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Clements Library
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A SELECTION
FROM THE
Miscellaneous Historical Papers
of Fifty Years
By
FRANKLIN BOWDITCH DEXTER
New Haven, Connecticut
1918
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I
One hundred and fifty copies
privately printed
by
The Turtle, Morehouse & Taylor Company
New Haven
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//.-.',-■
"It is accepted according to that a man hath, and not according I
he hath not"
2 Corinthians, viii
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PREFACE.
The following papers are brought together, in the hope that they
may have some interest for future students, as well as for a few
personal friends ; such friends the author can trust to absolve him
from the charge of vanity in this step, which is taken with some
misgivings, and which may be an example of mistaken judgment.
The opportunity has been used in a few instances to amend or
add to statements of fact in the original editions.
New Haven, Connecticut,
December, 191 8
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CONTENTS
Page
Preface
I. Harvard-College Monitor's Bill, 1868 I
II. Memoranda respecting Edward Whalley and William
Goffe, 1870 6
III. Sketch of the Life and Writings of John Davenport,
187s 3i__
IV. The Founding of Yale College, 1876 59
V. Governor Elihu Yale, 1878 84
VI. The Influence of the English Universities in the Devel-
opment of New England, 1880 loa-^
VII. New Haven in 1784, 1884 1 16
VIII. The History of Connecticut as illustrated in the
Names of her Towns, 1885 133-
IX. Estimates of Population in the American Colonies,
1887 153—
X. Thomas Clap and his Writings, 1889 179
XI. On some Social Distinctions at Harvard and Yale
before the Revolution, 1893 203
XII. The first Public Library in New Haven, 1900 223
XIII, The Manuscripts of Jonathan Edwards, 1901 235 —
XIV. Yale College in Saybrook, 1901 247
XV. Abraham Bishop, of Connecticut, and his Writings,
1905 257
XVI. Student Life at Yale in the early days of Connecticut
Hall, 1907 266
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VIU CONTENTS
XVII. Early Private Libraries in New England, 1907 274
XVIII, The Benefactors of Yale College. 1909 284
XIX. Reminiscences of llie Officers of Yale College in 1857,
19" 297
XX. The New Haven of Two Hundred Years ago, 1913 . . 318
~XXI. Notes on some of the New Haven Loyalists, including
those graduated at Yale, 1915 335
XXII. The Rev. Harry Croswell, D.D., and his Diary, 1916 349
XXIII. The Removal of Yale College to New Haven in Octo-
ber, 1716, 1916 366
XXIV. Student Life at Yale College under the first President
Dwight, 1917 382
Index 395
List of Historical Works 399
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HARVAED-COLLEGE MONITOR'S BILL.
[From the Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society for
Decenber. 1868.]
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3 HARVARD COLLEGE MONITORS BILL
The paper copied above was found, Sept. 20, 1867, in a Latin
Commentary on the Minor Prophets, which forms one of a series
by Rudolph Walther, the Swiss Protestant Theologian, in Yale
College Library. The volume (of which the title is "In Prophetas
Duodecim quos vocant Minores, Rodolphi Gualtheri Tigurini Homi-
life. Editio tertia. Tiguri, mdlxxii." Folio.) was supposed by
President Stiles to have been among the books given to the Library
at its foundation, and the foundation of the College, in 1701, by the
Reverend Abraham Pierson, of Kilhngworth (Harv. Coll. 1668),
the first Rector.
Within these leaves, the paper now brought to light has quite
probably lain unmolested for over two centuries. One might
describe it, physically, as a yellow fragment of coarse paper, about
five inches by four, with three of its edges cut true by the knife,
and the fourth torn off irregularly. The writing upon it is a list
of twenty-three surnames, with various marks entered under abbre-
viated headings, in carefully ruled columns, against each name. A
little attention will satisfy one that the list is a list of the twenty-
three students who were in Harvard College during some one week
of the academical year 1663-4, representing the classes of 1664,
1665, 1666, and 1667.
The manuscript has no divisions into classes; but, on comparing
the Triennial, the first seven names here are seen to be the surnames
of the seven graduates of 1664, arranged in the order in which the
catalogue gives them, being that of family rank. Next are the
Juniors, class of 1665, who graduated eight ; two of which gradu-
ates, however (Gov. Joseph Dudley and Samuel Bishop), were not
present when this list was used. The manuscript gives us the
remaining six in the order of the Triennial Catalogue, and also one
additional non-graduate member (Jacoms), of whose death in
Senior year there is record elsewhere. Next on the paper are the
names of six Sophomores, of whom four only graduated in 1666.
The two extra names are Pynchon and Browne, Savage (Genea-
logical Diet., iii. 498) shows that a John Pynchon was two years
at Harvard, without graduating, at about this period: Browne it
may be difficult to trace. In this class, apparently, an occasion
for the not unknown punishment of "degradation" arose, before
the end of the course. In the printed catalogue, the rank of Filar
and Mason is altered from that seen here. Three names finish the
list, which are found in the same order in the class which graduated
in 1667, though by that time four others had added themselves to
that class ; one of whom was John Harriman, the son of the New-
Haven inn-holder, who seems from this to have had, not only his
preparatory, but some of his academical, training, in New Haven,
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HARVARD COLLEGE MONITOR'S BILL 3
We have, then, out of our list of twenty-three, twenty who reach
graduation, and three who drop out before taking their degrees;
while the corresponding classes, as graduated, number twenty-six.
The columns of marks come next: in general, it may be said at
once, that the bill has a certain family likeness to the modem
monitor's bill. Over each column is a number, and a letter or
letters. The first column is numbered 6, then follow 7, i, z, 3, 4,
and 5. From this it appears that the range of the numbers was
from I to 7 r evidently, they stand for the seven days of the wedt
The letters above each number are m and n. Thus the first column
is n 6, the next m 7, the next n 7, the next n i. M and n very
probably stand for morning and night (in the Latin forms perhaps) ;
so that m 7 and n 7 mean morning and evening prayers on Saturday.
This disposes of all alAreviations over the columns, except the two
which intervene between m 1 and n i ; that is between morning
and evening prayers on Sunday. There are con i and con 2, clearly
for some such word as concio, tised for religious meeting. It is
noticeable that these two services are better attended by far than
any other service on the bill.
The record begins with a Friday evening (n 6), and the leaf is
torn off abruptly at n 5, or the next Thursday evening; so that it
contains <Mily the account of attendance at fourteen separate
services. Part of the record below n 5 is gone. The marks given
are with a capital A and T, which, of^course, stand for Absent and
Tardy (perhaps in the Latin forms).
On holding the paper to the light, one sees that the record was
taken in the old fashion used in England to this day, a pin-hole
being made to denote absence, and a second pin-hole added if the
student came in later ; the marks A and T were written subse-
quently with ink. Sometimes, we see mistakes were made, and
the tell-tale pin-holes I^K>riously smoothed over until they have
almost disappeared.
In this short week, from Friday to Thursday, there ts unfortu-
nately but one of the twenty-three scholars, a Sophomore, who is
entirely punctual. It should be added, that he became a minister,
and did not die young. As might be supposed, the Seniors are, on
the average, the least regular, and the Freshmen most so. The
most irregular attendant, however, is one Jacoms, whose name
stands after Chischaut, at the foot of the Junior class. Chischaui
(or Caleb Cheeshahteaumuck) is the sole Indian graduate of
Harvard ; and Gookin, in his Historical Collections of the Indians in
New England (Mass. Hist. Coll., I. i. 173), tells the story of Joel
(here by his surname Jacoms), and his violent death in the later
part of his Senior year.
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4 HARVARD COLLEGE MONITOR'S BILL
Of these twenty-three scholars, the residences of all except
Browne are known. Seventeen were from the immediate neighbor-
hood, within a radius of fifteen miles; the two brothers Pynchon
from Springfield ; the two Indians from Martha's Vineyard ;
and the remaining one from the distant New-Haven colony. This
was Samuel Street, of the Senior class, only son of the Rev.
Nicholas Street, the cfJleague and successor of Davenport, in the
ministry of the First Church of New Haven, from 1659 to 1674.
The swi was one of the earliest teachers of the New-Haven Hopkins
Grammar School, and then pastor in the adjoining town of Walling-
ford for over forty years, leaving a line of descendants who have
remained until our time. Two others on the list, besides Samuel
Street, were to become Connecticut pastors ; John Woodbridge at
Killingworth and Wethersfield, and Nicholas Noyes at Haddam.
Other conspicuous names are here: Eliot, the youngest son of the
Apostle to the Indians ; and Flynt, who became the father of the
more noted "permanent tutor Flynt," who we may remember was
invited in 1718 to become Rector of the newly named Yale College,
but wisely preferred his easier berth at Cambridge.
The chief question that remains is. How did this scrap of paper
come to New Haven? But only conjectures can be given in
answer- We know that, at the date of the bill, the college Faculty
consisted of President Chauncy and two or three tutors, or fellows.
The Corporation Records extant are too meagre even to show the
names of the tutors. It is quite likely that this Monitor's Bill went
to the President, and was slipped into one of the books of his
library. It is aJso possiWe that after his death, in 1672, this botJc
may have been published by Abraham Pierswi, one of his later
pupils, of the class of 1668, and by him have been given (as Presi-
dent Stiles asserts) for "founding a college in this colony."
It may be added that the handwriting on the bill is not that of
President Chauncy; also, that it is rather remarkable that the
volume in which it was found contains no autograph or indication
of its various possessors, from its birth at Zurich to its landing-
place in the hands of Dr. Stiles.
The Library of Yale College, it may be stated in closing, has,
among other like relics, three interesting books from the respective
libraries of the three most famous Presidents of Harvard College
during the seventeenth century.
First is a copy of the earliest English translation of Euclid's
Elements (by Henry Billingsley, London, 1570), with "Henrici
Dunsteri liber . . . price thirty shillings," on the tJtlepage. Then
a "Summa Casuum Conscientiae," with President Chauncy's auto-
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HARVARD COLLEGE MONITOK S BILL 5
graph and motto (also in his own hand), "Qui auget scientiam,
auget et dolorem." And last, the copy of Keckermann's "Systema
Logicie," from which Increase Mather studied; and in which he
left numerous signatures, dated in 1654 and 1656 (his Sophomore
and Senior years), with specimens of boyish scribbling.
New Haven, March 30, 1868.
Note. — To facilitate comparisons, the following list of gradua
dates of their deaths, so far as known, is subjoined: —
ISM. DeCflUed.
Alexander Nowell, A.M., Fellow, 1672
Rev. Josiah Flint, A.M., 1680
Joseph Pyndion, A.M., Fellow, 1682
Samuel Brackenbury, A.M., 1678
Rev. John Woodbridge, A.B. 1690
Rev. Joseph Estabrook, A.M., 1711
Rev. Samuel Street, A.B., 1717
Caleb Cheeshahteaumuck, .
(Indian),
Benjaniia Eliot, A.M., 1687
Joseph Dudley. A.M., Chief
Justice of New York, and
Governor of Massachusetts
and New Hampshire, 1720
Samuel Bishop, A.B., 1687
Edward Mitchelson, A.B.,
Rev. Samuel Man, A.B., 1719
Rev. Hope Atherton, A.B., 1677
Rev. Jabez Fox, A.M., 1703
Joseph Browne, A.M.. Fellow, 1678
Rev. John Richardson, A.M.,
Fellow. 1696
Daniel Mason. A.B.,
John Filer, A.B.. 1723
Rev. John Harriman, A.M., 1705
Nathaniel Atkinson, A.B.,
John Foster, A.B., 1681
Rev. Gershom Hobart, A.M., 1707
Japhet Hobart, A.B„
Rev. Nehemiah Hobart, A.M..
Fellow, 1 712
Rev. Nicholas Noyes. A.M. in
1716, 1717
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MEMORANDA
EDWARD WHALLEY AND WILLIAM GOFFE.
[From the Papers of the New Haven Colony Historical Society, Vol. 11,
1877. Read November, 1870.)
Rev. Ezra Stiles, President of Yale College, published at
Hartford, in April, 1795, a "History of three of the Judges of
King Charles I," which has been supposed to contain all that
could ever be known about these worthies. But in 1868 the Massa-
chusetts Historical Society printed in their Collections (4th Series,
vol. viii), a series of manuscripts originally belonging to one of the
three Judges, and not used by President Stiles. I would not, if I
could, dispel the fascination of Dr. Stiles's book; but the new
information' revives a local interest in the regicides, and my object
is merely to sketch the personal history of Generals Whalley and
Goffe.
The parents of Edward Whalley were Richard Whalley of
Kirkton Hall, Nottinghamshire, a country member of Parliament
in the last of Elizabeth's reign, and Frances Cromwell,' an aunt of
the future Protector. The father's losses of property in litigation
may have affected the career of the son, who first comes into
notice in the civil war. His previous occupation is unknown, though
the Royalist pamphlets gossip to the effect that he was "a woolen-
draper, or petty merchant, in London; whose shop being out of
sorts, and his cash empty, not having wherewithal to satisfy his
creditors, he fled into Scotland for refuge, till the wars began."
{"Second Narrative of the late Parhament," 1658, in Harleian
Miscellany, iii, 482. Cf. "Treason Discovered," 1660.) Sir
'The originals are now a part of the Prince Library, and deposited in the
Public Library of the City of Boston : Rev. Thomas Prince obtained them
from the Mather family, with other manuscripts, hence called "Mather
* Frances was the second wife of Richard. Their eldest son was Thomas,
who died May, 1637. before his father (leaving a son, Peniston Whalley, who
died in 1672, aet. 48}. Fdward was their second son, and Henry their third.
[Thoroton's Nottinghamshire, 2d ed., i, 249.]
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WHALLEY AND GOFFE 7
Philip Warwick, in his memoirs of the reign o£ King Charles I
(p. 307), more kindly describes him as "a ridiculous Phanatick, as
well as a crack-brained fellow, though he was a Gentleman of a
good family, of which sort of men they had very few among them."
There is other testimony that he sided with Parliament from
religious conviction, and in opposition to the sentiments of some of
his nearest relatives. (See "Noble's Memoirs of the House of
Cromwell.")
In the midsummer of 1642, "Mr. Oliver Cromwell," a member
of Parliament for the town of Cambridge, began to superintend the
defence of Cambridgeshire against the insane movements of the
king; in August he was Captain of a volunteer troop of horse,
and by March, 1643, was Colonel. In the same August, his kins-
man, Edward Whalley, was Comet of the 6oth regiment of horse
(John Fiennes, Captain), and by March, 1643, was Captain,
The next mention found of his name is in the letters of Cromwell,
reporting an indecisive action at Gainsborough, in Lincolnshire,
July 28, 1643: "Major Whalley," he writes, "did in this carry
himself with all gallantry becoming a gentleman and a Christian"
(Carlyle's Cromwell, i, 159) ; and again. "The honor of this retreat,
equal to any of late times, is due to Major Whalley and Captain
Ayscough, next under God."
By March, 1645, when the newly molded army was organized,
with Fairfax Commander-in-Chief, Whalley was prominent enough
to be made Colonel of one of the eleven cavalry regiments, and as
such helped notably to win the day at Naseby.'
The first Civil War lasted for two years longer, and no regiment
was more busy than Colonel Whalley's. We trace him at the
defeat of Goring's army at Langport (July 10, 1645), at the sieges
of Bridgewater (July 11-25, 1645), of Sherborne Castle (Aug.
1-15, 1645), of Bristol (Aug. 21 to Sept. 11, 1645), of Exeter
(Febr., 1646), of Oxford (March, 1646), and of Banbury. On
May 9, 1646, the day on which his letter to the Speaker, announc-
ing the storming of Banbury Castle, was written and received,
the House voted him their thanks and £100 for the purchase of
two horses. ("Cary's Memorials," i, 28.)
From Banbury he marched to Worcester, where Sir Henry
Washington (own cousin to the grandfather of General George
Washington) surrendered to him on July 23, after eleven weeks'
' Hia regiment was in the front line of the Partiamentary right wing, and
was the first to become engaged with Sir Marmaduke Langdale's horse
opposite to them. See Markham's Life of Fairfax, p. 230, and Rushworth's
Collections, vt, 43.
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8 WHALLEY AND COFFE
siege. The city of Oxford had already surrendered to Fairfax, and
the first Civil War was at an end.
Meantime, for the two years succeeding the battle of Naseby,
Richard Baxter was the diaplain of Whalley's regiment, and in
strange contrast to camps and sieges was meditating the peaceful
sentences of the "Saint's Everlasting Rest." Years afterward (in
1654) he dedicated one of his works, in appreciative words, to his
old Colonel.
The next glimpse of Whalley is in June, 1647, when the king
was taken (not unwillingly) by Comet Joyce and his five hundred
troopers from the custody of Parliament at Holdenby (or Holmby)
House, in Northamptonshire, and Whalley was sent by Gen. Fair-
fax with a strong party to meet Charles and escort him back ; but
Charles declined to return.
A little latter, in the "halcyon days," when the king was lodged
in Hampton Court Palace, Whalley was (through Cromwell's
influence) for the whole time (Aug. 24 to Nov. 11, 1647) li'S
keeper, and was suspected of connivance in his escape to the Isle of
Wight.
In the summer of 1648 came war again, and Whalley went with
Fairfax, to quell the Kentish Insurrection, and assist at the capture
of Maidstone and the siege of Colchester. In December, he stood
by the side of Colonel Pride, while he purged by force the Long
Parliament, so as to secure a vote wdiich should bring the shuffling
king to trial.
Accordingly, on the fourth of January, 1649, the Commons voted
to create a High Court of Justice for the trying and judging of
Charles Stuart, and Whalley was named among the one hundred
and thirty-five Commissioners. He was present at all save one of
the sessions of that memorable Court, and his firm, clear signature
is the fourth (next after President Bradshaw's, Lord Grey's, and
Oliver Cromwell's) among the fifty-nine signatures to the final
death-warrant. There is no direct testimony as to the convictions
under which he acted at this time; but no one can study his
subsequent career and extant letters, without the belief that he was
then as afterwards thoroughly conscientious, fearing God and not
man, perhaps fanatical, but not vindictive, crafty, or self-seeking.
During Lieut. Gen. Cromwell's Irish campaign (July, 1649 to
May, 1650) Whalley's regiment apparently remained in England.
But in June, 1650, when Cromwell was made Captain-General and
Commander-in-Chief, Whalley jdned him for Scotland with the
rank of Commissary- General. Here Cromwell's dispatches after
the victory at Dunbar (Sept. 3, 1650) mark the bravery of his
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WH ALLEY AND GOFFE 9
onset, and give in the list of casualties. "Col. Whalley only cut in
the hand-wrist, and his horse {twice shot) killed under him ; but
he well recovered another horse, and went on in the chase"
(Carlyle's Cromwell, Hi, 52).
In August, 1651, Cromwell following Charles II into England,
left Monk and Whalley in command, and Parliament voted to each
of them in September an estate in England of the yearly value of
five hundred pounds. But before many weeks, Whalley was in
London again, and present at a memorable conference when the
leaders of the Parliament and of the Army met to consider and
arrange the settlement of the nation ("Whitelocke's Memorials").
Parliament goes on from bad to worse, as the Army thinks, and
at the next move Whalley's name leads the signatures to a long
petition from the officers, dated August 13, 1652, craving and sug-
gesting necessary religious and civil reforms and arrangements for
a successor to the Rump, now in its twelfth year of service. This
was the leaven which roused the House to provide for its own
dissolution and for a successor ; but on the eve of action. General
Cromwell took affairs into his own hands, and Whalley stood by his
side when he summarily dismissed the Rump, on the 20th of April,
1653.
Cromwell was now openly at the head of the State, though
it was not till the i6th of the following December that he was
named Lord Protector. In the scheme of government adopted for
the Commonwealth, one feature was to be a triennial Parliament,
of five hundred members, guaranteed from dissolution or proroga-
tion for at least five months. In the first Parliament convened
under this regulation, Whalley was a representative for Notting-
hamshire.
The most important trust which he held, however, was as Major
General, when in August, 1655, the command of the militia was
divided among ten (afterwards twelve) such officers, who retained
t^ce till January, 1657. These Major Generals were clothed with
almost absolute authority in their several districts, in special to sup-
press insurrections, to call to account suspected persons, to levy
the ten per cent, income-tax on all royalists ; and, in general, to
reduce the country to the old foundations of peace and order.
Whalley had charge of his native county, Nottinghamshire, with
the adjacent shires of Lincoln, Derby, Warwick, and Leicester.
His headquarters were at Nottingham, and twenty-six of his
despatches, preserved in Secretary Thurloe's Collection of State
Papers (vols, iv and v), tell the story of his wise and faithful
administration of the duties laid on him ; written only for the eyes
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lO WHALLEY AND GOFFE
of the Lord Protector and his Secretary of State, they bear
perpetual testimony to his honesty and uprightness.
His position secured him reelection from Nottinghamshire to the
next Parliament, whose first session was from Sept. 17, 1656, to
June 26, 1657, and whose chief business was the presentation of
the "Petition and Advice" to his Highness the Lord Protector, and
the offer of the royal title. General Whalley is mentioned as using
his influence in favor of the assumption of kingship. At the close
of the year 1657, for a casual glimpse of Whalley's activity, one
may look at the diary of the royalist, John Evelyn, who came to
London on Christmas Day to attend church service, which was of
course a ceremony forbidden by the authorities ; he was appre-
hended while receiving the sacrament, and tells at length the story
of his examination before Whalley and a company of officers.
A month later Parliament reassembled, and in accordance with
the "Petition and Advice," the "Other House" was constituted by
special writ. In this almost anomalous body, of forty-two mem-
bers, "Edward, Lord Whalley," sat, during its only session, from
Jan. 20, to Feb. 4, 1658.
In the following June, he was one of the committee of nine,
charged by Cromwell with preparing business for the next meeting
of Parliament in September; but before the summons had been
issued, death had summoned the busy Lord Protector. From that
moment the restoration of the Stuarts was inevitable.
During the eight months' Protectorate which succeeded, ^Vhalley
was a mainstay of the Cromwell dynasty; but Richard's abdica-
tion came on May 5, 1659, and the Long Parliament on reassembling
withdrew Whalley's commission as General, through fear of his
influence with the army. In October, when the army tried to seize
the power, Whalley was sent as one of their commissioners to treat
with his old cwnrade. Monk ; but MtMik refused to meet him, and
presently the Restoration was accomplished.
But before pursuing his course further, there is another actor
to introduce. The public career of William Goffe runs nearly
parallel to that of Whalley, his father-in-law and companion in
exile. Little is known of his early life. His father, "a very severe
Puritan," as Anthony a Wood calls him, was the Rev. Stephen
Goffe, a graduate (B.A. 1595, M.A. 1599) of Magdalen College,
Oxford, and at one time (before 1607) rectCM" of Bramber, a little
village in Sussex. The sharp divisions of the times are manifested
in the divergent careers of three sons of this Puritan household.
Stephen, the eldest, had his training at Merton College, Oxford
(B.A. 1623), was chaplain of Col. Horace Vere's regiment at the
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WHALL£V AND GOFFE II
Hague in 1632-3, then by Archbishop Laud's recommendation
preacher to the EngHsh merchants in Deift, chaplain in Col. Goring's
regiment in 1641, afterwards (1645) secret agent of the Royalist
cause in France and Holland ; turned PajMst, became one of Queen
Henrietta Maria's chaplains,* and died a priest of the Oratory in
Paris, in 1681,' aet. 76.' John, another brother, also an Oxford
graduate (B.A. 1630), steadily adhered to the Church of England,
and was vicar of Hackington, near Canterbury, but ejected in 1643
for his refusal to take the "Solemn League and Covenant."
Through his brother William's influence he obtained in 1652
another rectory at Norton, in Kent, where he died in i66i, A
third brother, James, is wily known through General GofFe's refer-
ence to him in a letter of July, 1656, in Thurloe's Collection.
The remaining brother, William Goffe,' utter foe to both Papist
and Churchman, was probably at least ten or twelve years younger
than Whalley, whose daughter he married. Of his occupation
before 1647, no account is preserved, except the comment of the
"Second Narrative of the late Parliament," which describes him as
"sometimes Col. Vaughan's brother's apprentice (a Salter in
London), whose time being near or newly out, betocJi himself to be
a soldier, instead of setting up his trade ; went out a quartermaster
of foot, and continued in the wars till he forgot what he fought
for ; in time became a Colonel, and, in the outward appearance,
very zealous and frequent in praying, preaching, and pressing, for
righteousness and freedom, and highly esteemed in the array, on
that account, when honesty was in fashion."
The earliest mention of his name is in June, 1647, when the
Army accused the eleven Parliamentary Members. He next
appears as "Major Goffe," exhorting in a meeting of army officers
at Windsor Castle about the beginning of 1648. Nor is his name
seen again until we reach the trial of the king. His signature to
the death warrant is the fourteenth in order.
In May, 1649, some of the principal Parliamentary officers
visited Oxford by invitation; Fairfax and Cromwell were made
Doctors of Laws ; Goffe and ten others Masters of Arts.
After this date, GofFe's experiences are almost a copy of
Whalley's. With him he accompanied Cromwell into Scotland, as
'Cf. Pepys' diary, Sept. 19, 1666, and Evelyn's correspondence, Aug., 1663.
' See page 181 of the volume of "Mather Papers," M. H. C. (4) viii, for a
reference to him in 1662.
•Horsfield's History of Lewes and Vicinity, ii, 219.
' Born in Haverfordwest. Pembrokeshire, South Wales. See the English
Hiitorical Review, vii, ji&-\g.
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13 WHAU.EY AND COFFE
Colonel of a regiment of foot, and is mentioned in the official
report of the battle of Dunbar, In 1654 he was returned to Parlia-
ment from Yarmouth, in Norfolk, and in 1656 from Southampton.
Like Whalley, he was made a Major General in 1655, with com-
mand in Sussex (his native county), Hampshire, and Berkshire,
and headquarters in Winchester. With Whalley he favored the title
of King Oliver, sat in the "Other House," was on the commission
arranging business for Parliament when Cromwell died ; supported
to the last the authority of Richard, and was sent by the army to
make terms with Monk.
Thirty-three of his letters in Thurloe's Collection (vols, iv and
v), written while serving as Major General, give a clear picture of
his unaffected piety, honesty, and humility; a single sentence from
a letter of Nov. 13, 1655, to Cromwell's Secretary, may illustrate:
"If you think fit," he says, "I beseech you present my most humble
service to his Highness, for whom I pray without ceasing, and can,
I hope, cheerfully sacrifice my life in the service, if need be; but
I wish he do not repent the laying so great a trust upon so poor
and inconsiderable a creature."
For the esteem in which he was held, one may see a letter from
the second Protector, Nov. 15, 1658 (Thurloe, vii, 504), bestowing
on him lands in Ireland of the yearly value of five hundred pounds,
in such terms as these : "Calling to mind the great worth and merit
of our trusty and well-beloved William, Ijard Goffe, Major General
of the foot in our army, and of his many eminent, constant, and
faithful services, and with what singular valor and prudence he
hath done and performed the same to these nations in time of the
late wars and otherwise ; and also being made acquainted with the
gracious intentions of our most dear and entirely beloved father,
his late highness of blessed memory, towards the said William,
Lord GofFe; and to compensate his desert; we are well pleased to
grant," etc.
These outlines show us that both Whalley and GofFe were brave
soldiers and trusty leaders, helped into prominence by their relation
to Cromwell, and in a measure the creatures of his stronger will.
That GofFe at least had independently a marked character may be
judged from another passage in the anonymous pamphlet already
twice quoted, where it is said, just before Oliver Cromwell's death.
General GofFe "hath advanced his interest greatly, and is in so
great esteem and favor at court, that he is judged the only fit man
to have Major General Lambert's place and command, as major
general of the army ; and, having so far advanced, is in a fair way
to the Protectorship hereafter."
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WHALLEY AND GOFFE 1 3
But we pass on a tittle, and instead of the Protectorship comes
exile crowned only by death.
On May i, 1660, letters were read in the two Houses from
Charles II, containing the famous "Declaration of Breda," dated
Apr. 4, which promised pardon to all save "only such persons as
shall hereafter be excepted by Parliament." Whalley and GofFe
were wise enough to mistrust all promises from the son of Charles I,
and three days later, under the thin disguise of Edward Richardson
and William Steirfienson, they embarked at Gravesend in the
"Prudent Mary," Captain Pierce, master.
On Saturday, May 12, the king was proclaimed at Gravesend,
and on Monday their vessel sailed for Boston, where they arrived
in ten weeks from the following Friday, or on July 27. Among
their fellow-passengers were Major Daniel Gookin, an assistant
in the Colony of Massachusetts Bay, and Marnuduke Johnson,
coming to print the first installment of Eliot's Indian Bible.
Scarcely were they out of sight of England, when, on May 18,
the House of Lords ordered the seizure of the members of the
Court which condemned Charles I. Just a week later, the king
landed at Dover, and on June 6 issued his proclamation, summon-
ing a Icmg list of persons (Whalley and Goffe included) to appear
within a fortnight, or forfeit pard<Hi.
From the day of leaving Westminster until 1667, the younger
of the two exiles kept a journal, to which Governor Hutchinson,
a hundred years later, had access while writing his History of the
Colony of Massachusetts Bay; this diary then belonged to the
Mather family, but was destroyed in the attack on Hutchinson's
house by the mob, in 1765 ; a contemporaneous transcript of a few
extracts, extending, however, only from May 4 to Sept 6, 1660,
found among the Wtnthrop family papers, was printed in the Pro-
ceedings of the Mass. Historical Society, for Dec., 1863.
On the landing of the two Judges in Boston, they accepted the
hosiMtality of their fellow-passenger. Major Gookin, and remained
(^tenly at his house in Cambridge i<v seven months. The copy of
GofFe's diary just mentioned preserves the form of thanksgiving
handed by them to "Matchless" Mitchell, the minister of Cambridge,
on the first day of public worship after their arrival.
On August 29, Parliament passed the Act of Indemnity, from
the benefits of which Whalley and Goffe were excepted by name ;
(Ml Sept 22, a nimor having arisen that they had "lately returned"
to England, a special Royal Proclamation* offered rewards for
'A copy may be seen in the British Museum.
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14 WHALLEY AND GOFFE
their apprehension, — alive or dead, anywhere within the king's
dominions, — of one hundred pounds each.
News of the Act of Indemnity did not reach New England until
the last day of November ; soon followed by the report of the trial,
beginning October lo, of twenty-nine persons for connection with
the death of the late king. When it was remembered that Captain
Thomas Breedon, a prominent Royalist of Boston, had sailed for
England, and was sure' to announce that he had seen Generals
Whalley and Goffe, no wonder that some of the government began
to desire to be rid of their dangerous guests, and that on Febr. 22,
1661, Governor Endicott summoned his council of Assistants (of
whom their host, Gookin, was one) to consult about securing them.
The Assistants did not agree to any measures, but the regicides
removed the cause of apjwehension by leaving four days afterwards
for New Haven. And why for New Haven?
A fortnight after their landing in New England, the Rev. John
Davenport, of New Haven, in a letter to Governor Winthrop of
Connecticut (in Mass. Historical Collections, 3d Series, v, x, p. 39),
had mentioned their being in Boston, and his intention of inviting
them to visit him. It is not likely that he had ever met either of
them ; the only known connection between him and the-Goffe family
was in 1633, when General Goffe's brother Stephen was Archbishop
Laud's spy on the movements of Davenport, in exile at the Hague.
(Calendar of Domestic State Papers for 1633-34, p. 324.) But
the Rev. William Hooke, whose wife was sister of Whalley, had
been Davenport's associate in the ministry of the First Church of
New Haven from 1644 to 1656, and since then his regular corre-
spondent. William Jones, also, who had just joined the settlement
here, and became its leading civilian, was a passenger in the ship
with the re^cidcs. Other remoter links of connection between the
Protector's Government and the Colony of New Haven were
through Samuel Desborough, Lord Keeper of Scotland, who lived
in New Haven and Guilford from 1639 to 1650, and whose brother.
General John Deslxirough, married a sister of Cromwell and cousin
of Whalley; and through the Rev. Henry Whitfield, of Guilford,
in this Colony, from 1639 to 1650, in whose family at Winchester
Goffe had lived, while at the height of his power as Major General
over three shires of England, in 1656.
On their journey of some 140 miles, the travelers passed through
Hartford and were entertained by Governor Winthrop. It may be,
also, that one of their halting-places was near the ford of the large
brook in the present township of Meriden, twenty miles from New
Haven, called Pilgrims' Harbor Brodc to this day.
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WHALLEY AND GOFFE IS
In nine days from Cambridge, they reached New Haven, on
Thursday. March 7, 1661, and appeared openly as Mr. Davenport's
guests for the next three weeks. While they were on the road,
however, there had come to Boston, by way of Barbados, rumors
of a Royal Proclamation for their arrest, given at London in
January, on information supplied by Captain Breedon. Accord-
ingly, the Governor and Assistants of Massachusetts, now that
their vigilance could do no harm, cheerfully issued, on March 8, a
warrant to secure them, and sent it through that Colony. The
news of the King's Proclamation coming to New Haven, and
threatening a possible risk to their hosts here, the Judges, on
March 27; went to Milford and allowed themselves to be seen there,
as though proceeding to New York, but the same night they
returned and lay concealed at Mr. Davenport's until May.
On April 28, another royal mandate reached Boston, dated
March 5, caused by further accounts of the residence of Whalley
and Goffe in Cambridge, and ordering their arrest; but directed
by some strange blunder to an official as yet unheard of, "the
Governor of New England." Governor Endicott hesitated for a
week (during which time the news was of course sent hither), and
then without summoning his Council committed the warrant to two
young men, with letters from himself to the Chief Magistrates of
Plymouth, Connecticut, New Haven, and New York. (The letter
to Dep. Gov. Leete of New Haven is in "Documents relating to
Colonial History of N. Y.," iii, 41.)
On Tuesday, May 7, about 6 p. m., the two Commissioners,
Thomas Kellond, merchant, and Thomas Kirk, shipmaster, with
J(An Chapin as guide, left Boston for Connecticut. On Friday
they called on Governor Winthrop at Hartford, who told them
that Whalley and Goffe "did not stay there, but went directly for
New Haven." (Report of the Commissioners, in Hutchinson's Col-
lections.) He promised, however, a search in his jurisdictimi,
which their Report says was made.* The next day (Saturday)
May 11) they came to Guilford, where lived Deputy-Governor
Leete, who since the death of Governor Newman, in November,
1660, had been the Chief Magistrate of the Colony of New Haven,
Leete received them in the presence of several persons, and began
to read their letters aloud; on their objecting to such publicity,
he withdrew to another room and assured them (probably with
truth) that he had not seen the "Colonels," as Whalley and Goffe
were called, for nine weeks, that is, since their first arrival in the
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l6 WHALLEY AND GOFFE
Colony. The Commissioners replied that they had information of
the Colonels being in New Haven since, and demanded horses,
about which there was some delay. On their way to the inn, they
were told by one Dennis Crampton (Scranton, in their Report),
who called other witnesses to the facts, that the regicides were
sheltered by Davenport, and that Leete undoubtedly knew it; that
Mr, Davenport had recently put in ten pounds' worth of fresh
provisions at one time ; that Whalley and Goffe on a late training-
day (probably in Milford) had openly said that if they had but
two hundred friends to stand by them, they would not care for
Old or New England. Other bystanders reported that they had
very lately been seen between the houses of Mr. Davenport and
Mr. Jones.
Excited by this gossip, the Commissioners returned to Leete to
demand their horses, military aid, and a warrant to search and
arrest. But apparently it was towards sundown, and a Deputy
Governor would demur to any traveling within his control until
the approaching Sabbath was over. As to a search-warrant and a
posse, he must consult his brother-magistrates before seeming to
recognize such an unprecedented authority as the "Governor of
New England," to whom their commission was directed. He would
give them, however, a letter to the magistrate residing in New
Haven. Meantime they were obliged to wait, chafing with the
suspicion that a Guilford Indian had already carried forwards the
news of their arrival.
At daybreak on Monday they were allowed to depart, but not
before another messenger had preceded them from Leete to
Matthew Gilbert, the New Haven magistrate; so that when they
arrived the magistrate is nowhere to be seen. Leete had prmnised
to follow them, and there was nothing to be done but wait for his
slower-moving dignity. Two hours later he appeared at the court
chamber, with Magistrate Crane of Branford, and told the Com-
missioners that he did not believe that Whalley and Goffe were in
New Haven (the fact being that they had removed on Saturday
night from Mr. Jones's house to "the Mills" in Westville). They
offered, if he would allow it, to search the two suspected houses
on their own responsibility ; but he replied that he neither would
nor could do anything until the freemen were met together. Mean-
time, the other magistrates and the deputies of New Haven had
come in, and Leete spent five or six hours in consultation, only to
make the same answer. To the Ccmimissioners' threats of his
Majesty's probable resentment, Leete replied, "we honor his
Majesty, but we have tender consciences." To which the Com-
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WHALLEV AND GOFFE 17
missioners testily retorted that they believed the magistrates knew
all the time where the Colonels were, "and only pretended tender-
ness of conscience for a refusal." Again the magistrates delib-
erated, but evening found them still unyielding, and when the
Commissioners pressed the question "whether they would own his
Majesty or no, it was answered they would first know whether
his Majesty would own them," that is, whether their government
would be recognized as independent of a Governor of all New-
England, now for the first time dimly threatened.
Baffled and powerless, the Commissioners left on the following
day for New York, and returned to Bost<m by sea, where as a
small recompense for their pains the Governor's Council granted
them each two hundred and fifty acres of land.
The Colonels must remain hidden, at least until the present
alarm is over; and accordingly, on the day after the king's mes-
sengers had gone westwards, a cave on West Rock (which they
called Providence Hill) received them; there they spent four weeks,
sheltered in stormy weather in the house of the only neighbor,
Richard Speny, who also supplied them with food. The tradi-
tions recited by Dr. Stiles (pp. 31, 78) of a visit of the Royal
Commissioners to this cave are utterly irreconcilable with their
narrative.
At the conference on Monday, the ma^strates had decided to
convene the General Court, which accordingly met at New Haven
the following Friday; and by its command orders were issued
to the marshals in each plantation to search diligently for the
Colonels, One of these warrants is given in the printed volume
of Colonial Records. Nevertheless, the Judges' Cave was not
invaded. From this miserable shelter, only the rumor of harm
threatening Mr. Davenport through the suspicion of his still con-
cealing them, induced them to emerge. On Jime 11, says Gov,
Hutchinson, they leave West Rock, "generously resolving to go to
New Haven, and deliver themselves to the authority there ;" namely,
to Gilbert, who had been made Deputy-Governor at an election just
held. There is some uncertainty as to the place where they passed
the next ten days, since it was not till the 22d that they appeared
in New Haven.
President Stiles supposed that they spent a part or the whole of
this time, from the nth to the 22d of June, in Guilford, in Governor
Leete's stone cellar, and in Dr. Rossiter's house; but his arguments
are not conclusive. There was, it is true, a tradition that the
Judges were at some time hid in Guilford, for three days and three
nights (Stiles, p. 92), but there is no special reason for determining
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l8 WHALLEY AND GOFFE
this to be the time. The mention in the Colony Records (May 7,
1662) in the case of Dr. Rossiter, of Guilford (then on trial for
refusal to pay certain rates and assessments, and for denying the
authority of the colony), of his "charges about the Colonels," can-
not refer, as Dr. Stiles supposed, to his bill for shelter given to
them while visiting Guilford in June, 1661 ; the prudence of the
General Court, as well as the pronounced sympathies of Rossiter
with royal authority, forbid the absurd supposition that the Colonels
had been entertained at the public expense, Rossiter's charges
were probably for aiding in the search made in Guilford after the
order of the Court on May 17. Dr. Stiles relies, also, on the
second-hand testimony of Gov. Leete's daughter Ann, who is said
to have remembered a time when she and the rest of the children
of the family were forbidden to go to a certain old stone cellar,
for which prohibition the hiding of the Colonels was afterwards
avowed as the reason; Dr. Stiles supposed her to have been four
or five years old in 1661, but in fact the register of Guilford births
shows that this daughter of Gov. Leete was not bom until March,
1662.
The Rev, John Davenport (in a letter written in August, to be
again referred to) says that on June 22, Whalley and Goffe "came
from another colony, where they were and had been some time, to
New Haven." The authority for their leaving West Rock on June
ir is Goflfe's diary, as used by Hutchinson, It is hardly probable
that between the two dates they made a journey into either of the
bordering colonies, where their stay must at best have been short;
but on the other hand it is inconceivable that the cave "where they
were and had been sometime" was unknown to their chief friend.
Mr. Davenport's statement looks like a prevarication.
On Saturday, June 22, then, they appeared in New Haven,
"professing," writes Davenport, " that their true intention, in their
coming at that time, was to yield themselves to be appr^ended,"
but the Deputy- Governor took no measures for their arrest. "The
next day," says Hutchinson, "some persons came to them to advise
them not to surrender." On the day following, the magistrates
met at New Haven on other business, but through either connivance
or over-confidence deferred taking custody of their uncaged
prisoners. Before the magistrates' meeting was ended, the Colonels
had disappeared; or, to give the account in Davenport's words,
"Our Governor and magistrates wanted neither will nor industry
to have served his Majesty in apprehending the two Colonels, but
were prevented and hindered by God's overruling providence, which
withheld them that they could not execute their true purpose
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WHAU.EY AKD GOFFE 1 9
therein; and the same Providence could have done the same, in
the same circumstances, if they had been in London, or in the
Tower. Before the magistrates issued their consultation, which
was not long, the Colonels were gone away, no man knowing how
nor whither. Thereupon a diligent search was renewed, and many
were sent forth on foot and horseback. • • * But all in vain."
Mr. Davenport seems to imply that they escaped l^ miraculous
means, "no man knowing how ;" perhaps he believed that ; perhaps
he was wilfully misled.
Rumors of this marvellous eluding of the magistrates soon
reached the authorities of Massachusetts Bay, whose agent in Eng-
land had already alarmed them by reports that the Council for
Plantations were noting the slowness of the Colonies to proclaim
Charles 11, and would be ready to take offence at the action of New
Haven on the royal mandate concerning Wh alley and Goffe.
Accordingly, in July, Secretary Rawson wrote from Boston, by
order of the Council, to Governor Leete, advising him to arrest the
regicides at once without any more evasion. (See the letter in
Hutchinson's Collections ; New Haven Colonial Records, ii, 419 ;
and Stiles, p. 56.) The Governor took the alarm and called
together the General Court again, on August r, to dictate an answer;
the answer (in N. H. Colonial Records, ii, 420; and Stiles, p. 49)
excused the treatment of the Commissioners in May by blaming
their forwardness, "retarding their own business to wait upon ours
without commission," as well as by reiterating conscientious objec-
tions to "owning a general Governor, unto whom the warrant was
directed." The answer also laid the blame of the Colonels' second
disappearance on Deputy -Governor Gilbert's remissness, and was
strong in declarations of honesty.
This letter was sent on to England, and with it a copy of the
letter already cited, from the Rev. John Davenport to Col. Temple
of Boston, the trusty agent of Charles II, giving a defence of the
writer's conduct in this affair, in terms of unstinted flattery and
unquestioned dissimulation. (See the copy of this letter in Mass.
Hist. Collections, 3d Series, viii, ,■527.) It is humiliating that his
record of magnanimous fidelity and courage in harboring the friend-
less exiles, is tarnished by the fawning, disingenuous apology which
his own pen has traced.
In communicating these letters, Col. Temple mentions that he
has himself joined in a secret design with Mr, John Pynchon, of
Springfield, and Capt. Richard Lord, of Hartford, and has great
hopes of seizing Whalley and Goffe. Lord died in a few months,
and nothing came of the scheme, but <hi August 19, after the judges
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aO WHALLEV AND GOFFE
had tried cave-life for a brief three months, "the search for them
being pretty well over, they ventured to the house of one Tomkins
in Milford, where they remained two years, without SO much as
going into the orchard." (Hutchinson.)
A few weeks later (Sept. 5, 1661), the Commissioners of the
United Colonies of New England, in their annual session, held at
Plymouth,'" issued a warning to all persons in the colonies, not to
shelter Whalley and Goffe, but to make their hiding-place known
to the magistrates, in pursuance of the king's mandate, Leete
signed this order, as one of the Commissioners from the Colony
of New Haven ; but the signature of his fellow-Commissioner,
Benjamin Fenn, of Milford, was withheld, he having accepted
office on the last election-day with the express stipulation that "in
case any business from without should present, he conceived that
he should give no offence if he did not attend to it." Whether his
scruples were broader than this special case, or whether the
knowledge that the persons in question lodged with one of his
nearest neighbors restrained him, may be doubted.
On his return, probably, from this meeting. Gov. Leete stopped
in Boston to secure an intercessory letter in his own behalf from
the Rev, John Norton to Richard Baxter (dated Sept. 23), which
set forth that he "being conscious of indiscretion and some neglect
... in relation to the expediting the execution of the warrant . .
sent from his Majesty for the apprehending of the two Colonels,
is not without fear of some displeasure that may follow thereupon ;"
consequently, he has since done all that he could, as his neighbors
also attest. This letter with some preceding circumstances implies
that at least a difference of opinion had arisen between Leete on
the one hand and Davenport and Gilbert on the other, as to the
course of conduct to be pursued in regard to the regicides. The
following extracts confirm this view: Rev. William Hooke says in
a letter to Davenport, dated Oct. 12 (copied by Goffe in his Mil-
ford retreat, and printed in Mass. Hist. Soc, Coll. (4), viii, 177),
"I understand by your letter [of August] what you have lately
met with from Mr. L;" and in a letter dated Febr. 12, 1662, to
Mr. Gilbert, Robert Newman, one of the original pillars of the
First Church of New Haven, but some years since returned to
England, says, "I am sorry to see that you should be so much
surprised with fears of what men can or may do unto you — I
hear of no danger, nor do I think any will attend you for that
matter. Had not W. L. wrote such a pitiful letter over, the busi-
" It is to this meeting that Gov. Bradstreet refers in his letter to Edward
Randolph, Dec., 1684 (Mass. Hist Soc. Collections, 4th Series, viii, 533).
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WHALLEY AND GOPFE 31
ness I think would have died. What it may do to him I know not :
they have greater matters than that to exercise their thoughts."
(Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll. (4), viii, 182.)
After 1661 the most that is known of Whalley and Goffe is to
be gathered from the volume of Collections just referred to, which
contains a selection from the letters received by Goffe from 1662
to 1679, draughts of his replies, his letters to Increase Mather, and
his minutes of news gleaned from despatches sent him by friends
in New England, especially by Davenport and Gilbert of New
Haven, and by Waitstill Winthrop, son of the Governor of Con-
necticut. This material arranged chronologically will be our chief
guide in what follows.
First, however, should be mentioned the letter which Gov.
Hutchinson printed in volume I, of his History, being the earliest
which has been preserved from Mrs. Goffe to her husband. It
was written between August and October, 1662, from the house of
her aunt, Mrs. Hooke, and m propria persona, that is, as from
wife to husband, while all her later letters are worded as if from
mother to son.
The year 1663 was marked by a letter from the Rev. Mr. Hooke
(begun Febr. 25, and ended March 2), which though directed to
Davenport was meant for Goffe also: it was intercepted by the
treachery of a messenger and inspected by the Government. "The
Secretary said it was as pernicious a letter against the Government
as had been written since his Majesty came in." An abstract of it
is given in the "Calendar of Domestic State Papers" for 1663-4
(p. 63) : it was unsigned, and the writer undetected, though a great
stir was made about it. A second letter from Hooke (dated
June 24, 1663), rehearsing the matter, is in the volume of Collec-
tions" (p. 122).
In 1664 the Judges began to breathe more freely; but towards
the end of July four Royal Commissioners arrived in Boston,
instructed to visit the New England Colonies and New York, and
among other things to inquire after persons attainted of high
treason. This pointed directly to Whalley and Goffe, and as soon
as they learned of it, they "retired to their cave, where they tarried
eight or ten days," when "some Indians, in their hunting, discovered
the cave with the bed, etc., and the report being spread abroad, it
was not safe to remain near it." (Hutchinson.)
After this, possibly they again sought asylum with friends in
New Haven, possibly in Guilford; but on October 13 (while the
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ai WBALLEY AND GOFFB
Royal Commissioners were at New York) the Rev. John Russell,
of Hadley, Mass., havii^ previously agreed to receive them," they
left for that town, seventy-five miles distant, making the journey
by night. Dr. Stiles (p. 96) finds a trace of this journey in the
name "Pilgrims' Harbor" in Meriden, and such is now the tradition
there; but one deed at least is cmi record, dated Oct. 15, 1664, not
many hours after they were passing the spot, in which the name
Pilgrim Harbor Brook, or River, is already employed as a familiar
boundary. ("Perkins's Sketches of Meriden," p. 104.)
After their arrival in Hadley, the notices of their life are scanty
enough. For the year 1665 we have nothing but a transcript by
Goffe (M. H. C. (4), viii, p. 126) of part of a letter from Mr.
Davenport to William Goodwin, of Hadley, commenting on Eng-
lish news, with one sentence which Goffe cc^ies in cijrfier, namely,
"It would exceedingly refresh me, if I could speak freely and fully
with those three worthies your neighbors." The three worthies
were Whalley, Goflfe, and John Dixwell ; the last regicide having
joined the others on Febr. 10, 1665 (as Hutchinson learned from
the Diary), and continued "some years." He is then lost sight of
till he settles in New Haven in 1673, From Davenport's reference
to him at this early date, it is most probable that he also had already
shared the hosfutalities of the friends of the Commonwealth here.
There is no other reference to him in any of Gofife's papers.
The year r666 is marked only by Hutchinson's statement that
they were disappointed when it passed without any of the startling
events which they had expected from a study of the number of the
beast in the Apocalj^we.
The next four years have only scattered notices, of little interest.
Meantime Davenport left New Haven for Boston, and after a
brief ministry died there in 1670.
In 1671 there is one letter (M, H. C. (4), viii, p. 133) from
Mrs. GofFe, over her assumed signature of Frances Goldsmith, in
answer to her husband's (of Aug. 10), and referring to Whalley
in terms indicating his already enfeebled condition.
For 1672 the record is much more full, five letters ^ving a
tolerably clear picture of the exiles and their friends at home.
(M. H. C, 3d Series, i, 60; Hutchinson's Collections, 432; M. H.
C. (4), viii, 136-143, 260, 143.) One event of the year was the
gift of £50 from Mr. Richard Saltonstall, Jr., of Ipswich to the
Judges, on his leaving for England. The letter from his agent
" Probably through Davenport's introduction :
Davenport's co-trustee of the Hopkins fund, has
is party to the secret
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WHALLEY AND GOFFE 23
(Deacon Edward Collins, of Charlestown, June i), cautiously
directed to "the Hrai" Gentlemen, at their Lodgings wheresoever,"
is preserved (M, H. C. (4), viii, 134), with the draft of a reply,
giving order for payment to Mr. Russell "or such person or persons
as he shall appoint." Referring to this gift in the next letter to his
wife, Goffe says, "The Lord is leased to send in suf^lies for the
carrying on of a little trade here among the Indians; as the present
stock in New England money {between my partner and myself)
is somewhat above one hundred pounds, all debts paid, therefore
pray speak to Mrs. Janes" [that is, Whalley's sister, Mrs. Jane
Hooke] "not to send any more till she be desired from hence."
Of their life in 1673 we have no glimpse, except in a mutilated
draft of a letter from Goffe to Mrs. Hooke (October 2), among
the unprinted papers, now in the Prince Collection, in the Boston
Public Library.
For 1674 we have a letter from Mr. Ho(^e (April 4; M. H. C-
(4), viii, 148), GoflFe's reply (Aug. 5, p. 151), and a letter to his
wife (Aug. 6, in Hutchinson's Collections, p. 453). In writing to
Hooke, Goffe says of Whalley, "I do not apprehend the near
approach of his death more now {save only he is so much older)
than I did two years ago. He is indeed very weak ; but He that
raiseth the dead, is able to restore him to some degree of strength
again, and will do it if it may make for His glory, the edification
of His people, and our best good." In the same letter the editors
of the volume insert a reference to Dixwell, which needs correction.
Mr. Hookc's letter (to which this was a reply) had said, speaking
of his family, "Our children are all living, if he in New England
be so, from whom we have not heard these several years by letters
from him, which is a grief to us." This son is also heard of
through a letter from his father to Governor Winthrop, of Con-
necticut, June 30, 1663 (M. H. C. (4), vii, 594), despatching him,
then aged 20, to live with the governor as his servant for four
years. What end poor Ebenezer Hooke may have made, no one
can tell, but Goffe in his reply says, "I am so far off the seaside,
that I seldom hear anything of your friend there. I am very sorry
he neglects to write to you. There is a friend now gone to those
parts whom I have desired to inquire after him. I should be glad
to have something to write of him that might be a comfort to
you." This certainly has no reference to Dixwell, who was now
of New Haven, but does mean Hooke's son, who was still in New
Haven as late as 1670; but if New Haven is the "seaside" town
referred to, this extract shows conclusively that Goffe and Dixwell
had not then any specially intimate relations.
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14 WBALLEY AND GOFFE
We come to the year 1675, when tradition gives a famous
glimpse of the hermit once more turned soldier. Gov. Hutchin-
son's History records the anecdote as preserved in the family of
Gov. Leverett, who had been a Captain in the Parliamentary army
early in the Civil War and had visited the regicides while in
Hadley, as Hutchinson learned from the fragment of Goffe's diary
in his hands.
It was Wednesday, Sept. i, and Hadley folk were keeping a
fast with public worship. Suddenly there came an Indian attack,
and the townspeople were rallied to victory by a venerable leader,
of military bearing, whom none had ever seen before, or ever saw
again. Probably the most never knew who their helper was,
though the shrewder ones may have guessed and whispered his
name. The local traditions which Dr. Stiles (pp. 109-110) and
Mr. Judd, the historian of Hadley (pp. 145-147), were able to
gather, add no sure details to the romantic outline ; but more than
one famous novelist has expanded the story in his fiction. It is
enough to instance Scott's "Peveril of the Peak" (v. i, ch. 14),
and Cooper's "Wept of Wish-ton-wish.""
I venture to suggest that a contemporary hint at the occurrence
may be found in a letter from the Rev. John Russell to Increase
Mather (M. H. C. (4), viii, 81), who as we shall sec later was
a trusted friend of the regicides. Mr. Russell comments thus on
Mather's "History of the Indian Wars," in which the attack on
Hadley was briefly mentioned without reference to the mysterious
leader: "I find nothing considerable mistaken in your history;
nor do I know whether you proceed in your intended second
edition. That which I most fear in the matter is, lest Mr. B. or
some of Connecticut should clash with ours, and contradict each
other in the story as to matter of fact. Should that appear in print
which I have often heard in \vords, I fear the event »'Ould be
excee<rmg sad." Viewed in the light of subsequent facts, these
sentences mean that GofTe had, before the date of this letter (April
18, tfiyy), removed to ("onnccticut. and Mr. Russell is apprehensive
lest "Mr. B." or others with whom Goflfe was now living should
contradict any printed version of the dramatic ap]>earance at
Hadley, and lest in any event the safety of the poor hunted regicide
should l>e endangered.
But t>cfore taking u]> the subject of Goffe's removal from
Hadley, the death of Whalley should be referred to. There is
now no reason whatever to douU that W'halley's death occurred
" Mr. CritTKt Sheldon, the historian of Decrtield. tvai skeptical of IhU
entire tradition.
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WHALLEY AND COFFE 15
in Hadley between Au^st, 1674, and Augfust, 1676.'* That a
regicide died and was buried in Hadley, was the common tradi-
tion there when Dr. Stiles made his inquiries (Stiles, p. 198);
and sufficient proof of the tradition was found shortly after (in
1795), when the wall of the cellar under Mr. Russell's kitchen
was removed. "In taking down the middle part of the front
wall" [of the kitchen, to which part alone of the Russell house
there was a cellar}, "next to the main street, the workmen dis-
covered about four feet below the top of the ground a place where
the earth was loose, and a little search disclosed flat stones, a
man's bones, and bits of wood. Almost all the bones were in
pieces, but one thigh bone was whole, and there were two sound
teeth. Dr. S. H. Rogers, who then resided in Hadley, examined
the thigh bone, and said it was the thigh bone of a man of large
size. . . . No other graves were found behind the cellar wall."
("Judd's Hist, of Hadley," p. 222.)
There is no good rea-son for doubt that these bones were the
mortal remains of General Edward Whalley; nor can one doubt
that if President Stiles had lived to hear of the discovery," he
would have been the first to abandon the tradition perpetuated by
his credulity, that the stones on the New Haven green marked
"E. W." were erected over Whalley's dust. The reader of Dr.
Stiles may trace how his theory grew in his own mind, and how
the process by which one regicide's grave became three evolved
itself as regularly as the story of the three black crows. But
Edward Wigglesworth died in New Haven on the first of October,
1653: why should not the stones marked "E. W., 1653," be his
memorial? I acknowledge that the "3" is more like an 8; but
nobody except Dr. Stiles ever suspected that the "5" was a 7.'*
And yet even though the figures could be supposed to be 1678,
that does not fit the present knowledge of the regicide history ; for
it is certain from Goflfe's letters in the volume of Mass. Hist. Col-
lections that Whalley died in 1674. 1675, or 1676.
