall. In the two surrenders, the faces express most vividly the feelings of the hour. The Surrender of Cornwallis gave the painter more trouble in composition than any other ; for, as he says, the event was purely formal, and the landscape flat. But he had made the portraits of the French officers in Jefferson's Paris home, long ago, in 1786. He succeeded in grouping naturally the chiefs of the John Trumbull, the Patriot Painter. 95 three powers in the center. Irving and Trumbull, with pen and pencil, depi(5l the scene alike : General Lincoln on his white horse, Rochambeau at the head of the French troops, the British sullenly yielding to fate, Washington, in blue and buff, on his bay horse, in the calm dignity of success. If you go to that yet colonial city, Annapolis, they will show you with pride, in the fine old capitol, the room where Washington resigned his commission. You are allowed to stand on the "very spot" covered by Washington's feet then. All is carefully pre- served as Trumbull gave it, except the balcony, which the eye vainly seeks, expedting to behold Martha Washington and Eleanor Custis viewing the scene with eager attention. Trumbull did not wish to " sink into premature imbecility" after finishing these works. Although then seventy-two, he began a series of small paintings of the striking events of the Revolution. Of these, in size between the Rotunda piAures and the originals in New Haven, the Hartford Atheneum possesses a num- ber — the Battles of Bunker Hill, Princeton, Trenton, Quebec, and the Declaration. The same gallery contains many other interesting pi6tures by Trumbull, and, particularly, one called his last portrait. It is a delightful specimen of his work, but sad to say, the name of the refined subjedt is lost. We know that he is an artist, by the book of sketches in his hand. Trumbull had a studio in New York at various places ; once, on Broadway, in a house afterward the Globe Hotel. His merits as a painter are not due entirely to our imaginations investing him with a halo as a pioneer in art. War scenes and great people were Trumbull's subjedls, and he felt the dignity of his profession. His portraits have the charm of vividness and expression of chara(5ter. After a hundred years, the colors are still clear and harmonious ; and the painter seems to have struck a happy mean between the sallowness of Copley and the florid color of Stuart. We feel that we are looking at the real people when we see these faces, certainly one test of a good portrait. Trumbull's works, although largely in New Haven, are scattered in differ- ent cities. New York has two in the L,enox Library and four in the City Hall — Jay, Hamilton, a full length of Washington with a background of Broadway in ruins and the British ships departing, and Gen. George Clinton with the British storming Fort Montgomery in the Highlands where he commanded. This background was considered his best by the artist. In the Historical Society's collection are six or seven portraits, among them good ones of the sturdy old divine. Dr. Smalley, of Asher B. Durand, as well as of Br}'an Rossiter in mili- tary dress, and an excellent miniature of John Lawrance. The best of all his portraits is the very beautiful and well-preserved one of Hamilton, in the pos- session of the Metropolitan Museum. At the National Museum, in Washington, are the portraits of President and Mrs. Washington, painted in 1794. In private families in Connedlicut and Massachusetts, as well as in the Boston Athenaeum and the Hartford Wadsworth Atheneum, are other works. Norwich can boast of ten portraits and miniatures by him, almost a family gallery — the war governor, the father. Faith Trumbull, the mother, Sarah Hope, the wife, Faith Huntington, the sister of the painter. 96 John Tnunbidl, the Patriot Painter. \ lost so early, among them. The four small historical paintings of Revolutionary scenes in the Yale gallery, which he did be- fore executing the large replicas in the Rotunda at Washington, are always regarded as far supe- rior to the latter in artistic merit. Trumbull was deeply in- terested in the American Acad- emy of the Fine Arts, which was founded in 1812, in New York, with Edward L,ivingston as president and Peter Irving as secretary. Trumbull was the only artist on the board. Sometimes in a riding school in Greenwich street, near the Bat- tery, a very fashionable situa- tion, sometimes in the Custom House, and sometimes in the "old Almshouse," on the north side of the Park, fronting on Chambers street, it struggled to attradl the public. In 1816, in the latter place, Trum- bull was president, and his pidtures, now belonging to Yale, were there in one gal- lery. Says Daniel Huntington: "Trumbull had a large studio at the building, and there the writer, when a child, saw him at work on his pidlures, and can never forget his dignified appearance, his courte- ous manners of the old school." The coUedtion of casts owned by the Academy was rare and costly then, and students were restri(5ted in using it to a few morning hours. On one eventful morning, two young men, Thomas S. Cummings, afterwards the historian of the National Academy of Design, and Frederick Styles Agate, were refused admittance by the janitor. Trumbull defended the janitor. A meeting of the disaifedled was held in the rooms of S. F. B. Morse ; and, in 1825, the National Academy of Design was founded, with the purpose of securing greater freedom for pradtice. This revolt from oppression drew forth heavy new.spaper cannon- John Trumbull, the Patriot Painter. 