This will appear from the chronological order of events to which
" In a manuKfipt letter of Governor Hutchinson to President Stiles.
June 6, 1765. he rcteri to a letter of GofTe in 1674. describing Whalley's
invalid condition, and says that he "in one of his next letters speaks of her
friend now with God, ftc."
"President Stiles died May 12. 1795. less than a month after the first bound
copy of his "History of the Regicides" came from the printer. The curious
fact may be noticed that by a misprint the dedication ii made to bear dale,
Nov. ao, 1793; this should be 17M. a* Dr. Stiles's Diary proves.
" The later view is that E. W. designates Elittbeth, wife of John Wake-
man, who died in 165S.
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a6 WHALLEV AND GOFFE
we now return. On March 30, 1676, Edward Randolph left Eng-
land for Bostcm, to convey the king's demand for Colonial agents
at Court, and to make minute inquiries into the state of the
colonies. He wa^ in New England from June 10 to July 30, and
in his report (dated in September) says of a law in Massachusetts
Bay, encouraging the succor of fugitives: "by which law Whalley
and Goffe and other traitors were kindly received and entertained."
("Hutchinson's Collections," p. 483.) Undoubtedly his inquiries
were noticed by Goffe's friends, and may have rendered a change
of hiding-place expedient.
On page 156 of the volume of Mass. Hist Collections is printed
an unsigned letter, directed to Increase Mather, sealed with
Whalley's seal, and dated "Ebenerer," Sept. 8, 1676. The hand-
writing of the original is Goffe's, and in it he says, "I was greatly
beholden to Mr. Noell for his assistance in my remove to this town.
I pray if he be yet in Boston, remember my affectionate respects
to him." The only "Mr. Noell" who can be intended is Samuel
Nowell of Charlestown who was a Chaplain in the Connecticut
Valley during Philip's War, and was just now starting on a visit
to England. The writer of the letter says clearly that through Mr.
Nowell's help, he had lately changed his place of residence. The
opening sentence of the letter shows the neighborhood from which
it was written. "I have read," says Goffe, "the letters from Eng-
land that you enclosed to Mr. Whiting, and give you hearty thanks
for your continued care in that matter:" which can only refer to
the Rev. John Whiting, pastor in Hartford from 1660 to 1689.
Goffe, apparently, was not under the Hartford minister's roof,
but within his reach and securely hidden, for he goes on to say:
"I find it very difficult to attain any solid intelligence of what is
done abroad. But the works of the Lord are great, and should
be sought out of alt them that have pleasure therein. I cannot
choose therefore but be shutting one eye and peeping with the
other through the crevices of my close cell to discern the signj
of my Lord's coming."
.\ few days later (.Sept. 25) Mr. Samuel Nowell wTitcs a letter
which is also preserved among the "Mather Papers" (p. 572). The
outside addrc.is is to "his worthy friend, Mr. Jonathan Bull, of
Hartford." but the letter i-; for Goffe. It begins: "Honored Sir, —
The day liefore the arrival of the Iwarer, Mr. Bull, I had written a
letter to my worthy friend. Mr. Whiting, and it was for your sake,
seeing I did not know how to direct a few lines to you." The
letter goes on to give the foreign news, and adds: ".\s for our-
selves in New England, we are fearing a General Governor. . . .
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WHAtXEY AND COFFE "7
I suppose you will judge it convenient to remove if any such thing
should happen as that a Governor should be sent." At the end the
writer promises to send further news from England, and to visit
there the relatives of the person he is addressing. TTie General
Governor whom New England feared did not come till l686, in
the person of Sir Edmund Andres. As to Gofle's relatives in
England, a chance remark in a subsequent letter of Mrs. Hooke
to Increase Mather (June 27, 1678; M. H. C. (4), viii, 262) implies
that she had had the proposed visit from Mr. Nowell. Jonathan
Bull, by whom this letter was carried, was a son of Thomas Bull
of Hartford, now twenty-seven years old and living unmarried at
his father's house, where it ts most likely that Goffe was then
secreted ; the fact that the son married a few years later a dau^ter
of the Rev. John Whiting may em[^asize the intimacy between the
two families.
Passing on to 1677, we find only an unsigned letter from Goffe
to Increase Mather (M. H. C. (4), viii, 159), covering one for
England. Two more such letters of 1678 follow (pp. 160, 162),
each signed "T. D.";" in the latter of these, dated Oct. 23, he
writes, "I should take it as a great kindness to receive a word or
two from you; if you please to inclose it to Mr. Whittng, only
with this short direction — These for Mr. T. D. — I hope it would
come safely."
Under date of April 2, 1679, is the last of Goffe's letters thus
preserved. Gov. Hutchinson also mentions this as the latest seen
by him. It is to Increase Mather, and is signed "T. D." There
b one later letter in the collection (p. 224), dated July 30, 1679,
addressed to "T. D." (that is, to Goffe), and signed "P. T." No
doubt these initials are Peter Tilton's, a prominent man in Hadley,
and according to traditicm one who sheltered the exiles while con-
cealed in that town. The letter says, "I have sent you by S. P."
[Samuel Porter?] "iio., having not before a safe hand to convey
it, it being a token of the love and remembrance of several friends
who have you upon their hearts. We have lately only that great
news of the king's threefold dream, with which his thoughts were
sore troubled and amazed, etc., which I presume Mr. Russell hath
" Among the Mather papers in the Boston Public Library, not printed, is
one (vo). 1. p. 63) containing a report of the king's address, May 28, 1677,
in GofTe's hand, written on the reverie of an envelope- side, which has the
direction [in Peter Tilton's hand?] (erased, but visible) "These (or Capt.
Thomas Bull [to] be conveyed to Mr. Duffell. Mercht." Hence I conclude
that "T. D." may have been T. Duffell. Mrs, Goffe had relatives of that
name in England, but there ts no other trace of it in New England during
the fir« century.
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aS WHALLEY AND GOFFE
given you a full account of, as understanding he hath written to
Hartford. . . . Dear Sir, I hope God is making way for your
enlargement." Here is then the plain statement that Goffe was
living in Hartford in June, 1679, but nrither date nor place later
in his history can be found. I can hardly doubt that he died very
soon after, and was buried by friendly hands in Hartford, and his
private papers sent to Increase Mather,
But Dr. Stiles found an ancient stone in our burial ground,
marked "M, G. 80," which his ingenious brain led him to fancy
was "W. G. 80" (that is, William Goffe, died i68o), betrayed by
the stone-cutter's device in underlining the M. I quote Dr. Stiles's
words (p. 133) as to the origin of this theory and they are all-
imptn'tant: "I have not found," he says, "the least tradition or
surmise of Goffe [being buried here} till I myself conjectured it,
Jan., 1793, inferring it in my own mind without a doubt, that if
Whalley, who certainly died at Hadley, was afterward removed
here, Goffe would have been also." But when the undisturbed
grave of Whalley was found in Mr. Russell's cellar at Hadley, the
entire foundation for Dr. Stiles's theory crumbled by his own
explanaticMi.
And, again, that was a very pretty sentiment, worked up by
President Stiles, of the three intimate friends, Whalley, Goffe.
and Dixwell, bound by so many experiences in life and unable to
rest quietly if separated in their graves. I am sorry to spoil the
picture ; but these papers of Goffe go far to show that he had no
correspondence or intercourse with or interest in Dixwell after his
temporary stay in Hadley. If, then, Goffe's bones were moved
at all (a theory which the mere difficulties of transportation were
enough to overthrow), we must locjt to Hadley, where his kins-
man Whalley lay, and not to New Haven where Dixwell was
impatiently lingering in hopes of a return to England. Nor, even
if Goffe came to New Haven after leaving Hartford, and here died,
does it seem to me possible that any friends, burying the old man
who had lived in such utter secresy, would have ventured to put
over his grave a falsely-initialed stone, corresponding to no entry
in the town record of deaths, but challenging the notice of all
the gossips. The confidants of Goffe's secret elsewhere, so far as
we know them, Russell, Tilton, Whiting, the Bulls, Saltonstall,
Nowell, Mather, kept it so sacredly that Dr. Stiles did not glean a
single fact through any gossip handed down from them. We
know, on the other hand, that Ex-Governor Matthew Gilbert died
here in 1680 (will dated Jan. 14, and inventory July 6), that no
one is more likely than he to have been buried in such an honored
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WHALLEY AND GOFFE 29
central place (so near the graves of Governors Eaton and Jones)
and that no other stone in the old cemetery was ever shown as his.
Fortunately the circumstantial evidence is strong; enough to clear
Goffe from the supposition of having been a party, dead or living,
to a performance so utterly at variance with his simple, humble,
unassuming character.
There is still another episode in respect to his residence in Hart-
ford which needs to be rehearsed. On April 20, 1680, an adven-
turer named Jt*n London, who claimed to have known Goffe in
England, made oath before the New York authorities, that in the
preceding May (that is about the date of Goffe's last letter), be\ng
then 3 resident of Windsor, Conn., he saw Goffe at the house of
Capt. [Joseph, says the record; probably a clerical error for
Thomas] Bull in Hartford, living there under the name of Cooke,
and that Capt. Bull "hath for several years past kept privately
Col. Goffe, at his own house or his son's." London's affidavit set
forth that he took measures to kidnap Goffe, but was betrayed by
a neighbor (Thomas Powell) to two of the Hartford magistrates
(Maj. Talcott and Capt. Ailing), who had him arrested, on charge
of conspiracy against the colony.
On May 18, nearly a month after this deposition. Gov. Andros
of New York wrote to the Governor (Wm. Leete) and assistants
of Ccmnecticut, giving the substance of the charges (Conn. Col.
Records for 1678-89, p. 283), and it was not till June 10 that the
Secretary of Connecticut issued a search-warrant (Col. Records,
p. 284) to the Hartford constables, to make diligent search in all
the premises of Capt. Bull and of his sons, and also "in all places
within your limits, where there may be any (or the least) suspicion
that they may be hid." The search was vain, and on the next day
the Governor and assistants write (Col. Records, p. 285) to Gov.
Andros avowing amazement at the suspicion, and praying to know
the names of the informers. Nothing more seems to have been
done.
This John London had been imprisoned by the Council of Con-
necticut three or four years before for reporting notorious lies;
and it has been supposed by an eminent authority (Hon. James
Savage, in Mass. Hist, Soc, Proceedings for Jan., 1856, p. 61),
that this affidavit was one of London's lies, — either concocted to
bother the authorities who had had him imprisoned, or inspired by
them after Goffe's death had removed danger, to give them the
chance of showing themselves clear.
But our present knowledge that Goffe was in Hartford at the
time when he is said to have been seen (May, 1679), and that
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30 WHALLEY AND GOFFE
the Bull family were in the secret, makes any other supposition
unnecessary. There is, to be sure, a suspiciously long interval
(23 days) between the date of the letter from New York and ths
Hartford search warrant, long enough to have secured the removal
of Golfe if he were still living; and it may seem as though if
consciously innocent the authorities should have moved more
quickly; but perhaps some technical delay in laying the letter
before the Governor and assistants, or the fact that the charge
was already a year old, and not therefore regarded important, is
the explanation. Here, however, if anywhere comes in the remote
possibility of a flight to New Haven, and a gravestone marked
"M. G. 80."
There is a natural disappointment that, while these materials
open much of the lives of Whalley and Goffe to us, they give next
to nothing about the third regicide, whose bones are unquestionably
in our keeping. A single letter from James Davids (Dixwell's
familiar pseudonym) to Increase Mather is printed in the Collec-
tions (p. 164) for the first time, though referred to by Hutchinson.
It relates to the transmission of his letters to England, and of
letters from England to him; the date being March 22d, 16S3-4.
He was then living here in peace and prosperity. A doubtful
tradition tells us that some two years later Sir Edmund Andros
spent a Sabbath in New Haven, when he was edified by hearing
Stemhold and Hc^kins' version of Psalm 52d given out, beginning:
"Why dost thou, Tyrant, boast abroad.
Thy wicked works to praise," —
and his suspicions excited by a glimpse of the venerable Dixwell,
then in his 80th year ; but no evil results followed.
Dixwell died in March, 1688-9, about five weeks before the
news of the proclamation of William and Mary, when exile
might safely have ended; but the last act in the history of the
regicides in New England was already over.
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SKETCH OF THE LIFE AND WRITINGS
JOHN DAVENPORT.
[From the Pipers of the New Haven Colony Historical Society, Vol. II,
i^. Read February, i8?5.]
Some three or four years ago, I was invited to prepare for this
Society a list of the writings of the founders of the New Haven
Colony. John Davenport and Theophilus Eaton, with the understand-
ing that if material throwing new Hght on their characters should be
found, the Rev. Dr. Bacon would sum up the results.
In fulfilling, in part, my share of the undertaking. I find at the
outset this embarrassment, that if I limit myself to the mere titles
and dates of Davenport's writings, nothing can excuse the tedious-
ness of the enumeration: on the other hand, I am precluded from
encroaching on the province of another paper which is to follow.
I shall endeavor to confine myself to a chronological outline of
facts, with such explanations as are needed at the distance of two
centuries ; and I am well aware that the bare outline may disap-
point, both those whose lack of knowledge will lead them to
expect too much, and those who know the story already, and who
know that interesting material cannot be manufactured to order.
John Davenport was baptized in the Church of the Holy Trinity,
in Coventry, in Warwickshire: the stone font which then served
for baptisms, though afterwards banished by Puritan zeal, has
been restored to its use, and is still a conspicuous object in the
beautiful Gothic church: the church retains also its almost unique
stone pulpit constructed on one of the pillars of the nave, from
which pulpit I heard a few months ago a fiery sermon on the bind-
ing authority of a State Church, which sounded strangely to a
disciple of Davenport's Colony. Here, in the record of baptisms,
near many familiar surnames (Shakspeares included), under the
year 1597, is the entry, "Apr. 9. John Dampard [such the colloquial
form], son of Henrie."" From 1591 to 1604. the vicar of Trinity
Church was Richard Eaton, supposed to be the father of Daven-
"This entry refers to a cousin of our subject. Later search has found the
baptism of John, son of John, on March 7, 1596.
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3» JOHN DAVENPOKT
port's friend, Theophilus Eaton ; but a careful search in the same
record, while it shows five children of the vicar, does not find any
Theophilus. The record should decide also whether one Christopher
Davenport, whose name is somewhat associated with John's, was
his brother or a cousin. I can only testify that the sole Christopher
on the book was an older son of Henry, and that his baptism {Oct,
I, 1590) is eight years in advance of the usual accounts of the birth
of the well known Christopher.
The first trace of John Davenport's boyhood is his name among
the scholars of the Free Grammar School of Coventry, a famous
school for those days, founded some half-century before by John
Hales, a wealthy inhabitant, and of which the original building, of
creditable sixteenth-century architecture, is still standit^ and used
for the puqjose of the endowment. From a glance at the school
room, one might almost hope to identify the very desk at which the
young Davenport of 270 years ago sat and carved his name — so
perfect is the antiquity of the place. The usher of Coventry
Grammar School in those days, though by tradition not a good
disciplinarian, was a famous scholar, Dr. Philemon Holland, known
still by his translations of Pliny and Livy, Xenophon and Plutarch ;
and it is a pleasant thought that from such an enthusiast Davenport
imbibed the taste for classical learning which led him, in keeping
with the fashion of his day, to load his pages not rarely with
original citation and reference. Dr. Holland was subsequently
head-master of the school, and lies buried in Trinity Church.
Before leaving Coventry for the University, it is worth while to
note that in 161 1 the city was deeply stirred by a discussion of the
question of the propriety of kneeling in receiving the sacrament:
through some laxness in the church authorities, it had come to be a
custom to commune in a standing posture; but now King James
hears of the incipient nonconformity, and sends a letter from his
own hand reproving roundly the city government for allowing such
a disorderly practice. Thus early was Davenport brought to the
knowledge of the position of the head of the state on a matter
which in the issue proved the turning point of his own separation
from the church of his fathers.
To Oxford, in 1613, at the age of 17, John Davenport goes, in
company with his kinsman, Christopher, For the two years spent
there, I can add nothing to the doubtful accounts given by Wood,
in the Athena Oxonienses, and by Mather, in his Magnolia. It is
uncertain even to what College'* they belonged; but, as the story
goes in Wood, they entered as battlers (or, beneficiaries for their
" Increase Mather says, to Bra
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JOHN DAVENPORT 3$
food and tuition), and continued until the head of the College
refused to allow them further aid, when John left, to earn his way
elsewhere. If they were at Merton, as Wood states, the Master
who took this step was Sir Henry Savile, one of the most profound
and elegant scholars of the day and a prominent benefactor to the
University: the most distinguished among the Fellows of Merton
was John Hales, the "ever memorable," who was also Royal Pro-
fessor of Greek in the University and a man of abundant learning.
But the most noted figure in Oxford during these years, and doubt-
less familiar to Davenport's eyes, was William Laud, now President
of St. John's College, and fated to have a vital influence on the
development of Davenport's character and creed.
As in leaving Oxford we part company with Christopher Daven-
port, it may be worth while, for the sake of the emphatic contrast,
to call attention to his career. He is said to have remained at the
University for a few months longer, and by that time to have been
converted to the Roman Church by an itinerant priest, so that he
removed to Douay, became a Franciscan friar, and Professor of
Sacred Theology at Douay, and then a successful missionary to
his native country : and when time brought a Roman Catholic
consort to Charles I, Father Francis de St. Clare (to use his reli-
gious name) was one of her chaplains, much at Court, and com-
monly reported to be an intimate friend of Bishop Laud; and in
later years, when another Catholic Queen ascended the British
throne, again he was a Court Chaplain, and as such died, full of
days and of honors, at one of the royal palaces in London, ten years
after the death of his Puritan brother in New England. He had
the family trait of being a ready writer, as his Latin works, col-
lected by himself in two thick folios, bear witness.
Cast out of his student-home at the age of 19, the young man
had no trouble in finding his vocation. He had made himself a
name already for speaking and writing, as one (Stephen Goffe)
who four years later became a student at Merton College, happens
long afterwards to testify ; and we have the means of tracing him
almost without interruption from the learner's seat to the pulpit.
Of the very few manuscripts of Davenport's sermons which have
escaped destruction, it is notable that one is the volume in which
are the records of his occupation during the winter which followed
his removal from Oxford. It was preserved in his family until
eighty years ago, and then given to the Library of Yale College.
Although the volume does not contain his name written by himself,
yet the handwriting throughout is indisputably his, and the proofs
that it is of the date assigned to it are sufficient. It contains, besides
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34 JOHN DAVENPORT
Latin, notes of lectures on philosophy, etc., forty-three sermons or
outlines of sermons. Nearest the beginning of the book are two.
in what is apparently an earlier hand than the others. On the page
between these two is a paragraph of personal apology, beginning
thus: "My occasions of late have bene so many {wherewith some
of you have been acquainted) as y' I have scarsely had any time to
employ my studie for preparation herunto, whervpon growing
something timorous and almost afraid to undertake this so great a
worke, at y' last happily I called to mind y* resolution of an auncient
father that nothing but death should make him breake promise;
wherupon I sodainly resolved w*" myselfe by the helpe of God to
continue firme, hoping that his power would appeare in my weak-
ness and presuming upon your courteous and kind acceptance,
either upon consideration of the paucity of my yeares or the paucity
of my time which I could alott to this busines. either of which I
doubt not will sufficiently excuse mee." ....
Next is a sermon headed, "At Hilton Castle, Anno 1615. Serm.
1, of J. D., upon Deut. 28, i." Sermons follow in a regularly num-
bered series, up to 35, after which are five others not numbered.
Number 15 of the series is indicated as a sermon preached on
Christmas Day, and between numbers 17 and 18 comes one headed
"Upon New Year's Day." The sermons are so connected by such
references as "you heard in y* forenoone," "you heard the last
Sabbath." etc., as to show that they were preached consecutively,
two a day, counting backwards and forwards from the Christmas
sermon, from November, 161 5, to March, 1616. They are, as was
then the fashion, and preeminently this preacher's fashion, in the
form of a series, from half a dozen to a dozen on a single text,
and the whole set interdependent : thus, he begins the 34th sermon
{from the 1st verse of Exodus xx, Then God spake all these words
and said), "Those few sermons, in number 34, which! have per-
formed with much weakness in myself and yet great strength in
respect of the all-sufficient operation of God's Spirit, which most
glorifieth himself by weak means, have been but as a preludium
unto this my present text, or purpose in handling the Command-
ments." I regret to say that the discourses which follow do not
get beyond the introductory verses, and that there is reason to fear
that the patient hearers died without ever learning the full con-
clusion to which this "preludium" tended.
These sermons were preached, as the writer testifies, at Hilton
Castle, the seat of the noble family of Hilton, a dozen miles north-
east of the city of Durham. The local historians all speak of the
state observed at the castle, and of its chapel as a domestic place
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JOHN HAVENPORT 35
of worship, where chaplains were always in attendance. The head
of the house in 1615 was a young bachelor of thirty, who died in
1641, alienating the property and leaving his family to poverty and
decay.
Our record carries us to March, 1616, when the writer is all but
20 years of age. Probably the engagement was soon terminated,
for we learn incidentally from one of his later writings that about
midsummer of this year he began to preach in the metropolis. In
what particular church, and with what success for a year or two
we do not hear; but by the time he reached his majority (we have
his word for it a little later) "it pleased God to make his ministry
public and eminent." From his undistinguished field of labor, he
comes to sight in June, 1619. when as the records of St. Lawrence
Jewry inform us. he was elected by the vestry of that Church. Lec-
turer and Curate, the Rev. William Boswell being Vicar. Here
for upwards of five years he taught with growing reputation. The
Church of St. Lawrence Jewry was (and its successor, built after
the great fire of 1666. is) in the heart of the city, under the eaves
of Guildhall, and but a stone's throw from Davenport's next
parochial charge, St. Stephen's, Coleman street. To modern Lon-
don, St. Lawrence Jewry is well known as one of the most ritualistic
of her churches, and I should venture to say that even Laud him-
self would be satisfied with the ceremonies which one can see there
now. In Davenport's day it was different: and there he grew in
favor with the rising Puritan party, became intimate with some
noble families on that side (especially, it appears, with that of Lord
Horatio Vere), and began to work out his evident destiny.
The next step was from the curacy here to the vicarage in the
adjacent parish. St. Stephen's, Coleman street, was notable then,
as now. for the peculiar privilege by which its parishioners elected
their own minister, without interference from outside. In 1624 the
parish became vacant, and at an election held on October 5th, all
but three or four of the seventy-three parishioners present voted
for the prominent young preacher next door. But there were
reasons why such a promotion was distasteful to the leaders in
Church and State, and to those we owe the preservation of some
resulting documents, and our knowledge of the facts.
In the State Paper Office in London is a letter from Davenport
to the Secretary of State (who was. be it noted, a brother-in-law
of one of Davenport's noble friends, I^dy Vere). dated a dp.y or
two after the Coleman-street election. It begins thus: "It hath
bene the will of God (against my naturall desire of privace and
retiredness) to make my ministry, for the space of this sixe yeares,
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3< JOH« DAVENPORT
in London, public and eminent, w** hath caused some to look vpon
me with a squint eye and hearken to my sermons with y* least eare,
and by all means to endeavor of my discouragement and disgrace,
insomuch that I am traduced (as I hear and feare) to his Ma*
for a Puritan, or one that is puritanically affected. If by a Puritan
is meant one opposite to y present Govermnent — I profess (as my
subscription also testifyeth) the contrary. My practice hath been
answerable to that profession. I have bene a Curat, in St. Lawrence
parish in the Old Jury, above five yeares, during w""" time, and in
that place (as alsoe y* Ministre doth offer to testify) I have
baptized many, but never any w^'out the signe of the Cross, I have
monethiy administered y* Sacrament of y* Lord's Supper, but at no
tyme w'''out y* Surplice, nor to any but those that kneeled, at w*''
tymes also I read the Booke of Common Prayer, in forme and man-
ner as is appointed by the Church. Besides, I have perswaded
many to conformity, yea myne own Father and Vncle who are
Aldermen of the Citty of Coventry, and were otherwise inclined;
yea my desire of this pastorall charge sheweth my resolucion for
conformity. 2. .If by puritanically affected be meant one that
secretly encourageth men in opposition to the present Government.
I profess an hearty detestation of such hypocrisy; my public scrr
mons and private discourses have ever aimed at this, to persuade
men to give unto Cesar the things that are Cesar's, and unto God
the things that are God's. As for other matters, my plain and open
appearing in defense of y*' ceremonies hath caused vnto me some
opposition from such as disaffect them." ....
He goes on to ask the help of Secretary Conway with the Kii^,
and with the Bishop of London, Dr. Montaigne. The Secretary's
suit with the Bishop elicits a reply, in which is this passage:
"Before this business was afoote, I had order from his Ma"* to call
Mr. Damport in question for some paints of doctrine w*^ he had
preached, at w^ many y' heard him were scandalized and some getr
ting so desperate y' they were in danger of final desperation, and
the fatall accidents y' usually follow in such a case. Besides he was
reported to be factious and popular" [i. e., favoring the people] "and
to draw after him great congr«^tions and assemblies of common
and meane people. After my coming home I found that he was
chosen by a popular election to this living in Coleman St., and there-
fore I thought it my Duty to make a stay in it until I might further
know his Ma**" pleasure."
A second letter to Secretary Conway follows, urging haste in
satisfying the King and the Bishop. He beseeches "whereas my
adversary" [Laud?] "objecteth that the man whom he doth injuri-
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JOHN DAVENPORT 37
ously present to the place is more worthy than myselfe, because he
hath taken more degrees in y* University than I have, that this may
not lessen the Bps. esteeme of me, nor be divulged to my disgrace,
since I am a licensed and conformable Minister, and that my want
of degrees proceeded not from any want of time or of willingness
or of sufficiency (as was well known at Oxford), but from want
of meanes (my friends being unwilling) to keepe me longer at the
University, my hope is, after I am settled in a certayne com-
petency of means, to recover the degrees, w^ some think I have
lost for want of taking the first opportunity."
Another letter follows from the Secretary to the Bishop, urging
the points made by Davenport, and speaking of having "the
assistance of my Lord of Buckingham's request" in behalf of
Davenport — an intimation that this notorious favorite found it
somehow to his interest to seem to befriend a suspected Puritan.
Two days later, Oct. 17, Davenport writes a third time to Secre-
tary Conway, thanking him with fulsome words for his success
with the Bishop; and urging intercession with the King, saying,
"I hear that M' Sidnam, y* King's Page, hath incensed his Ma***
against mee, because above a year since I reproved him for swear-
it^ at my Lady Vere's ; w'^" I niarvayle at, since at that time he
pretended . . thankfulness." Still another letter follows, on the
19th, from the Curate to the Secretary of State, begging further
influence with King James, and enclosing the list of names of the
parishioners present at the meeting when he was elected Vicar.
In this list, a few can be identified as subsequently associates of
their minister in the management of the Company which founded
the Colony of Massachusetts Bay ; a few others bear names early
represented among the founders of New Haven Colony, such as
Evans. Hill. Johnson, Barnes, Perkins, Eldred, Blakesly. Jackson,
and Thompson. The most notable parishioner was Sir Maurice
Abbot, brother of the then Archbishop of Canterbury; but as the
Primate was then in disgrace, partly on account of a suspected lean-
ing to Puritanism, the support of his brother may have been worse
than useless. The name of Theophilus Eaton is not on the list;
and we may infer that he was then of some other London parish.
though a few years later he is enrolled among Davenport's hearers.
On a copy of the XXXIX Articles of the Church of England, in
the library of the American Antiquarian Society, is the following
indorsement, in Davenport's handwriting: "Novemb. 7th, 1624.
John Davenporte, Clerk, Vicar of St. Stephens, in Coleman Street,
London, did this day above written being Sunday, publiquely read
this booke of Articles herein contayned, beit^ in number 39 besides
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38 JOHN DAVENPORT
y* ratificacion, and declared his full and unfeigned assent and con-
sent thereunto, in the tyme of Morning Prayer, next after the sec-
ond lesson, before the whole Congregacion. As also the said John
did, the same day, administer the Holy Communion in the sayd
parish, in his surplis, according to y* order prescribed by y* Church
of England ; in y* presence of those whose names are here under-
written." Then follow the signatures of the Churchwardens and
others, and this completes the transition to a new sphere. We see
him entering on his work, in strict conformity to canonical require-
ments, apd with the purpose of honest observance.
The first step he takes, after settling in his new position, is to
redeem his pledge of recovering his University degree,
A gentleman in Cambridge, Mass. (Mr. Wm. A. Saunders), is
the fortunate owner of a volume,'" in Davenport's handwriting,
between the years 1625 and 1633, on the first page of which he has
inscribed the Latin questions to which he made response in his
application for a degree on the i8th of May, 1625, ten years after
he had been forced to end his term of pupilage. These questions
are two of the standard commonplaces of theology: whether the
death of Christ wrought salvation for all men, and whether the
truly regenerate man can utterly fall from grace. His answers
subjoined, in correct hexameter and pentameter, are of course in
the negative to both questions ; and he went back to London, entitled
to write himself a Bachelor of Divinity,
He devotes himself now to regular parish work, which includes,
too, more than the perfunctory discharge of duty: for 1625 was
the great plague-year, when upwards of 35,000 died in London
alone, and one is pleased to find in the Parish Records of St.
Stephen's a testimony to his fidelity, in a special vote passed in the
spring of 1626, that Mr. Davenport shall have of the parish funds,
in respect of his care and pains taken in the time of the visitation
of sickness, as a gratuity, the sum of £20.
In the manuscript volume to which I just referred, I find, next
to the entry of his degree-questions, undated copies, of a corre-
spondence between himself and Dr. Alexander Leighton, the
famous father of a more famous son. Archbishop Leighton. This
correspondence must, I think, have been in 1626 or 7. Leighton
was a pertinacious Scotchman, of advanced ideas in regard to
Church ceremonies, and with neither tact nor discretion : a few years
later, for his injudicious writings, he suffered such a sentence of
mutilation and chastisement as was perhaps never paralleled under
a professedly Christian government. At this time he was moved to
" Bequeathed by A. B. Davenport to the Yale Library in 1894.
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JOHN DAVENPORT 39
provoke a controversy with Davenport about the custom of kneel-
ing in receiving the sacrament. Davenport's moderate answer, as
appropriate now as then, begins as follows: "Sir, When we duely
consider y* distresses of y* Reformed Churches in these days, we
shall soone conclude with him y' sayd, Non sunt litigandi ista sed
orandi tempera: neyther was it my purpose to enter into y* lists
of dispute at any tyme, much less now, about such questions as
these : for is it not worke enough to preach, vnles we dispute also ?
or. if we must dispute, were it not better to unite o' forces against
those who oppose us in Fundamental Is then to be divided amongst
o'selves about ceremonialls ? Who can, w"'out sorrowe and feare
observe how Atheisnie, Libert inisme. Pa pis me and Arminianisnie.
both at home and abroad, have stolne in and taken possession of
y" house, whilest we are at strife about y hangings and paintings
of it? And y" enimye strikes at y* hearte whilest we buisy o'selves
in washing y* face of this body. How much better would it beseeme
us to combine together in an holy league against y* common adver-
sary, according to Joab's agreement with Abishai {2 Sam., x, 11.),
if y" Aramits be stronger then I, thou shalt heipe me, and if y"
children of Ammon be too strong for thee, I'le come and succor
thee, than thus to resemble those serv" of Saul and David under
y* command of Abner and Joab, each of w^ caught his fellowe
by y* head, and thrust his sword into his fellowes side, so they
fell downe together." ....
Thus he goes on, and in like spirit answers Leighton's fiery ques-
tions: showing that as yet he is confident in the safety and wisdom
of conformity with the ordinance in this regard: but no principle
is involved in the concession, so far as he now sees.
In 1627, at 31 years of age, we first find him in print. In March
of this year, four of the most prominent evangelical ministers in
London (for such by this time he has become) issue a circular,
asking contributions for the relief of persecuted Protestants in the
Upper Palatinate, subjects of the Queen of Bohemia, the sister
of Charles I. The government had refused aid, and the King him-
self and Laud {who was now a Bishop and a Privy-Councillor)
were ill-suited to have the Roman Court offended by such Ultra-
Protestant measures; so that the result of this seemingly humane
and christian appeal was to bring its signers before the Star-
Chamber and procure them a reprimand: not a conciliatory step
to one who was eager just now to conform so far as possible.
In the next month, we have from his pen a preface of twenty
pages to a little book on the Christian's Daily Walk, by a country
minister, Henry Scudder. The preface shows a large acquaintance
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4o JOHN DAVENPORT
with the fathers, the schoolmen, and the moderns, and a warm inter-
est in all the motives of practical piety. I notice that he speaks
with high praise of the writings of Joseph Hall (afterwards Bishop),
and styles him "that true Christian English Seneca:" the phrase
has attached itself familiarly to the good Bishop, but others had
probably used it as_ early as Davenport." The little book proved
a great success; my own copy, dated fifteen years later, is of the
8th edition.
Towards the end of this year. Bishop Montaigne was transferred
from London to Durham: an inoffensive man, apparently — spe-
cially, perhaps, by contrast, for the king immediately nominated
Laud to the vacant see, and though his actual transfer was for
some reason delayed a six-month, the shadow of his coming began
to darken the paths of suspected Puritans.
In 1628, we have the first two which are preserved (in the British
Museum) of a series of nine letters from Davenport to the Lady
Mary Vere, whose religious life appears to have been under his
direction, though he was some fifteen years her junior. She was a
Puritan of the Puritans, and in the coming days of the Long Parlia-
ment was selected to take charge of the three children of the King
who were in the Parliament's control : at the present date she was
with her husband at the Hague, where he was in military command.
In one of these two letters, under date of June 30, he mentions that
he has waited "in hope to write somewhat concerning the event and
success of our High Commission troubles:" but he expects that
since Parliament has risen without settling anything, Bishop Laud
will take advantage of "a former quarrel" and deprive him of his
pastoral charge. So he has had some former quarrel with Laud,
the details of which are lost to us, and he sees nothing but depriva-
tion before him. But what were these High Commission troubles?
Briefly, that some two years earlier it had seemed necessary to a
little group of earnest and godly men in London, some preachers,
some laymen, to join together in an informal way to secure more
employment of men of their own stamp as preachers in the land.
As Dr. Bacon has phrased it, they were a sort of Home Missionary
Society; their way being to buy in as they had opportunity the
rights of patronage of church-livings, and to establish lectureships
in the cities and towns where they could not get control of the
presentation to a vicarage. Of course this was simply extending
evangelical or Puritan ideas, at the expense of the opposite party ;
and here was a grand chance for Laud to crush them by a decision
" See, for example, a letter from Sir Henry Wolton, in the appendix to
Burnet's Life of Bishop Bedell.
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JOHN DAVENPORT 4»
of the Courts, before which already the Feoffees, as these Trustees
were called, had been summoned. But the end is not yet.
In 1629 we notice first his share in another enterprise of more
lasting results. The year before, a voluntary association which had
been doing something for five or six years to colonize part of the
New England coast, obtained a grant of Massachusetts from the
Council for New England, and in March, 1629, 26 of this associa-
tion received a charter from the king as "the Governor and Com-
pany of Massachusetts Bay." In the list of patentees Davenport's
name does not appear, for the reason, says his biographer Cotton
Mather, that he feared its insertion might provoke the opposition
of Laud in the Privy Council : but he was one of the leading spirits
in the undertaking, paid £50 towards the expense of obtaining the
charter, and when the business of giving orders to the colonists
was in hand, and a committee was appointed with full power to
draw up directions for Captain Endecott, the head of the govern-
ment here. Davenport's name is the first on the committee. Of the
two elaborate letters of instruction which followed, the second, at
least, shows peculiar marks of his hand.
In the same year comes his first printed sermon of which we have
knowledge: it is "A Royal Edict for Military Exercises; published
in a Sermon preached to the Captains and Gentlemen that exercise
Amies in the Artillery Garden at their general Meeting, June 23."
But one complete copy is found in this country, and one in England.
It is a very perfect specimen of the mode in which the fathers were
wont to treat a text as an articulated animal : the six ingenious
divisions of the subject in this case being, "Also | he bade them |
teach I the children of Judah | the use of the bow. | Behold it is
written in the book of Jasher." The Company was the model on
which was formed the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company
of Boston, and its practice -ground was, I think, within the limits of
the parish of St. Stephen's.
In this year he appears also, in connection with Dr. Sibbes, as
editor and prefacer of four thick volumes of sermons, preached at
Lincoln's Inn by Dr. John Preston, of Cambridge, who was the
acknowledged leader of the Puritan party at the time of his death
in 1628. To these two friends Dr. Preston had bequeathed the
care of his sermons preached in London, and the volumes passed
through a quick succession of editions.
. Going on to 1631, we find on record in the State Paper Office an
elaborate answer from Davenport "to certain objections devised
against him by Timothy Hood, sometime his Curate." Hood appears
to have been a factious person, who had been dismissed by Daven-
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4> JOHN PAVENPORT
port after a brief employment, because he shirked his duties; and
he showed his spirit by lodging a complaint, to the effect that
Davenport was addicted to Puritan practices, not wearinj; the
surplice, not reading the Htany, not insisting on kneeHng at the
sacrament, and administering to strangers. Davenport's answer is
plausible, professing (and he was loo cautious to profess it unless
with truth) that he hath and doth wear the Surplice according as
the Canon doth prescribe ; that the litany is regularly read in his
Church on Wednesdays and Fridays, and sometimes on Stmdays;
that whereas his parish contains about 1400 communicants, they
cannot all come to the chancel to receive the sacrament, nor can he
possibly know them so as to avoid administering to those from other
parishes who may attend when their own churches are closed ; and
in administering from pew to pew, many pews are so filled that it
is impossible that many should receive kneeling, whereby he is
constrained to administer so as they can receive, but where they
can kneel as well as sit he hath advised it, and in case of refusal hath
refused to administer.
Whether the complaint was dismissed without judgment on the
case, does not api)ear; but this may quite possibly be ihe occasion
subsequently referred to by Laud as one in which he had used
moderation wiih Davenport, thinking that he had persuaded him
and settled his judgment.
A slight evidence of the caution necessary in these days may be
found in an entry on the parish records in the spring of the next
year, where Davenport makes a formal minute of a case in which
he has granted a license lo a weak and sickly parishioner to eat flesh
during the present Lent.
In the latter part of 1632 proceedings were actively resumed
against the Feoffees and the case came before the Court. Among
other things, it was charged that the whole concern was a dishonest
scheme for making money; but Davenport subsequenily drops the
remark in a private leller that he for one was nmch out of pocket
by the business. The answer made to the Court is preserved, and
finally in February, 1633. proceedings were closed by forcing the
dissolution of the association and confiscating the impropriations
which they had purcliased. Laud in his Diary records that "they
were the main inslrumenls for Ihe Puritan faction to undo the
Church;" but even he dared not. in the face of the popular feel-
ing, force the criminal part of the suit ; so that the Trustees escaped
the tines which they might have feared. Just after thi> we have a
glimpse uf the overworked minister from another entry in the parish
records where, in April, 1633. it is "agreed iliat Mr. Daveniwrt shall
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JOHN DAVENPORT J3
have out of the parish stock £20. towards his charge in goinR and
coming from the Bathe."
The year beginning so threateningly, with criminal and civil
prosecutions impending, was destined to prove the most decisive
of his life. Up to this time, if we may trust his own words, he had
cherished the belief that by conformity in non-essential ceremonies
he could do his work within the pale of the Church. But the manu-
script volume which I have mentioned as containing his conservative
answer to Lcighton on the subject of kneeling at the sacrament,
contains also sonie hundred pages uf notes (made, as the internal
evidence shows, after 1628, and probably not until 1633), begin-
ning with the ominous heading, "Grounds whereupon y* safety of
conformity is built, together with y* sandines of y"." These pages
consist of a presentation of the current arguments for conformity,
and elaborate answers and refutations. By far the greater part
turn on the old question of kneeling, which seems to have been to
Davenport the rxperimcnlum crticis; and the volume contains, I
think, the record of his private conversion from a conformist to a
nonconformist.
But we learn from other sources of other influences. John Cotton,
late vicar of Boston in Lincolnshire, sailed for New England about
the last of June, in company with Thomas Hooker and Samuel
Stone; and before leaving. Cotton, and apparently Hooker also,
was in conference with Davenport and one or two other Loudon
ministers, who hoi>ed to reclaim these esteemed brethren : but Daven-
port has left on record that this conference did more than all his
private investigations to shake his confidence in conformity. They
sailed, however, without him, and he turned again to his work. It
was reserved for another agent to complete the change.
It was Sunday, the 4th of .August, when— suddenly at the last —
came news of the death of the old Archbishop of Canterbury. George
Abbot, a friend, so long as he had power, of the Puritan party.
No one doubted for a moment who would be his successor, and
though it was not till Tuesday, the 6th. that the king announced to
Laud his intention of advancing him to the priniacy, Davenport
knew too well the risks he should run if he allt-mpied to retain hi-;
position together with his newly found convictions. On Mondiy,
Aug. 5th, he left I^ndon for some hidden retreat in the country.
and after three months' waiting, finding that messengers of Laud
were on his track, crossed to Holland. In a subsequent publication
("Apologeticall Reply," i6j6, p. 107) he gives this account of the
affair : —
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44 JOHN DAVENPOKT
"That I may not be altogether wanting ta my selfe, nor injurious to the
Reader, in suffering him lo be guilty of the sinne of evill surmiies, or of
slander in heart, for want of information, I doe seriously and sincerely
protest, that (so farr as I know myne owne heart) I did not withdraw
myselfe, i. out of any disloyall aiTection or unduetifull thought toward} hi*
Ua"* of great Brittayne, my dread Soveraigne, for whome my hearty prayer
ihal) tie, day & night, that hit louU moy be bound in the bundlt of lift with
the Lord kit Cod, Sr that the jouiet of hii enimyes may be flung out, at
out of the middle of a tUng. And that the Lord will cloath his enimies with
shame, but upon himsclfe let his crotvne flourish. 2, nor out of any Schy-
maticall propension to forsake the church assembles of England, as if I
thought there were no true Churches of Christ in the land, at the manner
of tome is. 3, Nor out of tdlenes, or wearines of the Lord's plough, nor
4. out of love of case, that I might pamper the flesh. 5, Nor out of any
unrighteous ayme to defraud any one by any meanes. 6, Not as one ashamed
of the Gospell, to avoid witnes bearing to the trtieth. 7, Nor for any trouble
I was in, or feared" |= frightened] "by the civill Magistrate, before whom
I was never questioned, in all my life, except for the good and pious
buisenes about redeeming impropriations, wherein our righteous dealing was
pubtickty cleared even by his Ma''" Atturney Generall, who prosecuted against
us. But the truth is, thai having about 17 yeares exercised a publick ministry
in London, (about 9 or 10 yeares whereof I was in a Pastorall charge in
Colman street) in the latter part of that time I was much perplexed with
doubts about the lawfullness of thai conformity which 1 had formerly used,
without scruple, in respect of some defects and corruptions and unwarrant-
able human impositions, whereunto I found myself thereby subjected."
In the Library of the American Antiquarian Society is a manu-
script of some seventy-five paties, believed to be in Davenport's
hand; and so far as I have had opportunity to examine it. I think
it unquestionably his: if so. it must have been addressed to his
parishioners at St. Stephen's, just before his fleeing the countr>'.
The subject is "Christ's Church, and his coverntnent of it." Pref-
aced is an "Epistle." beginning thus: "To his beloved brethren
and Christian frcindcs. which love the Lord and his t[ruth). prace
and peace. Beloved, there are many of you that know the reason
why [ now am after a sort [driven) tn spcakc to you by wrighting.
Thf earnest desires of some of yoit |have| bin the jjrcalesi induce-
ments to me to leave Iwhind nie these notes in yo[ur keeping), some
of you charging it as a |>oint of duty and conscience upon [mc] to
doc what now I am going alraiit in this treatise" . . . I^ter, after
opening his stibject. the writer says, "I never had the light nor
lilwrty to preach to y<iu about the.se things: now the Ij>rd hath
shown me his truth. I declare it unto you. which if you willfully or
carelesly cast off. be it known 1 am free from the blood of you."
One very curious jKissage helps to mark the date: in one place it
is said; "hence s<ime Jesuites. es|>ccially he that writ lately yet most
subtilly and hyixicritically, Franciscus de St. Clare, that our English
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JOHN DAVENPORT 45
Church cannot lawfully be called haereticks but scJsmaticks." It
is our old friend, Francis de St. Clare, otherwise Christopher
Davenport (though not a Jesuit) who published in 1633 (not until
after September) a famous treatise on the Articles of the Anglican
Church paraphrastically considered and explained: a tract which
two centuries later formed the basis of the more celebrated "Tract
No. 90" by Dr. Newman, and which has been reprinted with a
translation by one of the most advanced Anglican Churchmen of
our own decade. In it the author considers the Thirty-nine Articles
from a Roman Catholic point of view, with the proselyting aim of
showing their consistency with the decrees of the Council of Trent.
Early in November, then, Davenport took refine in Holland, in
pursuance of an invitation from his countrymen residing there.
At his landing in Haarlem, two of the elders in the Rev. John
Paget's English Church at Amsterdam (ten miles distant) met him
and escorted him thither, where it was thought that Mr. Paget,
now in years, might welcome him as an assistant. In his own
mind, however, remained the hope that some way might be opened
by his friends at Court to secure his return to England in the
spring. But the parish of St. Stephen's provided themselves early
in December with a new Vicar.
A letter to Lady Vere (at the Hague) written, I think, imme-
diately on his arrival at Amsterdam, is preserved, in which he says :
"The persecution of the tongue is more fierce and terrible than that
of the hand. At this time 1 have sense of both." [Referring,
probably, to false rumors as to the cause of his flight.] . . .
"The truth is I have not forsaken my ministry, nor resigned my
place, much less separated from the Church, but am only absent
a while to wait upon God, upon the settling and quieting of things,
for light to discern my way . . . The only cause of all my
sufferings is the alteration of my judgment in matters of conformity
to the ceremonies established."
He now begins preaching (twice each Sunday at first) in Mr.
Paget's Church, but soon finds a stumbling-block in the loose way
of administering baptism which Paget had practised. The result
was a little controversy, on Davenport's side purely on account of
his scruple about baptizing all infants, without assurance of the
church- members hip and Christian walk of the parents: on Paget's
side, other considerations had weight, a jealousy of the fervor and
eloquence of this new-comer, and perhaps a willingness to serve
his own ends by taking advantage of the ill-favor shown to Daven-
port by the home-authorities.
The controversy sped so fast that Paget brought the case before
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46 JOHN DAVENPOST
the Dutch Classis of city ministers, who named a committee to
propose a basis of settlement. This committee of five of the most
eminent theologians of Amsterdam delivered their judgment in
January (a copy of which was transmitted to Laud, and so was
insured preservation in English archives)," in which, while com-
mending Davenport's erudition and piety, and approving his zeal
in urging the examination of parents presenting children for
baptism, they yet leave a large loop-hole for doubtful cases, in which
on the whole they would administer the ordinance. Davenport
remonstrated, but Paget prevailed, and Davenport desisted from
preaching after less than six months' service.
Meantime another side-light is thrown on these events by the
letters of Stephen Goffe, at this time Chaplain of an English
Regiment at the Hague, a busybody angling for preferment, and
so heartily in sympathy with Laudian tendencies that he found his
true home in the Roman Church before many years. A parallel
instance to the divergencies in Davenport's own family manifests
itself here, for this Goffe was a brother of the Regicide whose later
life was so curiously dependent on Davenport. This man, on
Davenport's landing at Haarlem, sends off the news to a London
friend, to be laid before the Archbishop, and follows up his victim
with a succession of venomous epistles which still remain, labeled
by Laud's own hand. From this witness we learn that he himself
shared in the successful effort to thwart Davenport's chance of
preaching in the English Church at Amsterdam. Goffe says in a
letter of December i6th, that he has been to see Paget and also
Gerard Vossius, a Professor at Amsterdam and of the magistracy
of the city, remembered in our day as one of the most learned of
Dutch philologists, and then a recent visitor to England and guest
of Archbishop Laud. Goffe reports that he has told Vossius that
Davenport "is very dangerous in dealing in secular affairs, to
the troubling of places in which he dwelt." He urges that Vossius
should have letters from London to encourage him, and which shall
not omit to tickle him by praising the excellent lectures which he
has just published. He makes it clear, however, that it will not
do to accuse Davenport in Holland of neglect of ceremonies, as that
would be agreeable in that quarter rather than otherwise, but that
stress must be laid rather on his carriage towards the King as the
head of the State, in stealing out of England when writs were
issued against him, and in not reporting himself to his Majesty's
agent at the Hague. Another of Goffe's letters, in February,
"In Calendar of Stale Papers, Domestic, 1634-5, p. 469; the document is
wrongly calendared (as of i63'ii, instead of i6i^).
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JOHN DAVENPOHT 47
claims that his plan has succeeded, and that Davenport cannot be
elected to a position at Amsterdam, because he is known as a
deserter, and has preached (since coming over) against the civil
government of England : he hopes that "we shall be delivered from
this plague, and he will make for New England." On the strength
of this information, apparently, Davenport was summoned by the
King's agent, resident at the Hague, to clear himself by answers
to certain questions of the charge of preaching against the English
government; and his reply, dated March i8, 1634, is preserved
among the Agent's papers in the British Museum. It begins thus:
"Honorable Sir, When I first came into these parts, my purpose was to stay
here but 3 or 4 moneihs, and that time being expired, to returne for England
my native country, had not the sinister & slanderous information, whereof I
complained in [my] last, exasperated the Arch Bp. of Cant, to reproachful!
inuectives. and bluer niena|ces] against me in the High Commission, whereby
my returne is made much more difficult, and hazardous than 1 could sus-
pect .... The particulars, wherein I have changed, are no other then
the same, for which many worthy ministers, and lights eminent for godlines
and learning have suffered the loss of theyre ministry and liberty: some
whereof are now in perfect peace, and rest, others are dispersed in seuerall
countreyes, and some yet Hue in England as priuate persons, who were and
are loyall and faythfuU subjects to theyre soueraigne, and have witnessed
against haeresyes. and schysme, and against all sectaryes, as Familisis,
Anabaptists & Brownists, against all which I also witnes, in this place,
wherunto I had not come. If I could have bene secure of a safe and quiett
abode in my deare natiue countr>'.
"If that way of questioning should paf;s upon all men. which your wisdom
iudgeth meete in this case (as will appear upon your revew of the second
question) I thlnck. they that iudge me will be found, in some particulars,
to have spoken against the gouernm^ of England. All that I spake was con-
cerning the gesture of sitting, used in this country In receiuing the sacra-
ment of y* lords supper, which I approved and preferred before kneeling,
grounding what I sayd upon Luke 22: 27 to 31: wherein I named not
England nor the goucrnment thereof, and so carryed the discourse that it
might be applyed as well to the popish or Lutherane custom here as to any
other, and passed it ouer so breifly that all 1 sayd may be written in a very
few lines, nor did 1 euer heare that any man tooke offence thereat, but this
informer, who was discontented the weeke before at a sermon wherein
some Arminian errours were touched vpon by me. which quickened him to
watch for some advantage whereupon he might ground an accusation." . . .
After ceasing, in April, to preach in Paget's church, he appears
to have remained through the year in Amsterdam, holding a private
service at his lodgings on Sundays, at such an hour as not to
interfere with the public preaching, and adhered lo by a large
minority of his countrymen there.
At the end of the year, one of this number printed, without the
author's knowledge. Davenport's argument before the Dutch Classis
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48 JOHN DAVENPOKT
on the question of indiscriminate baptism, and also some instruc-
tions drawn up by him for the guidance of his adherents in the
Church, and his statement of their grievances. The little pamphlet
(only three copies of which are known to exist'*) made a great
stir, perhaps from the justice of its conclusions, and brought out
a reply from Paget. It brought out also a "Protestation" from
Davenport, printed at Rotterdam in January, 1635, complaining of
the unauthorized publication of his views, and disclaimit^ con-
troversy. In this connection comes in a letter written in July, 1635,
to his old friend. Lady Vere. now in England. In this he refers
to Paget thus: "myself e also being in some distractions by y"
unquiett spirit of the old man, who to all his former injur^'es addeth
this, that he hath now published a tedious booke in English, full of
reproaches and slanders against me This I am now con-
strayned to answer for y* trueths sake." There is also this para-
graph: "It may be of good use to prevent praejudicc in the Qiternes
if your Honor when you are pleased to wright lo her, and my I.ady
Leicester( ?), take notice of theyre favour to me. and pray them
not to be pracjudiced by any su^^^eslions against me from that booke
or otherwise till they may peruse my answer. This I desire not
for any use I have of the Queenes favour, but that shee may not
be hindred from receiving good by my ministry, which yet she well
esteemeth." As this must refer to Elizabeth, dowager Queen of
Bohemia (sister of Charles I), who had for some years resided
at or near the Hague, and who was strongly evangelical, we must
conclude that he was by this time removed to that city, and that
she was an attendant on his occasional ministry.
By a letter six months later to Lady V'crc, he appears to have
gone to Rotterdam, pathetically describing himself as "a poore
Pilgrim, a banished man." At Rotterdam he published in 1636 his
",\pologeticall Reply" to Paget, a volume of 350 pages, of which
two copies are found in this country.
I.ate in 1636. or early in 1637, he ventured to England again,
probably as the guest of Lady \ere at Hackney: he was reported
as in that neighborhood by laud's Vicar-General in March. 1637,
but eluded alt vigilance and got off safely (probably about the
middle of -April), with the colony of which Theophilus Eaton was
the civil leader, for New England. .\\ the end of .Xpril came a
Proclamation, forbidding further emigration, except under stringent
conditions of conformity, which may have been devised to meet this
very case.
" Krprintcd in the Proceftiin£t of the Massachusetts Historical SocictT
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JOHN DAVENPORT 49
At Boston they arrived on the 26th of June, and there they tarried
for nine months. Durinf; (hat time Davenport assisted at an impor-
tant ecclesiastical Synod of the Colony, and was named one of the
committee of twelve, to put into effect the vote just passed estab-
lishing a college at Newtown. But by March, 1638. the settlement
at Quinnipiac was agreed on, and a fortnight before the little com-
pany sailed from Boston to this harbor. E)avenport and Eaton
addressed to the authorities of the Bay a farewell letter, which was
written by Davenport, as the autograph in existence still testifies,
and as would perhaps be betrayed by its use of the same reference
to Joab and .\hishai which he quoted a dozen years before in his
letter to Leighton.
To New Haven, then, Davenport is brought, in April, 1638, at
the age of 4J. with the large responsibility of organizing a new
republic. There is no need that I should follow closely the steps
of our early history, so well traced by others, and for which so
little new material can be found. The first documents of the colony
are the two treaties with the Indians, for the form of which, how-
ever, I conceive that Elalon rather than Davenport was responsible.
But the first year at New Haven furnished two small conlribu-
tions from Davenport's pen to the press, which are most valuable
as illustrations of the spirit in which the experiment of the New
England Colonies was undertaken. The one, a "Discourse about
Civil Government in a New Planlation whose Design is Religion,"
was printed long after, in 1663. The other, printed in 1643. was
part of "An Answer of the Elders of the severall churches in New-
England unto Nine Positions sent over to them" by their Puritan
brethren at home, who naturally viewed with disfavor the new style
of Church Government. In both of these tracts Davenport is seen
at his best as a reasoner.
In 1639. we may remember, the government of New Haven was
organized: on the 4th of June, the planters met in Mr, Newman's
barn, and after a sermon from the pastor agreed on the fundamental
articles of civil government proposed by him, as is written in full
in our Colony Records. Then on the 226 of August, the church
was gathered, and as a permanent memorial of the pastor's system
of doctrine we have the brief Profession of Faith which he made
at that time, and which was printed in London two years later. I
am not aware that its teaching differs anywise from that of the
Church of England, except of course in the sections concerning the
manner of gathering a church, and concerning church officers.
.'\ letter sent by him the next month from Quinnipiac to Lady
\'ere mentions the encouraging incidents of the colony's progress.
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50 JOHN DAVENPORT
addinpf, "And, which is more, the Lord our God hath here bestowed
upon us the greatest outward privilege under the sun. to have and
injoy ail his ordinances purely dispensed in a church gathered and
constituted, according to his owne minde."
The letter mentions that the captain of the first ship just arrived
from England was so pleased with the sight of the harbor "that
he called it the Fair Haven :" the suggestion perhaps for the name
deliberately given to the plantation a year later.
Then in October we have the first election of magistrates, and
Davenport giving Governor Eaton a formal charge founded on a
passage from the words of Moses.
The years pass without special events. In January. 1646, the
colony made a notable effort for commercial advancement in the
e<iuipment of a ship for England, in which Davenport forwarded a
stock uf manuscripts for the press: among them a volume on the
Power of Congregational Churches, a scries of sermons on the
Hours of Temptation, and another on Christ's shaking heaven and
earth to establish his kingdom.
The vessel passed out of sight beneath the horizon, and later into
our legendary history as the 'Phantom Ship,' whose loss cast a
gloom over the colony, not lesscnetl by the supposed supernatural
api>earance which tradition has handed down. The Power of Con-
gregational Churches, the most elaborate of the works thus ship-
wrecked, was rewritten a few years later, and sent again for
publication, hut did not reach the press till after the author's death.
As a i>ari of the record for 1649 1 find in the I'rince Library in
Boston, a draft of a letter from Davenport to Charles Chauncy.
then a pastor in Scitnatc. who had applied for advice as to immer-
sion, which he used in baptisms: Daveni><>rt's answer discourages
the practice. The letter is duulitless one of many that came to him
as a leailer of the churches, but so far as I know is the only one of
its kind which is preserved.
In i(>-,j he sends over another volume to the printer. It was a
vin<licaii<ni >yt Jesus as the Jewish Messiah, and was originally
preached as a series of sermons to his peuplc, and then forwarded
to John Cotton of Boston for hi.s judgment as to its titness for
publication. The interesting autt)graph letter to Cotton in which
this mailer is referred to is now in the ; ssession of a member of
this Siiciety. In the jjreface to the b<M>k he says: "My far distance
from the press, and the hazards of so long a voyage by Sea. had
almost discouraged me from transmitting this C'upie: foreseeing
that whatsoever a^aX/wTu arc committed by the Primer, men dis-
atTecied will impute to the .-Vuthor; and being sensible of my great
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JOHN DAVENPORT $1
loss of some Manuscripts, by a wrack at sea, together with the
lives of sundry precious ones, about six years since. Yet if the
Printer acquit himself well in this, and God be pleased to make it
acceptable and profitable to the Reader, 1 shall be encouraged to
publish more, as God shall give liberty and opportunity." I give
this extract, partly to expose an absurd blunder of an English editor
of our day, the Rev. Mr. Grosart, who in his edition of the works
of Dr. Sibbes. one of the noted Puritans, casting about for a reason
why no bi<^raphy of Sibbes was left by any contemporary, unfor-
tunately stumbles on this passage, and sagely interprets the "lives of
sundry precious ones," the loss of which Davenport laments, and
which we know to be the company of New Haven men and women
who went down in the 'Phantom ship,' as a collection of biog-
raphies, which likely enough included one of the great Dr. Sibbes.
So much for the perils of interpretation.
^\'ith 1653 we have the first of a series of letters to Governor
Winlhrop, of New London, over twenty of which have been pub-
lished, and some thirty I believe stili remain unprinted, to which
I have not had access.^* Those published are of varying degrees of
interest, but my purpose is served by the mere reference to them.
In the Library of Yale College we have another precious manu-
script volume of Davenport's outlines of his sermons preached
from July, 1656, to August, 1658: at that time, as through most of
his ministry here, he had an assistant who relieved him in part : in
other words, the sermons described do not cover all the preaching
from New Haven pulpit between these dates. The most of the
volume is occupied with a series of expositions on five chapters of
Luke's Gospel. During the period covered by the volume. Governor
Eaton died suddenly (on Thursday, January 7, 1658) ; and one
looks curiously to see if the sermon-book of his life-long friend
contain any reference to the loss: but the following Sunday is
occupied with an exposition of the parable of the Pharisee and
Publican, and the notes do not yield a tear or a sigh.
In 1659 was printed in London "A Catechisme containing the
Chief Heads of Christian Religion. Published, at the desire, and
for the use of the Church of Christ at New Haven. By John
Davenport, Pastor, and William Hooke, Teacher." One of the
three known copies is in our College Library. The preparation o'f
this Catechism must be placed at least three years before its pub-
lication, as Hooke had gone back to England in 1656. As a full
exhibition, in 62 pages, of the form of doctrine held by Davenport,
"Seventeen leliers (1638-60) to Winthrop are in the New York Public
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JOHN DAVENPORT
the book is of course invaluable. To one who is not an expert in
that line it seems that there is little or no variance from the stand-
ards of the English Church, except of course in regard to church
organization and government. For instance, the doctrine of the
resurrection of the body is taught in the plainest terms, while the
Church is defined as "a Company of believers, or saints by calling,
together with their seed, joined together in fellowship with the
Lord Jesus, and one with another as a spiritual political body."
In i65o we have two separate evidences of his multiform activity-
On the 4th of June he delivered up to the Genera! Court of the
Colony his trusteeship of the fund given by Edward Hopkins for
a college at New Haven, with a long statement of the desig^ns of the
donor and of his own desires. This ceremony, which has been justly
celebrated as the foundation of our Grammar School, is quite as
really an epoch in the train of events which led forty years later to
the erection of Yale College. New Haven had already furnished
half a dozen graduates for Cambridge, and the prophetic eye of
Davenport fixed on this spot as the site of a new college. Steps to
such an end had been taken long before, and it was only the develop-
ment of his ideas (Working largely through his successor in the
pastoral office, James Pierpont), which brought the college here
in the next generation.
In this year a letter was received from John Dury, a Scotchman
who was laboring to promote the union of the Calvinistic and
Lutheran Churches, and was answered in the name of the ministers
of the Colony by Davenport in a Latin epistle, of which large
extracts are preserved in print.
In 1661. New Haven (and especially Mr. Davenport) sheltered
the two Regicides, Whalley and Goffe; and some time before their
coming he preached to his people a series of sermons preparatory to
such questions about harboring traitors as their presence might
excite. These sermons were printed in London in this year, and
four or five copies are in existence. In this connection comes also
a very hard letter to read, with our present knowledge, in which
Davenport explains to the King's agent bis own ignorance of the
Regicide matter, and which I wish for his sake were blotted out.
In the spring of 1662 the separate existence of the New Haven
Colony was threatened by Gov. Winthrop's obtaining for Connect-
icut a charter including this settlement. The struggles of the next
two or three years ended with the absorption of this Colony in
Coimecticut in January, 1665, but every step to this result was con-
tested by a series of admirable state-papers, in which Davenport's
hand was plain. When this episode, with the sacrifice which it
idbyGOOS
JOHN DAVENPORT 53
involved of the principles on which this Colony was founded, was
over, he employs in a letter to Gov. Leverett of Massachusetts the
phrase which doubtless reflects the prevailing tone of his thoughts
for the rest of life : "You see my zeal for preserving Christ's interest
in your parts, though in New Haven Colony it is miserably lost."
Meantime an important theological controversy also was on his
hands. In September, 1662, a Synod of Massachusetts ministers
met in Boston, chiefly to consider the question of the admission of
baptized children to Church privileges, — such as presenting their
children for baptism without any profession of their own Christian
faith. Against this new way, which in the issue led to so much
trouble in the next century, Davenport used his pen with power.
His argument, entitled "Another Essay for Investigation of the
Truth," was printed in 1663 at Cambridge, with a preface by
Increase Mather, as yet a young unordained preacher. The Essay
was answered by Richard Mather, father of Increase, and Daven-
port prepared and forwarded for publication in 1664 a Vindication
of his former treatise: but through some backwardness in those to
whom he transmitted it,— probably Increase Mather himself, who
was by this time converted to his father's views, — the' Vindication
remained in manuscript, and is believed to be still in existence in
the autograph collection of the Rev. Dr. Sprague : a copy, however,
is in the Library of the American Antiquarian Society.
We pass on to 1667, when Davenport was in his 72d year. On
the 7th of August, John Wilson, the original minister of the First
Church in Boston, died at the age of seventy-nine ; and in Septem-
ber, after a struggle which resulted in the formation of a new
church, now the Old South, Davenport was chosen his successor.
Wilson, with a large minority of the church, had supported the
conclusions of the recent Synod, as to the subjects of baptism; and
so Davenport's election was a triumph of the Anti-Synodists, who
were elsewhere clearly in a minority. By accepting the call, he
stirred the flame of controversy anew, and moreover must have
alienated in great degree the affections of the people whom he had
led into this wilderness. To Boston, however, he went in 1668,
arriving on the 2d of May, but not being installed until the 9th of
December. In the following spring he preached the Election
Sermon, which was printed, though only a single copy is now dis-
coverable. In the same year he published in England a couple of
fast -day sermons, and here his work ended. On Wednesday
evening, March 16, 1670, he died in Boston, in his 74th year, from
a paralytic stroke, after three days' illness. There one may see his
tomb, in King's Chapel burying ground; and here we have his
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54 JOHN DAVENPORT
portrait, painted apparently after his death by some rude Boston
artist. The inventory of his estate amounted to £1250, 18", loj^^:
there are books prized at £233, 17'; apparel, £30; in money, £193,
10*, 4yi^ ; in plate, i$0 ; dwelling house and land, £400 ; one servant
boy, iio.
WRITINGS OF JOHN DAVENPORT.
[I have here included under the dates of composition (or of publicatjon)
all the writings of Davenport of which I have knowledge. 1 have added
the whereabouts of the copies of his printed works, so far as I know of
any, not of course expecting to reach completeness in this respect The
initials used refer to the following libraries ; A. A. S., American Antiquarian
Society; BodL, Bodleian; B. Ath., Boston Athenaeum; B. Publ., Boston
Public Library; G. B,, the late George Brinley; Br. Mus,, British Museum;
F. B. D., my own; H. M. D., the Rev. Henry M. Dexter, D.D.; H. U.,
Harvard University ; M. H. S., Mass. Historical Society ; Pr., Prince Library !
U. S., Library of Congress; Y. C, Yale College.]
1615-16. MS. volume of sermons, preached at Hilton Castle; presented to
Y. C. in 1794 by his great-great-grandson, Hon. James Davenport, of
Stamford.
1624. Oct.-Nov. Five MS. letters to the Rt. Hon. Sir Edward Conway.
Secretary of State ; in the Record ofHce, London. Abstracts are in Calendar
of Domestic State Papers, 1623-25, pp. 354-7, 371.
1625, May 18. Response in his examination for degree of B.D., at Oxford;
in a MS. volume, now in the Yale Library.
[1625-28?]. In the last named volume, reply to Dr. Alexander Leighton,
about Kneeling at the Sacrament ; also, other memoranda on conformity.
1627, Mch. 2. A circular letter, signed by him in conjunction with Thomas
Taylor, Richard Sibbes, and William Gouge, asking help for Palatinate
Christians; in Calendar Dom. State Papers, 1627-28, p. 77, and in Sibbet'
Works, ed. Grosart, v. i, p. IviiL
1627, Apr. 25. An Epistle to the Reader, prefixed to Henry Scudder's
"Christian's Daily Walk."
1627, July 15- MS. report of a Sermon from I Peter v, 5. See Proceedii^s
of the Mass. Hist. Soc, vol. 50 (1917), p. 205.
1628, Jan, 18. The first ,of a series of nine manuscript letters to Lady
Mary Vere ; in the Br. Mus,, Birch MSS., 4275 ; printed in the Davenport
Genealogy, 312,
1628, June 8. MS, report of a Sermon from Hebr. xiii, 15. In Mass. HtsL
Soc. Proceedings, vol. 50, p. 207,
1628, June 30, Second letter to Lady Vere ; Davenport Geneal., 314
1629, Apr.-June. Two letters from a committee (of which he is the first
named) of the "Company of the Massachusetts Bay," to John Endecott; in
Transactions A. A. S., iii, 300, 79, 96.
1629. "A Royall Edict for Military Exercises; published in a Sermon
preached to the Captaines and GenttemeH that exercise Armes in the ArtitUry
Garden," June 23, 1629. Lond. 4°- PP- viii, 27. B. Ath., Bodl., and an
imperfect copy in A, A. S.
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JOHN DAVENPORT SS
1629. Dec. 36. Third letter to Lady Vere.
1629. Preface, signed jointly by hint and the Rev. Richard Sibbes, D.D.,
to the following works of the Rev. John Preston, D.D., late Master of
Emmanuel College, Cambridge : The New Covenant ; The Breast Plate of
Fkith and Love ; The Saints' Qualification. Reprinted in Grosart's edition
of Sibbes' Works, v. i, pp. xcv-c.
l6]i. Jan. 15. MS. answer "to certaine obiections devised against him by
Timothy Hood, sometyme his Curate" ; in Record Office, London. An
abstract is in the Calendar Dom. State Papers, 1629-31, p. 483.
1633. Febr. 11. An entry in his "Great Bible" acknowledging God's help
in the matter of the Feoffees; quoted in the Magnalia, Bk. 3, Pt. I, ch. 4.
[1633, Nov,?). MS. on "Christ's Church, and his govemraenl of it"; in
A. A. S.
[1633. Nov.?]. Fourth letter to Lady Vere; printed in Davenport Geneal.
1634. Mch. t8. Letter to Sir Wm. Boswell, agent of the King of England
at the Hague; in Br, Mus., Additional MSS., No. 6394, p, 196, and M. H. S.
Proc., V. 42, p. 228.
1634 [Dec.]. "A Ivst Complnt. against an Vnivst Doer. . . ." contain-
ing: a translation of a Latin letter written (in Febr., 1634) to the Classis of
Amsterdam ; "Certaine Instructions delivered to the Elders of the English
Church," dated Apr. 28, 1634 ; "The Greivances, and Complaints of the . .
English Church in Amsterdam, Anno 1634. The 18. of October" ; and
further remarks. This pamphlet (4°, pp. iii, 24), was published by Wm.
Best, without the author's knowledge. In Br. Mus., Bodl. and Union TheoL
Sem. Reprinted in M. H. S. Proceedings, Oct., 1909.
■635. Jan. "A Protestation Made and Published upon occasion of a
pamphlett, Intitied A Ivst Complaint against an vnivst doer . . ." Rot-
terdam. 4°, pp. 7, In Rev. D, Williams's Libr., London. Reprinted in
M. H. S. Proceedings, Oct, 1909.
1635. July 21. Fifth letter to Lady Vere.
1635, Dec. 15. Sixth tetter to the same.
1636 [Jan.?]. Seventh letter to the same; printed, in part, in Davenport
Getwalogy. p. 317,
1636. "Apologeticall Reply to an answer ]by J. Paget] to the unjust com-
plaint of W. B[est). . . ." Rotterdam. 4°. PP. xx, 334. In Br. Mus.,
Bodl., Pr., and G. B.
1638, Mch. 12. Letter (in his hand, signed also by Theophtlus Eaton) to
the Governor, Deputy, and Assistants of Massachusetts. Printed in ColleC'
tions of Mass. Hist. Soc., 3d Series, vol. 3, p. 165, in Savage's ad ed. of
Winthrop's Journal, i, 484, and in Davenport Geneal.. 323.
1638. "An Answer of the Elders of the severall Churches in New-England
unto Nine Positions, sent over to them (by divers , . Ministers in Eng-
land) . ." This was printed as pages 49-78 of a volume entitled "Church-
Government and Church-Covenant discussed . ." London: 1643. 4°. Pr,
A. A. S., U. S., and F. B. D.
According to Lechford's Note-Book, he also wrote about this time an
Answer to John Ball about the Common Prayer Book.
[1638-9?]. "Discourse about Civil Government tn a New Plantation whosf
Design is Religion." Cambridge. New England. 1663. 4". pp. 24. "In the
Title page whereof, the Name of Mr. Cotton, is. by Mistake, put for that of
Mr. Dofeni-orl." (Magnalia, Bk. 3, Pt. 1, Ch. 4.) In Pr., M. H. S., B, Ath„
H. U., and G. B.
[1639, Aug. 22?1. "A Profession of Faith, made at his admission into one
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56 JOHN DAVENPORT
of the Churches of God in New England." I have a copy printed as pages
34-40 of John Cotton's "Covenant of Gods free Grace." London, 1645. 4°.
The same, printed separately (London, 1642. 4°. pp. 8), is in Br. Mus.,
Bodl., U. S„ H. M. D„ the library of the late Rev. Horace Bushnell, D.D.,
and G. B, Br. Mus. and B. Publ. have it, appended to Cotton, as above,
1645. Reprinted with Preface, by the Rev. Dr. Bacon, New Haven. i8s3- 12°.
1639, Sept. 28. Eighth letter to Lady Vere; printed in N. E. Hist and
Gcncal. Register, ix, 149.
1644, Aug. 14. Remarks at the trial of Mrs. Eaton; in the records of the
New Haven Church, and printed in Bacon's Hist. Discourses, 297.
1647, Nov. 13. Ninth Letter to Lady Vere. A tenth undated letter (prob-
ably 1636) is printed in M. H. S. Proc, v. 42. p. 211.
[1648, or earlier.] "The Knowledge of Christ Indispensably required of
all men that would be saved ..." A volume of sermons, from Acts ii, 36,
with the running-title, "The True Messlas or Crucified Jesus the Christ"
London. 1653. 4°. pp. vi, 87. In Br. Mus., Bodl., Univ. of Aberdeen,
A. A. S., U. S., and G. B.
[1649?] MS. letter to the Rev. Charles (Thauncy, of Scituate; no. 21 of
pt. 2 of the Cotton Papers in Pr.
1650. May 6. Letter to the Rev. John Cotton, of Boston; printed in
Davenport Geneal., 343.
[1652?] "The Power of Congregational Churches Asserted and Vindi-
cated; In answer to a Treatise of Mr. J. Paget . ." London. 1672. 16".
pp. X, 179 lor, by correct numeration, 163]. In Pr., M. H. S., H. U., A. A. S.,
Amer, Congregational Association, H. M. D., and F. B. D.
1653, Aug. 20, Letter to John Winlhrop, of New London. In Bacon, 366.
1653. Aug. 25. MS. letter to Mrs. Sarah Cotton, of Boston; in Mather
Papers, vol. i, no. 14, in Pr. Printed in M. H. S. Coll., xxxviii, 546.
1655, Mch. 10. Letter to J. Winthrop. In Bacon, 367, and M. H. S. Coll.,
XXX. 6.
1655, Apr. 14-19. Letter to the same. In Bacon, 369, and M. H. S. Coll.,
1655, July 6. Letter to th
1655, Nov. 22. Letter to
Coll., XXX, 12.
1655, Nov. 30. Letter to the same. In Bacon, 371, and M. H. S. Coll.,
XXX. 14.
[1656. or earlier.] "A Catechisme containing the Chief Heads of Chris-
tian Religion." By Davenport, and his assistant in the ministry, William
Hooke. London, 1659. 16°. pp. 62. In Br. Mus,, D. Williams Libr., and
Y, C. Reprinted (with Davenport's "Profession of Faith"), New Haven,
1853. I2°-
1656, July 13-1658, Aug, 8. MS. outlines of sermons; in volume of 312
pages, 12", in Y. C.
1658. Letter to the Church in Wethersfield. In Conn. Hist, Soc. Coll.,
ii, 88-
1658. He is said by Wood (Athene Oxonienses. ed. Bliss, iii, 891), to
have "had a considerable hand in writing the life of Mr. John Cotton . .
published by John Norton."
1658, July 20. Letter to J. Winthrop. In Bacon, 372, and M, H. S. Coll.,
xKx, 19,
1658. Aug, 4. Letter to the same. In Bacon, 373, and M. H. S. Coll.,
XXX, 21.
1658, Oct 22. Letter to the same. In Bacon, 375.
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JOHN DAVENPORT 57
1659, Febr. 26. Remarks at a town meetiiig. In Bacon, lift and in N. H.
Town Records, 1649-62, pp. 392-94.
1659, Mch. 18. Letter to J. Winthrop. In Bacon, 375, and M. H. S. CoIL,
ifiSft Apr. 15. Letter to the same. In Bacon, 377.
1659, Sept 28. Letter to the same. In Bacon, 378, and M. H. S. Coll.,
XXX. 25.
1660, Febr. 22. Letter to the same In Bacon, 379, and M. H. S. Coll.,
XXX, 29.
t66o, March 29. Letter to the same. In Davenport Geneal., 379, and
M. H. S. CoIL, XXX, 30.
1660, Apr. 5. Letter to the same. In Bacon, 381, and M. H. 5. Coll.,
XXX, 31.
1660. Apr. 13. Letter to the same. In Bacon, 382, and M. H. S. Coll.,
XXX. 33.
1660, June 4. Letter of resignation of trusteeship of the Hopkins Fund,
addressed to the General Court of New Haven. In Trumbull's Hist of Conn.,
2d ed., i, 532.
1660. July 20. Letter to J. Winthrop. In M. H. S. Coll., xxx. 34-
1660, Aug. II. Letter to the same. In Davenport Geneal., 350, and M. H. S.
Coll., xxx. 37.
1660, Oct. 17. Letter to J. Winthrop. In Davenport Geneal., 353, and
M. H. S. Coll., xxx, 42.
1660, Nov. 27, Letter to the same. In Bacon, 385, and M. H. S. Coll.,
xxx. 44.
[l66o?l Lalin letter to the Rev. John Dury. Extracts in the Magnalta,
Bk. iii. pt. i, ch. 4. See, also, S. Mather's Apology for the Liberties of the
Churches, p. 166.
1661, Aug. 19. Letter to Sir Thomas Temple. In Davenport Geneal., 356,
and M. H. S. Coll., xxviii. 327.
1661, '"The Saint's Anchor-Hold . . . Sundry Sermons." London. 12°,
pp. viii, 231. In Br. Mus., Pr, G. B., library of the Rev. Dr. Bacon, Library
of Lane Theol. Seminary.
1662, July. Letters to Wm. Goffe. In M. H. S. Coll., xxxviii, 198, 192, 181.
l66z, Nov. 5. Answer of the Freemen of New Haven Colony to Connect-
icut; perhaps by Davenport. In Trumbull's Conn., 2d ed., i, 515.
1663, March 23. Letter to the Rev. John Cotton, of Plymouth. In M. H. S.
Coll.. xxxviii, 547-
1663, May 6. A second letter to Connecticut In Trumbull's Conn., i. 517.
1663. ",'inother Essay for Investigation of the Truth, . . concerning,
I. The Subject of Baptism. 11. The Consociation of Churches." Cambridge,
N. E. 4°. pp. xvi, 71. The Preface (pp. xvi) is by Increase Mather; pp.
65-71 are filled by "Considerations , , by the Rev. Nicholas Street," In
Br. Mus. and G. B. Imperfect copies in H, U. and H. M. D.
1664. A MS. "Vindication" of the last-named Essay, In the library of
the late Rev. W. B. Sprague, D.D., of Flushing, N, Y. A copy is in A. A. S.
1664, Dec. 14. A third letter from N. H. Colony to Conn. In Trumbull,
1.526.
166;. Jan. 5. The final letter to Conn. ; ibid., i, 528.
1665. June 24. Letter to Maj. Gen. John Leverett, of Boston. In Hutchin-
son's Collections, 392.
1665. Nov. 2. MS. letter to William Goodwin, of Hadley ; no. 35a in vol. i
of Mather Papers, in Pr.; printed (in part) in M. H. S. Coll.. xxxviii, 126.
i666. .^pr. la Letter to J. Winthrop. In M. H. S. Coll.. xxx, 58.
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58 JOHN DAVENPORT
1666, June 14. Letter to the sime; ibid., xxx, 59.
1667, Sept 18. "Epistle to the Reader," pp. xi, prefixed to Increase
Mather's "Mystery of Israel's Salvation." London, itidg. 16°. In B. Publ.,
G. B., and F. B. D.
1667, Oct. 8 and 28. Two letters to the First Church, Boston, In Hill's
Hist, of the Old South Church, voL I. pp. 18, 21.
1668, Apr. 18. Transfer of the Hopkins Fund to the General Court of
Conn.; in MS. Records of N. H. Hopkins Grammar School, p. 4.
1669, May 19. "A Sermon [from 2 Sam. xxiii, 3] Preach'd at the Election
of the Governour, at Boston" . . 1670. 4° pp. 16. In B, Publ., and photo-
lithographed in Publications of the Colonial Society of Mass,, vol. 10, 1906.
1669. Catechism. No copy known to be extant. See Proceedings of
A. A. S., Oct., 1897, p. 98.
1669. "God's Call to His People to Turn unto Him." Cambridge, Eng-
land, 4°. pp, 27. In Bodl,, B, Publ,, and G, B.
In 1687 appeared a folio sheet of "Proposals for Printing . . an Exposi-
tion of the whole Book of Canticles by the late . , John Davenport" A
copy is in Br. Mus. Wood says that the MS, was lOO sheets, but that &e
intending publisher died before the design was carried out
In the US, Winthrop Pliers of M. H. S. are thirty unprinted letters of
Davenport
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THE FOUNDING OF YALE COLLEGE.
By Franklin B. Dexter.
(From the Papers of the New Haven Colony Historical Society, Vol, 111,
iSSa. Read February, 1876.)
In the Colony o£ New Haven, from its beginning in 1638, till the
union with Connecticut, in 1665, the ruling spirit was John Daven-
port, pastor o£ the church in this town. As a scholar, he ranked
with the very first of the immigrants to New England ; and it was
not a mere compliment that on his way hither, while tarrying over
the winter of 1637-38 in Boston, he was named on the committee to
carry into effect the vote of the General Court of Massachusetts
Bay, fixing a College at Cambridge. The incident was not needed to
suggest to a man of his dear foresight that the colony which he led
would also need its college. And just ten years after (March 23,
1647-8), the records show that the General Court here gave power
to a sdect committee of the town of New Haven "to consider and
reserve what lot they shall see meet and most commodious for a col-
lege, which they desire may be set up so soon as their ability will
reach thereunto." A lot appears to have been designated accord-
ingly, but the work received some check, and the records are silent
until 1654 (May 22), when "the town was informed that there is
some motion again on foot concerning the setting up a college here."
A year later (May 21, 1655), the subject was discussed in town-
meeting, when Mr. Davenport, and his associate in the ministry, Mr.
Ho(Ae, were "present, and spake much to encourage the work."
Subscriptions were solicited, and when the General Court of the
colony met the next wedc (May 30), Governor Eaton announced
that above £300 were promised from New Haven alone. Milford
followed with a promise of £ioo, and the other plantations took up
the matter. The result was reported to a town-meeting in July, as
about £240 promised outside of New Haven, This was thought
enough to buy and fit up a house, and it was agreed to provide from
the New Haven treasury a yearly stipend of £60 for a president's
salary and incidental expenses. Still, the project halted ; the col-
lege was not begun, and in May, 1659, the Court took the humbler
step of ordering that a grammar school be established for the benefit
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THE FOUNDING OF YALE COLLEGE
of the colony. Another year slipped by without any visible result
from this, till the Court supplemented its order by fixing the school
at New Haven. At this juncture, Mr. Davenport, as a trustee under
the will of Edward Hopkins, made over to the Court a claim on that
estate for a legacy intended to be used in establishing a college here.
The design now was to carry on the two enterprises side by side,
grammar school and college; and a few weeks later a teacher for
the school was appointed who was to begin (and apparently did
begin) his work in October ; but a litigation concerning the Hopkins
legacy interfered with the other part of the scheme, and after a
feeble vitality of two years, the Genera! Court discontinued the col-
ony grammar school in November, 1662. At last, in April, 1664,
Mr. Davenport was able to offer to the town the Hopkins fund for
its use in the way of higher education, and from that date the Hop-
kins Grammar School of New Haven has a continuous history. The
turn of public affairs in the union of the colony with Connecticut,
and the consequent disappoinfment and departure of Mr, Daven-
port, joined with other causes, prevented the development of a Hop-
kins College; but the purpose that the minister of New Haven had
cherished so long and inculcated so unweariedly was transmitted to
his successors, with strength and clearness sufficient to ensure its
accomplishment in the next generation.
Meantime, the college at Cambridge, begun in the same year
with the New Haven plantation, received all the patronage which
these settlements could afford to give to so distant an Alma Mater.
There ^vere among the founders of New Haven and Connecticut
proportionately fewer university men than in Massachusetts, but
through their influence and th« influence of their successors, nearly
sixty students from these colonies went to Harvard, making one-
eightii of the whole number of her graduates, before the establish-
ment of the Collegiate School of Connecticut. And thanks to the
spirit of John Davenport, almost a third of the whole number, more
than from any other two towns in the list, came from New Haven,
Moreover, out of their scanty resources, for a long series of years,
these settlements made generous annual contributions to the needs
of tlie poor scholars at Cambridge, in answer to appeals for
such aid.
The attempt has sometimes been made lo show that the founding
of Yale College was due to a dissatisfaction on the part of the
stricter orthodox in Massachusetts with the latitudinarian tendencies
of their brethren who were gaining control of Harvard — which dis-
satisfaction manifested itself in inciting the more puritanical minis-
ters of Connecticut to establish a bulwark of the orthodox faith.
4
oruioQox laiui. ■
THE FOUNDING OF YALE COLLEGE 6 1
This theory, skillfully developed and urged by President QuJncy, in
his History of Harvard, was so conclusively answered at the time
by the late Professor Kingsley (in the American Biblical Repository
for 1841-42, second series, vi, 177-19S, 384-403, and vii, 175-207),
that I need not go over the ground again. It is enough to say that
the state of affairs in Connecticut did not correspond to President
Quincy's assumptions. The independent desire of the educated
clergy of this colony for a nearer and less expensive seat of learning
was a motive existing with sufficient strength to account for all that
followed. At the same time it may be conceded that testimonies of
later date imply that there was also some distrust felt, in this quar-
ter, of the tendencies of Harvard. To refer to these seriatim, there
is a letter from one of the early trustees, the Rev. Moses Noyes, of
Lyme, written in 1723, soon after the declaration of Rector Cutler
for Episcopacy, in which he says : "The first movers for a college in
Connecticut alleged this as a reason, because the college at Cam-
bridge was under the tutorage of latitudinarians ; but how well they
have mended, the event sadly manifests." Another letter written
on the same occasion by two other trustees, complains "how our
fountain, hoped to have been and continued the repository of truth
and the reserve of pure and sound principles, doctrine, and educa-
tion, wt case of a change in our mother Harvard, shews itself in so
little a time so corrupt." And these are the only items of evidence
on this side — unless something can be made of the fact that four or
five years after Yale College was founded, some of the trustees were
opposed to the employment of a Cambridge man as tutor.
But the relation of the movers for a college to the place of their
own education made it obviously natural for them to seek there for
advice, when giving their project definite form. Accordingly, it is
not remarkable if the earliest document in our archives proves to be
"A Scheme for a College," furnished from Massachusetts. The
manuscript with this title, addressed in the well-known hand of Cot-
ton Mather, and endorsed by the Rev. James Pierpont, "Instructions
for a Collegiate School," is undated by its author, but President
Gap has marked upon it the date 1700, though in his printed Annals
(p. 2), he assigns it to the year 1698. It seems impossible to deter-
mine the date more nearly than to say that the paper is anterior to
September, 1701, and so may be claimed as the earliest document of
the college. To settle the point of date is the less important, since
the proposals were not adopted to any extent. The most notable
thing in the paper is the phrase "school of the churches," which,
caught up and repeated in the inexact form, "School of the Church,"
in Clap's Annals, has helped to foster an idea that the germ of the
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ea
THE FOUNDING OF YALE COLLEGE
college wa5 a projected theological school. I can only repeat tha^'j
the paper in which these words occur cannot be shown to hav*
influenced in even the smallest detail the plans of the founders.'
The first fixed date in our history shown by documents now exist-
ing is August 7, 1701, when a letter is known to have been written^,
signed by Israel Chauncy, Thomas Buckingham, Abraham Pierso?i,F
James Pierpont, and Gurdon Saltonstall, ministers of the gospel m
Connecticut, and addressed to two distinguished civilians of Boston,
the Honorable Isaac Addington and the Honorable Samuel Sewall*
asking for a draft for a charter, if in their opinion it was wise to
petition the Colonial Assembly for one. The letter itself is not pre-'
served, but its occasion and date are learned from the favorable
reply of Judge Sewall, which we have. From him we learn also
that, either in ihis joint application, or in another letter from Pier-
pont alone, a few days later, were enclosed instructions more or less
minute as to the points to be included in the charier.
The authorities thus consulted were prominent in official positioa'
in the Province of Massachusetts, Addington being its Secretary,
and Sewall a Judge of the Superior Court; of the two, Sewall alone
had been educated at Harvard, Their first reply was, as I have
stated, favorable to the project, a fact of the greatest encourage-
ment. For in the existing relations between New and Old England,
prudent men were bound" to scan carefully every step which might
challenge interference. No objections had been made by the home
authorities to the resumption of the Connecticut Charter after the
downfall of Andros; but it was pertinent to ask whether such an
act as the creation of a college corporation might not be a stretch of
power which would provoke inquiry.
The original charter of Harvard had indeed been granted by the
General Court of Massachusetts, but was understood to have expired
with that of the corporation which gave it; and within eight years
after the new Provincial Government was set up (1692-1700) nO-
less than five attempts had been made by the General Court to draft'
a substitute charter for the University acceptable to the Crown;;
and these attempts having all failed, that college was now dead ia^
law, and destined to be so for six years to come. The experience
of Massachusetts was a warning to Connecticut. The only other
incorporated seat of learning in America, William and Mary Col-
lege (1693), had received its charter directly from tlie sovereignai
whose names it bore.
But the founders of a new college would naturally turn also to
their Alma Mater for advice; and it is not surprising that the first
document extant with its date affixed, is a letter, seemingly addressed
seeniuigiy auuresseu ,
Digitized byGOQai^^B
THE FOUNDING OF YALE COLLEGE 63
to the Rev. Mr. Pierpont, from Increase Mather, dated Sept. 15,
1701. He was not, to be sure, still President of Harvard College,
having been removed from that post the week before by the Gen-
eral Court; but the request for his advice had been made before
this event, and aside from the official position he was the acknowl-
edged leader of the New England clergy, and experienced more-
over in dealings with the English court. His letter is strikingly in
the same line with the proposals previously sent by his son Cotton;
it is brief, and is occupied with suggestions of particular provisions
for a university, which were not to any extent made prominent in
the issue.
Next of our documents in order, come two or three contribu-
tions from Connecticut advisers. First is a letter written on the
27th of September, 1701, by Gershom Bulkley, of Wethersfield.
Bulkley had received his degree at Cambridge in 1655, and was
therefore among the oldest of the band of Connecticut graduates.
A former member of the clerical profession, he was also of wide
reputation through the colony for sagacity in affairs and critical
sharpness. Still he had his notorious crotchets and prejudices, and
was known in particular as a disbeliever in the powers of the exist-
ing government in Connecticut ; so that his opinion was probably
of more value as an index of the most that could be said against a
charter from the General Court, than as a direct guide to the con-
sulting parties. I give a few sentences from his letter:
"To the Reverend Elders deliberating of a College: Your design is so
good ihat if I might and could, yet I would not wittingly deceive you;
and ergo you must give me leave to tell you that I have made as much
search in the statutes and elsewhere as my present incapacity will allow
me, but cannot find that which satisfies me, or (I think) will satisfy you,
in answer to your queries."
He goes on to recite the disabilities of non -conformists under the
statutes of England, and concludes :
"Now my opinion in everything is so liable to objections that it behoves
me to be slow in showing it, yet 1 am 50 willing to promote so good a
work that I shall adventure to say thus much : viz., that 1 do not think the
General Court will be forward to act in it at present ; and I doubt it would
but issue in a disappointment to you at last if they should, and possibly in
an accusation against themselves at this time. We all know that the King
and Parliament are above us. uiid cr^o I shouli! think that it will be much
better to petition His Majesty lo grant a liberty, ratified by Act of Parlia-
ment, for the founding of a college. . . 'Tis an old saying, new Lords,
new laws, and all the world is mutable; but I think this is the most likely
way to prevent a future defeat, if it can be obtained; if not, we are but
where we were before, and possibly a little time may enable us better to see
what ia next best"
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64 THE FOUXDING OF YALE COLLEGE
This answer was transmitted to Mr. Pierson by Eleazar Kimberly,, I
Secretary of the Colony, who accompanied it with his own reply 1
to questions which had been submitted to him, and gave reassuring '
testimony as to the powers and safety of a cisatlantic charter.
This brings us to October i, and about this date must be placed I
still another letter to Mr. Pierson "at Branford," written by John I
Eliot, a young lawyer of Windsor, a graduate of Harvard, and a J
leading member of the General Court. This also was in reply to I
letters of inquiry of September 17, and is worth quoting in parti I
He says :
"You first inquire whether our government can erect a Collegiate School '
which by law can't be overset. Sir, I think such a school may be erected
which cannot be overthrown by Law Regularly Executed, in some measure
to maintain which under a future government a wise and resolute Assembly
may be a good means. My reasons are these; To erect such a school is
neither repugnant to the laws of England nor an intrenchment on the King's
prerogative. No Act or law (according to my sense of the matter) in any
of the plantations is deemed to be repugnant to the laws of England, unless
it be contrary to an Act of the Parliament of England wherein such Planta-
tion is expressed or evidently intended, and I know no Act of Parliament
[which] says such a School may not be erected in the Plantations. Neither
do I think it is deemed at home an intrenchment on the Prerogative of the
King, though many here are suspicious it is: (or manifest occasion has been
given to declare it and such like things so, if it were so, not only from the
former erecting and incorporating^ the College at Cambridge . . . but
also from the erecting societies by law both in Boston and New York, in
their several towns, privileging and enabling them 10 dispose of land, to
sue and be sued, and in many other things (o act as incorporated companies :
so that unless Prerogative greatens more than of late it has done, or unless
hereafter (which is a hazard very necessary to be provided against) our
Assemblies arc so modeled as to repeal their own act (if they prove so
good as to make one), it is hopeful such a school may stand. Here 111
offer one thought, whether one privilege to be granted to the governors of
said school should not be to send two to represent the said school in the
General Assembly, as the Universities in England have, by which they and
so we may have great advantages.
"Your second question is, concerning securing and managing donations.
Sir, the best way I can at present think on, is to have them given to a third
person or persons in trust to the use of said school, to be managed and dis-
posed by the major part of said eight Elders ajid said Master for the time
being. . . As lo the title of the Master of said School, it seems to me to
be of no greater consequence than this, that which shows least of grandeur
will be least obnoxious. As to your fourth query, I am much at a loss in
my own thoughts, yet I'll offer that, not standing on a royal foundation we
cannot give authentic or legal degrees. Something instead of them of good
use and encouragement amongst ourselves we may, but without a great deal
of prudence in that matter, our enemies will take advantage lo injure us.
To your fifth, the placing government in those nine has a prospect of very
happy consequences. To limit to an age may prevent the inconvenience of
their being all superannuated, which when numerous may easily and perhaps
almost always happen."
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THE FOUNDING OF YALE COLLEGE 65
It is needless, perhaps, to say, that the writer ludicrously mis-
apprehended in the last sentence the meaning of the proposal to
limit the age of the Trustees; it was young and not old men that
the movers wanted to keep out.
On the second Thursday of October, 1701, the General Court
met in New Haven for the first time since the union with Connect-
icut; and with that meeting begins a distinct era in the history of
the Collegiate School. Before entering on that period, it is well,
perhaps, to review the facts now presented.
The persons whose names appear as "the Elders deliberating of
a College" in the documents enumerated, were the pastors of seven
towns lying along the Connecticut seaboard, Stonington, New Lon-
don, Saybrook, Killingworth, Branford, New Haven, and Stratford,
At this date the number of incorporated townships in the Colony
was thirty-four, with an aggregate population of not much over
15,000. Almost every town had its settled minister, usually a Cam-
bridge graduate, making with others not in the ministry a total
of about fifty college men scattered over the colony. As for lower
education, by an act of the previous year grammar schools had been
set up at each of the four county seats, Hartford, New Haven,
New Lxjndon, and Fairfield; all other towns of seventy families
and upwards were required to keep up a public school for the entire
year, and the towns of lesser population for half the year. The
tax hst for the current year made returns of the estates of 3,850
persons in thirty of these towns, amounting in all to £209,058, indi-
cating the scanty resources of the sparsely settled region. The
ministers in the smaller places were "passing rich with sixty pounds
a year," and £100 was the highest salary known.
In this colony, then, with not more than a quarter the population
or the means of the neighboring Province of Massachusetts, a
few ministers along the seaboard were moving for a Collegiate
School in October. 1701. They had asked the advice in the past
two months of some of the best civil and clerical authorities of the
New England metropolis, and also of some of the shrewdest
civilians in their own government. Their strength lay in New Haven
and its neighborhood (the center of the old New Haven Colony),
and the fact that the legislative body had resolved in May to assemble
for its next session in New Haven, was doubtless connected with
the choice of this time for the petition for a charter.
But it is also pertinent to ask what light is thrown on the ante-
charter period by tradition. The "Annals or History of Yale
College." published in 1766 by President Thomas Clap, contains I
believe all that is handed down of this nature, and it is necessary
to consider first the weight of President Clap's testimony.
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66
THE FOUNDING OF YALE COLLEGE
Born and educated in Massachusetts, he had never visited Con-
necticut until in 1726 he began to preach in Windham, where he
remained in the ministry till his removal to the college in 1739. His
History, orig-inally compiled in 1747 (not 1744, as his preface
erroneously states; see the manuscript in tlie college archives, and
the Corporation Records), was collected, he tells us, "principally
from the records and original papers ; but several circumstances,
tending to set the whole in a. dear light, I received from sundry
gentlemen, who were contemporary with the facts related; among
which were some of the founders of the college, with whom I was
personally acquainted in the year 1726."
The meaning is not clearly expressed, but as to the claim of private
information from some of the founders, I think we cannot give
great weight to it. In 1726, but one of those whose names have
now been mentioned as participating in the movements of the simi-
mer of 1701, was still living, — Samuel Russel, of Branford. already
advanced in years and disabled from active service. Four other
early trustees of the college were indeed alive (Mather, Andrew,
Woodbridge, Webb), but none of them were neighbors of Mr. Clap,
or members of the ministerial Association to which he belonged, or
especially connected, so far as appears, with him or with Windham ;
and it is fair to suppose that his personal acquaintance with them
was limited to brief interviews in such common resorts as the semi-
armual gatherings of the clergy at Hartford and New Haven.
Before he came to the Presidency, the last of these aged survivors
was dead, and the details which he would then for the first time
liave had a special interest to learn, must have been learned at second
hand.
He begins with the assertion that "The design of founding a
college in the colony of Connecticut, was first concerted by the min-
isters; among which the Rev. Mr. Pierpont of New Haven, Mr.
Andrew of Wilford, and Mr. Russel of Branford, were the most
forward and active." To the general statement every one must
agree ; and still more to the special one. so far as its concerns Mr.
Pierpont, will any one who has studied the college papers down to
the date of his death, yield a bearty acquiescence ; it is reasonable,
also, to suppose that his most frequent conferences were with his
nearest neighbors of his own profession, the pastors of Branford
and Milford.
President Clap goes on to say that "They had sundry meetings
and consultations, and received several proposals or schemes relat-
ing to the constitution and regulation of such a college;" and he
pauses to quote some of the details of the paper which probably
4
d he
ably I
2ii|
THE FOUNDING OF YALE COLLEGE 67
suggested to him this statement, namely, the "Proposals" emanating
from Cotton Mather, to which I have already referred. These
"Proposals," it should be mentioned, favored the agency of a gen-
eral synod of the churches to effect the erecting of a college; and
Clap goes on to intimate that in 1699, in default of a Synod, "ten
of the principal ministers in the colony were nominated ....
by a general consent both of the ministers and people, to stand as
trustees": — namely, James Noyes of Stonington, Israel Chauncy of
Stratford, Thomas Buckingham of Saybrook, Abraham Pierson of
Killingworth, Samuel Mather of Windsor, Samuel Andrew of Mil-
ford, Timothy Woodbridge of Hartford, James Pierpont of New
Haven, Noadiah Russel of Middletown, and Joseph Webb of Fair-
field.
"The ministers so nominated," he continues, "met at New Haven and
formed themselves into a body or society, to consist of eleven ministers,
including a rector, and agreed to found a college in the colony of Connect-
icut; which they did at their next meeting at Branford, in the following
manner, viz; Each member brought a number of books and presented them
to the body; and laying them on the table, said these words, or to this effect:
'I give these books for the founding a College in this Colony.' Then the
trustees as a body took possession of them; and appointed the Rev. Mr.
Russel of Branford, to be the keeper of the Library, which then consisted
of about 40 volumes in folio. Soon after they received sundry other
donations both of books and money." . . .
This venerable and beautiful tradition of ten excellent ministers
assembling in 1700, in Mr. Russel's south parlor in Branford. each
with his bulky proportion of the forty folios, has undoubtedly some
basis of truth, but can hardly be accepted in detail.
The chief objection to these details is based on a fair view of the
letters and papers which have been recited as recording the move-
ments of the summer of 1701 ; for the total impression of these is
that the project was then in an unorganized and imperfect state,
not at all consistent with the theory that as early as 1699 the ten
ministers who were finally recognized in the charter had been
selected, and that they had held several full meetings in 1700, at one
of which they had resolved to increase their number to eleven, and
at another had begun the college by a formal and dramatic act of
giving books. Indeed, the dramatic version itself, which Clap gives
of the incident, is most of all inconsistent with the spirit of the time
and of the men concerned.
If we look back to the letter written by John Eliot, we shall recall
that he precisely states that in September, 1701, the proposal was
to make the Board of Trustees consist of eight members with a
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68 THE FOUNDING OF YALE COLLEGE
Rector; and when we come to examine the draft for the charter
we shall again be reminded that the number of eleven was not fixed
until the very last moment. I defer until a later point some addi-
tional remarks respecting the tradition of giving books for a library.
To take up again the order of events. On Thursday, October 9,
the Legislature met in New Haven, The Upper House consisted
of the Governor, the Deputy Governor, and ten assistants; while
the Lower House numbered fifty-two representatives from twenty-
seven of the incorporated towns of the colony. The Governor, Fitz
John Winthrop, of New London, though not a college-bred man,
had inherited from his more famous father and grandfather an
appreciation of all the means of culture; he was, moreover, a
parishioner of Gurdon Saitonstall, one of the ministers whom we
have seen interested in the new movement. Colonel Robert Treat,
of Milford, the Deputy Governor, had educated one of his sons at
Harvard, and had given two of his daughters in marriage to two
of the proposed trustees of the college — one of them his own
pastor, Samuel Andrew, and the other, Samuel Mather, of Windsor.
Of the ten assistants one-half were parishioners of ministers whose
names appear in the movement; the others being residents of
parishes either without a settled minister or with one much younger
than any of the movers in this business.
Peter Burr, of Fairfield (and a parishioner therefore of another
trustee), was chosen Speaker of the Lower House; he was a Har-
vard graduate (1690), and had filled the chair of speaker also at
the previous session. John Eliot, of Windsor (a parishioner of
another trustee), was the only other college graduate in the Assem-
bly. By this recital of the connection between the leading men of
the Assembly and the trustees proposed, we see that the selection of
names for the charter was admirably adapted to conciliate the
prejudices of all who were called to lead in action in the matter.
The ten ministers chosen were also, in general, the ten oldest
settled clergymen in the colony; the only others of equal age and
standing being Moses Noyes of Lyme, Samuel Street of Wallii^-
ford, Samuel Russel of Branford, and Gurdon Saitonstall of New
London. It may be noticed that these four were in general repre-
sentatives of seaboard towns, which had already a preponderance
of seven out of ten in the proposed list of trustees, and that in the
preliminary movements three of them at least had been actively
interested ; Noyes also was a brother of one on the list, and Saiton-
stall was the equal in age of only one, his classmate Webb. Doubt-
less the omissions in most or all of these cases were a matter of
mutual agreement.
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THE FOUNDING OF YALE COLLEGE 69
With this appropriateness in the choice of men, notice also how
the townships which they represented deserved consideration. On
the last tax list, that of October, 1700, the order of wealth of the
leading towns in the colony was this: Hartford, New Haven,
Windsor, Fairfield, Wethersfield, Milford, Stratford, New London,
Guilford, Farmington. Middletown, Saybrook, and Stonington. Of
these thirteen. Farmington was paslorless ; Wethersfield and Guil-
ford were served by young beginners, and New London by Gurdon
Saltonstall, whose absence from the list is already noticed. The
remaining nine towns are represented in the number of trustees;
while for the tenth we go down the scale, past Lyme. VVallingford,
Branford, and all the rest, to the twenty-fourth in the list of twenty-
nine tax-paying towns, to gain the name of Abraham Pierson,
minister of the little village of Killingworth, with its less than fifty
rate-payers; surely there must have been something in the man to
make needful his connection with the project, or the general prin-
ciple would have led to the selection instead of one of those who
stood aside. It is only fair to say that the records which remain
of the events of the summer of 1701 would make Pierson the most
active of all the persons concerned.
With regard to the ministerial associations of the colony {if any
such existed so early), the trustees were as fairly distributed as
possible; the association naturally observing the county divisions,"
and Andrew and Pierpont representing New Haven county ; Mather,
Russel. and Woodbridge. Hartford; Chauncy and Webb, Fairfield;
and Buckingham, Noyes, and Pierson, New London.
We come back to the Assembly and the petition for a charter.
The preamble of the instrument as granted refers to this petition,
and President Clap professes to quote from it; but it is not known
to exist in any separate form. Probably the signatures were those
of the ministers and laymen gathered at the meeting of the Assembly,
who were always respectable in numbers and dignity. With the
petition must have been handed in the outline of a charter, and this
brings us to the document itself.
As we have seen, application had been made in August to two
Boston counselors for a draft; and their final answer communi-
cating the result of their recommendations was dated on Monday,
October 6. The regular post-route was by Providence, Stonington,
New London, and Saybrook, counting up 181 miles, and making a
three-days' journey. The document (addressed to Mr. Buckingham,
of Saybrook) probably, then, reached New Haven at the earliest on
Friday, the day after the Assembly had organized. The accompany-
" Trumbull's Hist, of Conn., i, 480.
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70
THE FOUNDING OF YALE COLLEGE
ing letter is interesting chiefly as intimating that the form suggested
is in pursuance of instnutions forwarded by those who asked advice;
so that the Connecticut ministers were, back of all forms, the real
authors of the instrument.
The college possesses the Boston draft, in Addington's hand, with
partial corrections and interlineations by James Pierpont. It is
entitled, "An Act for Founding of a Collegiate School." This
term had already been used in the correspondence of the summer,
and was doubtless one of several names submitted to Addington
and Sewall, for they say of it in tlieir letter, "We on purpose gave
your academy as low a name as we could, that it might better stand
in wind and weather." Before its passage by the Assembly, the
title was changed, so that it no longer read "An Act for Founding,"
but "An Act for Liberty to Erect a Collegiate School ;" and this
change is followed up by corresponding alterations in the preamble
and in the first enacting clause. "Full liberty, privilege, and right"
is granted to the ten ministers "to erect, form, direct, order, estab-
lish, improve, and encourage" a Collegiate School; and the studied
omission and erasure of authority to found, seems — so far as that
very definite word can testify- — a tacit acknowledgment that the
school had already been founded by the trustees now incorporated;
or was it merely a device to lessen the importance of the Act, and
SO lessen the chance of interference?
One part of the Boston proposals which was quietly dropped, was
that the Westminster Confession of Faith and Dr. Ames' Medulla
Theologia should be diligently studied by all the scholars ; — a pro-
vision which might, if retained, have excused some of President
Quincy's charges of hyper-orthodoxy; but a fortunate wisdom led
to its rejection. A strong recommendation that a board of over-
seers be constituted by the Assembly as a check on the corporation
was also rejected, with no unhappy results. Other minor pro-
visions were erased by Pierpont's hand; as. for instance, that the
college should be fixed in some specified locality. Fortunate also
the wisdom which in this case avoided the premature agitation of
a question which might through local jealousies have caused the
shipwreck of the whole scheme. Again, the correctors struck out
the provision of the Boston draft that the corporation should con-
sist in part of laj-men; a provision fatally inconsistent with any
theory of the previous existence of an organized corporation of
ten ministers already selected and acting, a circumstance which
must inevitably have been named when the instructions for the
draft was sent on from Connecticut. In a later generation clergy-
men would not have been exclusively named for trustees, but the
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THE FOUNDING OF YALE COLLEGE 7 1
reason for it then, as it seems to me, was not so much to preserve
the orthodoxy of the project, or to develop a training-school for
the profession, or to exalt the ministerial caste, as it was because
there were really so few active educated men then in Connecticut
outside of the clergy, so few laymen who would endure labor and
sacrifice for the ideal of higher education. For that the enterprise
would demand labor and sacrifice, these ministers well knew.
The number to constitute the corporation, left blank in the Boston
draft, was now inserted by Pierpont, and the right to fill vacancies
with ministers residing in Connecticut and above the age of forty
was also added. One only of the trustees named, Mr. Webb, was
now under the limit of age thus established.
In the concluding paragraph, a clause, not appearing in the Boston
draft, was inserted, empowering the trustees to have and hold any
goods "heretofore already" granted or bestowed. The phraseology
recalls a statement of President Clap that Maj. James Fitch, of
Plainfield. one of the Governor's Assistants or Upper House, had
made a donation of land and materials to build a college house to
the trustees before the granting of the charter. I lay no stress on
this point, but if President Clap is correct in implying that this
donation preceded the passing of the Act, we can fix the day on
which the college received its corporate existence.
For Major Fitch's original paper of gift is still on file, and bears
date, New Haven, October i6, 1701 ; while we have also a letter
from Judge Sewall in Boston, acknowledging the receipt of letters
of the 15th and i6th from Mr. Pierpont, telling him of the success-
ful passage of the charter. The daily proceedings of the Assembly
are unfortunately not in existence, and the Act of course bears as
its official date the 9th of October, the day of the meeting of the
Court; but since we know from Judge Sewall that it was granted
not after the i6th, and since on Clap's authority for Major Fitch's
gift, it was not granted before the i6th, we are brought to that
day for our anniversary; and it may not be a mere accident that
the trustees choose October 16, 1702, for holding the first annual
Commencement of the institution; nay, it is all the more likely that
the day was chosen as being the anniversary of the day of incor-
poration, since in 1702 the i6th of October fell on Friday, an
inconvenient part of the week for ministers to meet in those days
of slow travel. The day to which they were accustomed at Harvard
for Commencement was the first Wednesday of July."
Behold then the Collegiate School provided with a charter, and
"Sec N. E. Geneal. and Hist Register, xjcxiii, 423; and Sewall's Diary,
pastim.
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72 THE FOUNDING OF YALE COLLEGE
with a promise from Major Fitch of 637 acres of land in a remote
comer of the colony, and of glass and nails to build a college house.
The story of the founding is not, however, complete without some
account of the organization of the trustees in their first recorded
meeting. It is, by the way, another evidence that this was the
beginning of their existence as a body, that at this point begin
their formal records. If they had held earlier meetings, the system-
atic method with which they now begin to keep account of their
proceedings would certainly have operated to produce some similar
entry of those occasions.
Seven of the Board met at Saybrook, on Tuesday, November
II, a month after the charter was given, and remained in session
until Friday. The three absentees were Noyes of Stonington,
Mather of Windsor (who never attended any subsequent meeting),
and Woodbridge of Hartford. Letters of excuse from the first
two are preserved ; Mr. Woodbridge was in Boston on a visit.
The trustees thus assembled formally resolved under the charter
that they "do order and appoint that there shall [be] and hereby
is erected and formed a Collegiate School, wherein shall be taught
the liberal arts and languages." They then adopted some general
rules for the transaction of business and the government of the
school ; providing, for instance, that the rector and tutors should
remain in office only during good behavior (a rule which came
into play in Rector Cutler's time) ; that no student should be
degraded or expelled except by a quorum of the trustees acting
with the rector, and even then providing for a right of appeal to a
two-thirds vote in a full meeting of the trustees (a rule which
perhaps Mr, Webb, of Fairfield, proposed, who was once himself,
when a sophomore at Harvard, rather summarily expelled for
"abusing of the freshmen," and only got back after much tribula-
tion) ; and again that the rector with the help of such neighboring
ministers as he could obtain, should examine candidates, "and find-
ing them duly prepared and expert in Latin and Greek authors,
both poetic and oratorical, as also ready in making good Latin, shall
grant them admission."
They voted to fix the college at Saybrook, "upon mature con-
sideration that so all parts of the Connecticut colony, with the
neighboring colony, may be best accommodated." "The neighbor-
ing colony" was of course Massachusetts, for the western part of
which there was easy access to Saybrook by the river ; but in point
of fact this expectation of students from that province was hardly
justified. It may be interesting to note that of the fifty-five who
graduated from the school while at Saybrook, four were from
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THE FOUNDING OF YALE COLLEGE 73
Long Island, three from western Massachusetts, two from south-
eastern Massachusetts, one from Philadelphia, and the remainit^
torty-five from Connecticut. It was not till 1719 that New York
city furnished a graduate, nor until 1722 that Rhode Island was
represented on the roll. Of the forty-five Connecticut graduates,
from 1703 to 1716, Saybrook furnished nine, the most from any
one place, a preeminence which it resigned in haste as soon as the
school left its bounds. In general, two-thirds of the Connecticut
boys within these dates were from the seacoast towns, and one-
third from the inland ; in fair proportion, perhaps, to the popula-
tion of the two sections. Doubtless "New Haven and Hartford
were also discussed as sites for the college; but Saybrook was pre-
ferred as a compromise, and as comparatively easy of access both
from the seaboard towns and up-river settlements.
As the next business of the meeting, says the record, after much
debate and consideration had, the trustees present unanimously
agreed and concluded to request Mr. Chauncy, under the title and
character of rector, to take the care of the school and remove to
Saybrook. He was the oldest trustee in attendance, and the vote
may have been in a measure complimentary. He declined, however,
on the ground of age and other circumstances. The next oldest
was Mr. Buckingham, who alone of all the number had not received
a college degree, and this circumstance would make his appointment
inexpedient. Mr, Pierson, the next in age, was then elected, who
took the subject into consideration, agreeing meantime to "take
charge of such students as the country shall see fit to send him."