97 ading from both sides. All this hurt Trumbull, sensitive after the battering of life. We hear of an evening when he walked into the room where the seceding students were at work, took the president's chair, and solemnly asked for signa- tures in the matriculation book. After waiting long, he had to depart without the names. Yet we learn that these same students borrowed casts from the academy, so we infer that the hostilitj' was not absolutely bloodthirsty. Trumbull was never able to amass a fortune. War, which helped him to gain so rich an experience of the world, and was really the foundation of his fame, always blighted his finances. In 1837, he made an arrangement with the Corporation of Yale College, whereby the coUedlion of his paintings, known as the Trumbull Gallery, became the property of the college, in return for an annu- ity of one thou-sand dollars, to be paid in quarterly instalments during his life. It was a bargain creditable and satisfactory to both parties concerned. The painter was happy in seeing his life work in tender, reverent hands, and in the knowledge that the revenue from admission was helping some needy student. From 1837 to 1841 he lived in New Haven, where he had friends, being con- nedled by marriage with Professor Silliman, the elder. Passing away in New York, his body was placed in a vault in New Haven prepared by himself on the Yale Campus, beneath the Trumbull Gallery, now the Treasury Building. When Mr. and Mrs. Street gave the building for the Yale Art School, the Trumbull paintings found an appropriate sandluary in the main gallery, and under the building still rest the bones of the artist and his wife. It is plea,sant to think that perhaps his spirit hovers around the spot, pleased to see his legacy cherished, and to behold such privileges for art study as his youth never had. " Connedlicut is not Athens" yet, dear old Governor Trumbull, but it is a wee bit nearer to it. The importance of this acquisition to an educational center like Yale can- not be overestimated. As years passed, Trumbull added as many more to the number of paintings mentioned in the original agreement. There are fiftj'-five enumerated, besides many miniatures. Among them are copies of the old mas- ters and some large imaginative works, illustrating poetry, religion and history. The first independent work of the boy, " The Battle of Cannae," is there, and the last effort of the old man, "The Deluge" ; but the most numerous, valu- able, and beautiful are those connedted with the Revolution. Here you are ushered into the presence of not one famous patriot, but an assembly of our illu.strious ones. We speak to them, and they look upon us, with the cares of state, the despondency of defeat, the gladness of victory, in their faces. They welcome us to their midst, and ask us to live and think with them — Burgoyne and Rahl and Howe and Clinton and Riedesel, Lafayette, and Rochambeau, De Grasse and De Lauzun, Greene, Gates, Schuyler, Knox, Morgan, Glover, Mifflin, Wayne, Lincoln, Laurens, Rush, Monroe, Madison, Rutledge, the two Governors Trumbull, Wolcott, Morris — too many to tell. And the famous beauties who curled their hair and rustled their silks for the balls and the assemblies are smiling from their miniatures ; Martha Washington, 98 John Trumbull, the Patriot Painter. and sweet little Eleanor Custis, and Harriet and Mary Chew, proud of their stately, battle-marked Germantown home, and sweet Faith Wadsworth, daughter of Gov. Jonathan Trumbull, Jr., Cornelia Schuyler Morton, "one of the worthiest of women," Mary Seymour Chenevard, the Hartford beauty, and Harriet Wads- worth, beloved by the painter and early lost. Dominating all is Washington, in full uniform, his white horse at one side, one hand on his field-glass, the other on his sword, his figure drawn up to its full height, his features lit by "the high resolve to conquer or to perish." He is planning his most brilliant move, just on the night before marching to Prince- ton. The watch-fires which are to delude the enemy are already burning, and soldiers are defending the bridge behind. The design, most successfully carried out, was to show Washington in his heroic, military chara<5ler. The portrait was painted in Philadelphia, in 1792, for the city of Charleston, and the general entered with spirit into Trumbull's idea. " Every minute article of the dress, down to the buttons and spurs, and every strap and buckle of the horse-furni- ture, were carefully painted from the several objedts." But Charleston preferred the hero as president, and he patiently sat for another portrait, which is now in that cit3^ So the artist kept this until the Society of the Cincinnati in Connedli- cut was dissolved, when he and others (his brother, Governor Trumbull, Gen. Jedediah Huntington, the Hon. John Davenport, the Hon. Jeremiah Wadsworth and the Hon. Benjamin Talmadge) presented it to the college. Many have painted the great man, but no one else has so clearly portrayed his different phases of charadler in the varying and progressive scenes of his career, at Tren- ton, at Princeton, at New York after the evacuation, at Annapolis laying down his sword, and last as president. Peace to the proud, sensitive soldier-artist, resting under the monument made by his own hands ! Life tossed him like a ball between two continents, but gave to him more nearly than to most men the boon of accomplishing his heart's desire. Tablet over the Grave under the Yale Art School : CoL. John Trumbull Patriot and Artist Friend and Aid OF Washington, Lies Beside his Wife Beneath this Gai^i,Ery of Art. Lebanon, 1756 — New York, 1843. / THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE STAMPED BELOW fj AN INITIAL FINE OF 25 CENTS WILL BE ASSESSED FOR FAILURE TO RETURN THIS BOOK ON THE DATE DUE. THE PENALTY WILL INCREASE TO 50 CENTS ON THE FOURTH DAY AND TO $1.00 ON THE SEVENTH DAY OVERDUE. AUG 181941) 4y^--^--ftte- 50ct'55jLi QV ii T.OVr - r^igC'D L!? immgBo ^S4^