It may be noticed that among the college papers are preserved
some memoranda set down by Mr. Pierpont, apparently before
leaving home, of things to be done at this meeting. The business
he laid out was all attended to, constituting the major part of all
that was done, showing that he was depended on to take the lead;
and on his programme one item is, "to provide if Mr. Pierson
refuse," There is no reference to Mr. Chauncy, and the entry
implies that the most influential of the trustees was expecting from
the beginning that Mr. Pierson would be the rector.
After this the trustees filled the existing vacancy in their own
number by the election of Samuel Russel, of Branford, whom we
have already seen as one of the prime movers in the project.
The Board then prescribed further rules for the rector and stu-
dents. He was to instruct in theoretical divinity, and in no other
system than what is laid down by the Board. The Assembly's
Catechism in Latin, and Ames's Theological Theses were to be
recited weekly and expounded by the rector. The Scriptures were
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74 THE FOUNDIKG OF YALE COLLEGE
to be read daily at morning and evening prayers, by the students,
as at Harvard, and the rector to expound them ; and on Sunday
either he shall expound practical divinity, or shall cause the under-
graduate students to repeat sermons. Graduate students were to
pay ten shillings annual tuition, while the undergraduates paid
thirty shilhngs. The degree of Bachelor of Arts was to be given
after four years' residence, and that of Master of Arts three years
later ; but, for the present, public commencements were prohibited,
and the time for each degree might be shortened one year.
The rules of Harvard College were to be used in all cases not
provided for. A treasurer was appointed, Mr. Nathaniel Lynde, of
Saybrook, otherwise notable as a special benefactor of the school,
and a vote passed allowing the undergraduates at the Rector's dis-
cretion to use "the Collegiate library." The mention of a library
advises us that by this time a collection of books was in hand, and
the question arises, when were they contributed. In this connection
let me read from the letter which James Noyes, of Stonii^on, sent
as his excuse for not attending this meeting. It is directed to Mr.
Pierpont and dated Oct. 28; "Yours came to hand, subscribed by
the other Reverend gentlemen. Unto them and you 1 give my ser-
vice with hearty thanks for your kindness when with you. In
answer to your letter, I return that I am aged, crazy, my will is
more than my strength. We rode early and late coming home, and
I have not been well since. ... I know no call I have to come,
or any trust put in me as to that matter, further than voluntarily
for myself I am engaged; to me it is a journey over two rivers, and
I am at the extreme part of the colony, . . , Probably my brother
will be with you. I do hereby desire and tmpower him to give out
of my books at his house my full proportion, and in nothing would
I be behindhand in so public a good and shall take all opportunities
to promote it, but hope Mr. Saltonstall, a young, active man. will
excite others of this county ; my remoteness disadvantageth me to
converse with them. I humbly pray the God of heaven to direct
and spirit you in the matter (that are entrusted and have a full
call thereto) and also to succeed the motion with his smile thereon,
for his glory and the public interest ; and also I believe what you
do therein will be accepted of God and men and will at last have a
full reward, in which I would put in for a share according to my
poor capacity ... I intend at night to write more fully to my
dear brother at Lyme, with order about books."
I quote this letter, interesting on other accounts, to call atten-
tion to the proposition about giving books at this meeting in Say-
brook. It does not read as if this venerable writer had made a
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THE FOUNDING OF YALE COLLEGE 75
journey the year before to Branford, and deposited there his pro-
portion of the cart load of folios; yet if Rector Clap is to be
followed, all the trustees were then present with their gifts.
I may be asked if I forget a list made out by President Stiles"
in 1784 of the books then in the College Library which he assumed
to have been given by the founders in 1700. But 1 judge that if
that list proves anything, it proves too much. The tradition gives
us forty volumes from ten founders; Dr. Stiles enumerates over
fifty volumes, and attributes these to three donors, Messrs. Chauncy,
Pierson, and Pierpont. Moreover, the nineteen volumes assigned
to Pierson are all found in a longer list in the college archives, of
books offered to the school from his library after his death by one
of his sons ; so that these at least were not in possession of the
college until years after 1700; and the same can be proved respect-
ing some at least of the other parts of Dr. Stiles' list.
But in transferring partially at least the gift of books, from its
mythical location at Branford in 1700, to the historical environments
of the meeting at Saybrook in November, 1701, I may be accused,
not merely of despising and degrading a delightful tradition, but
also of dishonoring the testimony of President Clap, by whom alone
the story is transmitted.
Let us look again at his account. His history was first drawn
up in 1747, and the college possesses that first draft in the author's
own hand. In this draft, the beginning of the movement for a
college is placed in 1701, and the first organization of the trustees
is found in the Saybrook meeting after the charter was granted;
and not until he reaches in his story the year 1702 does the author
state that "several of the trustees and others gave a number of
books out of their own libraries to begin a library for the college."
Also, seven years after composing this account, President Clap
published (in 1754) a pamphlet on the Religious Constitution of
Colleges, in which in tracing the history of Yale and giving an
account of the charter, he passes to the meeting at Saybrook, at
which, he says, the founders "make a formal foundation of the
college by an express declaration and giving a number of books
for a library." Up to this date, then, President Clap believed that
the gift of books was subsequent to the charter; and in this opinion
we might rest with him, rather than adopt the version which he
published later.
If I give my own explanation of his change of statement, it is
this: — in 1763 (a date between the two dates at which he printed
his different versions of this affair), he made before the General
" Printed in the University Quarterly, ii, 245.
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76 THE FOUNDING OF YALE COLLEGE
Assembly a successful defence of the right of the college to be
exempt from visitatorial power claimed for the Assembly as the
founders, and in this defence {as reported by himself in his Annals,
p. 71) he made and elaborated the point that books, money, and
land had been acquired by the trustees before they were incor-
porated, and that this made them the founders. He needed for this
occasion all the arguments he could lawfully adduce ; and I doubt
not that it was at this time he satisfied himself (not by inquiry at
first hand, for all those who could have given direct testimony
were long since dead), that there had been some gathering of books
before the charter was granted. It is not impugning the truth of
this general proposition to reject the details of the embellished
story, to point out that 1700 is an impossibly early date for the
event, and that there is no likelihood that all the ten clergymen
were ever present at or took part in such a contribution. As for
the actual date of the gift of books, we may perhaps infer from the
superscription of the letter of John Eliot already quoted (p. 64),
that there was a meeting of some of the "Elders deliberating of
a college" at Branford, about the ist of October, 1701, a week
before the charter was applied for: for Eliot addresses his reply
to Mr. Pierson "at Branford," — doubtless in accordance with infor-
mation that Pierson was to be there at that particular time. Very
possibly he met then and there with some of his friends to con-
sider the answers returned to the queries sent out, and to take
final order for the next week's work; and very possibly to make
themselves (independently of the General Assembly) the actual
founders of the college, the persons then met agreed to make or
did make donations as a nucleus of college property, and it may
be with reference to such an agreement that Mr, Noyes sent on his
message about books in November. All this is merely conjecture,
but it may supply the basis of the story told by President Clap;
but we are justified by the documents on hand in denying entirely
that the gift of books was so formal as he represents it, and espe-
cially that it could have been earlier than the few days preceding
the grant of a charter.
Among the interesting questions which my subject suggests,
one is, how far did the founders mean to make the school a
Theological Seminary?
The charter claims to be grounded on a petition expressing the
desires of "several well-disposed and public-spirited persons [out]
of their sincere regard to and zeal for the upholding and propa-
gating of the Christian Protestant religion by a succession of
learned and orthodox men" — the last phrase, I think, fairly includ-
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THE FOUNDING OF YALE COLLEGE 77
ing religious laymen as well as clergy ; and the school is described
as a place "wherein youth may be instructed in the arts and sciences,
who through the blessing of Almighty God may be fitted for public
employment, both in church and civil state."
This phraseology, though it appears in the Boston draft of the
charter, may be confidently traced back, through the instructions
which Mr. Pierpont furnished for this draft, to the terms in which
his predecessor, John Davenport, was wont to inculcate his projects
of higher education for New Haven colony. To take but one ot
a group of instances, compare it with the phrase used in setting up
the free school in New Haven in 1645. "^^^ ^^^ better training of
youth in this town, that through God's blessing they may be fitted
for public service hereafter either in church or commonwealth."
So that the words as well as the spirit of Davenport were echoed
in the charter of the college which a manifest destiny has restored
to the city which he founded.
After the charter, at the first meeting of the trustees, they
declare, as we have seen, the erection of "a Collegiate School,
wherein shall be taught the liberal arts and languages." Apparently,
they were willing to leave the development of the course of study
to the rector's discretion, and were only careful, when descending
to particular injunctions, to specify that certain theological studies
must not be neglected.
Unquestionably, their design was to erect a school which should
be to the next generation what Harvard had been to them. By the
charter of that college, ability to translate the Bible from the
original tongues into Latin, and to chop logic were the requisites
for the first degree. Possibly a distrust of Harvard tendencies
may have inspired a more decidedly orthodox tincture in the ele-
ments of instruction proposed for the new school; but it would not
wipe out nor pervert the general likeness in plan.
Drawing their ideal, through the Harvard channel, from the great
English universities, which had lost their special relation to the
ministry with the revival of letters, these founders could not be
ignorant of the wider sphere of learning which had opened to the
older institutions, and it is a poor judgment of their breadth and
foresight which refuses the natural meaning of the only formal
declarations of their purpose which they left on record. Turn
again to those two phrases, deliberately framed to express their
object — "a school wherein shall be taught the liberal arts and
languages;" "a school wherein youth may be instructed in the arts
and sciences, who through the blessing of Almighty God may be
fitted for public employment, both in church and civil state." Thank
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78 THE FOUNDING OF YALE COLLEGE
God for that word both! In any case, perhaps, they builded better
than they knew ; but let us not deny them a. knowiedge and a hope
proportioned to their age and opportunities.
As to the facts, our trustees must have been aware, in general,
that the ministerial g:raduates of Harvard, from its founding to
their time (sixty years), were but fifty-two per cent, of the whole
number. For the like period in Yale College after its founding,
the ministers numbered forty-seven per cent. ; or, to take the most
promising period, while the school tarried at Saybrook, seventy-
five per cent, of the graduates entered the ministry; but of this
large proportion, only a single individual entered it without some
substantial subsequent training. This striking exception was Jacob
Heminway (class of 1704), the first student under Rector Pierson,
and the only one for at least a half-year, and perhaps from this state
of things having exceptional advantages; so that, when after
graduating he came home to East Haven, he commended himself to
the farmers of the neighborhood as competent to instruct them,
and actually began to conduct worship there only two months after
leaving his Alma Mater, the happy result of which was that after
a trial of his growing gifts for almost seven years, the East Haven
church was organized of which he was made the first pastor.
I find that on the average these Saybrook graduates did not begin
to preach until nearly three years after taking their first degree —
spending the interval either at the college, as candidates for the
degree of Master, or with some minister in his parish. In the whole
number (forty-two), I find but half a dozen cases (besides Hemin-
way's), where less than two years' preparation seems to have inter-
vened between graduation and license to preach, while the average
date of ordination in all the known instances among these Saybrook
pupils was six and one-half years from graduation. This was
characteristic of that and the earlier time; if the chance of appear-
ing early in the pulpit was granted, there was with it a commend-
able deliberation in proceeding to the further step of formal
induction into the ministry. Nor were these delays due to extreme
youth in the candidates : the average age at graduation, as well as
the age of the greatest number, of those in this period who became
ministers was between twenty and twenty-one years.
These statistics may help to show that, while the college at first
unquestionably made theology one prominent study (languages,
logic, mathematics, and physics being included in the curriculum),
yet it was not falriy described (as by President Qap) as "a society
of ministers for training up persons for the work of the ministry,"
but rather a school for the higher training of all who would use it.
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THE FOUNDING OF YALE COLLEGE 79
in general learning, religious learning making a lai^e part of the
whole. Then, when the college had graduated a Bachelor of Arts,
the additional two or three years' course which led those who
remained to the Master's degree was designed for the study of
theology.
Not a word of testimony comes from the founders which does
not agree with this idea. Rector Pierson, the ofHcial exponent of
their scheme, chose as his single contribution to the efficiency of
the college curriculum the preparation of a text-book in Physics, —
not the work which an enthusiastic theological professor would
deem most necessary or most natural. As for the later testimony,
there is little or none till President Clap's time. The preachers of
the annual Election sermons sometimes refer to the college as "The
School of the Prophets," but it sounds like a mere touch of pro-
fessional rhetoric.
President Clap, however, when arguing the right of the college
to set up a church and constitute a separate religious society, saw
the need of, and made powerful use of, the proposition that "the
great design of founding this school was to educate ministers in
our own way." He reiterates the statement in many forms in his
various publications, and it is replied to by some of his many
opponents. After all the test of fact is safest, and when I find
that under his own administration, in the decade in which he made
the assertion I have just quoted, only twenty-eight per cent, became
"ministers in our own way." the question is, must we conclude
that so far as seventy-two per cent, of the students were concerned,
the college course was a failure and a fraud, or shall we admit
that the college had other equally great designs which have never
lost their power.
In drawing these conclusions, I would not obscure the fact that
the founders undoubtedly looked to the college as a source whence
the colony should obtain a permanent succession of learned minis-
ters; but I wish to emphasize also the other half of the truth, that
they did not plan for this at any sacrifice of the essential and under-
stood character of a university after the English type.
I add to this hasty sketch a brief notice of the founders, whose
names are given in the charter in the order of college age.
The senior trustee, James Noyes, son of an English rector, who
came to Massachusetts and settled in the ministry in Newhuiy, was
himself a graduate of Harvard in 1659, beginning to preach in
Stonington five years after. In that pastoral charge he remained
for upwards of fifty years, dying in 1719, at the age of eighty. He
was, then, over sixty when the charter was granted, and pleaded
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So THE FOUNDING OF YALE COLLEGE
age and feebleness as excuses for not taking active part in what
ensued. Later, his youngest son having graduated here, and after
eminent success in the tutorship having passed from that station
to the pulpit of the First Church in this city, the father took a
deeper interest in the struggles of the college, as well as in New
Haven, and was a staunch advocate of the wisdom of removal here.
Next in age was Israel Chauncy, youngest son of the famous
President of Harvard College, and two years later than Noyes in
his graduation. He came to Stratford early in 1665, assisting the
minister, Mr. Blakeman, and after his death was settled the next
year as his successor. He was the hero of what was called the
leather mitten ordination, from the apocryphal story, that at his
induction into the ministry laymen joined in the imposition of hands,
for one of the last times in Connecticut history, and that Elder
Brinsmade forgetting to remove his leather mitten gave a nickname
to the ceremony which brought his share of it into disrepute. So
long as he lived, Mr. Chauncy was faithful in the discharge of his
duties as trustee, hut he died of a fever in the second spring after
the charter was obtained.
Thomas Buckingham, whose name stands next, was a native of
Milford. He did not go to college, but spent a successful ministry
of over forty years in Saybrook. where he died in 1709, the year
after the meeting there of that synod of Connecticut churches, of
which James Noyes and he were the Moderators, and which framed
the famous Saybrook platform. He, as well as Mr. Chauncy, had
no sons young enough for education here; but a grandson soon
represented the name of Buckingham on the triennial, and the col-
lege is proud to count among other descendants of the Saybrook
pastor one of her most noble departed benefactors, and two of her
most honored hving officers,^"
Abraham Pierson, the fourth in seniority, though probably not
born in Connecticut, was bred here, his father being the first minister
of Branford. After his graduation at Harvard in 1668 he may
have met Buckingham at Milford, where he is said to have studied
theology. After a ministry of upwards of twenty years in New
Jersey, he spent the last thirteen years of his life in the service of
the church in Killingworth. The college records down to his death
in 1707 show that he deserves grateful remembrance for very
devoted and judicious service, in a day when little honor and
emolument compensated for the labors of the presidency. And
when one of his successors went over to Episcopacy, one letter-
writer recalled Pierson's virtues by the sentence, "Our school
' William A. Buckingham, Leonard Bacon, Thomas A. Thacher.
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THE POUNDING OF VALE COLLEGE 8t
gloried and flourished under its first rector, a pattern of piety, a
man of modest behavior, of solid learning and sound principles,
free from the least Arminian or lLiHscoi>al taint."
Next to Pierson stands the name of Samuel Mather, pastor of the
church in Windsor, and nephew of President Increase Mather.
Though he lived until 1728, he was early laid aside from active
bbors, and probably for this reason took no part in college matters.
The letter written by an amanuensis to the meeting of 1701 is the
only trace of his existence so far as we are concerned; through
his sons a line of descendants has graduated at the college.
Samuel Andrew, to whom we come next, was a native of Cam-
bridge, graduating in 1675 a"d aferward a resident Fellow and
entrusted with a large share of the government of Harvard for
between five and six years. His ministerial life of over half a cen-
tury was all spem in Milford. From the beginning he was the
warm friend of Oic college, and on I'iltsoii's death succeeded to the
Rectorship as a pro tempore substitute and so served for a dozen
years, including the eventful period of the removal to New Haven,
which he led in securing. His son-in-law, Mr. Cutler, was then
through his influence appointed reclur, but the circumstances under
which he speedily left the position' were such as to cause Mr.
Andrew keen mortilication. as well as tu destroy his predominance
in the cori>oration. He survived, however, all his early associates,
and at death was commemorated with this epitaph, "a singular
ornament and blessing in every cai>acity and relation, of exemplary
holiness and unwearied labors, modest, courteous, and benevolent,
never fond of this world, earnestly pursuing and recommending a
better, greatly esteemed in life and lamented at death." His
descendants of the name have been graduated at the college rn every
generation since.
Timothy Woodbridge was an Enf:lishman by birth, a fellow
townsman of Mr. Noyes and a classmate of Mr. Andrew. His
ministry over the First Church in Hartford extended from 1685
till his death in 173J. Xol l>eing one of the earliest promoters of
the college, he became later the leader of the minority in favor of
removal to Hartford, but when fairly lieaten accq>tcd the situation,
and took a dignified and useful jiart in the administration of alTairs
at New Haven. The humble conditions of life in a Connecticut
ministry then are shown by the fact that .so far as iwsterity has the
means of judging he was the most voluminous author iif early
trustees, his published works amounting to three sermons. But
there was no printing press in Connecticut till 1709.
" Uai*. Hilt Soc. Collections, xtv, 397.
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THE FOUNDING OF YALE COLUIGE
James Pierpont, the eighth trustee in a^e. was born in Roxbury,
Mass,, graduated in 1681, and settled over the First Church of this
city from 1685 till his death in 1714, The papers of the college
during his life bear his impress more than that of any other man;
and I am convinced that he was looked to to determine and g^ide
the policy of the institution, as no one but the original and respon-
sible head of the movement would have been. I am convinced also
that the settlement of the college here after his death was but the
fulfilment of one of his plans which events then brought to perfec-
tion. And it is a fitting coincidence that twice in the history of the
college since, the President's chair has been filled with distinguished
honor by descendants of James Pierpont.
Noadiah Russel, next in order, was the only native of New Haven
on the list, the only native of Connecticut besides Buckingham.
Though born here, he was prepared for college in Massachusetts,
and after graduating in the class with Mr. Pierpont and under the
instruction of Mr. Andrew, became a tutor and student of theology
at Cambridge. Later he was settled in Middletown, and after a
pastorate of twenty-five years, died there in 1713, So far as the
college records show, he was never absent from a single meeting
of the trustees; and besides this testimony of fidelity to his trust,
I have only to quote the quaint record which President Stiles gives,"
on the authority of one who remembered him: — "A little man in
stature, pious and holy, always visited all his flock round twice a
year, and giving them good and holy counsel ; and," adds the
writer, "ministers savored more of heavenly conversation then than
they do now." In his case alone, of all the founders, direct
descendants of the name in one line have been represented in every
generation since, among the graduates of the college.
The youngest trustee was Joseph Webb, a native of Boston, and
pastor at Fairfield for almost forty years. The fact that he and
Mr. Chauncy married sisters reminds us that the bonds of family
connection between these early trustees were remarkably numerous.
The same relationship existed between Mather and Andrew ; Pier-
pont was the nephew of Pierson by one marriage, and the stepson
of Buckingham by another; Noyes and Woodbridge were cousins;
the children of Pierson and Woodbridge intermarried; while in
their college days they must almost all have been thrown into
groups of more or less intimate acquaintance; to say nothing of
their proper ministerial fellowship.
To the faith, the foresight, and the prayers of these undistin-
guished country ministers, all who honor Yale College owe a debt
" Diary, ii, 4?2.
I
„Gooali
^
THE FOUNDING OF YALE COLLEGE 85
of lasting i^nitilude. As (or those who carry on the college which
they were inspired to begin, the best evidence of regard for their
spirit and their work still lies in a constant elaboration of their
grand design to niake a school "wherein youth may be instructed
in the arts and sciences, who through the blessing of Almighty
God may be fitted for public employment both in church and civil
state."
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GOVEENOE ELIHD YALE.
[From the Papers of the New Haven Colon; Historical Society, Vol. Ill,
[682. Read December, i8;a]
On January 4, 1640, in the second year after the settlement of
New Haven, the General Court agreed to make a division of certain
lands in the town, according to the proportion of estate which every
planter had given in (». e., his personal property here, independent
of whatever estate he had left behind him in the old country) and
the number of heads in his family, excluding servants. The list
made out in consequence stands in our Colony Records," and is
of course of the first importance in regard to our earliest settlers.
At the head is the name of "Mr. Theophilus Eaton," with a family
of six persons, and an estate of £3000 (thrice as large as that of
any other planter, and almost ten per cent, of the whole amount) ;
and next after him and his brother and mother, comes the name of
his step-son, David Yale, unmarried, with an estate of ^300.
While Governor Eaton was a London merchant, some fifteen
years before, he had married, as his second wife, Anne, the widow
of David Yale, of the ancient family of Yale, of Denbighshire, in
North Wales. Cotton Mather, in his LJfe of Eaton,'" which appears
to have been written from family memoranda, describes this wife
of the Governor as "a Prudent and Pious Widow, the Daughter
of the Bishop of Chester;" and though a modern critic might con-
clude from the records of the New Haven Church that neither her
prudence nor her piety were conspicuous in later days, yet there
is a strong probability, from the known intimacy of the Mather and
Eaton households, that the author of the Magnalia had good
grounds for his statement of the widow Yale's parentage. Pro-
fessor Kingsley's inference, however, that her father was Thomas
Morton, a somewhat famous Bishop of Chester (1616-19) and
later of Lichfield and of Durham, was certainly wrong; it can be
proved that he lived and ied unmarried; and it is now known"
that she was a daughter of Bishop Morton's predecessor, George
" Hoadly's edition, volume i, p. 91.
" Magnalia, Book 2, chapter \x.
" Earwaker's East Cheshire, vol. II, p. 33.
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COVERXOR ELIHU YAI^ 8S
Lloyd, a Welshman, who occupied the see from 1604 to 1615, when
he died at the age of fifty-five.
By her first marriage she had two sons surviving, David and
Thomas Yale, and a daughter Ann, who married Governor Hopkins
of Connecticut.
When their step-father joined with John Davenport in leading
a colony into the Western wilderness, the two Yales, then probably
not far from twenty years of age, embarked with the company,
and so we find David, undoubtedly the elder, on the first grand list
of New Haven. Thomas Yale's name is also on the list, with a
smaller estate.
David is not traceable here later than March, 1641 ; and he seems
soon after to have disposed of his landed estate to his brother, and
before April, 1644, to have settled in Boston as a merchant. The
Boston registry shows in May and August, 1644, the birth and
death of Elizabeth, daughter of David and Ursula Yale; and in
1645 31"' '^52 the births of their sons David and Theophilus; but
the record is merely an early transcript of a missing original, and
beside these names we seek in vain for the birth, perhaps on April
5, 1649. °^ the son Elihu, who is the subject of this sketch. It will
appear later that this was undoubtedly his parentage, and we must
accept the apparent imperfection of the official record as an unfor-
tunate fact, but not as a contrary argument. It is of course possible
that he was bom during some temporary absence of his parents
from Boston, or that the copyist has omitted an entry which was in
the original record.
But though New England bom, Elihu Yale was an early emi-
grant, so that Cotton Mather in writing to him many years after
could address him with the reminder that he had "left his native
country in such an early infancy as to be incapable of remembering
anything in it." {Quincy's Hist, of Harvard Univ., i, 524.)
His father, as the records sufficiently indicate, was an active and
thriving merchant, but not in cordial sympathy with the civil and
religious constitution of the colony. Accordingly, in May, 1646,
he was induced to join with six other more or less uneasy individuals
in signing a famous petition to the General Court of Massachusetts
Bay for the redress of certain alleged grievances, specifically
remonstrating at the non-admission to the churches here of those
who acknowledged the established religion of England, and the
non-participation of the inhabitants generally (outside of church
members) in the management of civil affairs as voters and office-
bearers. The authorities of Massachusetts were by no means ready
for such a subversion of the principles of Church and State as by
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86 GOVERNOR ELIHU YALE
them constituted, and the revolutionary petition — especially offensive
for its distinct threat of appeal to the parliamentary government in
England — was answered, not merely by a carefully- drawn counter-
argument, but by the more personal argument of heavy fines.
David Yale paid ^30 (corresponding at least to $600 now) into
the public treasury for his appearance as the cat's paw of older
plotters in this impudent attempt to stir up a revolution in the
Puritan colony. The result made his position somewhat uncomfort-
able, apparently ; it may be that his return to England, a few years
after, was a consequence and not an unwelcome one. Nor is it
likely that we infer too much in saying that the father's unpleasant
experience in Massachusetts Bay led the son in his turn to bestow
his gifts on the feeble Collegiate School of Connecticut rather than
on the older college at Cambridge, under shadow of which he was
bom.
On July 5, 1651, David Yale executed a power of attorney to
two agents to dispose of his Boston estate (purchased of Edward
Bendall in 1645), on the present site of Pemberton Square, which
shows that his departure from the colony was then determined: he
probably left at once for England, although the record of the birth
of another son in Boston in the following January seems to show
that the removal of his family was deferred until 1652, when the
son Elihu was three years old. The Boston residence was not sold
until September, 1653. The father probably settled at once in Lon-
don, and except a chance notice of his being in New England on a
visit in the summer of 1659 (Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., 4th series, vii,
501), the next trace of him is in connection with putting his son
Elihu to school.
A little earlier than this, at the time of the execution of King
Charles, the master of the well-known Merchant Tailors' School
in London, supported by the rich company of that name, was Wil-
liam Dugard, a graduate of Cambridge, a good scholar and withal
an excellent printer, who combined the business of his trade with
his other duties. He was the chief printer of the first editions of
the Eikon Basilike, attributed to the late king, and in 1650 provoked
the Commonwealth authorities still further by printing an English
edition of the Defence of the King by Salmasius ; for this his
mastership was taken away, and he was thrown into prison.
Brought to terms by this, and restored to his office, he also printed
Milton's answer to Salmasius; but in 1661 was again dismissed
from his place, though not for political reasons, and started a pri-
vate school in Coleman street, in the city, some of the registers of
admission to which are still preserved; and among the entries.
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GOVERNOR EtlHU YALE 8?
under date of September i, 1662, is the name of "Elihu Yale. 3d
son of Mr. David Yale, merchant, born in New England, 1649."
(Notes & Queries, zd ser,, ix, 101.) The date of birth may be
questioned, but there can be no doubt that this was the boy for
whom Yale College is named, who now in the autumn of 1662, in
his 14th or 15th year, juincd Master Dugard's school, in Coleman
street, the same short and narrow street in which stood the ]>arish
church of St. Stephen's, memorable to us as the church of which
John Davenport was vicar, and the spiritual parent of the first
church of New Haven.
I may stop to sum up here, once for all, the conflicting evidence
as to the dale of Elihu Vale's birth. The school record, as we see,
gives i64(j, and the same year is given in a brief inscription on the
portrait painted from life and now owned by the college; while
April 5, 1648. is given in early quotations of the legend on his
monument, which is now obliterated. 1 am inclined to think that
the two independent concurring testimonies for i64<j are of more
weight than the one for 1648. though April 5 may still have a good
claim for the month and day of the year.
But the training of Elihu Yale by Milton's friend. Master Dugard,
was of the briefest ; for death ended Dugard's teaching three
months after Yale's admission.
We hear no more of his school experience: but we know the
setting of public events, in which hu grew from boy to man. and
that no other equally brief period in I^ndon history has exceeded
this in interest and excitement, lie was old enough to have seen
Cromwell riding in l^ndon streets with his guards; to have joined
in the silent concourse at his funeral, and in the shouts of joy at
the Restoration. He lived through the agonies of the great plague;
he saw the dcvasiaiion of the great fire. If it pleased him. he may
have seen Milton walking in the I'ark. and Dryden lounging at
Will's cotTec-hnusc ; he may have heard Jeremy Taylor and Kichard
Baxter preaching in London pulpits, and (leorge Fox and \Vm.
Penn exhorting in Quaker meeting. lie saw the last of an older
order of things, like nothing since: and he grew np with the
beginnings of what we may fairly call Modern England.
In July. 1665. while Pepys was noting, in his wonderful diary,
the bill of mortality in l^ndon with above 1700 dying weekly of
tfic plague, "David Yale, of the Parish of Cripplcgatc. merchant,
finding himself," as the record runs, ".subject to disicm|>ers and
sickness," made his last will and testament, which was proved by
his only surviving child, Elihu, thirty-four years later. In this he
provides for his wife Ursula and for his four sons. David, Elihu,
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88 COVEKNOK ELIHU YALE
Theophilus. and Thomas. The eldest son is to have the family
estate in Denbighshire (apparently near the town of Llangollen),
and other houses and lands lately purchased near Wrexham in the
same county are to be sold for the benefit of the younger sons, with
the expectation of furnishing them each with a legacy of ^300.
over and above what would come from the division of his personal
estate. The eldest son is also to have the reversion of the lands
in Derbyshire which David Yale held in trust for the support of
his "distressed sister, Mrs. Ann Hopkins."
With this document our knowledge of the father ceases ;** for
though he calls himself in the looser sense of that term a "mer-
chant," his name is not entered in the earliest London Directory,
the "Collection of Names of the Merchants ((. e.. Bankers) living
in and about the City of London," in 1677 ; and now the scene shifts
from England to the East.
At the end of the sixteenth century a charter had been granted
by Queen Elizabeth to a Company of London merchants trading
with the East Indies, by which they secured a monopoly of that
trade, so far as not possessed by friendly European powers. The
Portuguese had already been established in the Peninsula for a
hundred years, and simultaneously with the English the Dutch took
a hand in the lucrative traffic.
The first English trading house was at Surat, high up on the
Western Coast ; but this was not enough ; the Eastern side had
superior attractions from its offering certain goods, especially the
beautifully dyed or painted calicoes, much in demand not only in
Europe, but still more in Farther India and the islands to the east-
ward. But the English attempts to establish a permanent station
on the Coromandel Coast were unsuccessful until in 1639, the same
year in which civil government was set up on the soil of New
Haven, a narrow strip of land, six miles long and a mile in breadth,
was purchased of the native ruler of the middle Eastern coast.
The shore was sandy and harborless ; but the close proximity of
the flourishing Portuguese city of St. Thomas augured well for
the security of the new settlement, and the further circumstance
that the territory included a small island, about as large as our
College Square, fixed the bargain. The island was at once fortified,
and as none hut Europeans were allowed to live on it, this became
known as White town, or from the name given to the fortifications.
Fort St. Geoi^e; while a Black Town quickly sprang up on the
"Palmer's History of the Wrexham Parish Church shows that he died
there in January, 1690, in his 76th year. His wife. Ursula, died in February,
1698, in her 74tb year.
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GOVESNOR ELIHU YALE 89
adjacent shore; and both settlements together were known as
Madras.
In its earliest years the population of the Fort was very scanty,
perhaps twenty or thirty servants of the Company, and a small
garrison; but before long the neighboring Portuguese city was
broken up by a native assault, and many of the refugees were
received in Fort St. George, and built themselves dwellings there;
and with the growth of the Company's trade came an increasing
official population.
At the head of affairs was the agent of the East India Company,
styled the Governor of the settlement and afterwards the Presi-
dent, who was also the commander of the garrison ; he was lodged
in a stately mansion in the center of the island, and kept an open
table at which all of the Company's servants were expected to
report themselves every day at dinner. Next to him were a book-
keeper (or treasurer), a warehouse keeper (or custom house
inspector), and a collector of taxes; these with some trusted mer-
chants made up the Council, who decided with the Governor all
matters of business concerning the settlement and its trade, except
so far as orders from home took precedence. Under these were the
subordinates, all of whom were lodged and fed at the Company's
expense.
Salaries were notoriously and ludicrously small, — from the Gov-
ernor's at fioo a year down to the apprentices' at £5; it was
expected that officers and men would indulge in private ventures of
their own in Eastern ports, while nominally promoting the Com-
pany's trade. Then too the opportunities for levying extra and
illegal taxes on the natives who sold goods to the Company, were
so evident that they may be said to have been expected and connived
at; while the want of the restraints of family life, and the close
neighborhood of the Black Town with its temptations to the grosser
forms of dissipation made the Fort a poor school of morals for
any new comer, however correct his principles and his life before
leaving England.
It was about 1670, when just past his majority, that Elihu Yale
emigrated to Madras to make his fortune as a merchant. The
details of his rise there are all wanting; but he probably began in
the lowest grade of the service, as an apprentice, rising from
that to the successive ranks of writer, factor, and merchant.**
We fix the date of his beginning by his casual mention in a docu-
ment in 1691, of twenty years' diligent service in India; but the
first notice of him in print is in describing the solemnity of pro-
* Later information shows that fae began his service in 1673, as a writer.
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90 GOVEKNOR ELIHU YALE
claimit^ king James II. at Madras in August, 1685. There was
a grand procession of all the chief merchants, English and foreign,
■ great numbers of the inhabitants of the Gentoo town, with arms
and elephants and kettle drums and native music, besides twelve
English trumpets; and in the chief place of honor was a troop
commanded and led by the President, and the rear brought up by
Mr. Elihu Yale.*' He had then reached, as appears by the record
of the succeeding month, the rank of second member of council,
and less than two years later had become the senior or first mem-
ber, — only subordinate, that is, to the Governor or President
himself.
At this time the Sultan of Golconda, the petty Mohammedan
ruler in whose domains the English fort was situate, was attacked
by the great Indian emperor reigning at Delhi, Aurung-Zeb, and
there vras need in the complications which might arise of firmer
qualities in the Presidency at Madras than the present incumbent,
Mr. Giflford, Had shown.
Regular promotion was the principle of the service, and accord-
ingly the directors in London, acting by their Governor, Sir Josiah
Child, the eminent writer on finance, sent out orders which were
received at Madras on the 23d of July, 1687, retiring President
Gifford, and appointing Elihu Yale his successor.
Two months later the great Mogul succeeded in conquering the
fortress of Golconda, and became master in consequence of the
Northern Camatic, the province including Madras; and so it was
one of the earliest public duties of our American-born President
Yale to proclaim on the part of Englishmen the formal ceremonies
of submission to the last and one of the greatest of the great
monarchs of India.
The Mogul proved to be dissatisfied with the small rental (about
$2000 a year) paid for the occupancy of the Madras territory, and
attempted to extort additional sums; and threats were heard of
his intending to besiege the fort and destroy all the English in his
dominions. The defences were quietly strengthened in consequence,
and at the same time conciliatory messages were sent to the
Emperor, for which last the President was roundly rebuked by
his superiors at home.
In 1689 the accession of William of Orange to the English throne
brought a new complication. The rule of William meant war with
France, and that meant for Madras a collision between her com-
merce and the French settlement at Pondicherry, eighty miles down
the coast. But the same event brought the Dutch, who were nearer
■ J. Talboys Wheeler's Madr« in the Olden Time, 1, 14a
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GOVESNOR ELIHU YALE 91
neighbors on the north, into closer alliance, and the result of the
only naval engagement of importance which President Yale
superintended was favorable to the allies.
Meantime the city throve and grew rich. Within the narrow
limits of the island, garrisoned by seven hundred soldiers, were
crowded together about one hundred and thirty houses, containing
perhaps 300 English and many more Portuguese; while within the
hounds of the whole territory was a population reckoned at three
hundred thousand souls.
Over this multitude the President acting with the advice of
his council was absolute; and even by himself could wield very
great power. The old traveler, Dr. Fryer, who visited Madras
about 1675. describes with gusto the Governor's magnificence;
his personal guard of three or four hundred blacks; how he never
goes abroad without fifes, drums, trumpets, and a flag, being carried
in a gorgeous palankeen, and shaded by an ostrich- feather fan.
But the records show that this splendor had its penalties. Year
in and year out, a succession of mighty quarrels raged between the
Governor and his subordinates in the council, which were relieved
perhaps but not quenched by towering accusations and recrimina-
tions.
The prime cause of the attacks on the President appears to have
been certain frauds in trading operations alleged to have been com-
mitted by his brother, Thomas Yale, whose side the President
espoused. There were further charges against the President
directly, of arbitrary government, of neglect of duty, and of using
the Company's funds for private speculation.
In an answer to such charges, in 1691, he states that he has made
honestly during twenty years of dihgent service and trading in
India, above 500,000 pagodas, that is some $900,000,— which in
comparison with the ordinary fortunes of the time would be repre-
sented, I suppose, to our ideas in this century by three or four
millions. And as salaries were so insignificant, practically the whole
of this large amount must have been derived from the profits of
private trade. References in letters from the Company seem to
show that they regarded his success in accumulating as something
extraordinary and not altogether creditable; and yet, that he was
reckoned a public benefactor must be concluded from such a
sentence as this, in a letter of February, 1691, from the Court of
Directors: "We desire our President, Mr. Yale, whom God hath
blessed with so great an estate in our service, to set on foot another
generous charitable work before he leaves India, that is, the build-
ing of a church for the Protestant black people and Portuguese and
the slaves who serve them."
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93 COVEKNOR ELIEU YALE
The squabbles in Council were brought, however, to the ears of
the Directors, and accompanied with other charges, especially of
losing the trade with Sumatra.
A vote of censure was the final result, and a determination was
reached about the beginning of 1692 to remove Yale from office.
It was not, however, until November 23d, in that year, that the
vessel arrived which bore the commission of his successor, and
ended his reign of five years and four months.
The settlement of outstanding accounts between him and the
Company dragged through two or three years, and if one may
believe his representations to the home authorities, he was grievously
plundered by arbitrary seizure of his goods as well as by legal
decisions against him, and was kept a prisoner at the Fort when
longing to return to England, with design, as he says, "to enforce
him into despair, or otherwise to bring on him some distemper
that may hasten his death, which not long since by poison was near
affected." {Wheeler's Madras, i, 289.)
There are ample replies to these charges from the new President
and Council, detailing their proceedings in conformity to law, but
claiming that Yale had bribed the judges where he could, and that
his personal liberty had never been abridged. As to his suggestion
of poison, they say :
"They that know him will doubtless conclude with us, either this bold
reflection is no more than the accustomary strains of wicked policy, or a
salvo for his own credit against the common reports of the unusual deaths
of several of the Council when he was President; ... if they had been
living to declare, themselves, what others have since their death declared
as from them, some of Mr. Yale's instruments must have been prosecuted,
and he would have been put hard to it to clear his own reputation."
As to poisoning him :
"There was never a report that ever we heard, of anything that would
give him the least color for such a suggestion since the year 1691, when there
was a story told all about the town of a rogue that tempted Mrs. Nicks'
slave wench to poison her mistress; and because Mrs. Nicks then lived
with Mr. Yale at his garden-house (which she and Mrs. Pavia, with their
children, have and do frequent to the scandal of Christianity among the
heathens), therefore he takes occasion to suppose the design was against
himself and to insinuate that the now President and Council had a hand in it"
Probably the truth was not all on either side of the controversy ;
but after this we hear no more of these charges.
It may be worth while to notice that Yale's successor as President
was Nathaniel Higginson, another American, and a native of Guil-
ford in the New Haven Colony. He was a grandson of the Rev.
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COVERNOK ELIEU YALE 93
Francis Higginson, first minister at Salem, whose widow after his
early death came to New Haven, probably because she was a.
kinswoman of Governor Eaton. This may help to explain how her
grandson, after graduating at Harvard College and going to Eng-
land to seek his fortune, followed Governor Eaton's grandson by
marriage, Elihu Yale (who was Nathaniel Higginson's senior by
three or four years), to Madras, and by bis help was started in a
prosperous career there. Truth obliges me to add that Higginson
has left a cleaner record both of official and private life in the Indies
than his fellow -countryman and qua si-kinsman.
There is one other unpleasant story which appeared in print in
1727, in Capt. Alexander Hamilton's New Account of the East
Indies, and again in 1764, in the second edition of John Harris's
Collection of Voyages (i, 917), to this effect: — In comment on the
mildness of the penalties usually inflicted in the East India Gov-
ernment, it is mentioned that President Yale hanged one of his
grooms for riding a favorite horse of his without leave for two or
three days' journey into the country to take the air; but that Yale
was tried on his return to England and heavily fined for the
misdemeanor. Later writers enlarge the account by stating that
his return to England was in order to meet his trial for this murder.
The whole implication in the story as first told is that it was an
incident of his presidency, but as this does not appear among the
various charges against him at the time and as full seven years
elapsed before his return, and as no records of the trial can be
discovered in England, I confess that I feel some doubt about the
evidence. Not that it disagrees with his character; for the con-
clusion of any who study the original documents must be that our
hero, if hero at all, was like the image in Nebuchadnezzar's dream:
part of fine gold, and part of iron and clay. His surroundings must
be his most effective defence for a record of arrogance, cruelty,
sensuality, and greed."
In 1699, however, at the age of fifty-one, he sailed for England.
He found his father dead, and one of his first acts was to prove, as
sole survivor of the family, the will made many years before.
Of the property inherited in Wales he appears to have chosen
as his own residence, not the older family mansion, but the house
and lands mentioned by his father in 1665 as lately purchased in
" Further details of Yale's career in India are found in William HedBCi'
Diary (Hakluyt Society), vol. ii, p. 292, in John Anderson's English Inter-
course with Siam. and in the Diary and Consultation Book of the Governor
and Council of Fort St. George, edited by A. T. PrJngle. See, also, an
article by Henry D. Baker (Yale Coll. 1896) in the Yale Alumni Weekly,
vol. xxiii (1913).
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94 GOVERNOR ELIHU YALG
Wrexham. The house, Plasgronow, about two miles from Wrex-
ham church, a plain two-story stone cottage, of no architectural
beauty, 1 found still standing in 1873, and looking good for another
century ; but I hear that it was taken down about three years later.
But this was only a country-house, and he soon built in London
a stately residence, which is also I beiieve still standing, in Queen's
Square, Great Ormond street, a little to the east of the present
British Museum. The Square was a fashionable locality, laid out
and built up in the reign of Queen Anne, from whom came the
name. Though now buried in the heart of London, it was then,
and for at least fifty years later, quite on the outskirts of the city,
and the northern side was left open for the sake of the beautiful
landscape formed by the hills of Highgate and Hampstead, with the
intervening fields.
That his was a palatial establishment and filled with works of
art and curiosities of great value, appears from the fact that he
received as insurance from the Sun Fire OflSce in January, 1719,
on account of a recent fire in this house, the enormous sum of ^4,500.
In connection with his return from India the story has been
handed down that the first auction ever held in Great Britain was
an auction of goods brought home with him and sold in 1700; but
though this may have made an epoch in the history of auctions, it
is yet true that the system in its essentials can be traced further
back: — see, for instance, Pepys' Diary for 1660 (Nov. 6), for a
notice of the sale by inch of candle, a method of auction early in
vogue both on the Continent and in England."
It was in May, 1711, that Jeremiah Dummer, then the agent at
London for the Province of Massachusetts Bay, as later also for
the Colony of Connecticut, first mentions in a letter to the Rev,
James Pierpont of New Haven, the principal founder of the Col-
legiate School at Saybrook, that "Mr. Yale, formerly Governor of
Fort St. George, who has got a prodigious estate," having no son
is sending to Connecticut for a relation to make him his heir, that
is, I suppose, to secure the descent of the landed property in Wales
to one of the Yale name. "He told me lately," adds Dummer,
"that he intended to bestow a charity upon some college in Oxford,
under certain restrictions which he mentioned. But / think he
should rather do it to your college, seeing he is a New Englander
and I think a Connecticut man. If, therefore, when his kinsman
comes over, you will write him a proper letter on that subject, I will
take care to press it home." Pierpont was not the man to neglect
such an opportunity, and no doubt when young David Yale, a boy
" See, also, Notes and Queries, 5th series, xit, 95.
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GOVEKNOa ELIHU YALE 95
of fifteen, son of the oldest cousin of the Governor, was sent over,
next year, he carried "a proper letter," describing the achievements
and aspirations of the college at Saybrook.
About the same time Dummer was collecting from all his friends
a gift of books for the college library, and when these (upwards of
seven hundred volumes in all) were received in 1714, between thirty
and forty volumes (the most from any single donor except the col-
lector himself) were marked as given by Governor Yale. The selec-
tion, which was presumably his own, is an uncommonly broad one ;
there are good representatives of theology, history, chronology,
polite literature, classics, metaphysics, natural science, medicine,
political science, commerce, agriculture, military science, and archi-
tecture, — providing, we may say, some foundation for every one
of the present departments in the university which was then so
completely in embryo.
President Clap (Annals, p. 23) has stated that another gift of
three hundred volumes followed this three years later; but the
contemporary records, which appear to be full on this subject, have
no trace of it, and there is reason to think that the statement is a
wrong inference of Clap's from a vote passed in 1717 with
reference to other gifts by Dummer, or he may refer to the gift
of 1 7 18.
In October, 1716, a majority of the trustees of the Collegiate
School voted to remove it from Saybrook to New Haven, and in
the same month instruction was actually begun in temporary quar-
ters here ; and a year later the first college house was raised,— that
stupendous architectural monstrosity which stood till the Revolu-
tion in front of the present South College. We may form a good
idea of its appearance by imagining a wooden building of the length
of Durfee College, and of three-quarters its height, but of only
one-half the width, and painted moreover a beautiful cerulean color.
The trustees were utterly without resources to finish so el^:ant
a building; but they had probably begun it with a more or less
distinct hope of help from abroad, and in their extremity one good
friend of the college, Cotton Mather, of Boston, was appealed to,
whose powers of persuasion proved equal to the need. On January
14, 1718, he wrote to Governor Yale a remarkable letter, in which
he praises skilfully the Governor's well-known charity, and solicits
his favor towards the college at New Haven; with a happy vein
of prophecy, linking the two words that had never been joined
before, as they now stand linked to all the future. "Sir," said he,
"though you have felicities in your family, which, I pray, God con-
tinue and multiply, yet certainly, if what is forming at New Haven
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96 GOVERNOR ELIHU YALE
might wear the name of Yale College, it would be better than a
name of sons and daughters. And your munificence might easily
obtain for you a commemoration and perpetuation of your valuable
name, which would indeed be much better than an Egyptian
pyramid."
It is the fashion to sneer at Cotton Mather for his lively imagina-
tion and his overweening credulity; but no inspired vision could
have given him firmer ground for this faith that was in him. The
morsel, the merest fragment of his great possessions, which the rich
man, thoughtlessly perhaps, grudgingly perhaps, cast on the waters,
in response to this appeal, has not been lost or scattered; it has
preserved his name from extinction, long after his latest descendant
has moldered to dust, and given him a lasting fame which a better
man might have envied. Dummer, meantime, was "endeavoring to
get a present from Mr. Yale, for the finishing the college ;" and his
interviews, seconded by such letters as Mather's, bore welcome fruit.
On June nth, there were shipped from Governor Yale in a
vessel bound for Boston three bales or trunks of valuable goods,
to be sold for the benefit of the college; and with these the full-
length portrait of King George I. by Kneller which still graces the
college collection, an escutcheon representing the royal arms, which
was destroyed in the Revolution, and a large box of books, — the
entire value of the gift being estimated at fSoo, An invoice of a
part of the goods is still preserved, with its enumeration of "25
pieces of garlix (whatever that may be), 18 pieces of calico, 17
pieces of stuff (that is, worsted goods), 12 pieces Spanish pophn,
5 pieces plain muslin, 3 pieces camlet, and 2 of black and white silk
crape;" — these being set down as worth ^130 at prime cost, but
bringing in Boston three times that amount. Besides there were
other parcels sold unbroken at the same two hundred per cent,
advance, making the entire proceeds of the gift in hard money,
i562 I2S. Three years elapsed before the goods were all sold and
paid for, but it is probable the money was all swallowed up in meet-
ing the bills for the erection of the new college, which is said to
have cost nearly iiooo. It was a crisis in the history of the insti-
tution; for though it is hard to imagine the turn of events if the
trustees had not received this help, it seems extremely doubtful if
they could have finished their new building at once ; and every delay
would have strengthened immensely the faction opposed to the
removal to New Haven, which was now conducting a rival college
at Wethersfield, and which might very probably but for this timely
contribution have succeeded in endowing the rival and choking out
the New Haven original.
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GOVERNOR ELIHU VALE 97
It is saying little to note that this was by far the largest sum which
the college during the first twenty years of its struggling existence
had received from any private person. Nor should we judge from
our modem notions of large endowments that Governor Yale
earned his immortality too cheaply. It was really for those times
a munificent gift ; and the giver remained for full a century the
largest individual donor to the college funds, until the receipt of
$to.ooo in 1837 from the estate of Dr. Alfred E. Perkins for the
library.
The news of this great gift reached New Haven a few days
before the Commencement celebration. The story of that splendid
and long remembered Commencement is familiar to all who have
glanced at the annals of the college. On that bright September
morning, "we were favored and honored," writes the contemporary
chronicler, Tutor Johnson, "with the presence of his Honor Gover-
nor Saltonstall and his lady, and the Honorable Colonel Tailer of
Boston, and the Lieutenant Governor and whole Superior Court,"
also a great number of reverend ministers and a great concourse of
spectators. The trustees, meeting in the new building "first most
solemnly" in the sonorous Latin periods still spread upon their
records, "named our college by the name of Yale Collie . . .
upon which the Hon. Col, Tailer," who had been sent over by
Queen Anne as Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts Bay, and
who in anticipation of these festivities had made the toilsome
journey from Boston, "represented Governor Yale in a speech,
expressing his great satisfaction."
At the public exercises in the church, there was a pleasant rivalry
in Latin compliments to the absent Maecenas from the salutatory
orator of the graduating class (a son of James Pierpont), from one
of the Trustees (a grandson of John Davenport), and most ele-
gantly of all from that superb old Puritan, Governor Saltonstall
himself.
And before they separated the Trustees composed a profuse and
painful letter of thanks, at which, as Dummer reports in due season,
the old gentleman was more than a little pleased, "saving that he
expressed at first some kind of concern whether it was well in him,
being a churchman, to promote an Academy of Dissenters. But
when he had discoursed the point freely, he appeared convinced
that the business of good men is to spread religion and leamit^
among mankind, without being too fondly attached to particular
tenets about which the world never was, nor ever will be, agreed.
Besides," adds Dummer, "if the discipline of the Church of Eng-
land be most agreeable to Scripture and primitive practice, there's
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98 GOVERNOK ELIHU YALE
no better way to make men sensible of it than by giving them good
learning."
It is surely alike to the honor of the givers and of the recipients
that the great benefactors of this College in its first century, Elihu
Yale and George Berkeley, were both churchmen (though not
perhaps equally sound ones), as the greatest benefactor of Harvard
in the same century was Thomas Hollis, a Baptist.
It does not appear that any additions were made to these gifts
until February, 1721, when Dummer writes to Governor Saltonstall
that Mr. Yale has shipped another iioo worth of goods for the
College. "This however is but half what he promised me a month
ago, when he assured me he would remit you £200 sterling per
annum during his life, and make a settled annual provision to take
place after his death. But old gentlemen are forgetful." The
College records do not show clearly whether the shipment here
referred to was actually received; but I see no reason to doubt
that it was so.
Yale was now in his seventy-second year, and age perhaps had
made more inroads than Dummer realized. Five months later. The
Weekly Journal and British Gazetteer, in its issue of Saturday,
July 8th, announced that "Elihu Yale, Esq., commonly called Gov-
ernor Yale, a gentleman eminently known for his extensive charity,
lies at the point of death at his house in Queen's Square, Great
Ormond Street," and on the same day his death in fact took place.
The last consolations of religion if any such were offered, must
have been the duty of the vicar of the parish church, St. Andrew's,
Holbom, a. person no less noted than Dr. Henry Sacheverell, the
tory partisan whose conviction by the House of Peers had caused
so great an excitement a few years before.
A week passed by, and in the Daily Post of Tuesday, the i8th,
it was noticed that on "yesterday morning the corpse of Elihu
Yale, Esq., was carried out of town in order to be interred at
Wrexham, in Wales."
The fimeral procession had a journey before it of near two hun-
dred miles, and it was not till Saturday, the 22d, that the much
traveled hero found his last rest
Those who have visited the busy modem town of Wrexham (and
a visit is easy, as it lies within a dozen miles by rail from Chester)
will have seen its beautiful fifteenth-century church, one of the
seven wonders of Wales, and conspicuous in the churchyard, in a
line with the Northern wall of the magnificent West tower, the
plain altar-tomb sacred to the memory of Elihu Yale. The inscrip-
tions upon it have all been recut or replaced in modem times, and
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GOVERNOR ELIHU YALE 99
may not perhaps be relied on for accuracy ; but no notice of the
man would be complete without a citation of the famous poetical
legend on the north panel of his tomb, imitated from the epitaph
on Duns Scotus at Cologne: —
Born in America, in Europe bred,
In Afric travei'd and in Asia wed,
Where long he lived and thrived ; in London dead.
Much good, some ill, he did, so hope's all's even,
And that his soul thro' mercy's gone to heaven.
You that survive and read this tale take care
For this most certain exit to prepare,
Where blest in peace the actions of the just
Smell sweet and blossom in the silent dust
The progress of our story has omitted to touch on the second
line of this rhythmical biography. "In Afric travei'd" is most
probably only a poetic extension of the knowledge of that conti-
nent which Indian voyagers usually gained by the visits of their
ships at the Cape of Good Hope or at the Western islands. "In
"Asia wed" commemorates his marriage at Madras on November 4,
1680, to Catherine, widow of Mr. Josejrfi Hytuners, a former
member of the Council.*' The Rev, Samuel Peters, celebrated for
his untrustworthy History of Connecticut, visited while an exile in
England in 1789 the town of Wrexham, and represents in a letter
of that date that he was told that Mrs. Yale vras a copper-colored
native of India, and in consequence not received in society by her
Welsh neighbors.*' It is not unlikely that she was of Portuguese
descent and perhaps a Jewess, as such unions in Madras were fre-
quent; but with the natives there was certainly no intermarriage.
And Peters had an unfortunate weakness, which this whole letter
bears out, for reporting what was not true.
By this marriage there were three daughters: the eldest, Kathe-
rine, married Dudley North, of the family which later produced the
famous Lord North and the present Earls of Guilford; the second,
Anne, married a younger son of the first Duke of Devonshire;
and the youngest, Ursula, died unmarried a few days after her
father, at the family seat of her sister. Lady Cavendish, in Bucks.
In her will she disposes of personal property amounting to about
£20,000.
The line of direct descendants of Elihu Yale terminated in 1829
with the death of his great grandson, Dudley Long' North, who
•She is said to have died on February 8, 1728; and a son David to have
also died in London on March 3, 1728.
" Historical Magazine, second series, iii, 155.
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too GOVERNOR ELIHU YALB
had reached some distinction as a Member of Parliament and a
friend and companion of Dr. Johnson, and therefore embalmed in
the pages of Boswell. He was the donor to the College in 1789*'
of the picture which has made Governor Yale's countenance famil-
iar to succeeding generations. This portrait was executed in
June, 1717, as appears by an inscription on the canvas, by Enoch
Seeman, a German painter then settled in LtMldon, of considerable
repute in the line of portraits.*^
Besides the three daughters of this marriage with Mrs. Hynmers,
there was an only son who died an infant in the first year of his
father's presidency; and the visitor to the Madras of to-day,
though he finds in Fort St. George (now given up to soldiers' bar-
racks) no other trace of the White Town which Governor Yale
knew, can still read on the granite slab in the tall monument set up
to his boy's memory the "Hie jacet David, filius honorabilis Elihu
Yale, Presidentis et Gubernatoris CasteUi Sancti Georgii et Civitatis
Madrassse."
Another Latin epitaph at the Cape of Good Hope records the
death there in 1712 of Charles Yale, also called only son of the
former Governor of Madras, and also of his mother, who for love
of her only child had come from India to be buried beside him.**
The mother so touchingly commemorated is the Mrs. Pavia, a
Portuguese Jewess, who was mentioned in letters already quoted
as one of the two women who were living in scandalous relations
with the Governor at his garden-house, in Madras.
Yale's death was so far sudden that his last will was not in form
to be successfully probated; we hear of it by Dummer's letters, as
partly finished, but unsigned; and as it contained a legacy (Rector
Clap says of £500) to the College, Dummer used all endeavor to
secure its recognition, but the sons-in-law resisted, and carried their
point.
An advertisement in the Evening Post of March after his death*'
announces an auction as about to take place at Governor Yale's late
dwelling-house in Queen's Square, and it is curious as illustrating
his tastes and mode of living. The brief enumeration includes a
collection of jewels (particularly a celebrated diamond ring, for-
merly belonging to Mary, Queen of Scots) ; diamond and pearl
necklaces; gold repeating and silver watches; household plate,
* Yale Literary Magazine, xxiii. 172.
* Another portrait, by James Worsdale, was given to the University in
1910; and a third is owned by the Elizabethan Qub of Yale College.
"Pennant's Tour in Wales, i, 401.
'Yale Literary Magazine, xxiii, 164.
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GOVERNOS ELIHU YALE 101
with several dozens of silver plates ; a large collection of valuable
pictures; a great variety of India cabinets and divers sorts of
household goods ; brass cannons ; curious fire-arms ; mathematical
instruments ; several parcels of fine silks, linens, and muslin ; and
many valuable curiosities in gold, silver, and agate. The abstract
reads as though our modern bric-a-brac hunter had only revived
an ancient passion.
I am obliged to pass over without due explanation a reference to
his well-known charity, which may have been noticed in the news-
paper account of his illness. The benefactions to this College can
hardly have been thought of in this statement; it must be that he
enjoyed a reputation for liberality to interests at home. I have
however, only noticed one instance of this, in his offer in 1718 to
the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel of 100 guineas for
buying or building them suitable quarters. We know too that the
church of St. George the Martyr was erected in 1706 at the south-
west angle of Queen's Square by private subscriptions from the
residents in the neighborhood; and it is tradition that the name
by which it was known was given in honor of one of the founders
who had been Governor of Fort St. George.
The parish church at Wrexham also shared in his bounty; it
possesses still a large picture, said to be a Rubens, brought by him
with another by Titian from Rome as gifts.
In this notice of Governor Yale I may seem to have dismissed too
summarily what was long an accepted tradition, that he was the son
of Thomas, not David, and was bom in New Haven, upon or very
near the grounds of the future College. But this was never any-
thing more than a guess, started by uncritical writers near the end
of the last century, and believed in since from a persuasion that
it made a pleasing coincidence. The entry of admission to Master
Dugard's school, and the will of David Yale, are sufficient proofs
of the parentage as I have explained it. And these are fully cor-
roborated by the indirect testimony of Mather and Clap, and by
the reference in the Madras records to the Governor's brother
Thomas as a trader between China and India. If Elihu had been
of the \ew Haven parentage he would still, to be sure, have had a
brother Thomas, but equally sure is the fact that our Thomas was
a simple farmer on the Wallingford plains, and not a trader in the
China seas.
But though we cannot claim him as "town-bom," there is no
Englishman, there is no American, who has done more to make
New Haven "a name and a praise through all the earth," than
the timely giver who made the fluttering, precarious existence of
Yale College a blessed certainty.
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THE INFLUENCE OF THE ENGLISH UNIVERSITIES
DEVELOPMENT OF NEW ENGLAND.
[From the Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, Febr., i.
New England civilization received its first efficient impulse from
the arrival of the Massachusetts Company, bearing their charter,
in June, 1630; and in any attempt to trace a connection between
liberal education on the other side of the water and the progress of
New England, this date must mark the real beginning.
For, though half a dozen university men (Brewster, Blaxston,
Higginson, Skelton, Ralph Smith, and Bright) had reached New
England before 1630, not one of them continued within the limits
of the Massachusetts Colony long enough to bear a hand in, or even
to witness, the beginning there of the new era, in connection with
the establishment of the public school, the printing-press, and the
college, during the fruitful period from 1636 to 1647. But before
this period had expired, the number of university men who had
immigrated to New England had mounted up to at least ninety;
there may perhaps have been half a dozen more, at present not
identified; — enough, it is probable, with the few who came in the
next generation, to make a total of a hundred names.
Of this body almost three-fourths were from the University of
Cambridge, — known as a special stronghold of Puritanism from the
middle of the sixteenth century onward. At Cambridge had been
educated the Protestant sectaries who had led the revolt against
the notion of a national church, — Robert Browne, Henry Barrowe,
John Greenwood, John Penry, Francis Johnson, Richard Clifton,
John Smith, John Robinson ; all in fact of the more noted Sep-
aratists who had a university training, except Henry Jacob. And
when we recall that the same Alma Mater nurtured such other strong
men of the Puritan party as Burton, Cartwright, Whitaker, Ames,
Sibbes, Preston, Davenant, Lightfoot, John and Thomas Goodwin,
Cromwell, Fairfax, and Milton, we get some idea of the historical
environment which helped to mould the educated leaders of New
England.
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INFLUENCE OF THE ENGLISH UN1VERS1T1B8 H>3
In the archives of the university the matriculation rqiisters. which
received at the opening of each month the record of those who
had entered at any of the separate colleges during the month pre-
ceding, arc still extant (with the exception of an unfortunate jjap
from June, 1589. to June. 1602), and of ready access, in the Regis-
trary's office, in the Pitt Press Building, with the acconi|mnying list
of degrees granted at the ending of the academic course. The
matriculation book contains merely the names of the students,
roughly classified by rank, and the colleges which they have entered ;
the admission books of the particular colleges occasionally supply-
ing additional items of information, such as age and parents' names,
with varying degrees of fulness.
The statute interval between matriculation and graduation was
four years of three terms each, though, by a lax construction, it was
common to reduce this period by one term, or even by more; and,
judging from the known ages in the case of the New England immi-
grants, the average seventeenth -century age, at admission, was nut
far from seventeen, and that at graduation al>out twenty.
On these official lists the first name belonging to our history is
that of William Brewster, who was matriculated on l)eceml»er 3,
1580. at the oldest of the college foundations, St. Peter's or Peter-
house. We had already the statement in Bradford's "History of
Plymouth Plantation" that Elder Brewster "spent si*me small time
at Cambridge." and. as was rightly inferred, without graduating;
but hitherto the first known date in his life has l>een the reference
(also in Bradford) to his presence with Secretary IJavison, when tlie
cautionar%' towns in the Low Countries were given iqj to England
in 1585.
.After Elder Brewster, no New England name appears until that
of John Phillips, of CaOiarine Jlall. who graduated in 1596, and was
a temporary res-ident in Ma>sachusells from 1638 to 164J. By the
time of his graduation, at least three others of our future immi-
grants 'Jiobert Peck. J<alph Partridge, and Nathaniel \\ardl were
domiciled in Cambridge : and for the next forty jears there was
ne^-er a smaller number— wjmct in les upward of twenty — in residence
together. 'The roll, fullest about j6»J, clones with Nathaniel Nor-
cross. also of Catliariue Jiall, who graduated in JO37. and was in
Salem a year or Iwu later.
About se\en!v New- JCnglauders are thus traced to Cambridge
University : and uion- tliati twenty of them were connected with
Emaimel Collide, nutoriou.s ulitiutit from its fotmdutiou, in 1584, as
a Puritan seed-plot. ThuugU outstripped in nmuhersi by Trinity
and St. Johii't I then, as now, tlie iarge,i( of the culleye* in tlie
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I04 INFLUENCE OF THE ENGLISH UNIVERSITIES
university), Emanuel stood easily in the next rank, as to size, and
equal to any in scholarship; nor were the least brilliant names in
its teaching body during this period those of John Cotton and
Thomas Hooker.
Next, but far below this, in popularity with the New England
fathers, were Trinity, where eight or nine of them are enrolled
(including in this number the illustrious name of John Winthrop,
the elder, who was a student here from December, 1602, till some
time in 1604),** and Magdalen and St. John's, each with seven.
Sidney Sussex, sometimes classed with Emanuel as a special nursery
of Puritans, chiefly because it was Oliver Cromwell's college, has
but three of our names on its lists, of whom only the Massachusetts
agitator, John Wheelwright, was a contemporary of the Protector.
The other great name of Cambridge in the Puritan period is that of
John Milton, resident in Christ's College from 1625 to 1632. None
of the transatlantic heroes seem to have been inmates of Christ's
at the same time with her greatest son; but undergraduate fellow-
ship easily overleaps college boundaries ; and it is pleasant to recall
that Thomas Shepard and John Norton, Roger Williams and
Abraham Pierson, John Harvard and Henry Dunster, were a part
of the busy throng that paced the same streets and drank of the
same influences, side by side with John Milton and Jeremy Taylor.
In like manner, it may help to fill out our conception of the gentle
Elder Brewster to remember that he was an undergraduate at
Peterhouse with John Penry, the Puritan martyr. So Peter Bulkley,
the pastor of Concord, may, as Fellow of St. John's, have shared
in the training of the great Earl of Strafford; and the pure fame
of President Chauncy may gain an added light as we picture him
in daily intercourse, year in and year out, with the saintly George
Herbert, while both of them were Fellows of Trinity.
Passing now to Oxford, the question is a natural one, why we
find but about one-third as many New England names as at Cam-
bridge. The argument from locality will not explain so great a
difference, though doubtless the eastern counties furnished the
lai^er number of the Cambridge men on our list, as they furnished,
in general, a greater proportion of the total emigration than any
other section. As to this last, the best available data make the
metropolis naturally the largest feeder to New England, and Kent,
in the extreme south-east, probably the next lai^est ; after which,
with a distribution of numbers fairly proportioned to their several
areas, come closely the group of strictly eastern counties, Norfolk,
Suffolk, and Essex; but Wiltshire, Devonshire, Somerset, Hants,
• See "Life and Letters of John Winthrop," vol. i, pp. 54-59^
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John Knowles, Fellow. N.th! NorcroM. B.A.
{H.Ttnollys.)
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H.A. a M.A. Roben Child, B.A. A M.A.
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INFLUENCE OF THE ENGLISH UNIVERSITIES I07
years later that there was any marked and permanent addition to
this number.
The dearth of intellectual impulse in Plymouth Colony is suffi-
ciently shown by the well-known fact that it was fifty years from
the landing before the first public school was established. And it is
equally evident that the lack of schools (owing, of course, largely to
the poverty of the f>eople) quenched the desire for higher education.
In the volume which Mr. Sibley has published, of biographies of the
earliest graduates of Harvard College, coming down to 1658, only
one native and two residents of Plymouth Colony are included. The
native (Isaac Allerton, of the class of 1650) caught the college fever
at New Haven, where his father, after long wanderings from Ply-
mouth, had finally settled, and the two Chauncy boys (graduates of
1651), born in England, can only be called occasional residents of
Scituate, from whose uncongenial soil they and their father escaped
as soon as possible. In the same length of time, one only of the
ninety-eight graduates of Harvard had settled within the Plymouth
boundaries, — Thomas Crosby, of the class of 1653, who was preach-
ing without formal ordination to the church in Eastham. At the
same date, the summer of 1658, besides this solitary witness for
Harvard, stationed on the further side of Cape Cod Bay, the only
English university men left in the Colony, of some dozen and a half
who had found a longer or shorter refuge there, were the three pas-
tors, Nicholas Street, of Taunton, who was to migrate a few months
later to New Haven, on account of inadequate support, Samuel
Newman of Rehoboth, and William Wetherell of Scituate. In
seven (Plymouth, Duxbury, Sandwich, Yarmouth, Barnstable,
Marshfield, Bridgewater) out of the eleven towns in the Colony, the
pastorate was vacant or not yet established ; so that it happened that
these four individuals were at once the entire clerical and the entire
learned order among a population of perhaps as many thousand
souls. Still further to show the low state of religion and learning, it
may be added that the six towns in which the pastorate was now
vacant waited on the average for ten years each before settling other
ministers, and when this step was accomplished, such an exf>erience
as that at Marshfield, where an illiterate layman (Samuel Arnold)
was ordained with no other sanction or ceremony than the laying
on of hands of two illiterate lay brethren, was not uncommon. Or,
take another indication of the intellectual life, in which Massachu-
setts Bay a little later showed such great activity. Up to this date
of 1658, and even beyond it, the only publications, I believe, which
originated within Plymouth Colony were those of Edward Winslow
(including the Journal called "Mourt's Relation") and two ser-
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loS INFLUENCE OF THE ENGLISH UNIVEHSITIES
mons by William Hooke. There was, too, some revision by Sam-
uel Newman of his Concordance to the Bible, which had already
been published before his coming hither.
John Robinson said with truth in his farewell letter to these Pil-
grims : "You are not furnished with any persons of special eminency
above the rest"; and the slender means which they brought with
them and the poverty of the soil which they cultivated conspired for
their easy riddance of all their occasional visitors whose powers
were at all suited for a wider field. Such men as John Norton,
Charles Chauncy, William Hooke, and Roger Williams came and
passed on to more promising surroundings in other Colonies; and,
putting these aside, I doubt if there was a single educated man of
anywise remarkable mental gifts — judging by the standard which
the neighboring Colony of the Bay furnished in abundance — who
settled there; unless the patient industry of Samuel Newman, the
concordance- maker, entitles him to exception, with those who do not
gibbet him with Dr. Johnson's definition of a lexicographer, as a
"harmless drudge."
The glory of Plymouth Colony lies in the simple faith and courage
of the Mayflower company, but we scan the history of her territory
in vain to find a single man of comparative eminence in the State or
national councils, or a single name that can be remembered in the
literature of Massachusetts or the world. And it seems the sim-
plest justice to emphasize the marked contrast between her expe-
rience and that of the Colony at the Bay, both founded on the same
lines of high religious purpose and steady English common sense,
as eminently suggestive of the force and guidance lent to the build-
ing of a State by the presence of a body of educated men. The
want of the stimulus due to a learned class is as truly seen in the
barrenness of the intellectual and political history of Plymouth as the
value of such a stimulus is seen in the development of the next suc-
ceeding settlement in Massachusetts Bay.
In that settlement, William Blaxston, who graduated from Eman-
uel College, Cambridge, in 1617, and may thus have been a pupil of
Hooker or of Cotton, and who presumably emigrated in 1623 to the
south side of Massachusetts Bay, so becoming the pioneer of uni-
versity men within the later limits of the Colony, needs but the
barest mention, as his prompt withdrawal removed him from con-
tact with the Colony history.
The story is a familiar one, how in 1629 the Massachusetts Com-
pany organized in London under its new charter, and sent over its
first supply of colonists, 400 strong. Four ministers were provided ;
one of tfiem, Francis Bright, from Oxford, but four years out of
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INFLUENCE OF THE ENGLISH UNIVERSITIES I09
college, too good a Churchman to put up with the nonconformity of
Puritans, and so returning by almost the first opportunity to Eng-
land; a second, Ralph Smith, too rigid a separatist to enjoy the
decent respect for former church ties which he found here, and so
at once transferring himself to plainer Plymouth ; and two, Francis
Higginson and Samuel Skelton, from Cambridge, in the maturity of
their powers, and for the brief span of life that was left them (one
dying in 1630, the other in 1635) centres of influence in the Salem
community.
But Salem was quickly subordinated to the leadership of the
greater company which came with Governor Winthrop and the char-
ter in 1630, when the political life of the new OJony began in
earnest. How rapid and fruitful was its growth we do not need to
be told. My only object is to point out the working of the leaven
which the English universities supplied.
We have seen that it was nine years before the settlement at Ply-
mouth secured a minister, who was also the first university gradu-
ate whom her soil entertained. Contrast with this the progress of
Massachusetts Bay in the nine years from 1630. Within these years
at least threescore university men came from the mother country,
and (be it specially remembered) most of them persons of matured
experience. Three- fourths of the whole number remained within
this Colony of their first choice, scattered from Hingham on the Ply-
mouth border to Dover on the north and to Springfield in the far-off
west, through the score of towns, with perhaps 9,000 population,
which made up the government of Massachusetts. The two centres
of the thriving body were Boston and the newly named Cambridge,
where the infant college was already in operation; and half these
forty or fifty scholars of the old world were within five miles of the
one or the other of these centres. It is not extravagant to say that
such a concentration of scholarly men gave the community a tone
which it never has lost : and that however subsequent generations on
the same spot may have utilized their larger opportunities, the learned
element in this first age enjoyed a predominance to which we are
strangers.
In 1640, emigration to New England practically ceased, in the
prospect of radical changes at home, and the tide actually began to
flow backward; but the foundations had been secured, and the men
who remained were strong enough to hold the results until, with the
aid of the college at Cambridge, the supply of home-trained material
began to be ready to take the place of the elders.
There can be no question that the Colony owed the early estab-
lishment and the vigorous support of Harvard College to the exer-
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tions of those who were familiar with the Cambridge and Oxford of
the mother country, or, if we need still further to limit the proposi-
tion, to Uie educated ministry of these towns. The ministry was not
in Massachusetts, as in Piymouth, an ill- appreciated rarity. Up to
the time when Harvard graduates were ready to take up the work,
there had been some threescore ministers regularly inducted into
Massachusetts pulpits ; and certainly not more than half a dozen of
the whole number were destitute of university training. The over-
powering force of so uniform an example made a liberal education
seem essentia! to the perpetuity of the decent order of the churches;
and the result secured in its train the progress of New England and
that of the nation. It is hazardous to transpose history; but I do
not think it rash to say that a failure to plant and endow Harvard
College for five and twent>' years— that is, until the most of the gen-
eration of educated men who came over had passed away — would
have so stunted and paralyzed the social progress of Massachusetts,
as to have altered essentially the whole course of events bearing on
national history in which Massachusetts has had a part.
As offshoots from Massachusetts, the Colonies of Connecticut
and New Haven were established in 1636 and 1638, but not without
serious remonstrance from the mother colony, which, during the
few years that yet remained of English emigration, used her best
endeavors to prevent any of the stream from being diverted to the
new channels. This pohcy was in the main successful ; but the
spirit of regard for education was already strong enough in the lead-
ers of both the new Colonies to insure the same kind of develop-
ment as in Massachusetts, if under less favoring circumstances.
The overshadowing influence of the luxuriant intellectual life at
the Bay may seem to have interfered to some extent with the inde-
pendent and symmetrical growth which Thomas Hooker and John
Davenport planned for the societies which they planted. Daven-
port's plans, for instance, embraced the common school, the gram-
mar school, and the college; but, though he only accomplished the
establishment of the first two, the third eventually followed, in
direct if distant consequence of the influences he set in motion.
And in the mean time, up to the date of the founding of the Colle-
giate School at Sayhrook, one in every eight or nine of the graduates
of Harvard came from the Colonies in Connecticut. John Daven-
port's own opportunities of university training had been of the
briefest, his residence as an undergraduate being interrupted at
the threshold, and his degree in divinity being given on examination
after he had begun to preach ; and, besides his two colleagues
(Hooke and Street), and Abraham Pierson, of Southampton and
<
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INFLUENCE OF THE ENGLISH UNIVERSITIES III
Branford, there were no men of English university training con-
nected for any great length of time with the New Haven Colony;
but, as the late Professor Kingstey long ago remarked (Historical
Discourse at New Haven, p. 41 } , with his usual perspicacity,
"Neither the system of common schools, nor of those of a higher
class, originated in any strong expression of public opinion, but
was devised and carried forward by such men as John Davenport."
To such men it is owing that we can point to a schoolmaster
employed in New Haven during the first year from its foundation, —
a fact not paralleled in any other of the first settlements, and to the
further fact that the ordinance of Dec. 25, 1641, "that a free school
shall be set up in this town, and our pastor, Mr, Davenport, together
with the magistrates, shall consider what yearly allowance is meet
to be given to it out of the common stock of the town," is not ante-
dated by more than three or four similar orders found elsewhere.
The leading university men in the other Connecticut settlements,
at Hartford, Windsor, and Wethersfield, were a trio of graduates
of Emanuel College, — Thomas Hooker, Samuel Stone, and John
Sherman, — with John Warham of Oxford. Sherman early trans-
ferred himself to New Haven; while the others remained as
moulding forces of the Colony. Under them and their associates,
the progress of Connecticut was so secure and so rapid that in little
more than a generation she had twice the number of towns that the
New Haven Colony had, with double the wealth, and more than
double the acknowledged territory of that at first exceptionally rich
and prosperous jurisdiction, and was enabled by the logical force
of events, seconded by finesse on her own part to which New Haven
would hardly have had recourse, to absorb her more uncompromising
neighbor.
At Rhode Island and Providence Plantations there is little to
detain us. The fact that Roger Williams was a Cambridge Bachelor
of Arts may have been of inestimable importance to him in develop-
ing and moulding his own mental constitution, and so a large factor
in working out the destinies of his plantation ; but it went for nothing
in the eyes of his neighbors, and failed in a manner of exercising its
due influence on his own time and on later generations. Besides
Williams, so far as appears. William Blaxston, dwelling apart in
hermit-like seclusion, was the only other person in those districts
who held any traditions of university life.
Through such channels as these New England traces a large part
of what has been noble in her history back to ideas inherited from
Cambridge and Oxford. If any one doubts, let him try to imagine,
if he can, what the Providence settlement would have been without
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tUENCE OF THE ENGLISH UNIVERSITIES
Roger Williams, or Connecticut without Thomas Hooker, or New
Haven without John Davenport, or even Plymouth without Elder
Brewster ; let him try to construct the story of Massachusetts Bay,
suppressing the presence and the influence, in person and through
their posterity, of Winthrop and Saltonstall and Bradstreet; of
Wilson and Cotton and Mather ; of Eliot and Norton and Shepard;
of Nathaniel Ward and Sir Harry Vane; of Harvard and Dunster
and Chauncy; and the scores of other less conspicuous men, who
were essential parts of the character and growth of town by town
the whole settlement over, as they might be enumerated. Blot out
of the early New England annals the lives of these her educated
leaders, and you have lost the clew to all that was to follow. There
might still have been a New England, but how different in spirit
and in possibilities of power; and. if we may guess at her history,
it would have been written in the words of the Hebrew prophet,
"That which the palmer-worm hath left hath the locust eaten ; and
that which the locust hath left hath the caniter-worm eaten; and
that which the canker-worm hath left hath the caterpillar eaten";
for what the Indian had failed to despatch with torch and tomahawk
would have been the easy prey of New France on the north, and
New Netherland on the west, while Old England was busy with her
own civil wars; and what these had failed to divide would have
fallen, like the elder colony of Virginia, into the hands of the
rapacious and unprincipled courtiers of the Restoration, or would
have been added to the conquests from Dutchmen and Frenchmen,
as a subject province in which the traditions of liberty had already
lost their meaning.
Or let the contrast be with the actual, and not with the possible:
How did the development of New England compare with the con-
temporary progress of Virginia? Successful colonization there
began in 1607; and we have a detailed census of the population in
1624. which gives the result of seventeen years' experience. The
ships of the Virginia Company had broi^ht over in this period some
seven or eight thousand persons ; but complaint had been loud
among the resident authorities from the first that the bulk of the
immigrants were either too idle or too incompetent to earn a living ;
and these volunteer colonists, whose misconduct had been so shame-
ful as to require the strong hand of martial law to restrain them,
with its penalties of incredible rigor, — which made it, for instance,
death for one of them to pluck a flower in his neighbor's garden,
or to kill even a single barnyard fowl belonging to himself (unless,
indeed, the general in supreme command of the Colony had first
given formal consent), — these precious volunteer colonists had
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DEVELOPMENT OF NEW ENGLAND 1 13
been afterward reinforced by sundry shiploads of convicts, emptied
out of overflowing English prisons, and of London street Arabs,
"of whom," says the record, "the city was specially desirous to
be disburdened"; and, crowning injustice of all, family life, at first
discouraged, had been introduced with infamous method, by
despatching authorized kidnappers to go up and down through quiet
English villages and seize by force hapless maidens, who might be
transported, and bought as wives by the highest bidders. The
ordinary and extraordinary accidents of life, pestilence and famine,
internal strife and Indian massacre, desertion to the red man's
wigwam and to the mother country, had reduced the seven or
eight thousand emigrants by 1624 to a beggarly total of 1,275 Per-
sons, of whom over i ,000 were males. But two considerable settle-
ments had been planted in these seventeen years, — those at James
City and Elizabeth City, — in which about a third of the entire
population was gathered, the rest being scattered in smaller groups
or on isolated plantations. In the whole Colony there were resident
but four clergymen, not more than one of whom (Hant Wyatt, a
brother of the Governor, and private chaplain to his family and
retinue) was a university man; the only other representative of
liberal education being the Colony physician. Dr. John Pott, a
Bachelor of Arts at Emanuel College, Cambridge, in 1610.
Besides this census, all personal details in the period are con-
spicuously wanting; but it is certain that nothing deserving the
name of intellectual or religious life had gained a foothold. There
is, to be sure, in the proceedings of the earliest representative
assembly of Virginia, in 1619, a reference to a project for a "col-
lege"; but let no one suppose this a forerunner of Harvard. It
was not a college for English children, but an Indian school, pro-
posed in deference to the purpose avowed in the charter by which
Virginia was granted, "for the propagation of the Christian reli-
gion and reclaiming of people barbarous" ; and, moreover, it was
only a project on paper, for which donations were received from
England, but which never got into operation. That the college of
William and Mary was chartered generations afterwards, in 1693,
was due to the enterprise of a single persistent Scotchman, James
Blair, though not even his zeal could make the early period of its
history a success.
As for civil liberty, a representative assembly had indeed been
instituted ; but its legislation was not valid until reviewed by the
Company in London. Financially the Colony had not been pros-
perous; and the natural disappointment of the London stockholders
at this result cast further blight on the progress of the venture;
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114 DSVELOFUENT OF NEW ENGLAND
while the exigencies of home politics gave the king a speedy reason
for revoking the Company's charter, and for governing ViT^inia
himself.
The census quoted is in connection with the report of royal com-
missioners, sent over to inquire into the state of the Colony; and
the substance of that report was that those of the emigrants who
had escaped death by sickness, famine, or massacre, were living in
necessity and want, and in continual danger from the savages ; that
the country had yielded as yet few or no staples of food; and
that nothing but stringent and peremptory measures would save the
enterprise from destruction.
Such was the inglorious conclusion of seventeen years' coloniza-
tion in Virginia. At a later time came a new emigration, which
supplied new elements of power.
To Massachusetts Providence had denied the doubtful blessing
of a luxuriant soil. In every other respect how did her first seven-
teen years eclipse the elder colony, in performance and in promise !
Her numbers, with all the depletion caused by sending forth flourish-
ing offshoots, must still have been at least a dozen times more than
Virginia could boast. No scarcity of food, nor malarial scourge,
nor bloody mutiny, nor Indian massacre, had decimated the northern
as the southern settlement. The form of government was truly,
not doubtfully, representative ; no company of merchants or nobles
beyond the seas exercised any right to impose laws or introduce
governors and generals. The administration of justice was in the
Colony's name. The oaths of allegiance for freemen and for
sojourners recognized no sovereign outside the Colony borders.
Massachusetts was her own mistress, and ruled her house well;
nay more, she had consolidated the neighbor states into a con-
federacy, in which her own will was the leading spirit. The Virginia
system of scattered plantations along the river-banks, with here
and there a fort and store, rejoicing in the title of a city, was
replaced here by thirty vigorous townships, each an organized
republic, composed in law of persons united for the purpose of
establishing a church and a plantation, with an educated minister,
who was in most cases the prime mover in all the greater interests
of the community.
For more than half the brief life of the Colony the college at
Cambridge had been in successful operation ; and now, in this year
of grace 1647, a system of common and grammar schools for every
township was deliberately marked out, — a step of progress which
New England learned from no precedent in the mother country,
or in any older colony of English or of foreign plantii^. Close on
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DEVELOPMENT OF NEW ENGLAND IIS
the establishment of the college had followed the importation of a
printing-press, which soon came to be college property, as part of
the dowry of the first president's wife. It served for immediate
and pressing uses (men could not do without fresh almanacs, and
psalm-books, and copies of the laws) ; but the voluminous treatises
which learned pastors of Massachusetts churches stood ready to print
had long to be sent across the sea for perfection of typography.
It is needless to ask if these things were paralleled in Virginia at
any such date. We cannot forget her bigoted governor's charac-
teristic boast, a quarter of a century later, that "We have no free
schools, nor any printing, and I hope we shall not have these
hundred years."
But let me not be thought, in suggesting these contrasts, to lay
an undue stress on the mere membership of a university, in the case
of certain leaders, as comprehending all that was needed for the
development of New England. The experiment of self -government
might well have failed, if the leadership of Winthrop and Hooker
and Davenport and their fellows had been weighted down by a
motley crew of unthrifty, irresponsible vagrants. It was "govern-
ment of the people, and for the people," hut none the less needfully
"by the people," and dependent on their common support and intel-
ligent co-operation. I only claim that the guiding and directing force
was supplied by an element which was itself moulded on the banks
of the Cam and the Isis, under the influence and refinements of the
best culture which the England of that day could give.
And. again, these comparisons of the southern and northern
colonies are totally independent of the question, which had ulti-
mately the greater number of picked settlers of gentle birth and
breeding. It may be well to admit at once that New England enters
into no such competition. The circumstance that only three out o(
all the Mayflower company can be traced to English homes is
significant, if not typical; and those who have given most atten-
tion to New England family history are the most impressed with
the hopelessness of the attempt — I mean in the great majority of
cases — to trace the fathers of New England in their English origin,
and especially to connect them with families of position or title on
that side the Atlantic. The greater honor lies perhaps in just this
descent from the humble stock of English common people of indis-
tinguishable ancestry. It is enough to know that the primitive
aristocracy of New England was an aristocracy of intellect conse-
crated to duty, and not of blood; that her peerage and her knight-
hood were honors direct from the creative hand of God, and not
from the touch of a monarch,'
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NEW HAVEN IN 1784
[From the Papers of the New Haven Colony Historical Society, Vol. IV,
l88a Read January 21, 1884.]
On the evening of January 21, 1784, the President of Yale College
wrote in his diary : "This afternoon the Bill or Charter of the City
of New Haven passed the Governor and Council, and completes the
incorporation of the Mayor, four Aldermen and twenty Common
Council." It is fitting to recall on this anniversary some character-
istics of the New Haven of 1784.
The town then covered the territory now occupied, not only by the
present town, but also by West Haven, East Haven, North Haven,
(the greater part of) Woodbridge, Hamden, and Bethany, in all
an area of perhaps ten by thirteen miles, or from ten to twelve
times as extensive as now. The inhabitants were estimated at
7,960 souls ; of whom 3,350, less than almost any one of our wards
to-day, were in that part which was chartered as a city. There are
now within the town-limits of 1784, by a more than tenfold increase,
some 87,000 inhabitants, while the city proper has multiplied more
than twenty fold.
In the settled part of the city (that is, the original nine squares
called "the town-plat," and the south-eastward extension to the
water, known as "the new township"), there were some 400 dwell-
ings mostly of wood, but a good number of brick, and one or two
of stone. A nearly contemporaneous map (1775) on our walls
shows that these dwellings lay almost wholly in the area bounded by
Meadow, George, York, Grove, Olive and Water streets, — the
northern part of this area being by far the least fully inhabited.
The streets were without regular lines of trees, without pave-
ments, sidewalks, or names ; but it was an awkward mode of desig-
nation by localities identified with personal names (as we still speak
of Cutler Comer) ; and eight months after the charter was given,
21 of the principal streets (Broadway, Chapel, Cherry, Church, Col-
lege, Court, Crown, Elm, Fair, Fleet, George, Grove, High, Meadow,
Olive, Orange, State, Temple, Union, Water, and York) received
at a city meeting their present names. A few may have been
already known by these titles ; I dare not affirm it of any but Col-
lege and Chapel streets, in both which cases the names were applied
only to the immediate vicinity of the two college buildings which
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NEW HAVEN IN I7S4 II?
occasioned them. A few more had been known by other names:
thus, the lower part of Church street was called Market street, from
the market-house at the open intersection of George and Church;
State street is called on the map of 1775 Queen street, a designation
which would seem to go back to distant Queen Anne; part of
George street was long known as Leather lane ; York street was
sometimes called West street, and Grove street North street.
Of the new names Church street was suggested by the Episcopal
Church which stood on the east side of that street, a little nearer to
Chapel than to Center street ; Temple street, from the two churches
on the Green, in front of which it ran; York street, from the name
of the "Yorkshire quarter," given at the very beginning to that
neighborhood where some leading immigrants from Yorkshire sat
down; Elm street from the already patriarchal trees planted in
1686 in front of the Rev. Mr. Pierpont's dwelling and remaining
almost to our day ; and Court street, because it was intended that
it should run across the Green past the Court House.
New Haven had already been described in print (Peters' History
of Connecticut) as "the most beautiful town in New England";
and one special feature which contributed to this impression was the
Green, usually called the market place, because the southern border
was used for this purpose. Dr. Jedidiah Morse, however, states in
the first edition of his American Geography (1789) that "the beauty
of the public square is greatly diminished by tfie burial ground and
several of the public buildings which occupy a considerable part
of it."
Chief among these buildings was an elegant and commodious
brick State House or County Court House, built in 1761-64 by the
State and County jointly, and standing a little to the north of it, and
much nearer Temple street than the present Trinity church ; it had
both east and west doors, furnished with stone steps ; the first floor
was devoted to court rooms and offices, and the second to the use of
the two houses of the General Assembly at its October sessions,
while the third floor was an open hall. The judge of the Count>'
Court was Col. James Wadsworth, a graduate at Yale in 1748, of
whose college days an interesting reminiscence is preserved in the
plan which he drew of New Haven in his senior year and which was
engraved in 1806.
Next to this building stood what was still the "New Brick" meet-
ing-house of the First Church, built in 1753-57, measuring about
seventy-five by fifty feet, and holding an average congregation of
not much over nine hundred persons ; it was on the site of the
present Centre Church, and was arranged internally in a correspond-
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Il8 NEW HAVEN IN 1784
ing way, with the pul[Mt toward the west, but it was as if the church
now standing were shifted around sidewise, the north and south
length being the greatest, and the bell-tower at the northern end.
The minister was the Rev, Chauncey Whittelsey, now near the end
of his life, having reached the age of sixty-six, and having been
settled for thirty-six years.
The earliest secession or separation from the common church of
the whole town had been the society formed in consequence of the
Whitefieldian revival, and after a long struggle finally recognized
by authority of the General Assembly in 1759, and dubbed with the
unaccountable name of White Haven Society.** Their wooden
meeting-house, built in 1744 and much enlarged in 1764, measuring
about sixty feet square, and called from its color the Blue Meeting-
house, stood on the southeast comer of Elm and Church streets.
The congregation worshipping there had dwindled from a much
larger number than that of the parent society, to less than eight
hundred hearers, under the dry preaching of that acute metajAysi-
cian, Jonathan Edwards, the younger, now aged thirty-nine, and for
fifteen years thdr pastor.
The majority of those who had left Mr. Edwards' meeting as
much from dislike of his extreme "New Divinity" views as from
his dull preaching, had formed a new congregation called the Fair
Haven Society, now the largest in town or about one thousand per-
sons, who worshipped in a house the size of the "New Brick," built
of wood, in 1770, on the side of the present church of the United
Society. Their minister was Allyn Mather, a young man of thirty-
six, now in feeble health, and among the congregation was the Rev.
Samuel Bird, Mr. Edwards' predecessor, and Mr. Mather's frequent
substitute in the pulpit ; both of them died within the year. It is one
of the curious felicities of history that not only have these two
divergent offshoots from the old First Church long ago come
together in the United Society, but now they are preparing to absorb
also another organization (the Third Church) which represented in
its origin an opposite extreme of theolo^cal belief.
The great majority of New Haven in 1784 was thus of one reli-
gious faith. But besides these societies of the Congregational order
there was a small Episcopal society, not numbering much over two
hundred members, which occupied what was distinctively known as
"The Church," built in 1754-55, on Church street, with the Rev.
Bela Hubbard as rector, now forty-four years of age, and having
been here for fourteen years ; this was the smallest in size of any of
"May this name have been given with a covert reference to Whitefield?
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NEW HAVEN IN I784 II9
the church buildings mentioned, somewhat less than sixty by forty
feet.
Besides the Episcopalians there was a handful of Sandemanians,
the most radical of "New-light" sects, too much so for even Mr.
Edwards to tolerate, who had held separate services for a dozen
years or more ; for a time they had had two elders or ministers in
charge of their simple worship, but these leaders had sympathized
(as did others of the floclt) too plainly with Tory principles to
remain here in the Revdution ; and the remnant that was left had
dwindled into insignificance. There were also one or two Jewish
families, the first of which appeared here in 1772.
I have mentioned the chief buildings on the Green. There was,
besides, a wooden jail, on College street, built in 1735, with Stephen
Munson, a college graduate, for jailor ; but this dilapidated structure
was replaced, late in 1784, by a new jail, built just across die street,
under the eaves of the college. Adjacent to the jail on the south
was the old County Court House, the up^r floor of which had been
used also as a State House for many years before the new one
was built; in this building, or in a separate building near it, the
Hopkins Grammar School, which was now in a very low condition,
was kept by Mr. Richard Woodhull, a middle-aged man, of compe-
tent learning, whose career as a college tutor had been interrupted
many years before by his conversion to Sandemanianism, and whose
attitude in the Revolution as a non-resistant and loyalist had inter-
fered still further with his prospects. Besides this, there was a
brick school-house on the Elm street side of the Green, north of and
older than the Fair Haven meeting-house, and here youth of both
sexes were taught.
Occupying a good part of the upper Green, which then sloped
much more than now from west to east, on the sides and at the back
of the Brick meeting-house, was the ancient burial-ground, of irreg-
ular shape, which had lately been inclosed by a rough board fence.
This was, I suppose, the only fence on or about the whole Green, the
rest being entirely open to the surrounding streets, and the more
level lower Green especially being a common thoroughfare for all
sorts of travel.
Two hundred and fifty buttonwood and elm trees, set out in 1759
around the Green, vrere now half grown; of these I take it that the
solitary buttonwood, still standing c^posite the First Methodist
Church, is a survivor; the veteran elm at the southea.<;t comer of
the Green may be older, and a few others of our oldest elms may be
relics of this planting. On the Green itself no trees were standing;
but a single row of elms was placed, a year or two later, on the line
of Temple street, in front of the State House and the churches.
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ISO NEW HAVEN IN I784
Next in interest to the Green was the College which fronted upon
it. The building originally named Yale College, which had stood
in the front corner of. the yard, had recently been torn down; and
the three buildings which in 1784 represented the College are all now
standing, though greatly transformed. The oldest, Connecticut
Hall, or South Middle, built in 1750-51, instead of being the four-
storied structure which it is to-day, had but three stories with a
gambrel roof and lodged about one-third of the students; what is
now the Athemeum, built in 1761-63, was of three stories, with
steeple and beJl, and contained the chapel, library, and apparatus-
room ; and in the rear was the new dining-hall, built in 1782, later
the chemical laboratory. Besides these there were the President's
house, built of wood in 1722, and an elegant mansion for that date,
standing a little north of the present College street Church ; and the
Professor of Divinity's house, also belonging to the College, on York
street, on the ground now appropriated to the Medical School.
The President was Dr. Ezra Stiles, one of the most learned Amer-
icans of his generation, now 56 years of age, having been six years
in office, while the Professor of Divinity, or College pastor, and at
the same time lecturer on theological topics, was the Rev. Samuel
Wales, a young man of 36, installed only two years before, and now
at the height of his usefulness, his remarkable power as a preacher
as yet unaffected by the insidious disease which soon ended his
career.
There were enrolled as students during the current term (Nov.
12- Jan. 13), the first term of the College year, 260 undergraduates,
25 per cent, more than in any other American college ; but the great
irregularity of attendance which was then common reduced the
number actually present to less than 225. The Junior class was
instructed by Tutor Josiah Meigs, and the Sophomores by Tutor
Matthew TaJcott Russell, while the Freshman class was so unusually
large as to be divided under the care of the two youngest tutors,
Simeon Baldwin and Henry Channing. The other officers were
James Hilihouse, a young lawyer, treasurer, and Jeremiah Atwater,
steward.
I have thus named all that can be called public buildings in the
town; certainly there was no bank, — that luxury did not come till
1792; no post-office, — the infrequent mails were handled in a corner
of a small country-store ; no almshouse.— for was it not voted, at
the town-meeting in March, 1783, "That the selectmen vendue [that
is, farm out at auction] the poor of the town which arc now sup-
ported by the town so that they may be supported in the cheapest
manner;" no hospital, except the town pest-house on Grapevine
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NEW HAVEN IN I784 III
Point, for the inoculation and treatment of small-pox, then so for-
midable ; and no public library, though this is less a wonder, since
it is also true of New Haven in 1S84.
Turning to the classes which made up society, besides the profes-
sional men already mentioned, there were eight or nine lawyers in
active practice; but the very recent growth of that profession in
importance and public favor, and the losses it had suffered through
loyalty to the British crown, are shown by the fact that the senior
member of the bar was Charles Chauncey, only thirty-six years of
age, while the leader of the profession in brilliancy was Pierpont
Edwards, two years younger, whose annual income of $2000 was
said a little later to be the largest earned by any lawyer in the State.
The medical profession had also eight or nine representatives in
what became the city, — the leading physician, alike in reputed skill
and in social status, being Dr. Leverett Hubbard, President of the
County Medical Society which was founded this same month, who
lived in his new stone dwelling still standing at the junction of
George and Meadow streets. Dr. John Spalding, after his removal
here in the spring of 1784, was considered the leading surgeon.
As for the business of the city, there was the usual provision for
domestic trading common to a place of this size. A statistical
enumeration gives fifty-six shops, half a dozen of which carried
from two to three thousand pounds (sterling) vrorth of goods, and
the rest from £500 to £150 worth. What afterwards became the
leading retail house of Broome & Piatt was not removed here from
New York till September, 1784: Shipman, Drake, Howell, Perit,
Helms, Austin, are among the other leading names. There were no
local manufacturers, — the long course of British rule had thor-
oughly stamped out everything of that sort; the utmost that was
done was the ordinary spinning and weaving for domestic use, and
a little iron-working and papermaking.
In one direction, however, there was activity. New Haven, in
the fulfillment of the dream of its founders and of all the early gen-
erations, «ras already of importance as a sea-port ; it had in opera-
tion extensive oyster- fi sh eri es ; it had its Union Wharf and Long
Wharf, though not so long as now ; already, since the announcement
of peace, vessels had begun to sail direct for England and Ireland,
though the mainstay was commerce with the West Indies, so far as
they were open to us, in the export of horses, oxen, pork, beef, and
lumber, with return cargoes of sugar and molasses. In 1784 thirty-
six American vessels, with one British ship and one Danish, are
recorded as entering this port, while thirty-three sea-going vessels
were owned here, all engaged in foreign and West-India trade, as
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I as NEW HAVEN IN I784
against forty that were owned just before the war b^an in 1775;
at the close of warlike operations in 1781, this number had dwindled
to one sohtary vessel, so that the return of prosperity had been
rapid in this branch ; most of those now owned were built here or
in the immediate neighborhood. There was at least one line of
packets carrying both passengers and freight to New York weekly
during the open season ; and another weekly line running to New
London and Norwich. The collector of customs for the United
States Government was Jonathan Fitch, a son of Governor Fitch, of
Norwalk, and a Yale graduate, who had married early a step-daugh-
ter of President Gap and had served for a generation before the
war as steward of the college.
The central government was also represented by the post-master,
Elias Beers, whose office was next the store of his elder brother,
Isaac Beers, on the College street side of the corner now occupied
by the New Haven House. Post-riders took letters twice (or in
severe winter weather, once) a week to New York, doing a large
commission business to the benefit of their own pockets, by the way.
The return mails from New York divided at New Haven, one
going each week via New London and Providence to Boston, the
other taking the inland route to the same destination by Hartford
and Springfield, and by each route there was a return mail weekly ;
tiie branching of the post-routes at this pwnt into two eastward
routes, as to this day of the railroads, is of course a reminder of the
historical position of New Haven as the first settlement on the
direct road between New York and Boston, and thus from the first
the point to which all travel for New York from the eastward con-
verged.
A stage for Hartford and Springfield left here every Wednesday ;
and another left on Saturday, which cormected at Hartford with one
leaving for Boston on Monday morning, which going by the most
direct route (Somers, Brookfield, and Worcester) did not reach
the journey's end tmtil Thursday evening; the post-riders, however,
moved more rapidly than this.
The New Haven post-office was the receiving-office for all the
inland region not served by the Hartford, New York, and New
London offices; thus, not only all letters for such near points as
Cheshire, Wallingford, and Waterbury, but all for towns as far off
as Litchfield and New Milford were left here, to be delivered to any
one bound for those parts; if not soon called for, they were adver-
tised in the New Haven newspaper, and after three months from
that date, were sent to the Dead Letter department of the General
post-office at Philaddphia, which was in char^ of Ebenezer
Hazard, Postmaster- General.
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NEW HAVEN IN 1784 tSJ
The post-office adjoined Isaac Beers's store ; and this introduces
us to what was, after the College, the intellectual center (in a sense)
of New Haven. The store was a part of the proprietor's house,
which was also an inn, and he sold — besides books — general gro-
ceries, and the best of gin and brandy. Of books he was, I think,
one of the largest direct importers in the United States ; and very
remarkable are the lists of his latest acquisitions which he publishes
now and then in the weekly newspaper, covering sometimes an entire
page.
Besides this, there was at least one other general bookstore, of less
pretensions, that of Daggett and Fitch ; and one specially devoted
to school-books, kept by Abel Morse, the teacher of a select school
for girls; Goodrich and Darling, druggists, also dealt in books.
The office of Thomas and Samuel Green, who printed the news-
paper and such pamphlets as the divines and politicians of the
neighborhood furnished for publication, was over Elias Shipman's
store, which was directly opposite the post-office, on College and ■
Chapel streets, the site of Townsend's Block; but they, I suppose,
sold little but their own publications.
The newspaper was the Connecticut Journal, begun by the same
publishers in 1767, and continuing under various proprietors until
1835. It appeared every Wednesday on a sheet of four pages,
about fourteen by nine or ten inches in size, and was poorly edited,
even for that day ; so that we may not wonder that an early evidence
of progress in the new city should have been the establishment, in
May, 1784, of a second paper, the New Haven Gazelle, price eight
shillings a year, to edit which Josiah Meigs resigned his College
tutorship.
In connection with the local publishing business may be men-
tioned the name of Abel Buell, the ingenious mechanic, — at various
times in his life, engraver, type-founder, coiner, and goldsmith, —
who advertises in March, 1784, a map of the United States, the first
ever compiled, engraved, and finished by one hand; and also the
name of Amos Doolittle, the earliest copper-ptate engraver in Amer-
ica, whose shop for sign-painting and the higher branches of his
art was on the present College square, fronting the Green.
Passing to the political and social condition of the city, we
are to remember that the whole country had just come out of
an exhausting war; and New Haven had suffered her full share,
much beyond the most of New England. A sermon just preached
1^ the Rev. Benjamin Trumbull, of North Haven, at the celebration
on the news of the Definitive Treaty of Peace, estimates the loss of
New Haven in soldiers and seamen on the American side during the
war at 210; and the loss of property by the raid of the British
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124 NEW HAVEN IN 1784
troops on this town was reckoned at over £30,800, in a depreciated
currency.
But peace was now secured, and the general sentiment among
the leaders of opinion in the town was hopeful of brighter days than
ever; although the town taxes were fourpence on the pound, or
nearly two cents on the dollar, double the usual rate before the war,
and this high figure was supplemented moreover by state taxes of
three shillings and twopence (sixteen cents on the dollar).
The fullest picture of our modem daily life is the newspaper;
but for 1784 The Connecticut Journal is a poor help. It is guiltless
of anything so direct as an editorial, and almost equally guiltless
of contributions from correspondents ; the local editor and the inter-
viewer are alike unknown. In other words, the entire paper is
made up of selections from other sheets of foreign news (usually
about ten weeks old), of very scanty items from New York, Phila-
delphia, Boston, and a few other prominent places, and of adver-
tisements. The selections bear largely at this date on the novel
situation of the United States, just formally acknowledged as inde-
pendent. They feed the popular interest in subjects which we know
were under discussion elsewhere, — such as, preeminently, the
approval or non-approval of the so-called Commutation Bill, recently
passed by the Congress of the Confederation, for commuting the
half-pay for life, previously voted to Revolutionary officers and
soldiers, into five years' full pay in one gross sum ; the change was
really a shrewd piece of economy for the government, and yet was
most unpopular, especially in New England; a convention met at
Middletown, in December, 1783, to record Connecticut's dissent
from such a creation of a moneyed aristocracy.
Another timely subject, of far-reaching consequences, was the
question of giving Congress the right to levy moderate import
duties on specified articles, for meeting the interest on the public
debt ; the principle of Federal government was involved ; approval
of the impost meant adhesion to the theory of a strong central gov-
ernment as necessary, while disapproval was a preference for the
existing Confederation, already on its downward career to power-
lessness and contempt.
In these twin disputes, the Connecticut Legislature committed
itself to the policy of narrowness and conservatism by resolving in
1783 that the requisitions of Congress were not vaHd until after the
approval of the State; and in January, 1784, they voted down (69 to
37) the impost recommended by Congress, the New Haven repre-
sentative voting with the majority. At the next election, however,
the people repudiated the action of their deputies; and Pierpont
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NEW HA\-EN IX I7S4 19$
Edwards and James Hillhouse, of Nen- Haven, concurred with the
great majority of the new General Assembly in granting Congress
the desired authority to raise this slender revenue.
The current advertisements show the great confusion of the time
in respect to financial standards. Goods are on sale for cash, for
bank notes, for Morris's notes, Mr. Hillegas' notes, Pickering's cer-
tificates, soldiers' notes. State monej-, all kinds of lumber, grain,
oxen, cows, potash, country produce, etc., etc. Bank notes were the
issues of the bank at Philadelphia, the only institution of the kind
in the Union; Morris's notes were the issues of treasur>--notes by
Robert Morris, superintendent of finance of the United States;
Hillegas was the treasurer of Congress, and Pickering was Quar-
termaster-General ; soldiers' notes were the interest-bearing certifi-
cates entitling the army to their half-pay for life, or to full pay for
five years ; and State money meant the outstanding bills of credit or
paper mmiey issued in the early years of the war by the State gov-
ernment, at convenient deuMninations, from two pence to two
pounds. By cash was meant at that date, before Gouvemeur
Morris's system of decimal currency ("which we now use) had been
adc^ted by Congress, and a mint set up, a miscellaneous foreign
coinage, m^nly English and Spanish, with a few coppers of local
origin; it was through familiarity with the Spanish currency, that
the term dollar was already in general use.
Socially, the characteristics of New Haven were much the same
as throughout New England. The population was still of pure
English descent, and a homely familiarity of intercourse prevailed;
while the adventuring spirit of commercial life, traversing the seas,
tended to widen views, and the presence of the College was felt as a
cultivating influence, bringing hither a constant succession of intelli-
gent and famous visitors. The specially cold winter of 1783-4 was
not a favorable season for travel, but President Stiles's diarv' records
the entertainment, among others, of Major General John Sullivan,
of New Hampshire, of Mr. Gay, a ^supposed) son of the poet, of
Ira Allen, a brother of Ethan .Allen, and one of the founders of Ver-
mont, and of Jdin Ledyard, the distinguished traveler.
I have not time to dwell on details of the social life of a century
ago: if it was not the hurried and fe%'erish life of the present, no
more was it the ascetic and constrained life of a centurv- earlier;
there was abundance of gaiet>- of a simple sort; and the shop-
keepers publish prompt advertisements of the arrival of fresh
invoices of "gentlemen and ladies' dancing gloves for the Gty
Assembly," of "chip-hats of the newest taste," of "new figured,
fashionaUe cotton chintz and calicoes, proper for ladies' winter
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1X6 NEW HAVEN IN 1784
dress," of "elegant figured shauls," of "ladies' tiffany balloon
hats," and so on at/ infinitum, — showing that human nature had the
same kind of interest then as now.
As one part of their social life, we must remember this as the time
when domestic slavery was general in New Haven. The importing
of slaves was forbidden since 1774, but the papers have occasional,
not frequent advertisements for the sale of likely negroes, or it may
be a family of negroes, in respect to whom "a good title will be
given;" sometimes it is for a term of years (perhaps till the attain-
ment of legal majority, when by the will of some former owner
freedcnn was to be given), and sometimes it is noted that, in the lack
of ready money, rum and sugar will be taken in part payment. The
relations of masters and slaves were in most cases here the best
possible; yet sensible men were uneasy under the inconsistency of
the system, and President Stiles writes in his diary, in December,
1783: "The constant annual importation of negroes into America
and the West Indies is supposed to have been of late years about
60,000. Is it possible to think of this without horror?"
I pass on to the special circumstances which made New Haven
The origin of the movement it may be difiicult to trace. Certainly
we cannot adopt the earliest date that has been assigned for such
an origin ; for that would commit us to the acceptance of a statement
by the notoriously inaccurate Samuel Peters, who in giving in his
History of Connecticut ( 1781 ) the story of the Phantom Ship, which
sailed from this port in 1647, says that she carried a request for a
patent for the colony and for a charter for the city of New Haven ;
this part of his tale is a pure fabrication.
The first step which I can fix in the genealogy of the charter is a
vote in town-meeting, December 9, 1771, in these words: "Whereas
a motion was made to the town that this town mi^t have the
privileges of a city, and that proper measures might be taken to
obtain the same, it is thereupon Voted that Roger Sherman" (and
seventeen others] "be a Committee to take the same into considera-
tion and judge of the motion what is best for the town to do with
regard to the same and report thereupon to the town at another
town -meeting." This committee never reported, so far as the
records show, nor do the public prints of the day refer to the matter,
Roger Sherman, the chairman, then fifty years old, and for ten
years a resident of New Haven, was already eminent in the regards
of his fellow-townsmen, a Judge of the Court of Common Pleas, and
a member of the Governor's Council, or Upper House of the Assem-
bly, though still keeping a small country-store opposite the College
on Chapel street.
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NEW HAVEN IN I784 IS?
Ten years passed without further sign, until in December, 1781,
the town was obliged to take cognizance of efforts which had lately
been gathering strength, for the creation of new towns from the
more distant parts of New Haven. At a town-meeting of this date,
a committee was therefore appointed to report a plan for the division
of the town into several distinct townships; and this committee
reported the same month in favor of setting off the portions which
afterwards became Woodbridge, East Haven, and North Haven.
These towns were not in fact incorporated until after the city of
New Haven ; but the one movement was a complement of the other.
At the close of the Revolution the two most prosperous centers of
population in this country were Philadelphia, with nearly 30,000
inhabitants, and New York, with a little under 25,000. Both were
cities: New York having rec«ved a charter from James 11, in 1686,
during the spasm of liberal zeal which marked the beginning of bis
reign; and Philadelphia having been similarly endowed in 1701 by
the proprietor of Pennsylvania, the ardent friend and quondam
political mentor of James II, Besides these, I do not recall any
other incorporated cities in the Union at this date, except Albany,
which was chartered at the same time and under the same circum-
stances as New York, but was now of less population than New
Haven, and Richmond, incorporated in 1782, but only a small village
in point of numbers.
The prosperity and size of Philadelphia and New York were, how-
ever, objects of emulation ; and there is some evidence that it was
from an ambition of rivaling their prominence that a charter was
desired for New Haven. This may have been especially in view of
the long occupation of New York by the British, and a consequent
interruption of the previous dependence of our dealers on New York
merchants for imports from England and for the return of remit-
tances thither; New York had just been evacuated, and might not
the two places begin new careers more on an equality, if New Haven
were elevated to the dignity of a city?
To recur to President Stiles's diary, we have this entry on October
20. 1783 : "Sign'd a petition to the Assembly for incorporating New
Haven as a city." The Assembly was then holding its regular fall
session in New Haven, and so continued until November i, when
it adjourned to meet again in January in a special session, for the
purpose of revising the laws of the State. The October session was
made memorable by the announcement of Governor Trumbull's
determination to retire from public life at the next election, on
account of his advanced age (73)-
The petition referred to by Dr. Stiles is on file (with 214 signa-
tures) in the State Library. It bases the desired action on the hin-
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laS NEW HAVEN IN I784
drances to an extension of commerce, which "arise for want of a
due regulation of the internal pohce" of the town. Specifically, "it
is matter of no small importance that wharves, streets and high-
ways, be commodious for business, and kept continually in good
repair;" and such a result cannot be attained, unless the memorial-
ists have a jurisdiction of their own. Hence the petition, that the
inhabitants within specified limits "be made a corporation," with
power to enact by-laws, and that a Court be constituted for the same
jurisdiction. A bill brought in in accordance with this petition was
passed at the same session by the Upper House ; but the Lower
House insisted that it be referred to the adjourned session for their
consideration, and it was so referred.
On the 2ist of November, Dr. Stiles writes: "Examining the Act
or Charter proposed for the City of New Haven." This interval of
examination resulted in making the final draft of the charter quite
different in details from that presented in October
The Assembly was to meet in New Haven on Thursday, January
8, 1784; and on Monday, January 5, at a town-meeting, with Roger
Sherman in the chair, a resolution was passed, "requesting the rep-
resentatives in the Assembly," who were Captain Henry Daggett
and Captain Jesse Ford, "to exert themselves that the Act for
incorporating a part of the town be passed with all convenient
speed."
Owing to unusually bad traveling, the adjourned session did not
open until Tuesday, January 13. The presiding officer of the
Upper House was His Excellency Governor Jonathan Trumbull, of
Lebanon, who, as was his custom, lodged at the house of President
Stiles ; while the Speaker of the Lower House was the Hon.
Colonel William Williams, also of Lebanon, well known as a signer
of the Declaration of 1776.
As usual, all Acts passed by the Assembly are dated as of the
first day of the session, and as usual the weekly newspapers give
none of the interesting details of legislative proceedings; so that it
is only from the unprinted pages of Dr. Stiles's Diary that we gain
the exact knowledge of ttie day when the charter was finally
passed.
The next week's Connecticut Journal, however, contains the
notification of the first meeting of the city, to be held cm February
ID ; and in the Journal of February 4 appears an advertisement by
the selectmen of the town, announcing that, in accordance with a
paragraph in the act of incorporation of the city, an opportunity
will be given on Thursday, February 5, for any who are qualified
to become freemen of the State, but have not yet taken the free-
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KEW HAVEN IN I784 139
man's oath, to appear and be admitted, so as to participate in the first
city election.
On the day appointed, Dr. Stiles was among those taking the
oath ; and he records that the total number in the city who are
qualified to become freemen, as now certified by the selectmen, is
three hundred and forty-three, of whom fifty-five (about one-
sixth) are college graduates; eighty-two of the three hundred and
forty-three (about one-fourth) have not taken the freeman's oath, —
some being absent, some disabled, some indifferent. The full list,
which he appends, is of great interest, and might instructively be
compared, on the one hand, with the roll of original planters, in
1640, and on the other hand with the roll of our voters to-day. In
1784 the families most largely represented in the voting population
were, Austin (a name introduced in the generation after the settle-
ment, not among the first-comers) and Trowbridge, the name which
has multiplied beyond any other in the original company; next fol-
lowed Atwater, Bishop, Hotchkiss, Munson, Bradley, Mix, Thomp-
son, and Townsend.
Dr. Stiles further judges that there were about six hundred adult
males living within the city limits, showing that nearly every other
man was disfranchised, either by the operation of the qualification
limiting suffrage to those holding real estate which would yield a
rental of £2 per annum, or personal estate worth £40, or else dis-
franchised by their loyalty to Great Britain in the late war.
The election of city officers was appointed for February 10; and
as the General Assembly was still in session, the third story of
the State House was the place of meeting. Of the 261 freemen
who had qualified, over 250, says Dr. Stiles, attended at the open-
ing of the polls, but only 249 votes were recorded on the first ballot,
that for mayor; of these just the number necessary for a choice,
125, were cast for Roger Sherman, 102 for Deacon Thomas Howell,
and 22 for Thomas Darling,
Mr. Sherman was now in his 63d year, and was unquestionably
the most distinguished resident of the new city. That he did not
carry a larger vote may have been due to his personal character-
istics; that aristocratic, chilling reserve of manner which his
juniors have reported of him, may well have stood in the way of
popularity. Moreover, there were undercurrents of feeling, as we
shall see, that would have prevented a cordial uniting on any one.
It is an evidence of Mr. Sherman's acknowledged merits that at the
time of this election he was absent, in Annapolis, where he had been
for a month in attendance as a member of Congress, which had
migrated southwards, pending the expected establishment of a
capital near the falls of the Potomac.
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130 NEW HAVEN IN I764
Sherman's chief competitor for the mayoralty. Deacon Howell of
Uie First Church, now in his 65th year, was chosen Senior Alder-
man, and thus in the Mayor's absence became the active head of
the government; it is remarkable that neither was of old New
Haven stock, Sherman being a native of Massachusetts and
Howell's father having immigrated from Long Island.
TTie other aldermen were Samuel Bishop, previously identified
with the town-clerk's office for forty years, and brought into wide
notoriety at the end of his long life as President Jefferson's
appointee to the collectorship of the port; Deacon David Austin,
of the White Haven Church; and Isaac Beers, the bookseller.
The interest in the election of twenty common councilmen, which
was not completed till the third day, dwindled so rapidly that the
total number of votes for the last places was only about one hun-
dred. At the conclusion of the election (February 12) all the new
officials except the absent mayor were sworn in, and the city gov-
ernment was finally organized.
Dr. Stiles's valuable diary gives an inside view of the election,
under date of February 13, when he says: "The city politics are
founded in an endeavor silently to bring Tories into an equality and
supremacy among the Whigs. The Episcopalians are all Tories
but two, and all qualified on this occasion, though despising Con-
gress government before ; they may perhaps be forty voters. There
may be twenty or thirty of Mr. Whittelsey's meeting added to
these. Perhaps one-third of the citizens," that is, I suppose, one-
third of the 261 who had taken the freeman's oath, "may be hearty
Tories, one-third Whigs, and one-third indifferent. Mixing all up
together, the election has come out, Mayor and two Aldermen,
Whigs; two Aldermen, Tories. Of the Common Council, five
Whigs, five flexibles but in heart Whigs, eight Tories. The two
Sheriffs," Elias Stilwell and Parsons Gark, "and Treasurer,"
Hezekiah Sabin, "Whigs; the first Sheriff firm, the other flexible,"
From these hints it would appear that the so-called "Tory"
element had been concerned in the entire movement for a charter.
I may add that at a meeting held on March 8, on the motion of Pier-
pont Edwards, a committee of ei^t was appointed, "to consider
of the propriety and expediency of admitting as inhabitants of this
town persons who in the course of the late war have adhered to
the cause of Great Britain against these United States, and are of
fair characters, and will be good and useful members of society
and faithful citizens of this State." In their report, made the same
day, this committee deduced from the independence of the several
States and the spirit of peace and philanthropy displayed in the
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NEW HAVEN IN I784 I3I
"Recommendations" of Congress based on the treaty of peace, that
it was in point of law proper to admit such as are above described,
but not any who were guilty of unauthorized plundering and mur-
der. As for expediency, they suggested that no nation is truly
great unless it is also distinguished for justice and magnanimity;
and argued that it would be magnanimous to restore these persons,
and especially that the commeicial future of New Haven made it
desirable thus to increase its inhabitants. The report was at once
accepted and approved by the town. Such an ardent patriot as
Dr. Stiles dismisses the unpalatable theme with this curt entry in
his diary : "This day town-meeting voted to re-admit the Tories."
The question of the treatment of the loyaUsts had for months
previous been under heated discussion all over the Union; and not
least in New Haven, where the argument was strongly urged that
a sound commercial policy dictated the invitation hither of some
of the numerous gentlemen of large property and influential con-
nections in business, who had been dislodged from their homes
and would gladly begin life anew among a congenial people.
Attempts had been made to mould public opinion by newspaper
appeals; and twice or thrice with special ingenuity by printing
extracts from letters said to have been received from friends in
Europe ; one such, for instance, in the Journal of January 7, repre-
sented that Dr. Franklin and Mr. Jay, now abroad for the negotia-
tion of peace, were much hurt at the harsh measures adopted
toward loyalists. By such means and by more direct arguments,
the way was quietly prepared for a popular amnesty, which was
thus voted in March, 1784, just a year after a former town-meet-
ing, when the New Haven representatives were solemnly instructed
by their constituents "to use their influence with the next General
Assembly in an especial manner, to prevent the return of any of
those miscreants who had deserted their country's cause and joined
the enemies of this and the United States of America, during their
late contest r^' — a striking instance of rapid conversion.
I add before closing a reference to two peculiar provisions of
the charter. It was enacted that the mayor's tenure of office
should be "during the pleasure of the General Assembly," which
was equivalent to a life appointment, and so proved in practice;
for Mayor Sherman retained the position until his death in 1793,
when Samuel Bishop succeeded, continuing till his death in 1803;
the third incumbent, Elizur Goodrich, held office till his resignation
in 1822, and his successor, George Hoadly, till his resignation in
1826, when by vote of the city a request was preferred to the
Assembly, which resulted in the substitution of an annual election.
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133 NEW HAVEN IN I784
Another provision of the charter which needs comment is the
proclamation that power is conferred on the city to exchange the
upper part of the Green, west of the line of the churches, for other
land, for highways, or another green elsewhere. I do not know
that any exchange was ever proposed or attempted; but the inser-
tion in the charter of express authority for the purpose, was perhaps
meant to intimate that the city had the State government at its
back in asserting authority over the public green, as against the
claims preferred by the "Proprietors of Common and Undivided
Lands in New Haven."**
The city government thus organized was immediately put into
c^>eration. The example was contagious; New London asked for
and received a city charter at the same session of the legislature,
and Hartford, Norwich, and Middletown, at the succeeding one.
It was the era of upbuilding and of preparation, — they hardly
knew for what; yet we may doubt if in their proudest dreams the
citizens of 1784 anticipated the growth which has come to pass.
Certainly we know that public sentiment had been incredulous,
when Dr. Stiles in the last election sermon had announced it
"probable that within a century from our independence the sun
will shine on fifty millions of inhabitants in the United States."
But the century has gone by; and the prophecy has very little
exceeded the truth. We can at least learn the lesson, not to
underrate the progress which is possible in the century to come,
knowing that the present is as full of fruit and of promise as
tiie past, and that the resistless tide of time which sweeps down
individuals and generations in its "ceaseless current," only enlarges
and deepens the hold of institutions which subserve useful ends
and are wisely and justly administered.
*A$ an instance of these claims it may be mentioned that the location of
the Fair Haven meeting-house (represented at present by the United Church)
on the Green in 1770 was by a vote of Ae "Proprietors,"
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THE HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT AS ILLUS-
TRATED BY THE NAMES OF HER
TOWNS.
{From the Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society, for April,
1885.]
That is a sound and suggestive sentence of Dr. Johnson's in
which he declares that "Life is surely given us for higher pur-
poses than to gather what our ancestors have wisely thrown away,
and to learn what is of no value but because it has been forgotten."
But while this protest against fruitless an tiqua nanism may be
justified, it is fair to remember that in every growing community
actions and motives underlying them are thrown aside and appar-
ently forgotten, which nevertheless bear good fruit and are worth
recovering, when history comes to be written, for the light they
cast on the methods and aims and daily surroundings of founders
of States, in this spirit I desire to trace a few of the side-lights
that fall on Connecticut history from the names given in successive
generations to the incorporated townships of the State.
I admit at the outset that these names betray almost no trace of
the greater outward events which have been acted on the soil,
almost no trace of the political struggles and divisions which have
agitated the community; the themes which they illustrate are
rather the force of local attachments and of national pride, and
the gradual expansion of an independent people from weakness to
full strength.
^Ve shall see, too, that this absence of political color is itself
full of significance, bearing direct witness to that spirit of diplo-
matic caution and restraint which characterized throughout the
colonial history of Connecticut,- — especially if viewed in contrast
with the elder colony of Massachusetts.
To illustrate my meaning by a single example; — there is no doubt
that our earliest settlers, busily building new homes in the wilder-
ness in the days of successful resistance to Charles I. and of
parliamentary rule in England, sympathized to the full with the
new order of things there; but we search in vain for any evidence
of this sympathy in the names adc^ted for their new abodes, as
they listened to the distant echo of those victories. Meantime, in
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134 CONNECTICUT ILLUSTRATED BY NAMES OF HER TOWNS
Massachusetts, Ihe towns of Reading, and Hull, and Manchester,
received their names in prompt commemoration of Parliamentary
successes ; and I take it that the omission of a like commemoration
in Connecticut was studied, not accidental, and is expressive of a
slightly different attitude from that of Massachusetts towards Eng-
lish authority. In the study of history the things left undone and
unattempted are sometimes as instructive and as significant as the
things actually done or aimed at.
But if we are not to look for any marked display of party feeling
or reference to passing interests, in this connection, what other
guiding principle remains to be discovered? The answer is easily
anticipated, that the names with which the emigrants from Old
England were familiar at home were the chief source of supply
for the new localities; we should expect this to some extent; yet
I doubt if we are prepared at first thought for the remarkable
attachment shown in this method for the old home. Remember that
only four or five years after 1637, when the General Assembly of
Connecticut named its first batch of towns (Hartford, Windsor
and Wethersfield), emigration from Old England to New England
came comparatively to a stand-still, in the near prospect of Puritan
ascendency at home, and was not renewed to any considerable
extent until within the last century;— and yet, for a hundred years
following 1637, more than two-thirds of the names bestowed on
the successive new townships and parishes in this colony were
faithful reproductions of English originals.
Or, to extend the comparison to a longer period, it may well
surprise us to find that out of almost exactly one hundred names
given by public authority to prospective townships in this State,
before the Declaration of Independence, at least fifty-seven were
taken directly from British sources; if I have counted aright,
seventeen of the remainder were owing to obvious peculiarities of
natural location (as Waterbury, Middlefield), ten were mere varia-
tions or combinations of already existing names, usually by geo-
graphical adjuncts (as East Haddam, North Haven), eight were
of Biblical origin, three were from names of Americans, founders
or early settlers, two were borrowed from names in the Colony of
Massachusetts Bay, and the remaining three can hardly be
classified.
The comparative looseness of the tie binding Connecticut during
all these years to the mother country is evidenced by the fact
that for the same period in the two elder colonies of Virginia and
Massachusetts, the proportion of place-names from English sources
was far greater than with us.
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CONNECTICUT ILLUSTRATED BY NAUES OF HER TOWNS I3S
The general conclusions may be made more clear by taking
instances in detail, and for this purpose the history may be separated
into a few well-marked periods.
And first, it is enough to mention the fact that in the earliest
period, that extending down to 1665, there were two entirely distinct
colonies existing within the territory of the present State of
Connecticut.
The elder, a direct outgrowth from the colony of Massachusetts
Bay, had migrated in three bands (which live before us to this day
in the three vines on the seal of the State) to the towns of Hart-
ford, Windsor, and Wethers fie Id, in the Connecticut Valley. It
had borrowed from that valley the musical Indian name of Connect-
icut, which means "beside the long tidal river," and forming'a
combination with the fort planted at the river's mouth, Saybrook,
by the agent of some London proprietors, had increased at the date
mentioned, 1665, to a dozen plantations {of which Hartford was
the capital), most of them still on or near the river, but others
{Norwalk, Fairfield, Stratford, New London) ranging in either
direction along the hne of the Sound. Moreover a few less organ-
ized settlements beyond these, towards New York, and a larger
number on the Long Island shore, had owed allegiance to Connect-
icut. As a whole, the colony was of pure English blood, homo-
geneous therefore, thrifty, orderly, and religious, not so much
under the control of a few autocratic leaders as its model, Massa-
chusetts Bay, but exhibiting a more simple democracy, with a
nearer resemblance in some essential points to the modem spirit
than we find in either of its chief contemporaries.
The second of the two colcwiies within the present State limits
had its centre at, and took its name from New Haven, its first town,
in time, in numbers, and importance; it embraced also the neigh-
boring Guilford, Branford and Milford, together with Stamford
and Greenwich (separated from the rest by some of the Connecticut
settlers), and last of all, Southold on the opposite Long Island
shore. This colony, though organized by men of high religious
character and of abundant pecuniary resources, had been unfortu-
nate in all its history. Unfortunate at first in the time of its begin-
ning, transplanted at a date when the hope of Puritan England was
all on this side the Atlantic, but scarcely set in operation when the
turn of public affairs at home concentrated on that side the water
all the Puritan interest. New Haven especially suffered from this
withdrawal of expected immigration and capital, while Massachu-
setts Bay, already firmly rooted by ten years of unprecedented
growth, and Hartford colony, its healthy offshoot, were better
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136 CONNECTICUT ILLUSTRATED BY NAUES OF HER TOWNS
equipped for meeting such a crisis. Later on, disastrous com-
mercial ventures, embroilment with their Dutch neighbors, and a
certain uncompromising rigidity of Puritanism, which reached its
culmination here, and which after the Restoration challenged
inevitably the interference of the English government, — these and
kindred incidents marked the feeble colony for early extinction.
A reference to the map for the location of each, will show, per-
haps more clearly than any explanation of their different develop-
ment, how predestined was the absorption of the younger and
weaker colony by the elder and stronger one at Hartford. Mean-
time, however, each had its quarter of a century and more of sepa-
rate growth, in which New Haven stood sponsor to seven future
townships, and Connecticut to twelve; — the population and the
wealth of the two sections being about in the same ratio.
But it is time to return from this digression to individual cases
of town-names in these first groups.
The name of New Haven itself may be thought to present as much
difficulty as any other of the entire list, for the theory of an Eng-
lish origin is hardly in this case satisfactory. So far as we can
tell, none of the prominent inhabitants of 1640 (when the name
was given) had come from the little fishing village of the same
name, and the only one in England, just rising into notice as a con-
venient harbor on the coast of Sussex, though now familiar enough
to modem travelers as the terminus of a line of Channel steamers.
Sussex contributed but few to the New England emigration, and
we are not sure that even a single one of the first comers to this
town was of the Sussex quota. The fact remains, that the planta-
tion after being called for two and a half years from the arrival
of the main body of settlers by its Indian name Quinnipiac ("long-
water-country"), received in September, 1640, the name New
Haven by an order of the General Court. The fact is also pre-
served — in a letter of John Davenport's, written in 1639, on the
first coming of a ship direct from England — that the ship's cap-
tain was so well pleased with the harbor, that he called it the Fair
Haven, but there is no clear connection between this incident and
the essentially different name occurring over a year later. For this
name, I know of no better reason to give, than the obvious reason,
namely, the inherent fitness of the name as a descriptive one, a
New Haven, like the reason which induced the settlers on Rhode
Island a year earlier to adopt the name of Newport.
Apparently the two adjoining settlements had, before the name
New Haven came into use, begun to be called Guilford and Milford ;
— the former, it is supposed, from Guildford, in Surrey, in the
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CONNECTICUT ILLUSTRATED BY NAUES OP HER TOWNS 1 37
neighborhood of the former parish of Henry Whitfield, the first
Guilford minister, and the latter more perhaps because the first mill
of the region was already built there, at a convenient ford, than in
reminiscence of any of the numerous Milfords in the old country;
if, however, one of those familiar Milfords was thought of, it was
most likely Milford Haven, the prominent seaport of south-western
Wales, abreast of the entrance to Bristol Oiannel, and so the last
harbor which emigrants direct from Herefordshire, as our Mil-
ford people mainly were, would have taken leave of, as they sailed
out into the West.
Of the other plantations of this colony, Greenwich no doubt
borrowed its name from that of the royal residence on the Thames,
and Stamford was a namesake of the ancient town on the borders
of Lincolnshire and Northamptonshire, while the musical Indian
form Totoket (the last syllables of which are the same with those in
the name of the Connecticut), after holding its own for ten years or
more, was finally replaced by Branford, the popular corruption of
Brentford, a London suburb on the Thames opposite Kew. South-
old, the one plantation on Long Island which came under our
jurisdiction, was a name common enough in England, and perhaps
chosen here partly for geographical reasons. This exhausts the roll
of the New Haven Colony, but we find the same rule of English
names in the Connecticut territory.
There the list is headed by Hartford, commemorating the charm-
ing old town of Hertford, twenty miles due north from London, the
birthplace of Samuel Stone, one of the two ministers of the new
settlement. At the same time were named Wind.sor and Wethers-
field,^ — the one evidently from the famous site of the customary res-
idence of the sovereigns of England, and the other as evidently
from the little town of the same name in the county of Essex.
To these were next added Stratford, a name like Greenwich and
Branford, in reminiscence of a familiar suburb of London, Strat-
ford-at-Bow. and Saybrook, in which is comprehended a fuller
chapter of Connecticut history than in any other single name we
shall meet. It takes us back to 1632, before the emigration to Hart-
ford and Windsor, and recalls the formation in that year of a
company in England for developing the rich valley of the Connect-
icut. Of this company the foremost members were two of the most
prominent among the Puritan nobility, — Viscount Say and Sele, and
Baron Brooke. — with whom were joined Lord Rich, the heir of the
powerful Earl of \Varwick, and such commoners as Pym, and
Hampden, and Humfrey, a son-in-law of the Earl of Uncoln,
These lords and gentlemen intended presently to transport a supply
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138 CONNECTICUT ILLUSTRATED BY NAMES OF HER TOWNS
of Puritan colonists to the unsettled territory, but on finding volun-
teer colonization, of such stuff and with such motives as met their
approval, begun in Hartford and the neighborhood, they willingly
waived their contingent rights, for a large pecuniary consideration,
and so it happens that the name of Say-Brook, given in honor of the
two chief promoters of the company. Lords Say and Broc4ce, to the
fort erected by their order at the mouth of the river, is now the com-
pany's only memorial.
An era of manifestly descriptive names was introduced in 1645,
when a new town made out of the farms in the back country
belonging to Hartford people, was called Farmington; so Fair-field
was named the next year, and so Middle- Town in 1653, as the
earliest connecting link between Saybrook and the up-river settle-
ments. Norwalk, in 1650, has usually been associated with these,
by being said to commemorate a purchase from the natives of terri-
tory measured by one day's North-walk from the Sound, but the
orthography used in the early appearances of the name does not
favor this explanation, and common sense rejects it; it is almost
certainly Indian, modified by English lips.
In 1653 the oldest plantation east of the Connecticut river, in
which Governor Winthrop was the chief inhabitant, known hitherto
by its Indian name of Pequot, received the name of New London, —
the Governor improving the occasion to spread upon the records the
reason for the change under the "commendable practice of all the
Colonies of these parts, that as this Country hath its denomination
from our dear native Country of England, and thence is called New
England, so the planters, in their first settling of most new planta-
tions, have given names to those plantations of some cities and
towns in England, thereby intending to keep up and leave to poster-
ity the memorial of several places of note there, as Boston, Hart-
ford, Windsor," &c. ; and so New London supplanted Pequot, the
one name which would have fitly handed down the remembrance of
the Pequot tribe and the Pequot war, the greatest tragedy enacted
on Connecticut soil under European domination.
By the same rule, a few months later, when another plantation
was laid out to the northward of New London, it took the name of
"Norridge," that particular name being perhaps suggested by the
geographical position of the new settlement, it being much the same
in relation to the other as the original Norwich to the original Lon-
don; it is not ascertained that any of the early inhabitants were
from Norwich in Old England.
One more locality in the colony had recrived a permanent name
before the close of this period, though not erected into a town for
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CONNECTICUT ILLUSTRATED BY NAMES OF HER TOWNS I39
more than a century later ; I refer to Meriden which was settled and
named as early as 1664 by Andrew Belcher, of Boston, whose
family came originally from Meriden or Miriden, a httle village near
Coventry, in Warwickshire, which was so named in accurate
description of its location, that is, in a miry dene, dene being old
English for valley.
This ends our survey of the ante-unipn period, except for notice
of the fact that Rye, on the debatable border between the Colony of
Connecticut and the Province of New York, was named by the
ftM-mer authority from the English port of that name in Sussex.
Of course some other places, also, not yet fully settled, were already
locally known by various names which did not prove permanent;
such for instance was Mystic, in the territory east of New London,
which Massachusetts had pretended to annex, calling it Souther-
town, which later grew into the modern Stonington.
We come next to the consolidation of the two separate colonies
into one, and though it be two hundred and twenty years ago. New
Haven has not even yet forgotten the dismay with which she
learned in 1662 that the restored King had granted a charter to the
Hartford people, putting under their authority all the territory
which they could get hold of, from the Rhode Island boundary west-
ward to the Pacific. In the beginning the New Haven government
had scrupulously bought out the Indian title to their lands, but had
failed of securing a confirmation of this title by a grant from the
authority of England, which claimed the sovereign right to the dis-
posal of all the Atlantic coast by virtue of discovery. The unequal
struggle of the two colonies could have but one termination, Con-
necticut had acquired a legal title to the New Haven lands, superior,
that is to say, in the eye of English law, to that of the planters them-
selves. If these planters should dechne to submit to her, she might
not indeed coerce them, but they were without friends at court, and
it was broadly threatened that nothing could in that case avert a
still greater evil, — annexation to New York, whose proprietor would
not hesitate to establish his authority by force of arms; — and so,
after three years of impotent delay, Connecticut found herself
acknowledged mistress of all the territory since known as hers.
In explanation of the reluctance with which the older public men
of New Haven accepted the issue, it should be said that it meant
to them not merely the disappearance of a separate experiment of
government, of which they had had control, and the entering of
other men into their labors, but much more, the humiliation of a col-
ony which had been founded in church fellowship, and which had
aimed at a specially high religious standard in its laws and disci-
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I40 CONNECTICUT ILLUSTRATED BY NAMES OF HER TOWNS
pline, and had exhibited the purest ideal of union of church and
state, henceforth to be a subordinate portion of another colony, cer-
tainly never so strict in professitm, — for instance not exacting any
religious qualifications of its voters, — and just now, in particular,
thought too complaisant in its attitude towards the English throne.
But the apprehension was worse than the reality. In fact, the
second era of our history stretches through a vista of comfortable
prosperity from this union to the severance from England in 1776.
With a charter from the King which secured to her people the entire
control of the government, Connecticut was complete within herself,
and without motive for interest or intrigue beyond her own domain.
The effect was, that she prudently kept in the background the sub-
ject of relations with the mother-country, and was practically inde-
pendent of England, long before the other colonies had reached the
point of desiring separation.
The same principles, however, in the choice of names for newly
gathered communities continued to hold. But naturally, the further
we are from the source of the stream, the harder it will be to trace
its descent; it is still possible, nevertheless, to show that the major-
ity of thesenames repeated to a new generation those which were
familiar to their ancestors in the old country. I may not delay for
more than a few of the specially striking examples. But I may
point out, for instance, that it adds to the interest with which we
pass the name of KUlingwortk, to remember that Edward Gris-
wold, a pioneer of Englishmen on that ground, was bom in Kenil-
worth, in Warwickshire, and that the form of the name which we
use (though a complete disguise of the original meaning, a manor by
the canal or ditch) is still the familiar corruption among the peas-
ants of the English neighborhood. The original petition for a town,
in 1667, preserved in the State Library, in the handwriting of the
minister of the parish, John Woodbridge, spells the name "Kenelme-
worth." It is a pity, by the way, that by the modern regulations in
this State for the division of town.s, the name Killingworth, after
having served for one hundred and seventy years to designate the
original settlement on the shore of the Sound, had to be trans-
ferred, — when that part of the town petitioned for a division, — to a
remote back country parish, while the continuity of history was
broken by attaching to a locality so long associated with the early
English emigration, the bran-new name of Clinton.
Like these Griswolds in Killingworth, many other of our historic
houses have recorded indelibly on the map of Connecticut their
English origin. Thus the estates which the family of- John Haynes,
the first Governor of Connecticut, owned at Great Hadham in Hert-
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CONNECTICUT ILLUSTXATED BY NAMES OF HER TOWNS I4I
fordshire, suggested a name ior our Haddam. Thus, again, Groton
was named during the governorship of Fitzjohn Winthrop, out of
respect to the Suffolk country-seat of his distinguished family, and
not at all unlikely is it that Colchester, the first town to be named
after his accession to the chief magistracy, owed its appellation to
the fact that the English Colchester is the nearest town of any con-
siderable size to Groton, Tradition adds that he gave its name to
Canterbury also, near the same date, in honor of the great cathedral
city of eastern England.
Similarly, when Governor Winlhrop was succeeded by Governor
Saltonstall, it was only natural that the manor of Killingly, near
Pontefract, in Yorkshire, owned by the Saltonstall family, should be
honored in the name of a new town, and that Pontefract itself
should also be reproduced, in the colloquial form of Pomfret. Pos-
sibly also Bolton, named during the same term of office, may have
been a reminiscence of Bolton Abbey, one of the famous sights of
the same English neighborhood.
So, again, tradition reports that Durham in England was the
home of the Wadsworth family, and that thus their prominent share
in the settlement of our Durham suggested its name.
So, too, Tolland and Willington commemorate two Somerset-
shire villages, in one of which was born and in the other lived that
Henry Wolcott who came to America in 1630, and whose grandson,
Governor Roger Wolcott, was the chief patentee almost a century
later of these two new towns in Tolland County, It may be men-
tioned that the orthography in the case of the younger of these towns
was at first usually Wellington, as was that of its English prototype,
which has the honor of having given a title to the conqueror of
Waterloo.
Once more, the Ripley family was among a company of emi-
grants from Hingham, in Norfolk, who originally settled the town
of Hingham, in Massachusetts Bay, and when descendants bearing
the same family name pushed out into the Connecticut wilderness
and founded a new town, naturally they chose for it the name of
Windham, dear to their fathers' ears as the customary pronuncia-
tion of Wymondham, the largest place within the immediate vicin-
ity of Old Hingham. on the eastern coast of England.
These may suffice as examples, but we run little risk in saying
that it is only our ignorance of family history among the first comers
that stands in the way of our finding similar reasons for the reappear-
ance here of such obscure English village names as Simondsbury,
colloquially Simsbury, in Dorsetshire, Danbury in Essex, Berkham-
stead in Hertfordshire, the birthplace of the poet Cowper, and
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143 CONNECTICUT ILLUSTRATED BY NAUES OF HEK TOWNS
Torringt<Mi and Hartland in Devonshire, — though possibly this last
may be descriptive of land colonized from Hartford.
Of less value as indicating directions in which the future gene-
alogist may work, yet not perhaps altogether without promise, are
the names of larger English towns or cities which we have copied,
such as Lyme*" and Wallingford, Preston and Derby, Glastonbury,
Stafford and Wilton, Litchfield and Coventry, Chester and Win-
chester.
In some of the later instances in which a well-known English
name is conferred on a remote country parish, — as for instance
when the inaccessible hill district in New Haven County was called
Oxford, in 1741, — it is idle to conclude either that there was a fam-
ily tradition connecting the localities, or that there was hope of
a career which should recall the lustre of the English exemplar.
The selection merely testifies to a natural recurrence on the part of
descendants, proud of the heritage of English glory, to the names
which filled so large a share of English history. Occasionally a sen-
timental reason has been assigned for the choice. Thus Newington
parish (afterwards made a town) is said to have been named in
1718, out of respect to the residence in Stoke- Newington, a London
suburb, of the excellent Dr. Watts, whose hymns, first published
eleven years before, had already begun to be known and admired in
America ; but this explanation is not free from difficulties.
And thus Chatham is said, in 1767, to have been named in fond
anticipation that its future shipyards might rival in importance the
Royal Dockyard of Chatham, in Kent; at the same time it is fair
to suppose that the authorities could read in this case between the
lines, and allow a special fitness in the name, at a time when William
Pitt, Earl of Chatham, was the popular hero of America, because
of his stand against the alleged right of Parliament to tax the col-
onies. That this sentiment might have inspired the name is sug-
gested also by the petition received in the next year for a town in
Windham Coimty, to be called Wilkes-Barre, by a combination of
the names of two other outspoken English friends of American lib-
erty. The petition, as it happened, was refused, though probably
not on account of the name proposed; but emigrants from the same
region of Windham County, within a few years from this date, who
engaged in the wild crusade for the possession of the Wyoming
Valley, in northeastern Pennsylvania, planted there a living
memorial of the incident, by naming in 1775 the still flourishing
town of Wilkes-Barre.
•° From Lyme, in Oieshire, the ancestral home of the Lees?
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CONNECTICUT ILLUSTRATED BY NAUES OF HER TOWNS 143
Sometimes, as in connection with the apportionment into new
townships of the further part of Litchfield County, in 1738, — the
last section of the State to be laid out and settled, — the names of
larger divisions of the old country, as Norfolk, Kent, and Cornwall,
were made use of ; so, earlier, we have the infelicitous application
of Cheshire (that is Chester-shire, the County of Chester) to a
country village ; and even of Scotland to one of the least populous
towns in the State, so named about 1700 by its earliest inhabitant,
a Scotchman by birth ; so, too, in 1754, in one of the latest efforts
of vanishing loyalty, the parish of New Britain was ambitiously set
off from Farmington. This leads to the remark that expressions
of loyalty to the British Crown and of compliment to the British
Court, in the shape of names of places, were in Connecticut con-
spicuous by their absence. No one need ask for clearer testimony
to the main facts of the Colony's relations to England than is fur-
nished by the silent witness of her town-roll; and the lesson may
be pointed by contrast with Massachusetts, with which comparison
is natural, because of the apparent similarity in forms of govern-
ment. Yet how great was the actual difference, and how really
was that Colony controlled under its second charter by the mother
country, let this fact show, — that of the names of towns given in
Massachusetts in just the half-century before the Revolution, at
least forty per cent, are distinctly derived from the names or titles
or residences of members of the royal family or courtiers and place-
men. So that this portion of the roll of Massachusetts townships"
reads somewhat like a leaf out of the peerage, with its Hanover,
Lunenburg, Shrewsbury, Bedford, Halifax, Pelham, Hardwick,
Granville, Chesterfield, Shelbume, and so on; while by way of
counterpart, Connecticut has absolutely nothing to show, unless it be
the single instance of Somers, a town originally named by Massa-
chusetts, and later transferred to this Colony in the straightening
of the boundary line. Perhaps I ought also to state that in 1761 a
new parish formed out of Norwich, by the General Court, was called
Hanover, possibly a tribute of respect to the reigning house; Han-
over Parish, however, never gave name to a town.
The mention of Somers reminds me that there was little wor-
ship of heroes, whether native or foreign, in the New Englander of
that day if left to himself, least of all in Connecticut, which had
" See Mr. W. H. Whitmore's elaborate paper on the "Origin of the Name*
of Towns in Massachusetts," in the Proceedings of the Massachusetts His-
torical Society for February, 1873, PP- 393-41!)-
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144 CONNECTICUT ILLUSTRATED BY NAMES OF HER TOWNS
been sharply distinguished from the mother colony of Massachu-
setts Bay in its eariiest years by its democratic equality and the com-
parative absence of a group of leaders with high family connections
at home.
Naturally then, we find here no conspicuous attempts, as in Bal-
timore and New York and Albany, to preserve the fame of titled
owners; nor any Jamestown, nor Charleston, nor Annapolis, in
honor of reigning princes; just as the colony itself did not draw
its name from the person or the position of its proprietors, as did
Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, New Hampshire; nor like
Virginia and Carolina, Maryland and Georgia, from royal god-
fathers and godmothers.
It was natural enough, however, that in a simpler way the zeal
of individuals in opening up unbroken tracts of land should be
emphasized, as when the new town of Mansfield was named in 1702
in honor of Major Moses Mansfield, one of its largest proprietors.
So Reading Parish in 1729 got its name from Col. John Read, the
principal settler, though local tradition now asserts tiiat by the time
a town charter was applied for, thirty-eight years later, the unpop-
ularity of Col. Read was such that the people voted distinctly that
the name to be asked for should be, not Reoding but Rerfding.
Thompson in 1730 was named from an early English landholder.
Sir Robert Thompson, a devoted friend of the colonies, whose
family owned a good part of the township until after 1800. Elling-
ton Parish, though the name is common in Old England, is said to
have been so called, in 1735, in allusion to the Ellsworth family, as
among the principal owners of the district.
The question may be asked here whether the English towns which
were the originals of our town names, group themselves in such a
way upon the map as to throw any light on the general question of
the distribution of emigrations from England to Connecticut. In
Other words, do these inquiries help us to know from what parts of
England Connecticut was peopled? It may be said in reply that
the conclusions to be drawn from these data all tend to corrt^rate
the existing information as to Connecticut stock. What this stock
usually was, the experience of the nucleus of the New Haven
Colony well illustrates : the first settlers in the town of New Haven
represented at least three distinct neighborhoods, — one part from
London, one from Kent, and one from Yorkshire, — the last colo-
nizing in the quarter which our modem "York Street" marks.
Guilford was mainly settled from Surrey and Kent, and Milford
from Herefordshire in the west. Here we have then a mingling of
streams, from the metropolis, the south-eastern counties, the distant
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CONNECTICUT ILLUSTRATED BY NAMES OF HER TOWNS 145
north-east, and the western midland ; and this partial view is
typical of the whole. In populating Connecticut, not only London
and the eastern counties, but in less degree the south-west, the mid-
land, the north-east, all bore their part, and all contributed their
fair share to our treasury of town names.
I pass on to other clas.ses of names in the same pre -Revolutionary
period. Those suggested by natural peculiarities of soil or land-
scape need detain uS but a moment. Occasionally, as in Roxbury
or Brooklyn, the spelling may slightly disguise the original form,
but in genera] such descriptive terms as Stonington and Ashford,
Woodbury and Waterbury, Plainfield, Ridgefield, and Rocky Hill,
all of which are names originating in New England, are self-
explanatory. Brooklyn was of course at first Brook-Hne and has
nothing whatever in common with the pretty Dutch village of
Breuckelen, near Utrecht, which gave its name, meaning "marsh-
land," to the City of Churches, opposite New York.
Among our descriptive names is Suffield, which Connecticut
acquired from Massachusetts in 1749, with Woodstock, Enfield,
and Somers, by the straightening of boundary lines, and which was
originally named in 1674 Southfield, with geographical reference to
Springfield, as Westfield was, it being, as the record of the Massa-
chusetts General Court runs, "the southernmost town that either
at present is or is like to be in that country." Enfield, its neighbor
on the east, founded nine years later, seems, however, to have
had its name from the English Enfield, a northern suburb of
London, and not from its being the "End" of this group of
"Field" towns. In general the scrutiny of these descriptive appel-
lations should make us well content that this was not the favorite
principle under which the colony was developed; it is not decrying
the fathers of Connecticut to admit that they lacked the graceful,
active imagination which has brought such a system to perfection
among other peoples of a warmer blood.
Again, the derivatives from names already existing in the Colony
present no difficulty. It should be noted, however, that this class
of names aflfords disappointingly little insight into the movements of
population; only three towns, two in Litchfield County and one in
Fairfield County, bear names which certainly indicate such sources
of colonization. New Milford, settled from Milford in 1703, New
Fairfield (1728), and New Hartford (1733); besides these, the
town of Salem, in New London County, was so called out of respect
to Col. Samuel Brown, of Salem, Mass., a great landholder in the
parish when it was named in 1728; and the town of Andover, in
Tolland County, is said to have received its name in 1747, in com-
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14* CONNECTICUT ILLUSTRATED BY NAMES OF HER TOWNS
pliment to the emigration of some of its early inhabitants from
Andover in Massachusetts. There are also a number of deriva-
tives which merely indicate the geographical partition of a for-
merly undivided territory; the earliest of these is East Haven, set
off in 1707, but long before known as a village by the same name.
The composite name of Harwinton was given in 1732 to a new town-
ship formed by settlers from Hartford, Windsor and Farmington,
each name contributing a syllable to the new designation. Many
parish names have at different times been similarly constructed,
though none of these parishes have attained the rank of separate
towns ; thus Hadlyme, carved out of Haddam and Lyme, Winsted,
from Winchester and Barkhamsted, and Stratiield, the parish
between Stratford and Fairfield, which later took the natural name
of Bridgeport.
Another distinct class is that of Biblical names, introduced by
Lebanon, which was in use as early as 1695, before town privileges
were applied for. It may be doubted whether there was any
attempt in these at special etymological or historical adaptation,
though Lebanon may have a cedar swamp, Goshen may be good
pasture land, and Sharon abound in rich verdure. Between 1697
and 1762, and chiefly towards the later date, Connecticut named in
this manner eight of her towns, besides several parts of towns or
parishes. The fact accords with a certain devoutness of temper-
ament and familiar recourse to Scripture, not out of place in a
generation which was stirred to its depths by the revival preaching
of Edwards and Whitefield. In most of these cases it is clear that
the names did not originate with the residents of the districts, but
with the General Assembly or other officials. It is a curious fact
that Massachusetts, which we are wont to think of as the ideal
Puritan Colony, shows in her entire history but three Biblical names
in her list of towns; Salem in 1630, Rehoboth (in Plymouth Col-
ony) in 1645, a""^ Sharon in 1765,
Under the classes now enumerated are included all the names
given down to the Revolution, save two exceptional cases, Volun-
town, a unique name manufactured in 1708 to denote the land
granted by tiie Colony to the volunteer soldiers of New London
County, who had taken such effective part in Philip's war and in the
consequent conquest of the Narragansett Indians; and Union, so
named in 1732. For the latter name T have no explanation to offer,
unless it is to be interpreted by comparison with the names given
within a dozen years earlier and later to the various parishes of
Unity, New Concord, and Amity, which never became town names.
I conjecture that in all these cases there lurks a reference to a
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CONNECTICUT ILLUSTRATUD BY NAMES OF HEK TOWNS I47
combination of disconnected families of inmiigrants for a commtHi
purpose of settlement.
With the outbreak of the Revolution, we enter on a new period
in the treatment of town nomenclature, and if we lose the controlling
English influence, it is to substitute in a slightly less emphatic d^ree
an American standard. One-third the names given in this period
are descriptive of situation or derivatives from existing names, and
an equal portion were given in honor of Americans either nation-
ally or locally renowned. Names taken from English localities are
not wholly wanting. Bristol, Hampton, and Essex may perhaps be
such ; Manchester and Portland certainly are so, with a clear refer-
ence to the trade in Manchester cottons and silks, and in Portland
stone, as reproduced in the new world ; a similar principle prompted
the name of the borough of Birmingham. Berlin, Lisbon, Canton
and Darien among towns, and Baltic and Hamburg among parishes,
are witnesses to the widening of the horizon by foreign travel and
commercial ventures. The names of Hamden, assigned by the
Assembly in place of Mount Carmel, in 1786, and Cromwell, of so
late a date as 1851, were evidently borrowed from the annals of the
English revolution of 1640; so Orange, in 1822, was distinctly
given in honor of the hero of the revolution of 1689. The same
spirit which dictated these selections, exulting in the triumphs of
the Revolution, gave us the towns of Washington in 1779, of Frank-
lin and Warren in 1786, of Columbia in 1804, of Vernon (from
Mount Vernon) in 1808, and of Putnam in 1855. A kindred spirit,
that which does honor to the leading official characters of the
nation, gave us Monroe in 1823, during President Monroe's admin-
istration ; while the next town to be incorporated, three years later,
bore the name of Madison. Strangely enough, in the light of the
political history of the State, these were not accompanied by any
like tribute to the greater leader of the party dear to Connecticut,
President Jefferson. \Vith respect for the great men of the nation,
there is sure to be fostered also respect for the eminent men of the
individual State; and our roll worthily commemorates such states-
men as Sherman, and such Governors as Trumbull and GriswcJd
and Huntington and Woicott and Seymour. A number of towns,
as might be expected, preserve the names of local celebrities. Such
are Woodbridge and Brookiield, named from their first ministers,
Benjamin \\'oodbridge and Thomas Brooks; Sterling, from a tem-
porary resident. Dr. John Sterling, who made in 1794 an offer, never
fulfilled, to give a public library, if he might be thus commemora-
ted; Chaplin, from Deacon Benjamin Chaplin, who endowed the
church in that parish ; Ledyard, from a former proprietor of the
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148 CONNECTICUT IIXUSTRATED BY NAMES OF HER TOWNS
district, and from the noted traveller, John Ledyard, a native of
the soil; Morris, from the well-known Litchfield family of that
name ; and Sprague and Thomaston, from the capitalists who devel-
oped the manufacturing resources of those communities.
We are limiting our inquiry to incorporated towns ; as every one
sees, however, the parishes or boroughs in Connecticut have often
eclipsed in importance and repute the towns proper in which they
are found. And of course a large number of these local business
centres of modem growth hand down the names of the men or the
families who have promoted them; thus we have Ansonia, from
Anson G. Phelps of New York, Jewett City, CoHinsville, Plants-
ville, Danielsonville, and so on.
The habit of naming from points of natural scenery and from
geographical relation to Other places has continued during the post-
Revolutionary period, giving a large number of appellations, as a
rule not at all interesting. There are a few graphic exceptions,
such as Prospect and Bloomfield. Fortunately the list is disfig-
ured by only one hybrid compound, that is, only one in which the
several parts are evidently taken from different languages; the
exception, and that as recent as 1869, is Plainville, heretofore locally
known as the Great Plain. The single other instance in which this
termination appears is in Montville, where both parts are French,
and where the meaning, "hill-residence," not only describes appro-
priately the elevated situation, but has a covert reference to the
family name of the first pastor of the flock, the Rev. James Hill-
house, a name made memorable to New Haven also, through a line
of his descendants.
Under date of 1844 appears the only Indian name besides Nor-
walk borne by a Connecticut town, that of Naugatuck. We do well
to regret that so many of the euphonious syllables which preceded
all names of our choosing on this soil have been thought unworthy
of formal adoption ; the only recompense must lie in their reten-
tion to mark lesser local divisions, some of which are as familiarly
known as any towns; so we have Willimantic, Mystic, Niantic,
Montowese, CosCob and a long catalogue of others. In this matter
of esteem for Indian terminology, Connecticut showed herself less
conservative than any other of the colonies ; to recur to Massa-
chusetts for comparison, there Scituate in the Plymouth Colony
was the sole example until 1762; then before the Revolution we
find Natick, Marshpee, and Cohasset, reinforced in later times by
half a dozen more.
In the entire Connecticut list there is no name derived from clas-
sical literature; the pervading influence of the Colfege did not
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CONNECTICUT ILLUSTRATED BY NAMES OF HEX TOWNS 149
encourage any such afFectations as have disfig:ured, for instance,
central New York, with its Ovid and Tully, its Marathon and
Pharsalia, its Delphi and Tyre, its Romulus and Pompey, and a
host of others.
There are only two names in our hst which allow any suspicion
of a sentimental origin; these are Union, already mentioned, and
Avon, named in 1830 by some admirer of the bard of Avon, It is a
proof perhaps of the more sober and prosaic nature of Connecticut
pioneers, that they did not emulate Roger Williams in that sublime
touch of religious sentiment in which he gave his city of refuge
the name of Providence; a generation, however, which coined or
adopted the beautiful name of Fairfield cannot have been wholly
wanting in the poetic sense.
I may add a word as to the relative responsibility of the town
itself and the Colony authorities for the names actually given. In
earlier times the evidence goes to show that the preferences of the
settlers in a new place had the controlling influence, while for the
later Colonial period the central power had much more to do with
determining the selection. Yet there were exceptions enough to
point a striking contrast to the experience of Massachusetts. There,
after the original charter was set aside, in 1684, the colony became
a protince in. the full sense of the original distinction of those words ;
the volunteer settlement became a conquered outpost of England,
and a race of royal governors left their broad mark on the van-
quished territory in a monotonous series of derivatives from cour-
tiers and politicians, to which, as I have said before, Connecticut,
with her governors always chosen by popular election, has no paral-
lel. In the ordinary run of cases, probably, the choice of a name
was left to the governor. When the inhabitants, as rarely happened
after the earliest years, expressed a preference, it was usually
respected. Occasionally, however, just often enough to keep alive
the knowledge of their right to do so, the authorities exercised
even in such cases the power of decision. Thus, in 1687, the
primitive settlers of what we know as Danbury petitioned for town-
privileges, requesting the name of Swampfield, and perhaps it may
l>c thought to imply an Essex origin for the family of the then
Governor, Robert Treat, that in rejecting as he did the prosaic
compound which the people asked for, he substituted a village name
familiar to none but an Essex man. though full of suggestion to
him of Dane-bury, the ancient encampment of the Danish invader
in that shire of eastern England. Again, a generation later, in
1720, when a petition came in from the scattered farmers of what
had been locally known, sometimes as Hartford Mountains, some-
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150 CONNECTICUT ILLUSTRATED BY NAMES OF HER TOWNS
times as Hanover, that they shouM be set off as a town and called
Hanover, the Assembly, or more properly Governor Saltonstall
himself, discarded the proposed name, which might well have seemed
like an obtrusive attempt to' profess allegiance to the house lately
seated on the British throne, and assigned instead the colorless
name of Bolton, The incident is quite in keeping with the favorite
attitude of Connecticut towards the mother country, putting in the
background as much as possible the relation between them. Another
instance of these interferences with the avowed will of the petition-
ing inhabitants, is in the case of a part of Norwich, which in 1786
sent a request to be made into a town by the name of Bath, but
Bozrah was preferred by the Assembly. The floating tradition,
which I give for what it is worth, is that the change was in conse-
quence of some one's observing the particolored homespun suit worn
by the rustic messenger who offered the petition, and flippantly
reciting the solemn apostrophe of the Hebrew prophet: "Who is
this that Cometh from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah?"
Whether the explanation is correct or not, certain it is that the
name originally presented was stricken out and another conferred,
at a time when Biblical names had ceased to be the fashion for such
purposes in Connecticut, and one which has so little to commend
it that it is one of the few of our town names which remain unique,
not duplicated in the list of any of the newer States.
It would require a closer study of the currents of population for
the last fourscore years than I have been able to give, to show
exhaustively how the dispersion of the sons of Connecticut has
dotted the wide continent with the old town-names and with others
derived from honored families of the State. Not only on the West-
em Reserve in Ohio do Norwalk and Saybrook, New London and
New Haven, Lyme and Danbury, Qeveland and Painesville. Can-
field and Tallmadge, and a multitude of other names, hand down
the record of the first peopling of that region as "New Connecticut."
Later emigrations to further distances have kept repeating the same
process, and just as the forefathers made old Connecticut a guide-
book to those English hamlets which they held in brightest remem-
brance, so the descendants, inheriting their enterprise as pioneers,
have made of new homes all over the west and south-west speaking
memorials of the State of their birth ; and herein, though it be in a
sense which no prophet or statesman foresaw, is fulfilled the bold
promise of the charter which his gracious majesty King Charles IT.
magnificently, if ignorantly, gave in 1662, providing that his loyal
Colony of Connecticut should run for the future from the Narra-
gansett river on the east, westward — westward still, across the
continent to the Pacific Sea !
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APPENDIX.
A list is subjoined of the 167 incorporated towns in Connecticut,
chronologically arranged according to the dates of the first use of
their names, so far as the present writer is informed. The supposed
origin of the names is indicated in parentheses, or by figures, with
the following meaning: — i, from localities in' England and other
foreign countries ; 2, from personal names ; 3, from other American
localities, especially in Connecticut ; 4, from peculiarities of natural
situation ; 5, from the Bible.
1637, Hartford, i.
1637, Wethersfield, 1.
1637. Windsor, I.
1639, Saybrook, 2.
1639. Milford, 4 or I.
1639. Guilford, I.
1640, New Haven, 4.
1640, Gre
wich.
1642, Stamford, i
1643, Slralford. i.
1645, Farminglon, 4.
1646, Fairfield, 4.
1650, Norwalk (Indian
1653, Bran ford, i.
1653. Middletown, 4.
1658. New London, i.
1659, Norwich, 1.
1664, Meriden, I.
1666, Stonington. 4.
1667, Killing worth, I.
1667. Lyme. i.
1668, Haddam, I.
1670, Walling ford, I.
1670, Simsbury, 1.
1674. Suflield. 4.
1674. Woodbury, 4.
1675. Derby. 1.
1683. Enfield, I.
1686, Waterbury, 4.
1687, Preston, i.
1687. Danbury, I.
1690, Woodstock, I.
1691, Windham, I.
1692, Glastonbury, i.
1695. Lebanon, 5.
ifigi), Colchester, 1.
1700, Plainfield. 4.
17OS,
1707,
1707,
1708,
1708,
1708,
Mansfield, 2.
Canterbury, 1.
New Milford, 3.
Durham, I.
Groton, I.
Scotland, 1.
ELast Haven, 3.
Hebron, 5-
Voluntown (see p. 146).
Newtown, 1. (?)
Killingly, I.
Ridgefield, 4.
Ash ford, 4.
Coventry, I.
Pom fret, I.
Tolland, I.
East Haddam, 3.
Stafford, I.
Newington, i.
Rocky Hill. 4.
Litchfield, i.
Bolton, I.
North Stonington. 3.
Cheshire. I.
WillinRton. I.
Wilton, I.
Southington, 4.
[New] Salem, 3.
New Fairfield, 3.
Redding, 2.
Thompson, 2.
South bury. 3.
New Canaan, 5.
Torrington, i.
Barkhamsted. i.
Colebrook. i.
Harwinton, 3.
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i5»
CONNECTICUT ILLUSTRATED BY NAMES OF HER TOWNS
1732, Union (see p. 14&).
1733. Hartland, i or 3.
1733, Winchcsier, I.
1733, New Hartford, 3.
1734, Somers, 2.
1735, Ellington, 2. (?)
1738, Norfolk, L
1738, Goshen, 5.
1738, Canaan, S-
1738, Cornwall, I.
1738, Kent, I.
1738, Salisbury, 2.
1739, North Haven, 3.
1739, Bethlehem, 5.
1739, Sharon, 5.
1740, Chester, i.
1741, Oxford, I.
1743, Roxbury, 4.
1744, Middlelield, 4,
1747, Andover, 3.
1747, Marlborough, 1 or 2.
1752, Brooklyn, 4.
1754. New Britain, i.
1759, Bethel, 5-
1762, Bethany, 5.
1767, Chatham, 1 or 2.
1768, East Windsor 3.
1768, North Branford, 3.
1768, East Hartford, 3.
1777, Eastford, 3.
1779, Washington, 2.
1780, Watertown, 4.
1784, W 00 db ridge, 2.
1785, Berlin, I.
1785, Bristol, I. (?)
1786, Bozrah, 5.
1786, Franklin, 2.
1786. Hamden, 2.
1786, Lisbon, I.
1786, Warren, 2.
1786, Granby, 3. (?)
1786, Hampton, 1 or 3.
1786, Montville, 4 and 2.
1787, Weston, 4.
1788, Brookfield, 2.
1789, HuntinRton, 2.
1790, Middlebury. 4.
1794, Sterling, 2.
'795, Plymouth, 3.
1796, Wokott, 2.
1797, Trumbull, 2.
1800, Bridgeport, 4-
1801, Waterford, 4.
1802, Sherman, 2.
1803, Bridgewater, 4.
1604, Columbia, 2.
1806, Burlington, 3. { ?)
1806, Canton, I.
1806, West Hartford, 3.
1808, Vernon, 3.
i8og, Chaplin, 2.
1810, Westbrook, 3.
1813, North Canaan, 3.
1815, Griswold, 2.
1816, East Lyme, 3.
1820, Darlen, 3.
1820, Essex, 4.
1822, East Granby, 3.
1822, Orange, 2.
1823, Manchester, i.
1823, Monroe, 2.
1826, Madison, 2.
1827, Prospect, 4.
1830, Avon, I.
1831, Plainville, 4.
1833, Windsor Locks, 3.
1835, Bloomfidd, 3 or 4.
1835, Wcslport, 4.
1836, Lcdj'ard, 2.
1838, Clinton, 2 or 3.
1841, Portland, i.
1844, Naugatuck (Indian).
1845, Easton, 3.
1845, South Windsor, 3.
1850, Seymour, 2.
1851, Cromwell, 2.
1852, Old Saybrook, 3.
185s, Old Lyme, 3.
i8ss, Putnam, 2.
1856, Beacon Falls, 4.
1859, Morris, 2.
1861, Sprague, 2.
1866, Thomaston, 2.
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ESTIMATES OF POPULATION IN THE
AMERICAN COLONIES.
I am not aware that any attempt has been made to discuss in a
connected way the scattered estimates of the numbers of inhabitants
from time to time in the several colonies which afterwards became
the United States of America. The materials at command are so
meagre as to discourage inquiry, but a conviction that a beginning
should be made in the arrangement of the data we have, and a hope
of opening the way for useful deductions, have moved me to offer
this study.
Certain elements of difficulty are inseparable from the attempt, f
In America, under the colonial regime, there was but little
systematic collection by authority of trustworthy population-
statistics. For long periods, in most of the colonies, there was an_J
utter dearth of even the pretence of knowledge ; while such estimates
as we have, there is reason to suspect, are often intentionally mis-
leading, when officials, on the one hand of the boastful, or on the
other hand of the timid type, thought to serve some interest by
exaggeration or by understatement. In many of the returns,
moreover, there is a failure to specify whether certain classes of
the community, as negroes and Indians, are included; often, how-
ever, such uncertainty vanishes by an inspection of the figures.
Other elements of vagueness and of perplexity will suggest
themselves, as we consider the field in detail. ^
Taking the colonies in the usual geographical order, the first
is the Province of New Hampshire, in which there are no
peculiarities or extraordinary variations to be noted, but a tolerably
uniform though slow rate of increase.
The separate history of the district is merged from 1641 to
1679 i" tl'^^ of Massachusetts Bay; and for the earliest period,
th.at prior to the protectorate of Massachusetts, our associate
Col. .Mbert H. Hoyt, in a paper contributed to our Proceedings,"
estimates that "the entire population * * • did not much exceed, if
it equalled, one thousand souls." The figure suggested is, I think,
too large, in comparison with the earliest official basis of calculation,
•^ .April. 1876, 91.
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154 ESTIMATES OF POPULATION IN AMERICAN COLONIES
namely, the 209 qualified voters at the date of the first General
Assembly after the erection of New Hamphsire into a Royal
Province." True, the Hst of voters in 1680 by no means embraced
the whole male population of voting age; but so far as it gives any
clue, it implies less than 1,000 inhabitants in 1641, and less than the
4,000 and the 6,000 which Mr. Bancroft assigns to these towns in
1675 and 1689, respectively."
The first contemporaneous figures are those in a Report by the
Lords of Trade on the American Plantations in 1721, to the effect
that the number of people on Governor Shute's arrival in 1716 was
computed at 9,000, and the increase up to the last hearing was about
500." Between this testimony and the first census a valuable hint
Note. The side- numerals in this and following wood-cuts indicate lOO/KX),
200^000, etc.
comes from the statement of John Farmer, chief of New
Hampshire antiquaries, that the ratable inhabitants in 1732 -were
under 3,000,^* implying a total of from 12 to 13,000. Another local
authority preserves the polling list in 1761," which indicates about
38,000 inhabitants ; while the first attempt at actual enumeration
was a census, six years later, gathered from the returns of the
selectmen, and amounting to 52,700 souls,*' which points to a some-
what more rapid growth than before.
"Belknap's Hist, ed. Farmer, !., 91.
"Hist U. S., i.p 383, 608; all references to Bancroft are to the last revision,
unless otherwise stated.
" Documents relating to Colonial Hist of N. Y., v., 595, and Palfrey's Hist
of N. E., iv., 457. Cf. a similar estimate in Chalmers's Hist of Revolt
"2,946; in Holmes's Annals, 2d ed., ii,, 539. Dr. Wm. Douglass (in his
Summary, ii., 180) estimates 24,000 in 1742, which is credible; notice should
be taken of the gain of territory in 1740 from Massachusetts. British officials
estimated the white inhabitants in 1749 at 30,000 (Pitkin's Statist View, 2d ed.,
iz). Burnaby's Travels {2d ed., 151) stated about 40,000 in 1759.
"9,146 (Rev. Samuel Langdon, in Holmes's Annals, ii., 540).
"Provincial Papers of N. H„ vii., 170- Bancroft's estimate (ii., 38) of
SOflOO whites in 1754 is excessive, and still more so Winsor's (Narrative and
Critical Hist of Amer, v., 151), taken from the Board of Trade's figures,
75,000 in 1755, quoted by Bancroft in early editions (iv., 128-9), but discarded
by him later.
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ESTIMATES OF POPULATION IN AMERICAN COLONIES 155
A second Provincial census, after another six years' interval,
3fielded over 72,000,'* and a less complete return obtained for the
State Convention of 1775 assigned a total of about 81,000,"" or
double the number in the Province some thirteen years before.
Natural growth and the recuperation after the war brought these
figures up to 95,000" in 1786, and to 141,885 in 1790. Ncme of
these estimates include the Vermont towns, to which New
Hampshire so long laid claim, and which by 1790 rivalled her own
numbers of ten years before. __
In the case of Massachusetts the population-curve can be more
confidently traced. The slow and painful growth of Plymouth
Colony had brought together "near 300" persons" in 1630, when
Boston was founded; while in two years after that date the planta-
tion at the Bay had expanded to about 2,000." - — I
An early basis for calculation is the apportionment of troops for
the New England Confederacy in 1643, when the quota of
Massachusetts Bay was five times that of Plymouth, in which colony
there were then 627 males of military age.'* The population is
usually computed as from four and a half to five and a half times
the number of militia. This yields as a probable total in 1643 for
Massachusetts (including Plymouth, but not the New Hampshire
towns) from 16,000 to 17,000 souls; Dr. Palfrey prefers the higher
figure,"'' but the lower is the safer limit."
The full stream of immigration which had fed hitherto the Bay
Colony ceased after 1640, when Massachusetts contained probably
as many people as the rest of British America; and some retardation
of the rate of increase, unequalled in the early stages of any other
colony, except Pennsylvania, then set in. For sixty years, however,
■?2,0Q2 (Provincial Papers of N. H., x, 625-36).
"Provincial Papers of N. H., vii., 780-81. This return was made to correct
the wild estimate of Congress, which was in one form I03,ooo, exclusive of
slaves, or as otherwise reported (John Adams's Works, vii., 302) 150,000.
"95,755 {Provincial Papers, x., 689).
■Patent to Bradford. Cf. Lowell Inst. Lectures on Early Hist, of Mass.,
169.
■T. Wijjgin's Letter in Mass. HisL Soc. Collections, 3d series, viii., 322.
"Palfrey's Hist., ii., 6.
" ii., 5-
"Intermediate estimates are:— for 1635, Plymouth, 500 (Palfrey, i., 166),
and Massachusetts Day, nearly or quite 5flOO (Rev. Henry M. Dexter's Roger
Williams. 41) ; for 1636, 3.000, or at most, 4.000 (G. B. Emerson, in Lowell
Inst. Lectures on Hist, of Mass.. 46s) ; for 1637, Plymouth. 549. aid Massa-
chusetts Bay 7,gi2 (J. B. Felt, in Collections of Amer. Statist Assoc., i.. tyt) ;
for 1639. the Bay, 8.59a (do.).
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156 ESTIMATES OF POPULATION IN AMERICAN COLONIES
we have no direct estimates of any value, and must for the interval
fall back on such computations as the important series prepared by
our late associate. Dr. Joseph B. Felt, in 1845, for the American
Statistical Association," largely on the basis of militia rolls. Judged
by his careful figures. Dr. Palfrey" is substantially correct in assign-
ing 30,000 to Massachusetts (including the new Province of Maine,
as well as New Hampshire and Plymouth) in 1665, as also
Mr. Bancroft'* in assigning 37,000 to the same territory at the
outbreak of Philip's war,'" Mr. Bancroft's next estimate, at the
Revolution of 1689," of 44,000 for Massachusetts, with Plymouth
and Maine, is an over-cautious deduction from the roll of the
militia;'- on the other hand, Dr. Palfrey's hesitating suggestion™
of 60,000 as the total on the change of government in 1692, is
slightly excessive.
The Board of Trade's Report in 1721" gives a new basis for
calculation, computing about 94,000 for Massachusetts ; and though
Dr. Palfrey" styles this a "heedless exaggeration," his criticism
may be criticised in turn as too sweeping." The next evidence of
importance" comes from the rate list of 1735, which registered
35,427 taxable polls, that is, of white citizens {both male and
female) aged sixteen years and upwards, besides a total of 2,600
blacks." The accepted ratio of such polls to the population is that
" Collections of the Association, i., pt 2,
"Hist., iii., 35. Felt estimates Massachusetts (including Plymouth, Maine
and New Hampshire) at 28,777 in 1665. Capt, Edward Johnson's assumption
of near 80,000 in New England in 1661 (Wonder Working Providence, ed.
Poole, cxxiv-vi.), though approved by Doyle, seems to me quite impossible.
-i., 383.
"The extravagant misrepresentations of Cartwright in 1665 (30,000 militia),
and of Randolph in 1676 (150,000 souls), are sufficiently exposed in Palfrey's
Hist., iii., 36. Baylies (Hist of Plymouth Colony, iii., 191) says that in 1676
one estimate was for Massachusetts 28,750 souls, and for Plymouth 7.500.
" i., 608.
" Reported by Sir Edmund Andros in i6qo as 8,413. CI. Palfrey, iv., 136-
"iv., 136. Winsor's Hist, of America (v. 92) gives 60— ic»fl00 as the
allowable range of estimates for this date. Felt (Amer. Statist Assoc., i.,
142) computes 62,724 for 1695. Humphreys (Hist Account of S. P. G., 42)
writes in 1701, "in Boston and Piscataway Government there are about 80,000
"Documents relating to Col. Hist of N. Y., v., 597.
"iv., 387.
"The same Report of the Board of Trade reckons the militia in 1718 at
14,925 men, besides 300 officers and 800 exempts, 16^02$ in atl ; the population,
then, might well be over 85.000.
"An anonymous tract of 1731, quoted in Anderson's Hist of Commerce,
iii.. 172. credits Massachusetts with "at least I20/k» white inhabitants."
"Amer. Statist Assoc, i., 142, quoting Hist of Bnt Dominions in N.
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ESTIMATES OF POPULATION IN AMERICAN COLONIES 157
of I to 4; with a necessary allowance for evasions of the poll, a
result of 144,000 and over is justified. A similar but less exact
report for 1742'* gives at least 165,000 inhabitants, substantially
the same as the estimate for nine years later, furnished by Governor
Pownall,"" who calls attention to "a great depopulation by small-pox
and war," which had intervened; to which causes of retardation
might have been added the loss of eight thriving towns transferred
in this interval to Rhode Island and Connecticut, in the straighten-
ing of boundaries. With these serious drawbacks it is likely that
Mr. Winsor's estimate" of 200,000 for 1755 is nearer the truth than
Mr. Bancroft's" of 307,000 whites and 4,000 or 5,000 negroes
in 1754.
In 1764 we reach the first Provincial Census, the returns of
i ?-
America (published 1773) ; the same au
at 36,000, which would give a total of ov<
"* Douglass's Summary, ii., 180.
"Memorial to Sovereigns of Europe (1780), 58; probably he derived his
figures from the polling-list.
"Hist, of Amer., v., 151, from the Board of Trade's Report, in Bancroft's
early editions, iv., 129.
"ii-. 389, 391. The British official estimate in 1749 was 220/100 whites
(Pitkin's Statist View, 2d ed., I2>. Pres. Ezra Stiles supposed 234^000 in
1754 (Holmes's Annals, ii., 538)- Bumaby, in 1759 (Travels, 2d ed., 136),
learned that the inhabitants of Massachusetts were "supposed to amount to
200.000." Gov. Pownall (Memorial, 58), arguing probably from the list of
polls, and therefore underestimating, gives 216,000 as an appro^cimate figure-
for 1 761.
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158 ESTIMATES OF POPULATION IN AMERICAN COLONIES
which, though not officially preserved, seem to have shown a total
of 270,000 and upwards,*' and so mark the era of most vigorous
growth before the Revolution. From her numbers, no less than her
spirit, Massachusetts was entitled to vie with Virginia, the only
larger colony, in leading the opposition to the Stamp Act,
In 1776 came another census, taken by suggestion of Congress,
and aggregating near 340,000;'* the Congressional levies of the
previous year had assumed a total of 352,000," which was hardly
true until the war, with all its hindrances to growth, was nearing its
close, say by 1780.*'
With the approach of peace and the new influx of foreign immi-
gration began, as in almost all of these newly fledged republics, a
wonderful recovery so rapid that while at the opening of the year
1786 the State authorities reported that returns lately made gave
a population of about 357,000," the United States Census in
August, 1790, adding 33 per cent, to this, reached the astounding
figure of 475,327. With all allowance for the prosperity which
flowed in like a torrent at this favored time, it is probable that the
State returns for 1785 were 10,000 or 20,000 short of the truth.
For the "Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations,"
the condititms of our problem are simpler than in other parts of the
field. The aptness which this government developed for the taking
of censuses, — no less than seven being ordered within seventy-five ■
years, — and the compactness of the territory to be surveyed, have
resulted in furnishing comparatively abundant information; while
the regularity of growth is also specially noticeable.
For the seventeenth century we have only the inferences of later
generatiuis. The nearest to a contemporary estimate is that of
the historian Callender, that in 1658 — fifty years to be sure before
"Feh (Amer. Statist. Assoc, t.. 157) makes the total 254.253; but Dr. J.
Chickcrinfi;, in his Statistical View of the Population of Mass. (Boston, 1846),
4-5, proves omissions which make the resuh for what is now Massachusetts
about 245,718, to which adding the District of Maine,*we get 269J11. Dr. J.
Belknap (Mass. Hist. Soc. Collections, iv., 198) remarks that this census,
being an unpopular measure, was not accurately taken ; so that Dr. Chieker-
ing's total may need to be increased.
"338,667, in Chickering's Statist View, 9; Felt (Amer. Statist Assoa, i..
131-2, 165) does not give the complete figures. Probably the returns were
still below the actual population,
" Or in 1774, 400,000 (John Adams's Works, vii., 302).
■Felt gives (Amer, Statist. Assoc., i., 132, 170) the polling-lists (or 1778
(76.854), 1781 (79,64s). and 1784 (91,546). Bryant and Gay's Popular Hist.
of U. S. (iv., gO estimates 350,000 in ijfl2.
"' Amer. Statist. Assoc., i.. 170. Cf. Belknap in Mass. Hist. Soc. Collections,
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ESTIMATES OF POPULATION IN AMERICAN COLONIES I59
his own birth — there were, perhaps, fewer than 200 families** in
the whole jurisdiction. If this figure deserves credence, it is likely
that in 1663, when Charles the Second's Qiarter took effect, the
white inhabitants were less than 2,000." At the date of PhiUp's
War they may have increased to 3,000," and at the Revolution of
1689 to 5,000."
We come next to a Census taken in 1708, in conformity with a
request from the Board of Trade. This showed 7,181 whites and
negroes in the nine towns of the Colony," and was followed by
another in 1730, similarly prompted, which gave a total of 16,950,
besides 985 Indians." The Colony advanced at the same rate of
growth" until 1747, when a strip of territory was acquired from
Massachusetts," which accounts for the increase to over 34,000" in
the third census, that of 1748, in response to more queries from the
Board of Trade. After this the old rate of growth gave slightly
over 40,000 in i755,*' at the last enumeration by British authority.
On the eve of the Revolution, the General Assembly, of its own
motion, caused a most elaborate census to be taken, in June, 1774,
and thus recorded almost the highest mark of prosperity in the
Colonial stage, — not quite 60,000." Lexington and Concord and
Bunker Hill put a sudden stop to all this prosperity. With a
"Hist Discourse, 149, in R. 1. Hist. Soc. Collections, iv.
"Bancroft (i., 363-4) thinks there may have been 2.S00; Durfee (Discourse
before R. I. Hist Soc, 16) says, not over 3,000 or 4jOOO. Palfrey (Hist, iii,
35) conjectures 3,000 in 1665.
"Bancroft (i., 383) says, perhaps 4,000.
" Bancroft (i., 608) says, perhaps 6,000.
"R. I, Col. Records, iv„ 59; Arnold's Hist. ii.. 32.
" Callender's Hist Discourse. 93, 94: Arnold's Hist, ii., 101. Chalmers (in
Hist of the Revolt, ii., 7) cites a British estimate for 1715 of 9,000, which is
too low.
"Pres. John Adams, in his Twenty-Six Letters respecting the Revolution,
written in i^Bo. says (Works, vii., 303), that in 1738 there were 15.000 inhab-
itants in R. I. Douglass (Summary, ii., 180) estimates 30,000 in 1742.
"Containing 4,776 inhabitants (Arnold's Hist, ii., 166).
" Arnold, ii.. 173. Of. Snow's Report on the Census of R. I. for 1865. xxxil,
" 40.414, as given in Potter's Early Hist of Narragansett, 174 ; 40,636, as
given in Mass. Hist Soc. Collections, 2d series, vii., 113. and (in more deUil)
in Pres. Eira Stiles's MSS.. in Yale University Library.
" 59-707 1 printed in detail, with the names of aJl heads of families, in 1858.
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l6o ESTIMATES OF POPULATION IN AMERICAN COLONIES
British fleet threatening thenceforth her exposed territory, and half
the population of her chief town scattered, no wonder that a census
taken in June, 1776, on recommendation of the Continental Con-
gress, showed a loss to Rhode Island of 5,000 — 8 per cent, of her
total— within two years."* Under the ■ same causes, a census in
1782 showed a further reduction of 5 per cent.;""" but with the
close of hostilities the tide turned, and the Federal Convention
underestimated the truth in assuming 58,000"" as the probable pop-
ulation in 1787. The census of 1790 showed the figure at that date
to be 68,825, leaving Rhode Island, as she had been for the preceding
century, the most densely populated of any of the original States.
Her share in the proceeds of the slave-trade is suggested incidentally
by the fact that at the acme cf her Colonial prosperity one person
of every nine within her borders was either a negro or an Indian, —
four or five times as great a proportion, that is to say, as in her
neighbors, and unequalled anywhere north of Mason and Dixon's
line.
Passing to Connecticut, we find there, with even more regular
growth, no such openness in regard to its statistics. We are forced
continually to remember that Connecticut pursued in her colonial
history the policy of hiding her strength in quietness; so far as
might not be inconsistent with general truthfulness, she preferred to
make no exhibit of her actual condition.
The beginnings here were feeble as elsewhere. The historian
Trumbull's conjecture'"' still commands respect, that at the close of
the first year of settlement the original colony had increased to
probably 800 persons, and Lord Say and Sele in 1642 testifies"*^ to
the understanding in England that the same settlements had gro\vn
by that time to over 2,000, At the establishment of the New
England Confederacy in 1643, the towns along the Connecticut were
rated as if containing nearly or quite 3,000 souls, and the younger
Colony of New Haven as if numbering nearly or quite 2,500.'"
From this date to the union of the two governments, Connecticut
grew somewhat slowly,'"' and New Haven was still less vigorous.
I doubt if the total in 1665, when the union was finally adjusted,
"S5,0ii ; in Snow's Report on Census of 1865, xxxii.
™ About 52400, one town which was in the enemy's hands not being
reported; see Arnold's Hist, ii., 481.
"" Curtis's Hist of the Constitution, ii., t68.
™ Hist of Conn., i.. 68.
'"Documents relating to Col, Hist of N. Y., i., 128.
'" Palfrey's Hist, ii.. 5, 6-
'" Her ratable polls in 1654 were perhaps 825. and population about 4.000—
4.500 (Colony Records, 1636-65, 265).
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ESTIMATES OF POPULATION IN AMERICAN COLONIES l6l
could have been over 9,000,""'— about one-third the number in
Massachusetts, and this proportion held good through that century.
In 1679 the authorities received a list of searching queries from
the Lords of Trade, but contented themselves as to statistics of pop-
ulation with reporting the figures of the militia-rolls, which imply
in the current decade an advance {almost wholly without help from
immigration) from about 10,000 to 14.000."" For the next thirty
years the numbers of taxable persons recorded annually with more
or less fulness in the assessments of rates by the Colonial Assem-
bly""' are our best clues to the population, though these lists do not
cover unincorporated neighborhoods, and new towns were apt to
be released from being listed for a few years after incorporation.
These clues Justify Mr. Bancroft's supposition'™ of from 17,000 to
jo,ooo in 1689, but require us to double almost the estimate in
Trumbull's History"" of 17,000 in 1713.
!n 1730 the Colony had another set of queries to answer, and
found its interest again in minimizing the account of its resources:
the inhabitants were computed at 38,700,'" probably about two-
thirds the actual number. The discrepancy between fact and
representation was still greater in 1749, when yet another list of
troublesome inquiries from London was answered with a guess of
71,000"= for the population of a Colony, which less than seven
years later, under a peremptory requirement of a house-to-house
census, proved to have over 130,000.'"
After this date progress was slightly checked for a time by the
French war and by removals to newly conquered territory ; but
a census in 1761 gave a total of 145,590'" and a higher rate of
"■Trumbull says (Hist, of Conn., i., 28?), 1,700 families and 8-9,000 inhab-
itants: Palfrey says (Hist, iii., 3s), lojooo or more.
"" In i6?i, 2.050 militia (from 16 to 60 years old) ; in 1676. 2.303; in 1677.
2.365: in 1678, 2490; in 1679. 2,507. (Col. Records. 1678-89, 295. 298.)
Other estimates are the following :— Peters, in 1670, iSflOO, and in 1680.
20.000 (General Hist. Conn., 263) ; Bancroft, in 1675, nearly 14,000 whites
(Hist., i., 383) : Baylies, in 1676. 13.750 (Hist, of Plymouth Colony, iii., I9i>-
'"Col. Records, paisim.
"•i„6o8.
"°i,. 451. Chalmers's Hist, of the Revolt (ii., 7) cites an official estimate
of 47.500 in 1715. which is much too large.
■"Col. Records, vii., 584.
'■' Col. Records, ix,. 596 ; the real fifjure was about double what it was at the
last inquiry, and the British Government adopted 100,000 whites as their esti-
mate (Pitkin's Statist. View. 2d ed., 12).
"■i30.6r2, or (according to another count) 132,416. Cf. Col. Records, x.,
618. 621.
'" To this number might be added 930 Indians living sunong die whites (Col.
Records, xi., 575, 630).
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l6a ESTIMATES OF POPULATION IN AMERICAN COLONIES
increase brought up the result before the Revolution to 200,000,
exclusive of settlements in the Wyoming Valley.'" Another census
at the war's close showed a gain, if only of 8,ooo,"» and the
Federal census of 1790 gave 237,946, the tide of Western emigra-
tion preventing as rapid a growth as just before the war. That
such emigration was a foregone conclusion is evident from the fact
that Rhode Island was the only State which surpassed Connecticut,
down to 1790, in density of population.
The Province of New York offers a marked contrast to Con-
necticut in its attitude towards superior authority, surpassing even
Rhode Island in the frequency of its official enumerations. When
wrested from the Dutch, in 1664, New Netherland may possibly
have contained 7,000 souls,"' — not quite as many as Connecticut,
not one-quarter as many as Massachusetts; at their temporary
restoration, nine years later, the Dutch estimated their own con-
tingent in the Colony as about 6,000 or 7,000, to which must be
added perhaps half as many English and other whites."*
The Proprietary period of New York history ended with James
the Second's downfall in 1689, but no new spirit of growth marked
the change to a Royal Colony. A thorough census, the first of any
magnitude in all the British Colonies, was ordered by the Governor,
Lord Bellomont, in 1698, and yielded 18,067;'" but the preceding
'■'A census in 1774 gave ig6,o88, without Wyoming {Col. Records, xiv.,
490-1) ; the estimate of Congress in 1774 was ig2/x)0, and another in 1775 was
262,000.
'"208,870, in 1782; the Federal Convention of 1787 estimated Conn, at
202.000. (Curtis's Hist of Const, ii., 168.)
'"J. A. Stevens, in Winsor's Hist of America (iii., 38s), says not over
7,000: Roberts (Hist of N. Y., i.. 95) thinks 8,000 a liberal estimate; O'Cal-
laghan (Hist, of New Netherland, ii., S4o) cites Dutch local authorities for
full 10,000 ; a Memorial of Holland Traders (Documents relating to Col. Hist
of N. Y., ii., S12) says over 8,000.
"• Documents relating to Col. Hist, ii., 526, and Roberts's N. Y., lO?-!*.
'"Documents relating to Col. Hist, iv., 420.
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ESTIMATES OF POPULATION IN AMERICAN COLONIES 163
decade had been one of alarms and of war, and the northern part
of the Province had suffered from resuUing emigrations, so that
Mr. Bancroft's estimate'"' of not less than 2o,cxx) at the Revolution
of '89 is not seriously at fault.
Lord Cornbury took a second census, five years after, which
yielded an increase of nearly 15 per cent."' Then followed
Governor Hunter's in 1712, Vifhich met with so much opposition,
from superstitious fear of its breeding sickness,'" that only partial
returns were obtained; these indicate a total of over 28,000.'**
More satisfactory results were gained in the next attempts, and the
censuses for 1723, 1731, 1737, and 1746, exhibit a regular pro-
840.130.
gression, yielding in round numbers, respectively, 40,000, 50,000,
60,000 and 70,000."* These results need probably to be modified
by Governor Clinton's admission in reporting on the returns of yet
another census in 1749,"* that since the officers have no pay for
this service, it is performed reluctantly and carelessly.
"• i.. 608. Brodhead (Hist, of N. Y., ii., 438) puts the population in 1686 at
about 1 8,000.
'" 20,665. as given in Hough's N. Y. Census for iSsS. >v. ; 20.748, in Docu-
ments relating to Col. Hist, v., 339.
"•a. I Chron.. xxi.
'"Documents relatinR to Col. Hist, v., 339; Hough's Census for 1855. v.
Chalmers, in Hist of ihe Revolt (ii.. 7), cites a government estimate for 1715
of 31,000, a probable figure ; Roberts (N. Y., i., 232) quotes the same as for
1720. not so appropriately.
'"40,564 in 1723 (Documents relating to Col. Hist, v., 702) ; 50.289 in 1731
(do., iv., 694 ; the figures in do., v., 929, are incorrect) ; 60.437 in i?37 (.do., vi.,
'3,1) ; 61,589 in 1746, without Albany County, "not possible to be numbered
on account of the Enemy" (_do., vi., 392).
'" 73448- See Documents relating to Col. Hist, vi., 509, 550.
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164 ESTIMATES OF POPULATION IN AMERICAN COLONIES
Again, in 1756, in answer to the Board of Trade's Queries, in the
interest of war-levi.es, the population was found to number 96,790.'"
Then, after a longer interval, during which the rate of increase rose
sensibly, especially by reason of the conquest of Canada and the
extinction of border warfare, came Governor Tryon's census in
1771, with a total (excluding the Vermont towns) of 163,338.'"'
This progress continued until war came on. About 190,000 is
probably a fair estimate for 1775,'" and a State census for 1786,
after the results of peace were actually in hand, gave 50,000
more,'" — not perhaps a complete return, as the Federal census four
years later gained on this figure by more than 100,000, or 42 per
cent."" In this unparalleled prosf>erity the largest factor was the
development of the new and hitherto scarcely settled Western
section.
For New Jersey our data are meagre, but sufficient to characterize
its growth as slow and feeble. The first important colonization
was that begun in 1665 by the English, who at the time of the Dutch
seizure of New York in 1673 numbered probably 3,000,'^' and by
the expiration of twenty-five years was near 10,000.'"^ Meantime,
West Jersey, settled in 1674, was much less sturdy, its first quarter
of a century bringing it perhaps to 4,000.'''
The great crisis in the history of these sections, distracted
hitherto by complicated and conflicting claims, arrived in 1702, when
the Crown assumed the government of perhaps a little over 15,000
inhabitants.'" By this change the conditions of life were made
more secure and more inviting, yet growth was sluggish. A census
was unpopular, for the same reasons as in New York, and not until
1726 was any regular enumeration effected, the result at that date
being 32,442.'" The quarrelsomeness and general turbulence of
"83.242 whites, and 13.548 blacks (Hough's Census of 1855. vi.). Bancroft
(ii-. 389. 391) says in 1754 about 85,000 whites and not far from 11,000
negroes.
'"Documentary Hist, of N. Y.. !.. 697, or Hough's Census of 185S1 vii.
""Prof. A. Johnston (School Hist, 93) estimates 180,000; the estimate of
Congress was about 2SO/>oo.
'"238.897 (Hough's Census of i8s5. viii.).
■" 340,120.
■" 469 aduk males (Whitehead's E. Jersey under the Proprietors. 2d ed., 76) .
3,500 in 1676, according to Dr. Danie! Cojte (N. J. Archives, ii., 14)- About
5,250 in 1682 (Smith's Hist.. 161. Cf. Winsor's Hist, of Amer, iii., 436).
■"Whitehead, in Winsor's Hist., iii.. 446: Bancroft, i., 608.
'"832 freeholders in 1699 (N. J, Archives, ii., 305).
'"Gen. McClellan, in Encyclopedia Britannica, 9th ed., xvii., 398; from
Humphreys's Hist Account of the S. P. G. (1701), 42- Chalmers, in Hist of
the Revolt i-, 376, gives a wild guess of 8,000 in 1702.
'" N. J. Archives, v., 164
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ESTIMATES OF POPULATION IN AUEUCAN COLONIES ifij
the community, and the lack of appropriations for payment to the
collectors, limited the number of further censuses under Provincial
authority to two, in 1737 and 1745, which amounted, speaking
roughly, to 50,000 and 60,000, from seven to eight per cent, being
negroes.'"
After this we have such guesses as the Royal Governors could
make, for the satisfaction of their superiors. In 1754 and again in
'755- Governor Belcher reported about 80,000 whiles and from 1,500
to 1,800 blacks,'^' the latter item an evident understatement; and
Governor Franklin in 1774 conjectured 120,000,"' implying a
stunted growth, to be accounted for in part by the drain of emigra-
tion to the South and West, since the Peace of Paris.
.\ more rapid advance set in after the Revolution, so that the
General Assembly was justified in assuming in 1784 a population
of about 150,000,'^" which the first United States census carried up
to 184,139.
In Penn.sylvania and Delaware, so far as appears, the census of
i;ijo was the first thorough enumeration attempted, and accordingly
\\c are much in the dark for all the colonial period; a special
cml.arrassment arises, moreover, in discussing such data as we have,
from the uncertainty whether in any given case, Delaware, a quasi-
imlciiendent adjunct of the Province, is included.
hi 1681, before the arrival of Penn's settlers, the territory
contained about 500 whites,"" mainly Swedes on the banks of the
""47.369 in 1737 (N. J. Archives, vi., 244). 61,383, including 4.606 slaves, in
1745 (do.. 242, 243).
'" N. J. Archives, viit., pt 2, 84. 186. A British official estimate of 1749 was
6ojOOO whites (Pitkin's Statist View, 2d ed., 12); Bancroft computes (ii.,
389. 391) for 1754 about 73,000 whites and 5,500 blacks; Douglass {Summary,
ii., 286) says in 1755 about 50.000: Burnaby's Travels (2d ed., 58) say
70floo in 1760.
'" N'. J. Archives, x., 446. He supposes an increase of over 20,000 since
17^4- The estimate of Congress in 1774 was i30jOOO (John Adams's Works,
vii.. 302).
'"138.934 whites, and ia.501 blacks.
'"F. D. Stone, in Winsor's Hist, of America, iii., 480.
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l66 ESTIMATES OF POPULATION IN AMERICAN COLONIES
Delaware; but by 1685 the number had risen to 7,200."' The
popular impression is correct, that colonization here was throughout
more rapid than in any other of the original governments; and
Mr. Bancroft, in his review of America at the Revolution of 1689,
sees reason to conclude that Peimsylvania and Delaware numbered
already perhaps 12,000."*
The contemporary estimates, however, are of little help. Col.
Heathcote, of the New York government, informed the Propagation
Society in 1700, that there were in Permsylvania at least 20,000
souls."' Chalmers cites"* a Government estimate for 1715 of
45,800; but the value of such evidence is diminished by the frank
admission of the Board of Trade's careful Report, six years later,'"
that the accounts submitted to them differ widely, ranging from
65,000 to half that figure.
Governor Gordon in 1730"° gave his estimate of the population
as 49,000, and this is supported apparently by the number of tax-
ables,"' though I suspect that these did not represent the same per
cent, of the whole as in the northern colonies. Reasoning likewise
from the list of taxable persons in 1750,'** we get for that date a
probable total of 150,000, and in 1760, 220,000."" This rapid
increase had placed Pennsylvania before the middle of the century
next in numbers to Virginia and Massachusetts, but now ensued
'" Winsor's Hist, of Amer., iii.. 491.
■°i., 608.
"• Humphreys's Hist Account of S. P. G., 42. Bryant and Gay's Popular
History (iii., 170) says over 20,000. Grahame's History (2d ed., i., 5Si)
estimates 35.«>o-
"* Hist, of the Revolt. 11,. ?■
'* Documents relating to Col. Hist of N. Y., v., 604.
'"British Museum, Add. MS. 30,372.
'"Proud's Hist, of Pa. (ii., 275) says not over 10,000 in 1731 in Pennsyl-
vania alone ; but I should estimate the population of Pennsylvania and
Delaware at about 69,000. For 1740, Provost C. J. StilK (Pa, Magazine of
Hist, X., 284) says about loo.ooo.
'"About 21,000 in Pennsylvania alone in 1751 (Frond's Hist, ii., 275) ; not
over 22.000 in 1752 (Hist. Review of Government of Pa., iq6) Pres. Ezra
Stiles (Itineraries, 187) quotes Dr. Franklin as tellini; him that he supposed
160,000 in Pennsylvania in 1752; But Franklin's Preface to Galloway's Speech,
in 1764 (Works, ed. Bigelow, iii., 334) computes 20,000 houses in the Province
in 1752, each on an average containing five persons. The British Government
in 1749 estimated 250.000 whites in Pennsylvania and Delaware (Pitkin's
Sutist View, 2d ed., 12).
'"31,667 taxables in Pennsylvania alone (Col. Records, xiv., 336). Compare
the estimate, by one of the Governor's Council, of 200.000 in 1757 (do., vii.,
448). Bancroft's figures (ii.. 389, 39') for 1754, 206.000. seem too large: as
also those of Gov. Morris in 1755. over 300.000 (Col. Rec, vi„ 336), and of
Burnaby's Travels (2d ed.. 8o> in 1759, 4-500,000.
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ESTIMATES OF POPULATION IN AMERICAN COLONIES 167
a slight moderation of her headlong advance. Dr. Franklin, in his
famous examination before the House of Commons in 1766,"* sup-
posed that there might be about 160,000 whites in Pennsylvania
alone ; but he did not profess to speak with accuracy and was under
a bias which led him, perhaps unconsciously, into cautious under-
statement. More credible is the historian Proud's inference in
1770'*' from the number of taxables, that there were 250,000 peo-
ple in Pennsylvania, and from 20,000 to 30,000 in Delaware.
This enormous growth kept up with scarcely any relaxation until
the war. Governor Penn reporting in January, 1775, over 300,000'"
for Pennsylvania alone, while during the war the estimate of
Congress, which was located favorably for an accurate judgment,
stood at the same figure.'" Even more startling was the increase
after the war ceased,"* when for the first time Massachusetts was
outstripped, and the estimate of the Federal Convention in 1787,
""Works, ed. Bigelow, iii,, 412; in same vol. (334) he supposes not over
.10,000 in 1764.
'"Hist, of Pa., ii.. 275. 276. Cf. Col. Records, xiv., 336,
'"300,000 white? and z.ooo blacks (Pa. Archives, iv., 597), ScharCs Hist, of
Maryland says (ii., ZOO) 341,000 in 1775. excluding slaves.
'"Pa. .Archives, viii., 473 (for 1780) ; the estimate for Delaware was 37,000.
The Taxables for 1779 were 45,683 (Brissot's New Travels. 326). Bryant and
Gav's Popular HisL of U. S. says (iv., 91) 350^00 in 1782 in Pennsylvania.
'"66,gzs taxables in 1786 (Brissot, 326).
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l68 ESTIMATES OF POPULATION IN AMERICAN COLONIES
remarkably correct in comparison with most of its other guesses,
was 397,000.'°' The result in 1790 was second only to Virginia
(both absolutely, and in percentage of growth since 1775), being
434,373 for Pennsylvania proper, and 59,094 for Delaware, It
should be noted in passing that, from about the middle of the
century, when Boston was left behind, Philadelphia was by far the
most populous place in the Colonies.
Maryland presents throughout a uniform and gradual develop-
ment, resembling strikingly that of Connecticut. She began with
Leonard Calvert's cargo of 300 colonists in 1634, and enjoyed such
accessions that in 1660 she was reported in England as "peopled with
8,000 souls,""" while in 1665'" rumor had doubled even this allot-
ment. In 1667 we have a Maryland clergyman's letter, written
however with a purpose which would be helped by a generous esti-
mate, which claims at least 20,000 souls'" for the province.
These figures are all conjectural; but a series of more authority
begins in 1701, with the Governor's report of 32,000 in round num-
bers for that year.'" Computations conformable with this for
other years follow,"" with the first detailed census in 1712, showing
just over 46,000,'" of whom the negroes were less than one-fifth.
According to the Board of Trade's Report in 1721, already quoted
in several cases, the population of Maryland, two years before, was
55,000 whites and 25,000 blacks;'"^ but some error lies in these
figures, which has caused other exaggerations. Especially to be
questioned is the implication that the blacks were nearly one-third of
the whole. The truth may have been that the whites numbered
50,000, and the blacks 10,000 or 12,000.
'"360.000 in Pennsylvania, and 37,000 in Delaware {Curtis's Hist, of the
Constitution, ii.. 168).
""Thomas Fuller's notice of Sir George Calvert, in his Worthies (written
1660. 1661), iii.. 418.
'" Oidmixon's Brit. Empire in America, i., iqi. Bancroft (1., 176) adopts
Fuller's estimate as more probable. It is not likely that there were 11.000 in
1665- Ogilby's America (185) in 1671 estimates 15,000 to 20.000 whites.
'" Rev. J. Yeo, in Anderson's Hist, of the Colonial Church, 2d ed., ii., 395-
Hildreth's Hist, (i., 567) says perhaps 16.000 in 1676.
'"32.258, according to British Museum, Add. MS. 30,372. McMahon (Hist,
of Md., i., 273) and Bancroft (i,. 608) estimate 25,000 in 1689; J. Esten
Cooke (Va., 308) says 33,000 in 1700; Humphreys (Hist. Account of S. P. G.,
1701) says over 25.000.
"" For 1704, 35fli2, and for 1710. 42,741 (Documents relating to Col. Hist, of
N, v., v.. 605). Oldmixon's Brit. Empire in America. 1708. i.. 204. says
30,000, and Scharf's Hist, of Md. (i., 370) says over 40,000 for same year.
Bancroft (ii., 23) follows Oldmixon.
'"46.073, of whom 8,330 were negroes (Scharf's Hist., i., 377). A Govern-
ment estimate in 1715 gives 50,200 (Chalmers's Hist of the Revoh, ii., 7).
" Documents relating to Col. Hist, of N. Y., v., 60S.
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ESTIMATES OF POPULATION IN AMERICAN COLONIES 169
For the next thirty years we have no full evidence,'" but the
result is shown in Governor Ogle's report for 1748'"' of 130,000
inhabitants. A census in 1755, for the information of the Board of
Trade, yielded about 154,000, — the negroes and mulattoes being
about thirty per cent, of the whole;'"" and another return of the
Governor and Council in 1761 reported 164,000,"* of whom some
50,000 were blacks. As the understood object of these returns was
for use in laying military requisitiixis, it is likely that evasions were
frequent.
The intervening period, until the Revolution, is not known in
detail, but the rate of growth seems to have been slightly below that
of other Colonies in that era of general expansion. At the outbreak
of the war the numbers were probably near 250,000,'*' and at its
itB.ns.
'"* There is a GovernmenI estimate of 96/KX) in 1732. The taNabtes (i. e., all
males over sixteen, and all female negroes) were 31,470 in 1733 (^fcMahon's
HisL. i., 3-3).
"*Seharf's Hist., i., 437, "r McMahon. i., 313: about 94,000 whites and
36,000 blacks. An English official estimate in 1749 *3s Sjjxio whites (Pitkin's
Statist. View. 2d ed., 12). Winsor's Hist, of America (v., 151) gives 100,000
as the total for 1749,
'"107,208 whites. 42,764 negroes, 3.592 mulattoes (Gentleman's Magazine,
xxxiv,, 261). .Another account (McMahon. i., 313, and Scharf, ii., 14) gives
107.963 whites and 46.225 blacks. Bancroft says (ii., 389, 3<H) 104.000 whites
and 44.000 blacks in 1754.
'"•114.332 whites, 49.67s blacks (Mci(ahon. i., 313). Rev. Ethan Allen
(Am. Quarterly Church Review, xviii,, 39) supposes over 200.000 in 1758.
Burnaby conjectured in 1759 (Travels, 2d ed,. 67) about 90,000 whites and
32.000 slaves.
■'■LodRe (Short Hist of Engl. Colonies) adopts this figure. J. F. D. Smyth
was told (Tour in U. S.. ii., 187) that the numbers were 275,noo. W. T.
Brantley estimates (Encyclopedia Britannica. gth ed., xv., 603) at a00M>O in
1775, A Congressional estimate in 1774 was 320.000 (J. Adams's Works,
vii.. 302).
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170 ESTIMATES OF POPULATION IN AMERICAN COLONIES
close four thousand more."* From this time to the census of 1790,
with its total of 320,000,'" the increase was a moderate one, though
owning to limitations of territory the resulting density of population
was unequalled outside of New England ; and this helps to account
for the decided stand of Maryland in refusing to adopt the Articles
of Confederation until the rights of the general government to the
undeveloped West were secured.
Virginia, the leader of the Colonies in time, and soon in numbers
also, began as feebly as any. After ten years of existence (in 1616)
her roll of inhabitants was only 351,"" but immigration had
swelled this list to 2,400"' before the Pilgrim Fathers landed at
Plymouth. In the midst of this prosperity came the Indian massa-
cre of 1622, which decimated the colony at once'" and caused such
alarm and flight as reduced it a few months later at least one-half.'"
These misfortunes expedited a change of administration, so that
Virginia became a Royal Colony in 1624, and the first account of
stock taken, early in 1628, showed nearly 3,000 persons,"* It took
seven years for these to increase to 5,000,"* and five years more to
bring them up to 7,500.'" Then came a speedier growth, so that
the last figure was doubled in eight years,'" and this doubled again
in eleven more, or by 1659,"* Meantime, one consequence of the
'" Encyel. Brilannica, 9th ed., xv,, 603.
'"319,728, of which 103,036 were slaves. The Federal Convention in 1787
estimated 250.000, of which 80.000 were slaves.
'"C. Campbell's Hist, of Va.. 117, and R. A. Brock, in Wirsor's Hist, of
Amer,, iii., 14L Cf. Jefferson's notes (Works, viii., 329).
'"Calendar of State Papers, Colonial Series, 1574-1660, 32.
'"350-375 victims, out of a population estimated from 2,2oo to over 4/XX),
Purchas's Pilgrims (iv., 17Q2) says 1,800 survived. Bancroft (i., 128) says
the immigrants had exceeded 4,000.
'"Bancroft (i., 128) says only 2,500 remained one year after the massacre.
A list in the Calendar of State Papers, Colonial Scries, 1574-1660. 57 (c(. 43),
seems to show only 1,275 '" the winter of 1623-4, and 370 killed in the
'■'Calendar of Slate Papers, Colonial. 1574-1660, 89. Gov. Harvey (.do.,
117) estimated the inhabitants in May. 1630. at over 2,500.
"•5,119 in Census, early in 1635 (Calendar of State Papers. Colonial. 1574-
1660.201).
"•7,647 in 1640 is the estimate of the editors of the Aspinwall Papers, in
Mass, Hist, Society's Collections, 4th series, ix., 79. Holmes's Annals. (i., 315)
supposes about 20,000 in 1642,
■"A Perfect Description of Va., 1649 (Mass. Hist, Soc. Coll., 2d ser., ix.,
105, or Force's Tracts, li.), says about 15,000 English and 300 negroes. Ban-
croft's statement (1.. 143). 20.OOO at Christmas. 1648, seems too large.
'"30,000 (wrongly printed 80.000) in i6sg (Calendar of State Papers,
Colonial. 1661-68, 350). The same, for 1660, in Chalmers's Polit, Annals. 125,
and Bancroft, i., 152.
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ESTIMATES OF POPULATION IN AMERICAN COLONIES I7I
Revolution in England had been an increased immigration to the
loyal Dominion of Virginia, which thus gained the leadership in
numbers, before held by Massachusetts, but not again to be
transferred, until New York claimed it in 1820.
In the next eleven years, the epoch of the Restoration, with its
refluent tide of immigration, the rise was only from 30,000 to
40,000,"" and at the crisis of the Revolution of 1689 this mother of
colonies fell still a little short of 6o,ooo."° Fourteen years were
needed to raise the figure to 70,000,"" and another fourteen to make
100,000.'"=
Between this date and the Old French War it is clear that the
rate of growth was much accelerated, though we have few details.
I" 1755 Governor Dinwiddle, "" on confessedly imperfect data,
believed the total to be 230,000; but within a year he gives us the
number of tithables,"" from which might be inferred a total of
almost 300,000, — the blacks being not far from 40 per cent, of the
whole, their usual proportion through the century.
The growth between the French War and the Revolution was so
marvelous as to appear incredible. In 1772 the tithables'" imply a
population of 475,000, — more than one-fifth of the sum total in the
country. Probably Governor Pownall's estimate in 1774,"° 300,000
whites, was not essentially wrong, which would imply at the begin-
ning of the Revolution about 550,000 in all,'"- — Massachusetts, the
next largest government, having less than two-thirds of this number.
'"Gov. Berkeley in 1671 says above 40,000 (Chalmers's Polit Annals, 327).
'"Bancroft (i., 608) estimates 50,000 or more. The militia in i6go were
6,570 (Documents relating to Col. Hist, of N. Y., v., 607).
'" Oldmixon's BriL Empire in Amer, i., 289. 58,000 in 1699 is the estimate
of an official Report, in Brit Museum, Add. MS. 30,372. Humphreys's Hist
Account of S. P. G. computes in 1700-01 above 40,000 [whites?]. The militia
in 1703 were 10.556 (Documents relating to Col. Hist of N. Y., v., 607).
'"Chalmers's Hist, of the Revolt (ii., 7) gives an estimate of 95,«X) tor
1715. The taxables (i. c. all males over 16, and all black females over 16) in
171S were 31,658 (Gov. Spotswood's Letters, ii., 140). The militia in 1716
were 15,000 (do.. 211).
'"Dinwiddie Papers, i., 387. Bancroft (ii., 390, 391) put the whites in 1754
at 168.000, and the blacks at not less than 116,000.
"'43J29 whiles, and 60.078 blacks (Dinwiddie Papers, ii.. 353, 474. 53^)-
Neill's English Colonization in America, 67, reports the population in 1757 as
44,214 whites, and 58.292 blacks; but these arc the tithables.
'"153.000 (Jefferson's Notes, in Works, viii.. 329).
*" John Adams's Works, viii., 329.
'"The extravaRant estimate of Confiress in 1774 was 640.000 (J. Adams's
Works. vii„ 302) ; J. F. D, Smyth, in his Tour in U. S. (i., 72). suggests
about 500,000 as more correct, but supposes that of these near two-thirds were
blacks.
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173 ESTIMATES OF POPULATION IN AMERICAN COLONIES
In 1782 an incomplete census was made, the result of which, con-
jecturally modified, gives 567,000,"* and the census of 1790 mounts
up for Virginia proper, with the newly organized district of Ken-
tucky, to a total of over 820,000/** in which the blacks stitl held
nearly their old ratio of 40 per cent. It is noticeable that although
elsewhere much more in excess of the whites, in no other colony
did the colored element increase in that century with anything like
the rapidity shown here.
"Jefferson's Notes, in Works, viii.. 332, 333-
"Vii^inia, 747,610. and Kentucky, 73fl77.
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ESTIMATES OF POPULATION IN AMERICAN COLONIES I73
In North Carolina, most backward in many respects of the orig-
inal colones, there was no enumeration of the inhabitants before
1790. We grope our way, therefore, in much uncertainty.
When a charter was secured by Clarendon and his associates in
1663, it is supposed that there may have been 300 families"" in the
Albemarle region, later known as North Carolina. Secretary Miller
on his arrival in 1677 reported the tithables in this district as
1400"' from which Dr. Hawks infers'" from 2,500 to 3,000 peo-
ple; adding to these the colonists at Cape Fear,'" Mr. Bancroft'"
§§§|gg^|ggg^^
estimates the whole as hardly 4,000. Rebellion, anarchy, and the
removal of the Cape Fear settlers, reduced the tithables by 1694 to
787,"'' implying a total of under 2,000.
The next highest point must have been on the eve of the Indian
outbreak in 1711,'°' and after the setback which this caused we get
a glimpse of the new rate of progress in the fact of not over 2,000
tithables, or at the utmost a population of 10,000 in 1717,'" From
'" Riv*rs. in Winsor's Hist of Amer., v., 3C^.
'" Chalmers's Polit Annals, 533.
'" Hist of N. C. ii,. 469.
'"800 in 1666 (Hawks, ii,, 453).
" i., 425-
"' Rivers, in Winsor's Hist., v., 305.
'"Hawks thinks (Hist, ii., 8q) there were then less than 7,000; judging
from the ofiicial estimate, in 1715, of 7,500 whites and 3.750 blacks. Hum-
phrey.-i's Hist. Account of S. P. G. says over 5,000 whites in 1701.
" Williarason's Hist of N. C, i., at»7, or Hawks, ii., 8* Col. Saunders esti-
mates g.ooo, in Col. Records, it., xvii.
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174 ESTIMATES OF POPULATION IN AMERICAN COLONIES
this date, and especially from the transfer of government to the
Crown, the numbers multipHed much more rapidly. A comparison
of Governor Burrington's assertion that in 1732"° the whites were
full 30,000 and the negroes about 6,000, with the militia roll,"*
more than justifies Mr. Bancroft's conjecture*"" of 90,000 in 1754.
Ten years later we have about 135,000 as the estimate of Governor
Dobbs,'"' certainly not an excessive one; but details of the later
strides towards repletion are wanting. In 1774 the estimate of
Congress was 300,000;"' but this, like all the estimates of that ses-
sion, was regarded subsequently as too liberal, and probably 260,-
qqq!03 ^^gg nearer the truth. At any rate, there was surprising
progress during the decade preceding the Revolution, in which
time none of the larger colonies increased as rapidly as this; but
numbers do not necessarily carry weight, and though at the Revo-
lution fourth in population among all the sisterhood. North Carolina
was by no means fourth in importance.
The years of the war were believed to be eminently disastrous to
her growth,^"* and the Federal Convention's estimate in 1787 was
224,000,""'— in comparison with its other guesses, the most grossly
deficient of them all, less than two-thirds what it should have been,
as shown by the census of 1790, which amounted to 393,751, besides
35,691 classed as inhabitants of the "Territory south-west of the
Ohio, hitherto in North Carolina, and afterwards the State of
Tennessee."
The permanent development of South Carolina dates from
1760, and at the first important epoch, the founding of Charleston Jn
1680, the district contained from 1,000 to l,200 souls,*" while the
impulse contributed by the new capital more than doubled"^' the
number in the next two years. Some basis for a judgment is fur-
nished by a Report of the notorious Edward Randolph, as agent for
the Board of Trade, who professed to find in 1699 near 1,500
'"Saunders, Col. Records, U., xvii. Martin's estimate (Hist, of N. C, 302.
303) of not over lo/wo in 1729. adopted by Hawks (ii., 103), is absurdly low.
'"15,400 in 1753 (Rivers, in Winsor's Hist, v., 304).
"'To.noo whites and 20,000 blacks (ii., 39°. 390. The British government
estimated in 1749 45,ooo whites (Pitkin's Statist. View, 2d ed., 12).
"' Rivers, in Winsor's' Hist., v., 305.
""John Adams's Works, vii., 302.
^ Tucker's Hist, of U. S., i., 96, and Johnston's School Hist.. 93. Wanting
little of 300,000 in 1776, says W. C. Kerr, in Encyclopaedia Britannica, 9th ed..
xvii.. 562.
™Cf. J. F. D. Smyth's Tour in U. S., i.. 235.
™ Curtis's Hist, of the Constitution, ii., 168.
"T, Ash, in Carroll's Hist. Collections, ii., 82.
" Ibid.
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ESTIMATES OF POPULATION IN AMERICAN COLONIES I75
whites of military age, and four times as many negroes."" This
is strikingly inconsistent with a report by the Governor and Council
in 1708, placing the whites at about 4,000, and the blacks at
5,500."" Probably, as the interests of the two parties were directly
opposed, the agent's representations need to be scaled down, and
those of the Colony officials to be magnified. It is clear that already
the negroes with the Indians were outnumbering the whites, and
henceforth the negroes multiply with startling celerity.
The war which broke out in 1715 scattered the Indian tribes and
checked slightly the process of growth in the Province, which then
numbered over 16,000;°'" but by 1720 the Governor could report
§SIIS^^I^HS^§
A\'ith the revolt from proprietary rule in 1719 began a distinctly
more prosperous era, as is clear from Governor Glenn's rather gen-
erous estimate of 32,000*" population, five years later. This occurs
in a Description of the Province, written in 1749, which supplies
also our next data, namely, whites nearly 25,000, and negroes at
=" Rivers's Sketch of Hist of S. C, 443. Hewatt's Hist Account (CarroU'i
Hist. Collections, i., 132) says 5-6,000 whites, about 1,700. Humphrey's Hist
Account of S. P. G. (25), in 1701, says above 7flOO whites.
""g.sSo in alt (Rivers's Sketch, 232). Oldmixon's Brit Empire in America,
1708. quoted in Carroll's Hist Coll., ii., 460, says 12,000.
"'■ In 1714, 10.000 slaves (Rivera's Sketch, 251) and about 6.300 whites {do..
Supplement. 92). A British estimate for 1715 was 6,250 whites and 10,500
blacks (Chalmers's Hist of the Revolt, ii., 7).
"" In Rivers's Sketch, Supplement, 19, 20, 92, 101, are two sets of returns for
the whites in 1720,— «ne 6400, and one about 9.000; the slaves are 11326.
"'Whites, about 14,000 (Carroll's Hist Coll., ii., 261). Bryant and Gay's
Popular Hist (iii., 107) estimates 6-7.000 and about 22,000 slaves in 1730.
Purry's Description, in 1731 (Carroll's Hist Coll., ii., 129), says over 40,000
negroes. Von Reek's Journal, 1734 (Force's Tracts, iv., 9), computes 30,000
negroes and four negroes to one white. These slave c
high.
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176 ESTIMATES OF POPULATION IN AMERICAN COLONIES
least 39,000,*'^ — considerably below the total in North Carolina for
the same year.
The next complete figures are those of Dr. George Milligan, in
1763, from 30,000 to 40,000 whites and about 70.000 slaves."' Ten
years later the militia were about 13,000 (implying five times as
many whites) and the negroes about 110,000,"° which makes the
highest point reached before the Revolution, still under 200,000.
One result of the war was that, whereas for generations previous
the blacks had outnumbered the whites so largely, the wholesale
exodus of negroes under the auspices of the British reversed this
proportion of the races in the census of 1790, which gave 140,178
whites and 108,895 blacks. North Carolina and Virginia had suf-
fered in the same manner, though scarcely to the same degree.
Georgia, last in geographical order, had also the briefest history,
and the most sparsely settled territory. Twenty years under the
Trustees who projected it failed to bring the permanent population
up to 5,000;"* but with the lapse to the Crown in 1752 began a
healthier growth. The new administration fostered slavery, and
Governor Wright found in 1760 less than 6,000 whites and perhaps
half as any blacks;'" in 1766 he reported near 10,000 whites and
8,000 blacks;"" and in 1773 over 18,000 whites and 15,000 blacks."*
"'Carroll's Hist. Coll., it., 2i8; the whites are estimated from the militia
(about 5/x>o), and the negroes are those reported for taxation, probably not
a full return. The British Government estimated, the same year, 30.000 whites
(Pitkin's Sutist. View. 2d ed., 12). In 1741. the Impartial Enquiry concern-
ing Georgia (Ga. Hist. Soc. Collections, i., 167) says not over S.OOO whites
and at least 40,000 blacks. Bancroft (ii., 390, 391) says in 1754 40,000 whites
and full as many negroes.
"Description of S. C. in Carroll's Hist. Coll.. ii., 478-79.— There was 5.5«>
militia (whites) in 1756 (Gov, Lyttleton. in Winsor's Hist of Amer., v., 335),
and 6.200 in 1758 (Gov. Lyttleton. in Pres. Eira Stiles's MSS.). Hewatt esti-
mates in 1765 near 40,000 whites and So-go.ooo negroes (Carroll's Hist. Coll.,
'-, 503).
'"Wells's S. C. Register for 1774, quoted in Winsor"* Hist., v., 335-
■"Whites about 2.700 and blacks about 1,700, in 1752 (Jones's Hist, of Ga.,
i., 460).
||Mo., ii. 73.
"■ do., ii., S22.
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ESTIMATES OF POPULATION IN AMERICAN COLONIES I??
At this rate of increase the total in 1776 was probably from
45,000 to 50,000,""* or double the number of seven years before. In
the times of invasion Georgia like her neighbors suffered a diminu-
tion of her negroes,"' and the war reduced her grand total below the
figures of 1776; but she rallied by 1790 to the much higher sum of
82,548, of which the whites made near two-thirds. In one respect,
however, she was singularly misrepresented, being overestimated in
the Federal Convention of 1787 at nearly half as much again as her
real amount of population, while the rest of the colonies were under-
estimated considerably, — the total of the Convention's figures falling
short of the reality by more than half a million.
A summary of these results gives us a reasonably approximate
view of the growth of population in the whole country for the period
before 1790.
In the first third of a century, or by 1640, when Parliament gained
the ascendency in England, British America contained a httle over
^5,000 whites, — 60 per cent, of them in New England, and the most
of the remainder in Virginia. At the Restoration of monarchy in
1660, the total was about 80,000, the greatest gain being in the most
loyal divisions, Virginia and Maryland, which now comprehended
one-half the whole. At the next epoch, the Protestant Revoluticm
of 1689, Mr. Bancroft concludes'" that our numbers were not much
beyond 200,000, and the figures I have presented give about 206,000;
in this increase one large factor was due to the Middle Colonies,
which now for the first time assumed importance, numbering
already nearly half as many as New England.
A round half-million appears to have been reached about 1721,
with the Middle Colonies showing again the largest percentage of
growth, and New England the least. A million followed in twcnt>'-
two years more, or 1743, this figure being doubled in turn twenty-
four years later, or in 1767, — the latter reduplication being delayed
a little, doubtless, by the effect of intervening wars.
In the Congress of 1774 the colonists ventured for the first time
on a guess at their own strength, their estimate being a little over
three millions ;'" but the true number cannot have been much more
than two millions and a half, and this in turn was the double of the
figure reached about twenty-three years before, which period is
the usual time of doubhng shown by our later censuses down to the
date of the Civil War.
■"Bancroft estimates (iv., 181) in 1775 ibout 17W) whit" and I5.a» blacks.
""Jones's Hist, (ii., 522) queries whether in 1783 »he h»d over 35,000
inhabitants.
"= i.. 608.
"John .Adams's Works, vii.. 302.
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178 ESTIMATES OF POPULATION IN AMERICAN COLONIES
These results differ slightly from those approved by Mr. Bancroft
in his last edition, who exceeds my estimates from 1750 to 1770°'*
by amounts varying from 50,000 to 100,000, or from 4 to 5 per cent,
of the totals.
|gsiiK§l^-ggg|g|KgS
'"Bancroft (ii., 390) quotes Chalmers's estimates of 434^*^00 in 1714, 580,000
in 1727, 1,485,634 in 17S4 : I should assume at these dates, 400,000, 600,000 and
1,360,000, respectively. For himself he gi\ts 1,260,000 in 1750, 1425,000 in
1754, i,6g5,0OO In 1760, 2,312,000 in 1770, and 2,945/100 in 1780; ivr this last
date. E. B. Elliott, in Walker's Statistical Atlas of U. S. <i874>, computes the
total as in round numbers 3,070.000. My own figures are, for 1750, 1.207,000;
for 1760, 1,610,000; for 1770, 2,205,000; for 1775, 2,580,000; and for 1780,
2,780,000. The published figures of the census of 1790 (3,929,214) do not
include Vermont or the territory northwest of the Ohio, which would bring
the total above 4x100,000.
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THOMAS CLAP AND HIS WRITINGS.
[From the Papers of the New Haven Colony Historical Society, Vol. V.,
1894. Read Nov. 25, 1889.]
One hunded and fifty years ago the present month, or more
exactly on Wednesday, November nth, 1739, New Style, nine
ministers who then held the edifice of Trustees of the Collegiate
School of Connecticut, commonly called Yale College, met by
adjournment in the Library at the south end of the College Hall,
which occupied part of the site of the new Osborn Hall, on College
street, and there, with the Rev. Samuel Whitman, of Farmingt<m,
the Senior Trustee present, in the chair, and the Rev. Samuel Cooke,
of Bridgeport, as Scribe, took the action which was thus entered on
their records: — "The Trustees, proceeding after much deliberation
to the Choice of a meet Person to fill up the vacant Rectorate by
Vote made choice of the Rev^ M' Thomas Oap of Windham for the
Rector of this College, in the Room of M* Rector Williams, who
hath resigned."
My interest has been recently drawn anew to a consideration of
President Clap's work for the College, and especially to an examina-
tion of what is left of his writings; and the occurrence of this 150th
anniversary of his election as Rector has prompted me to attempt to
recall in this audience the story of his life and influence.
It is not merely the story of an inconspicuous pre-Revolutionary
divine, whose life has never been written, and whose literary labors
gained no public fame even in his own generation; if this were all,
there would be little excuse for recalling him to the judgment of our
day; but the time and the place in which his work was set con-
stituted a special opportunity. The dates of his service as head of
Yale College, 1739 to 1766, include the most fruitful period of the
College history in its first century, and the formative period of that
generation of Americans which prepared the way for and ushered
in the Revolution; as widely as the influence of Yale men was fdt
in that crisis, so widely were the principles he had implanted and
illustrated, the leading ideas of his mind, diffused and developed;
and it is this perpetuation of his influence in a critical time upon his
pupils and upon the College that gives its chief interest to a study of
what he thought and what he wrote.
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l8o THOMAS CLAP AND HIS WRITINGS
The events of his life were few and simple. He was born, of
unmixed Puritan ancestry, in Scituate, Massachusetts, one of the
earliest Plymouth Colony towns, on June 26th, 1703, in the second
year of the reign of Queen Anne, which was the second year also
of the chartered existence of Yale College, and three months before
the birth of his great contemporary, Jonathan Edwards,
He was not, however, so precocious as Edwards, being graduated
at Harvard in 1722, when Edwards was already two years out of
College and actively employed as a preacher. Clap took a longer
course of theological study, and just at the close of the year 1725
began to supply the pulpit in the town of Windham, Connecticut,
where he was ordained pastor in the following summer.
This, his first and only parish, was hardly to be reckoned as one
of the older towns of the Colony, not having been effectively settled
until 1691, and so only a dozen years older than the young minister
himself.
There he remained for 14 years, or from the 23d to the 37th year
of his life, devoted to his calling, and with little opportunity of
public reputation. From the Windham Church he was called to the
rectorate of Yale College, and his work here for a quarter of a
century finished his active career.
For a detailed illustration of that career I propose to take up his
writings, in order, with the suggestions which they furnish of the
character and value of his work.
Chronologically, the first of President Clap's compositions,
whether in manuscript or print, of any consequence, seems to be a
brief, undated manuscript, entitled "Some Considerations tending
to put an End to the Differences that have been, about Singing by
Rule." This takes us back to the controversy which raged in Kew
England in the decade from 1720 to 1730, respecting the introduc-
tion into public worship of what was styled "regular singing," or
singing by rule, or by note, — as opposed to a helter-skelter method
of singing by rote, without any written music before the eye, in
which each singer followed largely his own notions of time and tune,
while the leader of the singing was especially responsible for the
impress of his personal peculiarities on the whole body. This
essay, written most probably while Gap was a divinity student at
Cambridge, about 1725, is a plea for the reformation of the disorder
into which the New -En gland congregations had fallen in this
respect, and for the substitution of regular musical training.
The argument is arranged in an orderly way, and some historical
matter is introduced. The writer takes high ground in assuming
that it is the duty of all persons to sing, as a part of public worship,
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THOMAS CLAP AND HIS WSITINCS l8l
"but all cannot sing by rote, and therefore they must sing by rule,
for God does not obliege men to impossibilities." The final point
in favor of his thesis is emphasized by clinching it with a text from
the Epistle to the Philippians, "Let us walk by the same Rule."
Evidently, if Clap were now in authority, we should find him a
hearty supporter of the scheme for a Department of Music in the
College.
If this exercise on a question regarding the order and beauty of
public worship is the only memorial of his time of preparation for
the ministry, so a single witness is all that remains to his mental
activity in the proper sphere of his work in the next stage of his
career, as a settled preacher. Midway in his pastoral service in
\\ indham, he delivered a sermon at the ordination of a minister in
the neighboring parish of Colchester, in September, 1732; this was
published in Boston the same year, and is the sole example in print
of his gifts as a sermonizer; perhaps it is hardly possible or fair
to judge him from a single specimen.
The doctrine developed is that no man is of himself sufiFicient fcff
the work of the ministry, or as stated in the title prefixed to the
Discourse, "The Greatness and Difficulty of the Work of the
Ministry, and the Insufficiency of humane Abilities for it;" and
in the light of the author's personal experience the most significant
touch is the special enlargement on the difficulty in the minister's
position in administering disciphne. Local traditions make it certain
that Clap was conspicuous in his neighborhood for the severity and
thoroughness of his dealings with offenders in the membership of
the church ; and this reputation was avowedly one ground for his
selection as Rector of the College. One case of discipline with
which he was troubled in 1737 is notable as perhaps the latest
recorded instance in Connecticut history of a charge of witchcraft
seriously brought, — a charge to which Clap seems to have half
yielded credence.
The passage on Church discipline in his printed Sermon is notice-
able also as expressing some dissatisfaction with the Congregational
way, as having "few or no stated and known rules" on such sub-
jects, and intimating to this extent a preference for Presbyterian-
ism, — that is, a desire to vest all disciplinary power in a board of
ciders, instead of in the general body of the Church. And the whole
furnishes an illustration of the well-understood division among the
ministers of that century in Connecticut and Massachusetts on
questions of church -government. To show how differently this
particular question presents itself in different generations, Clap's
strictures may be compared instructively with a remarkable sermon
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iSa THOMAS CLAP AND HIS WHITINGS
on "The Authority of those who watch for souls," preached by
President Woolsey on a similar occasion in 1850, which as originally
published contained a passage (afterwards withdrawn) suggesting
that the minister ought to have a veto on all votes of the church for
the admission of new members, and also on all action for the
discipline of accused members.
Another interesting point in the "Improvement" of Qap's sermon
is his emphasis on the necessity for "the best advantages of
learning and education" for ministers, and furthermore on their
being "so well supported as to have wherewithal to furnish them-
selves with good libraries." This was of good omen in the
consideration of his name a few years later for the place of Rector
of the College of the Colony.
The original records which Clap kept as pastor have perished ;
but copies exist of a few of the acts of the Windham Church under
his leadership, which show his notion of the scope of his office.
There is a copy, for instance, of a vote, evidently drawn by him, in
1728, two years after his ordination, for the constitution of a board
of representatives of the church, selected especially to assist in
matters of church discipline, with the preamble, "Whereas the work
and business of the Pastor of a Church is very great and extensive,
and particularly the enquiring into Public Scandals and procuring
evidence thereof is laborious and burthensome if left to the Pastor
alone, and whereas the Scripture informs us that God has set some
in the Church to be helps in the government, Voted that it shall be
the work of the Representatives of the Brethren," etc. There is
also preserved in the church-books an interesting Charge given
1^ him at the ordination of Deacons in 1729.
The church at his settlement numbered 264 persons; to whom
219 more were added during the nearly fourteen years of his
service.
The incident which, beyond any other, brought him in these years
into prominence was one which for the time connected him with
Jonathan Edwards in the defence of New England orthodoxy.
In 1734 Mr. Robert Breck, a young Harvard graduate, was
called to the pastorate of the Church in Springfield, Massachusetts.
He had preached for a time under Clap's eye in an outlying parish
of Windham, where his theology was brought in question ; and now
in Springfield like questions were raised, and Edwards among the
neighboring ministers, and Gap among the witnesses to his former
career, were especially prominent in an unsuccessful effort to
prevent his settlement, and in the remonstrances which followed. It
is interesting in the light of modem opinion to note that one point
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THOMAS CLAP AND HIS WRITINGS 183
attacked in Mr. Breck was his declaring, "What will become of the
heathen who never heard of the gospel I do not pretend to say, but
I cannot but indulge in a hope that God, in his boundless
benevolence, will find out a way whereby those heathen who act up
to the light they have may be saved."
The Breck controversy was abundant in points of interest; but
it concerns our present purpose only as helping in a marked degree
to draw attention to Clap and his attitude as a strong, aggressive
champion of the orthodox faith. Each of the pamphlets in opposi-
tion to Mr. Breck contained copious quotations from affidavits and
letters by Oap, — amounting in all to near twenty pages of print.
These extracts leave on the modern reader an impression of Clap at
the age of 32 as a bold and vigorous disputant, sincere if narrow
in his personal creed, and jealously vigilant in his scrutiny of the
orthodoxy of his neighbors. It is pleasant to add that Mr. Breck
proved to be a most useful and acceptable minister, through a long
life, and that so far from bearing any malice he sent his two sons to
Yale to be pupils of Qap, rather than to his own Alma Mater.
Rector Williams, then at the height of his usefulness as the head of
Yale College, was also an active participant in the Breck contro-
versy, on the same side as Clap; he was present in Springfield
when Mr. Breck was examined, and his "radiant countenance" over
some discomfiture of the Breck party was made note of ; and thus in
one way which we can definitely trace, Oap's prominence as a
champion of sound doctrine was brought to the notice and sym-
pathetic approval of one influential person in the College circle.
In 1739 came the call to New Haven. His wife, Mary Whiting,
to whom he had been married soon after his ordination, had died
in 1736; and it is clear from the private Memoirs which he wrote
for his children that her death had so broken up his life as to make
him welcome any change of scene, and especially a change which so
varied and enlarged his field of usefulness. Uke all country
parishes, the Windham parish was a scattered and rambling one,
containing near 800 souls, and needing great expenditures of time
and strength for any apparent results; while the College society
numbered less than a hundred persons, compactly gathered — about
two-thirds of them in the single College building, and the remainder
in the near neighborhood — and all in the formative period, most
.susceptible to impressions, and surrounded by a community above
the average level of intelligence and stimulating influence.
As has been stated, Clap was chosen Rector, in place of Williams,
resigned, in November, 1739, and a committee appointed for the
purpose visited him a few days later and secured his provisional
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184 THOMAS CLAP AND HIS WRITINGS
acceptance. In December a council dismissed him from his pastoral
charge, and towards the end of that month he made a journey to
New Haven, where he was received, as he has recorded, with tokens
of respect and joy by the three tutors (one of whom was
Chauncey Whiltelsey, afterwards pastor of the First Qiurch in
New Haven) and by the students; but through some inattention no
committee of the Corporation was present to induct him into office;
and this, as he puts it, made some talk in the country. I do not
suppose that this can have been an intended slight, but merely swne
oversight or miscalculation. At the same time, it is proper to say
that there cannot have been entire cordiality of feeling in the
result of the election. A later pamphlet states as a fact that certain
votes were not cast for Qap but for another person ; and it is well
known that the Trustees were prevailingly, if not exclusively,
Arminian, and Clap was a decided Calvinist. He continued to
preach in Windham most of the time until the following April, when
the ceremony of his inauguration took place.
After this event his first appearance in print, so far as I have
noticed, was in September, 1741, when he, in connection with Dea-
con John Punderson and four other brethren of the First Church in
New Haven, published in a Boston paper a report of a conference
which they had held with Mr. James Davenport, the crazy revival-
ist, respecting his denunciations of the Rev. Joseph Noyes, of New
Haven. Davenport's erratic course was a trial to all friends of the
established churches in the Colony, and Qap was consistent with all
his previous history in supporting the New Haven pastor against
such attempts to discredit his influence and draw off a separate con-
gregation.
In connection with the College perhaps his first publication was in
I743i when he issued a catalogue, prepared by himself, of the
Library, then containing about 2600 volumes. The undertaking
itself and the spirit of the accompanying directions are equally char-
acteristic of the man and his methods. The Library was well worth
cataloguing, but no one but a painstaking, methodical scholar would
have devoted himself to the task; and as a witness to his interests,
and a commentary on his notion of the meaning of the College
course, the plan of studies recommended in the Preface is important.
His advice is : "In the First Year to study principally the Tongues,
Arithmetic, and Algebra; the Second, Logic, Rhetoric,"" and
Geometry ; the Third, Mathematics and Natural Philosophy ; and
the Fourth, Ethics and Divinity." The plan is evidence enough of
the author's special fondness for Mathematics. "Other less prin-
™Clap introduced Declamations into the College tn 1751.
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THOMAS CLAP AND HIS WRITINGS 185
cipal Studies," he continued, "may be occasionally intermixed with
tliese. Above all have an Eye to the great End of all your Studies,
which is to obtain the Clearest Conceptions of Divine things and to
lead you to a Saving Knowledge of God in his Son Jesus Christ."
To the year I745^the year in which he also carried through the
Legislature a new and remarkably satisfactory charter for the Col-
lege, belong four separate publications, all on controversial themes.
Two of these were due to an unfortunate misunderstanding
between Clap and his great contemporary, Jonathan Edwards, about
an alleged scheme of Whitefield's. Clap insisted that Edwards had
told him of a design Whitefield had, to supplant the general run of
ministers here by others from across the water; and Edwards
acknowledged to having expressed to some of his friends, though
not to Clap, a suspicion of Whitefield's aiming to persuade people
to forsake what he called an unconverted ministry. Clap seems
to have confused what he had heard at second-hand from Edwards
with what Edwards had personally told him; but the general drift
of his indictment was substantially admitted by Edwards. Each of
the disputants was honest, and each was in some sense in the
right, so that the chief significance of the incident for us is the tight
thrown on Clap's attitude towards Whitefield and the measures of
revival and reformation which he and Edwards favored.
Contributing to the same end is a third paper, simultaneously
published by Clap: "The Declaration of the Rector and Tutors of
Yale College against the Rev. Mr. George Whitefield, his Princi-
jiles and Designs, in a Letter to him," — which was mainly a protest
against his attitude towards the majority of the New-England min-
isters, and his slanders upon the colleges as not fit to supply proper
candidates for the sacred office. If a modern illustration may be
ventured, the situation, as Clap and others like him conceived it, was
to some extent just a reversal of the situation in the American Board
of to-day (or of yesterday), where the Prudential Committee are
said to have had recourse to Canada and to the ministry of other
denominations for recruits in the mis si on -field, because of alleged
deficiencies in orthodoxy in the New-Theology men and Radicals
at home. In the case of a hundred and fifty years ago it was the
New Lights, the Radicals of that day, however, who threatened (as
some believed) to bring in orthodox helpers from abroad; while
the conservative party, intrenched in the churches and colleges,
objected to the regular candidates and the established ministry being
branded as untrustworthy. But I must allow that Clap seems in
these pamphlets to have been over-credulous of evil reports and
surmises concerning Whitefield, and deaf to what was to be said in
his favor.
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l86 THOMAS CLAP AND HIS WRITINGS
Another controversy, more directly affecting the college, belongs
to the same year. In January, 1745, the two Qeaveland brothers,
one a Senior and one a Freshman, were expelled from college for
refusing to confess that they had been in the wrong in attending
during a vacation with their parents what were called Separate
Meetings, or meetings of Separatists, conducted by laymen in a
private house, which were illegal by the Colony statutes. In April
Clap appeared in print briefly in a New-York newspaper, giving the
official account of the affair, and later in the year he pubhshed in
pamphlet form, "The Judgment of the Rector and Tutors concern-
ing the case and the reasons of it." The same principles were
really at issue, as in the case of his previous deliverances, — Separate
churches and congregations being one form of the Whitefieldian
protest against an unconverted ministry, and Clap being fully com-
mitted by the part he had assumed in support of the Colony laws
against such meetings, and in opposition to a division in the First
Church here.
An interval now ensued, of 8 or 9 years, during which in the
opinion of his contemporaries, the President's principles underwent
a striking change; and in 1754, when Clap was 51 years of age,
began a period of greater literary activity. Up to this date his
■ publications had been ephemeral in origin and slight in texture;
circumstances now led him to propound and defend certain theses
connected with college government, on which he expended hence-
forth his best powers.
Just at this time he found himself pressed by two distinct lines of
oppositicm, the confutation of which he combined in a pamphlet
entitled, "The Religious Constitution of Colleges, especially of
Yale College."
The few Church -of -En gland families in New Haven were first
supplied with a resident missionary in the year 1753, and one of the
first acts of that missionary, the Rev. Ebenezer Punderson, in
November, 1753, was to demand of the President that the Episcopal
students in college (who may have been eight or ten in number, —
two of them being Mr. Punderson's own sons) might be allowed
to attend regularly on Sundays at the Episcopal church just built,
from which Church street takes its name. Clap refused to grant
the desired permission, except for special occasions ; he was pledged
to this course, one would think, by his previous record as a cham-
pion of the regular parish church and an opponent of Separate con-
gregations. But he followed this refusal, in the same month, with
a step which could not fail to be challenged as inconsistent, namely,
the establishment of separate worship within college walls, and the
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THOMAS CLAP AND HIS WRITINGS 187
consequent withdrawal of ait the students from the Sunday services
of what had been accepted hitherto, from the beginning of the
college here, as their parish church, that is, the old First Church of
New Haven. I speak of this action as Clap's, and he was unques-
tionably the responsible instigator of it; but it was formally taken
(not without serious opposition) in a meeting of the Yale Corpora-
tion, at which Mr. Noyes, Pastor of the New Haven Church, and
one of the Fellows of the College, was present and acted as he
usually did as scribe.
By this move Clap and the College government were exposed
to abundant criticism; which the President undertook to meet, in
the early months of 1754, with the vigorous pamphlet of which I
have cited the title. It is true that the initial steps for the creation
of a Professorship of Divinity in the College had been taken some
eight years before; but the anticipation of that measure by the
formation of a separate College congregation seems to have been
brought about at the last by the new demand in behalf of the Epis-
copalian students ; and Clap's pam[^let defence accordingly covers
the demand as well as the other points.
The main reason of the change was, as I suppose everyone knew.
Clap's dissatisfaction with the doctrine and the preaching of Pastor
Noyes; but as Mr. Noyes was a prominent (and with one exception
the senior) member of the College Corporation, this could hardly
be stated in print ; so that the pamphlet is silent on this head, and
seeks to defend the proceeding on general grounds, elaborating the
theory that a college is a religious society and quasi-parish, — not
merely on a par with Mr. Noyes's parish, but (in Gap's language)
"of a superior, more general, and more important nature, "^ — and that
the Corporation cannot trust the choice of religious instructors and
the quality of religious instruction for the student to any other
agency,
I said the pamphlet was silent as to Mr. Noyes's unsatisfac-
toriness; there is, however, one allusion to the state of feeling
which had grown up in the town, and had caused the formation of
what is now the United Church, where it speaks of the Corporation
having contemplated for some time the foundation of a Professor-
ship of Divinity, and of their "being of late years more sensible of
the necessity of it from the unhappy, divided circumstances of New
Haven." In his History of the College, which was not published
until after Mr. Noyes's death, Clap allowed himself the further
latitude of stating that, at the time the students were made into a
separate congregation, "the College was in danger of being infected
with Errors."
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<88 THOMAS CLAP AND HIS WRITINGS
In the pamphlet we are considering the President shows that he
has studied his subject carefully ; in particular he exhausts the legal
authorities at his command in proof of his positions, so that his pages
fairly bristle with references to Statutes of the Realm, and of the
English universities, to Law Dictionaries, and to standard histories.
The writer is led by the exigencies of his case to take high ground as
to the origin and purpose of Yale College, in saying that "the great
design of founding this School was, to educate ministers in our own
way" ; and it is in connection with this declaration that he insists
on a denial of any peculiar claims of Churchmen to attendance at
their own place of worship.
Belonging also to this year — an interlude in the list of weightier
matters — is one of the few extant indications (so far as I am
informed) of President Qap's work as a preacher after his coming
to New Haven : namely, the brief manuscript notes made for use in
delivering a sermon in the College Hall on Thanksgiving Day, the
second Wednesday in November, 1754. The Rev. Naphtali Daggett
was not elected to the new Professorship of Divinity until ten
months later, and meantime the President was in charge of the
college pulpit. One is tempted to read his sermon-notes the more
critically as in the pamphlet last noticed he had enlarged on the
special care to be taken that the preaching in College should be "of
the best kind."
Judging by this sample the President's homilies were altogether
simple and clear. He confines himself to expounding one of the
Psalmist's most familiar exhortations to thanksgiving, and after
developing the general doctrine of gratitude, makes the application
personal to his hearers. It may be proper here to quote what his
colleague. Professor Daggett, said of him in his funeral sermon:
"As a Preacher he was not of the florid, showy sort ; but solid,
grave, and powerful." I may also add that the fact that he was at
no time honored with the commission to preach the Annual Election
Sermon, before the Governor and Assembly, and the fact that only
one of his occasional sermons was ever printed, go far to prove that
he could not have been regarded as an eloquent or brilliant speaker.
Early in 1755 the first printing press ever brought to New Haven
was set up near the junction of State street and Grand avenue by
James Parker, and the first job which he undertook was an edition of
the College Laws in Latin. The press had been provided as the
result of an appeal by Clap to Benjamin Franklin, who had been
decorated with the honorary degree of Master of Arts here a few
months before, and who had in return a peculiarly friendly feeling
towards the College. In April, 1755, the first newspaper pubhshed
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THOMAS CLAP AND HIS WRITINGS 189.
in the Colony was here printed, and the Rev. Dr. Bacon has ventured
the conjecture that Clap, as the projector of the enterprise which
produced the newspaper, and as the chief literary man of the town,
was probably engaged with the publisher in editing the paper; but
so far as 1 know this was a mere conjecture. The early numbers
of the Connecticut Gazette contain some editorial matter, and some
correspondence which may likely enough have had an editorial
origin, but I fail to recognize any traces of Clap's somewhat
distinctive style.
The new press was employed, however, by the President during
its first year for printing two pamphlets in the interest of his
principles of administration.
One of these, which appeared late in April, 1755, was an
anonymous Answer to an attack on the College just pubhshed and
understood to be written by Dr. Benjamin Gale of Killingworth, a
prominent lay-graduate and a son-in-law of Dr. Jared Eliot, the
senior member of the corporation. The attack was aimed princi-
pally at the annual appropriation by the General Assembly of the
colony for the benefit of the College; and Clap's Answer was a
defence of this grant, which had already, in consequence of his
organizing a College congregation, been seriously, attacked in the
assembly. Besides addressing himself to the matter professedly in
hand, he detects Dr. Gale's further purpose (in which he was known
to have his father-in-law. Dr. Eliot's, hearty support) to block the
scheme for a Professorship of Divinity, and takes occasion to
re-state his views, expressed the year before, on the necessarily
religious constitution of Colleges. The absence of the author's
name seems lo any one familiar with Clap's usual style a very
useless omission. It seems to me at least that the pamphlet from
internal evidence could not possibly have been written without his
having a hand in it. There are certain ear-marks which betray
him plainly: as, for instance, a profuse reference to standard
authorities on matters of university history, — such as Millar's""
.■\ccount of Cambridge. Ayliflfe's"' Account of Oxford, and the
Laws of the two English Universities; a statistical comparison of
Yale College and other colleges (on pages 4 and 5) is also specially
characteristic. The whole pamphlet was a weighty contribution to
the current controversy, and will always be of permanent value
in the history of the College ; but it did not avail to persuade the
General Assembly: the Lower House dissented, the next month,
"* N'eiiher of these two books wu at this date in the Yale Library; but the
Records of the Corporation of Harvard College in March, 1754, contain a
vote allowing Clap to borrow them from the Harvard Library.
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190 THOMAS CLAP AND HIS WRITINGS
from the passage of the usual grant to the College, on the pretext
of large current expenses on account of the French war, and it was
never renewed. One explanation of this action, from the point of
view of current theological parties, is that the deputies who were
classed as "New Lights" were as they always had been, inimical
to the College; while Clap had alienated the "Old Lights" (who
were perhaps two-thirds of the Lower House) by setting up sep-
arate worship for which they dubbed him a "political New Light."
Clap's other publication of the same year, near its close, was enti-
tled "A Brief History and Vindication of the Doctrines Received
and Established in the Churches of New-England" ; but the amount
of New-England history supplied to the reader is disappointingly
small, and the stream of narration speedily gives place to an account
of the acts of the Corporation of Yale College at different times
bearing on the protection of orthodoxy.
One especially prominent section is a defence of the practice of
enforcing subscription on the part of College officers to catechisms
or confessions of faith as tests of orthodoxy, — a practice which
Clap's influence had imposed on the College in 1753, but one which
his successor, Dr. Stiles, succeeded in repudiating in the main,
though the last traces of it were not wiped out until 1823.
A letter of President Oap to Dr. Stiles, written a couple of
months after this pamphlet had appeared, states that it has had
considerable effect in New Haven, "for the First Parish have voted
in the Catechism and Confession of F^th, which some had so long
and so violently opposed ;" — this action having been taken in connec-
tion with an attempt to secure Professor Daggett as a sort of col-
league to Mr, Noyes (on January 26, 1756).
Later in the pamphlet comes a vindication of orthodox doctrines,
with criticism of various past and present heresies. The writer
whom our author seems to take most satisfaction in combating as a
heretic is the Rev. Dr. John Taylor, author of the "Scripture Doc-
trine of Original Sin" (to which Jonathan Edwards wrote a reply),
who seems to have been a special bete noire of Qap's, having also
been gibbeted in the Answer to Dr. Gale.
An odd use was made of this same piece by Clap nearly a century
after its original publication, when the Rev. Dr. Charles Hodge
reprinted almost the whole of it in the Princeton Review, for July,
1839, with the purpose of endeavoring to show that the "New
Scheme of Religion" of Dr. John Taylor and others, which Clap
was engaged in denouncing, was in substance identical with Dr.
Nathaniel W. Taylor's doctrine and the New Haven Divinity in
general under his lead.
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THOMAS CLAP AND HIS WRITINGS I9I
Continuing our chronological view, I find next an Essay, in manu-
script, dated 1757, entitled "The Ecclesiastical Constitution of
Colleges under the Jewish and Christian Dispensations" ; which is
a further elaboration of the ideas already familiar to us in this
survey, especially of this, that the word College in its usual accepta-
tion meant originally a School of Ministers, and that historically
Yale College was such. There is little in the essay of novelty or
interest.
In 1760, in connection with current theological controversies a
striking anonymous pamphlet was printed in New Haven, in the
course of which an assault on the use of Confessions of Faith as
tests of orthodoxy was pointed by a reference to Clap's attitude on
that matier as declared five years before in his "Brief History and
\'indication of Doctrines." The President was moved to prepare a
reply, entitled "A Brief History and Vindication of Confessions of
Faith," in which he defines the nature, ends, and uses of such doc-
uments, and vindicates them from the objections made ; but another
answer (by Dr. Bellamy) to the work he was reviewing, appeared
more promptly in print, and his own was therefore left in manu-
script as we have it.
Another manuscript of some interest is a rough draft of a letter,
12 folio pages in length, dated February, 1764, and addressed to
some unnamed clerical correspondent, — perhaps a member of the
Corporation. There had been for some years great uneasiness and
disorder here among the students, and the President had admin-
istered severe discipline with a free hand; and this letter is an
ingenious statement of considerations, pro and con, relating to a
law proposed to be enacted by the Corporation, authorizing appeals
to them by students for relief from the judgments of the Presi-
dent and Tutors. The letter is a suggestive commentary on the
President's mode of managing discipline. The main point which he
is aiming at — rather a fine one — is to prevent the sanction of a ri^t
of apfciil, while allowing a right of petition; and the Corporatirai
record.'; show that he was successful ; for the law as passed gives
liberty merely of bringing a petition, and this only in case a rehear-
ing before the Faculty has already been asked for. The question of
a right of appeal was of course cognate to that which the President
had recently argued on a much more notable occasion (in May,
1763), when a liberty of appeal to the General Assembly was urged
on ihe part of disaffected members of the Corporation; and the
claim of a right of visitation at the College inhering in the Legisla-
ture, which this right of appeal would involve, was triumphantly
resisted b)' the President single-handed. His argument on that
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Ipa THOMAS CLAP AND HIS WRITINGS
occasion was printed later, in substance, in his Annals of the College
(pp. 70-76) ; and among his papers is a manuscript copy of a more
detailed and extended reply lo the memorialists, which seems to
have been formally presented to the Legislature.
To recur to the letter on this subject, as illustrating his principles
of administration, he lays down "this general maxim of policy in
Government, that the more perfect state of any Judicary or Polity
is to have large numbers of good general rules to go by ; and
to act pro hie ct nunc only in that case where they have not had
wisdom, time or experience enough to fix upon more particular
rules." In another place, "Upon the whole," he says, "I go upon
this principle that in forming a wise plan of government, that shall
be generally agreeable to mankind, we must go upon the same rules
which they do, so far as our state is in common with or agreeable
to theirs, and that we cannot easily or ought not easily and suddenly
to act contrary to them; unless it be in those things which are
peculiar to our Societj' [that is, the College,] and different from the
state of all other Societies in the world, especially considering the
old maxim that experience is the best schoolmaster." He is
endea\'oring of course to ground the proposed action on general
principles of Law; few things delighted his mind so much as to
trace a connection between his practice and the law of nature, or at
least the Statute Law of England.
Another unprinted paper, dated four months later, deals with a
kindred line of thought. This is entitled, "Some Obser^'ations
relating to the Government of the College," and was read to the
meeting of the Corporation in June, 1764, at which the law Just
referred to was passed. This paper comprises some general
considerations respecting College government, and then proceeds to
a classification of offences and an explanation of the grounds of
punishment. I quote a few sentences from the exordium as giving
from another point of view the President's theory of government:
"Some persons have such a strong Propensity to Vice, Vanity
and Disorder, as they will not be influenced by Religion, Reason,
Duty, or any just motive of true interest or prospect of real good.
Such persons must therefore be influenced or restrained from those
things which are plainly detrimental to themselves or the Society
by fear of punishment or shame. And perhaps there are but few
who are so entirely good, without any mixture of the remainder
of corruption, as not to need sometimes a mixture of fear, espe-
cially in such a company of giddy youth, where there are so many
temptations and evil examples." In the course of the discussion, in
referring to repetition of disorders as aggravating the offence, he
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THOMAS CLAP AND HIS WRITINGS I93
says: "The Corporation have never yet had time particularly to
describe the several degrees of frequency or obstinacy with which
crimes may be attended, and to affix particular punishments to each
of them, and perhaps never will. Our laws are more particular
in that matter [already] than the Laws of any other Colleges."
Still another manuscript of 1764 is a statement made by the
President to the Corporation respecting the mysterious sickness
which attacked over 80 students, more than half the whole College,
one April morning in that year, and which was commonly reported,
then and afterwards, to be due to poison introduced into the College
Commons through tlie agency of some French people in town who
were provoked by some pranks of the students. The President's
account takes what appears to be the more rational view, that the
incident was a form of protest against compulsory Commons by
some of the more reckless among the students themselves, and was
not a result of any poison, but some kind of strong physic
administered, I should gather from one expression which he uses,
with the connivance of French servants in the Commons kitchen.
Certainly the testimony which he cites, that "one of the Scholars
went to one of the Cooks on the Lord's Day and offered her a dollar
if she would poison or physic the Commons again, provided she
would let him know the time, and added that if it was done once
more, then there would be an end of Commons," seems to shift the
blame from the shoulders of the poor Acadian French.
In 1765 President Clap published what Dr. Stiles, one of his
favorite pupils, and for thirteen years his amanuensis, pronounces
his best piece of composition, and what was without doubt his most
sustained effort of argument and abstract reasoning, namely, an
"Essay on the Nature and Foundation of Moral Virtue and
Obligation ; being a Short Introduction to the Study of Ethics," for
use as a text-book in College. It continued to be used through
Dr. Stiles's day, that is, for 30 years after its publication, but
probably no later; it was so brief that only about a fortnight, in
the last part of Senior year, was needed to go through it. In the
Preface the author proposes, if his life is spared and he has "some
Relaxation from his present Multiplicity of Business," to publish
a fuller treatise on the same subject; but the lime thus described
never arrived. He resigned his Presidency in September, 1766,
just after passing his grand climacteric, and died in less than four
months later.
A letter from the author to Dr. Stiles authorizes us to say that
the special merit which he claimed for this Essay was that it set
some points in a more clear and concise light than elsewhere; to
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Cl.AP AND IIIS WRITINGS
one who scans the pages now it seems a meagre and juicdes!
compend of familiar commonplaces of theological doctrine. There
is nothing of the sprightliness and philosophical ingenuity of the
Ethics by the Rev. Samuel Johnson, of Stratford, first President of
Columbia College, published in 1752; and still less to compare with
Jonathan Edwards's Dissertation on the Nature of True Virtue,
which appeared posthumously in the same year as Gap's Essay. In
Clap's case the design of a text-book evidently interfered with all
expansion of thought and freedom of expression.
The work by which Clap is best known in our day appeared just
before his resignation of his office, — the Annals or History of Yale
College, the Preface to which is dated March i, 1766. That this
History was deliberately written is evident from the fact that the
College archives contain two earlier drafts, one made in 1747 and
one in 1757. It is hardly necessary to characterize the work at
length. It has the inestimable advantage of being the earliest
account of our origins, and for this reason, if for no other, can
never lose its interest or value. Besides its preservation of the
previous history, the Appendix gives a particular accoimt of the
actual condition of the College at the time of writing, which is
especially graphic and curious. The writer's plan confines him
in the main to a bare statement of facts ; it is rarely that he allows
himself to suggest improvements, as he does on page 89, where he
advocates a scheme of Special Honors, for scholars of distinguished
attainments, including a descriptive phrase in the diploma, and so
going beyond even what we have attained in the century and a
quarter since. The book is uncritical in its treatment of portions of
die earlier history, and tinged often by the writer's prejudices;
but after all disparagements, taking its date into account, it is a
satisfactory piece of work, much better than the circumstances
would have given us the right to expect.
Only one posthumous publication demands notice, — a tract
entitled "Conjectures upon the Nature and Motion of Meteors,
which are above the Atmosphere." This brochure was copied
from the author's manuscript by one of his later pupils, the
Rev. Ebenezer Baldwin, while a tutor in College during the last
year of Clap's life. Mr. Baldwin died in 1776, but this was printed
from his copy at Norwich in 1781.
The late Professor Kingsley in his Sketch of the College suggested
an occasion for the composition of this piece by quoting a sentence
from Oap's Annals, where he says that "After Evening Prayers, the
President frequently makes Dissertations upon various Subjects in
Religion and Learning, and almost all the different Affairs and
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THOMAS CLAP ANU HIS WRITINGS I95
Employments of IJfe." There is good reason, however, from its
form and contents, to class this rather among the more ambitious
fruits of Clap's private study ; and in fact Dr. Stiles at the time of
the President's death refers specifically to this as one of his most
important scientific investigations; and a letter of Clap's which is
extant, written in 1765, mentions having received intelligence iiom
Peter Collinson, the well-known English friend of Franklin, to the
effect that his Theory of Meteors had been read with approbation
before the Royal Society,
The theory regards meteors as terrestrial comets, and computes
their rate of motion after the same laws as the motion of solar
comets. This general theory was retained here, as a tradition from
Qap, and was adopted with approval by Professor Jeremiah Day
in a paper on the Origin of Meteoric Stones, written after the fall
of the famous Weston meteor in 1807, and published in the Mem-
oirs of the Connecticut Academy in 1810. I believe that Pro-
fessor Silliman a!so maintained the same theory for many years
later in his College lectures.
Among the undated manuscripts of President Qap which I have
seen I select three as worthy of special mention, — each being in
a different way of interest.
One, entitled "Thoughts on the Present State of Religion," is
mainly a defence of the system of Consociated Churches, and
especially of Councils as managed by Consociations, — a system
peculiar to Connecticut, and commended by Qap as "an excellent
plan, collected from the word of God." From internal evidence
it appears that this paper was composed during the last decade of
the writer's life ; but the principles on which it is based were much
the same in effect as those with which he had identified himself
in the case at Springfield thirty years before, where Mr. Breck's
ordination was carried through by a council gathered iroai abroad,
while the neighboring ministers were mostly in opposition.
Tlie second of these pieces is an ingenious Discourse on the
Propriety of using Natural instead of Artificial Light. An inci-
dental allusion in this paper seems to fix the time of its composition
before 1750, and the handwriting is certainly that of an early
period. There is nothing to show the occasion of drawing up the
discourse, which is far more theological than scientific in its argu-
ment ; but I have little doubt that it is a specimen of those
"dissertations upon various subjects in Religion and Learning,"
which the President was accustomed to give to the students after
Evening Prayers; it would occupy from 30 to 25 minutes in
delivery.
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19* THOMAS CLAP AND HIS WRITINGS
It may suffice to show the theological trend of the paper to
mention that one of the two main propositions laid down is that
"to neglect to make use of light of the sun and in the room of it
to make an artificial light, is in its own nature a plain moral evil."
I have left until the last one of the most interesting of all these
relics: — a manuscript given to the Yale Library in 1884 by the late
Rev. Dr. Pitkin, of Detroit, a great-grandson of President Clap,
and entitled "A Plan or Heads of a History of the Colony of Con-
necticut." This fragment is to be referred to the last months of the
President's life, after he had resigned his office, and before death
overtook him, when as we learn from his funeral -sermon by
Professor Daggett, this furnished him with a favorite occupation.
The manuscript is what the title denotes, — merely an outline or
heads of a proposed work ; but the scheme proceeds far enough to
have a decided interest and to show that with time and opportunity
we might have had from this hand a worthy sketch of our colonial
history, antedating by more than a generation our earliest published
authority, — the history of Dr. Benjamin Trumbull.
And this manuscript recalls also the kindred circumstance that
in 1759 President Clap induced the venerable Ex-Governor
Roger Wolcott to draw up a narrative of what had fallen within
his remembrance and observation, and what he had derived from
others, of the history of the Colony, and that this manuscript also
is still extant, in the Watkinson Library at Hartford.
I do not know that any details of the Clap manuscript are of
enough separate value to be cited; it may be characteristic of the
author that the first entry in his scheme is, "Religion the Design of
the first Planters" ; and it may be interesting to notice that he makes
a special heading for the "TopograjAical Description of the
Colony," with particulars of the several Counties, the principal
Rivers, the principal Towns, their latitudes and longitudes, and
their advantages and disadvantages with respect to trade ; there is
also a tempting heading, "The General Genius of the Inhabitants,"
and "The Advantages of their Privileges."
The manuscripts which I have thus imperfectly described by no
means exhaust the list of those extant ; but most of the rest are too
fragmentary, too brief, or too disconnected, to serve my present
purpose.
There are, I ought perhaps to add, a few volumes of College
memoranda, containing chiefly details of the location of students
in College rooms and in town, and accounts connected with the
building of South Middle College and the Athenaeum. — interesting
for other reasons, but not of much importance as contributions to
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THOMAS CLAP AND HIS WRITINGS I9T
the history of Gap's mind or his influence. The formal records of
the CorporatitM also, and those of the Faculty, contain many of
his official utterances,- — a class of writings which belong rather to
the history of the College than to a notice of his personal career.
In the review of these materials one leading impression left on
my mind is that with Hmited opportunities President Clap developed
and cultivated to an unexpected extent an unusual variety of
intellectua] interests. To begin with, his attainments in math-
ematics, astronomy, and physics, placed him beyond doubt in the first
rank of Americans in his generation. In quite another line, I ques-
tion if any layman, or any professional contemporary, on this side
the Atlantic, rivaled him in a knowledge of the history and the
practice of the common law, the statute law, and the canon law of
England, and of the history and usages of English and other
Universities. In the wider domain of general history, both civil
and ecclesiastical, his reading was unusually extensive, and the
faculty of utilizing his knowledge was equally memorable. In the
studies which more pecuharly belonged to his profession, such as
divinity and ethics, he was, as everywhere else, an independent
thinker, thoroughly furnished in the literature of the subject, and
ready to answer for the doctrines which he held.
He had an important part in the training for public life of over
750 graduates of the College, including among a long list of men
of valid claims to remembrance, such names as William Livingston,
the War Governor, William Samuel Johnson, the framer of the
Constitution, Pelatiah Webster, the political economist, Silas Deane,
the diplomatist, Samuel Hopkins, the theologian, Ezra Stiles, the
universal scholar, Samuel Seabury, the first American bishop, and
Manasseh Cutler, the real author of the Ordinance of 1787. His
pupil and colleague, Professor Daggett, says that "Instructing
seemed to be the natural exercise and diversion of his mind"; and
other testimony concurs in representing him as preeminently an
eflfective teacher. In this way his direct influence was reflected in
the lives of his pupils. And besides this, by the foundations which
he laid or strengthened here, his influence has gone on, a distinct
force in all our later development. It was by his efforts, from
experience of the defects of the old Charter, that the Charter of
1745 under which the Collegiate School has grown into a University
was in the first place framed, was then secured, and was later
defended once for all from encroachment ; and these labors, alone,
simple as they may sound, yet critical for the life of the College in
the very highest degree, entitle their hero to profound and enduring
respect. I cannot see how, without such a broadening of chartered
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*98
THOMAS CI-AP AND BIS WRITINGS
powers at that date, the subsequent symmetrical development could '
have been carried out; and especially striking were Clap's skill and
foresight, in connection with this charter, which developed the
Presidential office out of the earlier position of Rector, who had
been little more than the chief hired servant of the Trustees. But
furthermore, his love of method, his powers of organization, his i
thoroughness in detail, his tenacity of purpose, were felt, as they
were needed, everywhere in the circle of the College interests.
As Dr. Daggett says in his Funeral Sermon, "He thought, he
acted, he Hved very uniformly, and by rule," and a certain logical
definiteness about the important measures of his administration
helped to make their impress permanent. His rearrangement
of the course of study in the interest of mathemalical science had a
lasting effect on the position of such studies in the College; his way i
of introducing government by the Faculty, sitting in consultation
witli the President, settled a precedent which has prevailed until
now; his plan of a College congregation, and a College church,
has settled that question for those who have followed him ; and so,
in the mere matter of buildings, his choice of a location for South
Middle and the Athenaeum determined the lines of growth for over
a century.
His term of office was prolonged far beyond that of any of his
predecessors, and fell short but two years of President Day's, the
longest in our history; under him and in his methods, his three
successors in office, Daggett, Stiles, and Dwight, were trained partly
or wholly. No head of the College has had a better opportunity', or
has better improved it, for influence on the future. To illustrate
this in detail would be to go over about all that there is of impor-
tance in the College annals, from the time that Clap's name was first
heard here until a new world of ideas was introduced with the
constitution of the new nation.
I think that I am only just in saying that as James Pierpont, of
New Haven, at the opening of the iSth century, should be remem-
bered as beyond all otliers the true founder of the College ; and
Timothy Dwight, in the opening of the 19th century, as the far-
sighted projector and herald of the expanded university; just so
truly should Thomas Clap be held in esteem, whose work was the
main and necessary link between the two.
But with all this admirable activity and conscientious devotion, so '
essential to everything that has since been accomplished, he was yet
not a successful man, in so far as success involved present apprecia-
tion and popular favor, not merely among students but among men.
There was something intensely domineering and arbitrary in his
idbyCol^
T410MAS CLAP AND HIS WRITINGS 199
manner, and the same qualities seemed to attach equally to the
measures which he carried through. The consequence of this,
and of his ahenation of former supporters by his change of
policy in such matters as the College church, was that the latter
half of his Presidency was stormy and mutinous, and the treatment
which he received in the Corporation and in the Colony forced him
ultimately to resign, and clouded if it did not embitter his last days.
Among his predecessors and his successors in office there have
been those of greater natural gifts and of greater acquisitions; but
I doubt if any one of them, placed in his circumstances, could have
accomplished as thoroughly as he did, the great and absolutely
necessary work for which Yale College honors the memory of
Thomas Clap.
APPENDIX.
1. The Greatness and Difficulty of the work of the Ministry ; a Sermon
[from 2 Cor. ii, i6| at the Ordination of the Rev. Ephraim Little, at Colches-
ter. Sept. 30, 1732.
Boston, 1732. 8°. pp. 30.
[Amer. Antiq. Soc. Conn. Hist. Soc. Mass. Hist. Soc. Yale (imperfect).
2. Account of a Conference with Mr. James Davenport, respecting his
Condemnation of the Rev. Joseph Noyes. Signed by Clap, and five other
brethren of the New Haven Church. Dated Sept. 21. 1741.
In Boston Post-Boy, No. 3ga, and copied into C. Chauncy's Seasonable
Thoughts on the State of Religion in New England (Bost. 1743, 8°), pp.
158-61,
3. A Catalogue of the Library of Yale-College in New-Haven.
N. London, i743- 16°. pp. iv, 48.
[Amer. Antiq. Soc. Bost. Athemum. Harvard. Yale.
The same. [2d ed.] N. H., 1755. 16°. pp. iv, 43. (Yale.
4. A Letter To a Friend in Boston . . [on the Rev. Jonathan Edwards's
telling him] that Mr. Whitefield said . . that it was his Design to turn the
generality of the Ministers in the Country out of their Places, and re-settle
them with Ministers from England, Scotland, and Ireland. [Dated Dec,
1744.1
Boston, 1745. 16°. pp. 8.
[.\mer. Congr. Assoc. Boston Public Libr. Harvard. Mass. Hist Soe.
5 The Declaration of the Rector and Tutors of Yale College against the
Rev, Mr. George Whitefield, his Principles and Designs, in a Letter to him.
Boston, 1745, 8°, pp. 14, i,
[.^mer. Congr, Assoc. Boston Public Libr, Conn. Hist Soc. Prince. Libr.
Yale.
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900 THOMAS CLAP AND HIS WRITINAS
6. A Letter to the Rev. Mr. Edwards, of North -Hampton, Expostulattng
with him for his Injurious Reflections in his Ute Letter to a Friend; And
shewinK that Mr. Edwards in contradicting the Rector plainly contradicts
himself. [Dated April i, 1745.]
Boston, 1745. 4°. pp. II.
[Amer. Antiq. Soc. Boston Athenzum. Boston Public Libr. Harvard.
Mass. Hist Soc. (imperfect.) Brit Museum.
7. Letter concerning the Expulsion of the two Cleavelands from Yale-Col-
lege. Dated April 18. 1745.
In the New- York Post-Boy, Apr. 29, 1745; and copied in The American
Magazine for June, 1745 (vol ii., p. 264).
8. The Judgment of the Rector and Tutors of Yale College, concerning
Two of the Students who were expelled ; together with the Reasons of it
N. London, 1745. 4°. pp. 10.
[Amer. Antiq. Soc. Mass, Hist Soc. Reprinted in Boston, 1745
9. The Religious Constitution of Colleges, Especially of Yale-College in
New-Haven, in the Colony of Connecticut
New-London, 1754. 4°, pp. 20.
[Amer. Antiq. Soc. Boston Athenxum. Boston Public Libr. Brit Mus.
Harvard. L. 1. Hist. Soc. Mass. Hist Soc. N. H. Col. Hist Soc. Yale
10. The Answer of The Friend in the West, to a Letter from A Gentle-
man in the East [B. Gale], entitled. The present State of the Colony of
Connecticut considered.
New Haven, 1755. 8°. pp. 18,
[Yale,
Anonymous.
11. A Brief History and Vindication of the Doctrines Received and Estab-
lished in the Churches of New-England, With a Specimen of the New Scheme
of Religion beginning to prevail.
New-Haven, 1755. 8°. pp. 45.
[Amer, Antiq, Soc. Harvard. Yale. Brit Mus.
The same. Second Edition. Boston. 1757. 8°. pp. 40,
[Amer. Antiq. Soc. Boston Athenxum. N. Y. Hist Soc. Prince. Libr.
Yale.
12. A short account of a Comet, dated May 2, 1759.
In Conn. Gazette, May 5; copied in Boston Post-Boy, May 14, 1759.
13. A letter concerning a lire-ball of May 10. 1759. Dated at Boston,
May 26. In Boston News-Letter o( May 31. 1759.
14. An Essay on the Nature and Foundation of Moral Virtue and Obliga-
tion; being a Short Introduction to the Study of Ethics; for the Use of the
Students of Yale-College.
New-Haven. 1765. 8°. pp. iv. 68.
[Amer. Antiq. Soc. Amer. Coner. Assoc. Boston Athenxum, Boston Pub-
lic Libr, Brit Mus, Har\ard, Mass. Hist Soc, N H. Col. Hist Soc.
Yale.
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THOMAS CLAP AND HIS WRITINGS
15. An article on Meteors, in the Connecticut Gaiette, Oct. 4, 1765-
17. The Annals or History of Yale-College.
New-Haven. 1766. 8°. pp. iv. 124-
[Amer. Antiq. Soc. Boston Athenxum. Harvard. L. 1. Hist. Soc. Mass.
Hist. Soc. Yale.
16, Conjectures upon the Nature and Motion of Meteors, which are above
the Atmosphere. [Outside title ; President Qap, on Terrestrial Comets.]
Norwich, T78T. 4°. pp. IS.
[Boston Athenxum. Conn. Hist Soc. Yale. Brit Museum.
Among his more important manuscripts are:
1. Some Considerations tending to put an End to the Diflerences that
have been about Singing by Rule. 8 pp. 16°.
A plea for singing by note; undated, but I think written while he was
studying theology, about 1733-21.
2. Memoirs of some Remarkable Occurrences of Divine Providence
towards me in the course of my Life, together with some Reflections and
Observations upon them.
In possession of his descendants.
Parts of this were printed in the Sermon by Prof. Daggett at his funeral,
and in E. Waterman's Century Sermon at Windham ; it includes. Meditations
upon the Death of my wife. Aug. g. 1736.
Other parts, Dated Nov. 9, 1736— May 9. 1737.
Also, memoranda of events in 1739-41.
3. Sermon, March, 1741.
[Yale.
4. A discourse on the propriety of using natural, not artihcial light i3
pp. 4°.
Refers to Duke of Cumberland's career, in terms appropriate to about 1745.
6. Brief Notes of Sermon, from Psalm c, 4, 5, preached in College Hall
on Thanksgiving Day, Wednesday, Nov. 13. 1754. 7 pp. 16°.
(5 pp. Doctrine, V/i pp. Improvement)
7. The Charge given to Professor Daggett at his Instalment. March 1756.
I p. 8°.
8. The Ecclesiastical Constitution of Colleges under the Jewish and
Chrifidan Dispensations. 1757. 32 pp. 4°.
[.^nd an earlier draft of the same, with title. The anlient Ecclesiastical
"onstitution of Colleges. Written after 1753. 32 pp. 4'',1
The object is to show that the word College in usual acceptation originally
meant School of Ministers, and that historically Yale College is 50.
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302 THOMAS CLAP AND HIS WRITINGS
9. A brief History and Vindication of Confessions of Faith, Occasioned by
a new Impression and Publication [in 1760] of the Confession of Faith con-
sented to by the Churches in the Colony of Connecticut, and by sundry
Aspersions cast upon Confessions of Faith in an anonimous Pamphlet enti-
tuled a Letter to Paulinus [N.-H., Feb. 1760, by Wm. Hart].
66 pp. 4°. [Not quite complete.)
la Address to the General Assembly, May, 1763, in reply to the Memo-
rial of E. Dorr, &c, praying for a Visitation of the College. Prof. Kingsley
in his Sketch of Y. C (p. 16) quotes a sentence. 22 pp. 4°.
11. A Letter, dated Feb. 2, 1764, to some unnamed Oergyman, on the
matter under discussion in the College Corporation, of allowing students who
have been punished by the President and Tutors a Right of Appeal to the
President and Fellows. Largely a legal argument 12 pp. folio.
12. Some Observations relating to the Government of the College.
[Read to the Corporation, June, 1764.] 25 pp. 4°.
A classification of offences, and explanation of the grounds of punishment
13. Tho'ts on the Present State of Religion. [Imperfect 19 pp. 4°.]
Mainly a defence of Consociation and Consodated Councils.
In it he mentions The Winter Evening's Conversation [by Sami Webster]
which was published in 1757.
14. A Plan or Heads of a History of the Colony of Connecticut.
Quotes Massachusetts Representation of 1764.
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ON SOME SOCIAL DISTINCTIONS AT HARVARD
AND YALE, BEFORE THE REVOLUTION.
[From the Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society for Octo-
ber, 1893.]
In the catal(^ues of graduates of Harvard College down to 1772,
and in those of Yale down to 1767, the names of the students in the
successive classes are placed — not alphabetically, as now, and not as
at Oxford or Cambridge in the order of application for admission,
or according to scholastic merit, but — in an order supposed to
indicate the rank of their respective fathers or families.
Such a system was a wholly natural consequence of the conditions
of life to which the founders of Harvard had been accustomed in
the mother country ; and although no directly corresponding usage
is traceable at either of the English universities, where these found-
ers had themselves been trained, yet I believe we can cwuiect
the system logically with the distinctions there observed. Thus
the revised matriculation statutes adopted at Oxford in 1565, and in
force in the time of the Harvard founders, adjusted the scale of fees
for the ceremony of matriculation in accordance with the social rank
of the fathers of the candidates, from 13 s. 4 d. paid by the son of a
prince, duke or marquis, down to 4 d., the charge to plebei fUius,
which would naturally be understood as the son of a yeoman, and
2 d. to a servitor.^'' The phrase at Cambridge corresponding to
plebei filius was mediocris forturur, and in practice both were, I
fancy, elastic enough to include a large part of the ordinary students.
The most careful authorities on Oxford and Cambridge antiquities
give us nothing which is more to the point than such regulations as
these; and the system as developed at Harvard may be fairly
described as a natural deduction from the structure of university
society, as of general society, in the England of Ehzabeth and James
the First.
1 have been favored with comments on the subject from several
English correspondents, and I may be allowed to quote at length
from a private letter of Dr. Venn, senior fellow and historian
of Caius College, Cambridge, with whose view of the matter such
"Register of the Univ.. vol. z. pt I. 165 (Oxford Hist Soc. Publica-
tions, X.).
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204 SOCIAL DISTINCTIONS AT HARVARD AND YALE
other eminent authorities as Mr. J. Bass Mullinger, the Hbrarian of
St. John's College, Cambridge, and historian of the University,
and the Rev. Andrew Clark, fellow of Lincoln College, Oxford,
seem to coincide substantially. Dr. Venn says : —
"As we all know, the University classification was a threefold
one, \iz., into fellow-commoners, pensioners and sizars ; and this has
been unchanged, at any rate since the commencement of the matricu-
lations in 1544. But from Elizabethan times, and perhaps earlier,
our classification at Caius was a fivefold one: (1) Fellow-com-
moners, containing the young men of family, and Masters of Arts ;
then come three classes of pensioners, sometimes described as primi,
secundi and tertii ordinis, or more particularly: (2) Pensioners to
the Bachelors' table, containing besides the Bachelors, other
undergraduates; (3) Pensioners to the Scholars' table; to
this belonged not only those who were actual scholars, t. e.,
on the foundation, but also those who intended to try for
scholarships (so I judge) and probably other students who could
not pay the higher fees for the other tables ; (4) 'Pensioners' simply,
corresponding to the bulk of the modern students ; {5) Sizars, who
waited on the Fellows, etc., and ate what they left. This arrange-
ment was strictly speaking one of the table at which the student had
his meats; but it is plain that some sort of social precedence was
thus indicated: — the fees were successively higher from the Sizar
upwards ; the lad of better social position takes one of the second
or third class, if he is not an actual fellow-commoner ; the division
of the graduates' fees at Commencement Day, etc., for the purpose
of feasts, follows the same arrangement, and so on. I have come
in fact on frequent indications that these successive grades implied
a certain social precedence. This arrangement was in full work,
with us, throughout the seventeenth century, but graduallly decayed
during the eighteenth. To some extent it was an arrangement in
'order of family rank' ; for, the fees being higher in the upper tables,
youths of rank were more likely to be found in them ; but there was
no attempt to arrange trades and professions in any order of
precedence."
The substance of the English custom is well expressed by
Mr. Mullinger, who writes that "the students themselves, on
entering, defined their own status by the fee which they paid.
That they themselves paid fees according to their means and social
position was quite different from any such distinction being insisted
on by the College."
But however the founders of the first New England college may
have departed from the customs which they left behind them, it is
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SOCIAL DISTINCTIONS AT HARVARD AND YALE I05
no wonder that a system which had gone on for two generations at
Harvard, should have been adopted in turn by the ministers who
gave shape to the college in Connecticut, as part of the natural order
of collegiate discipline.
A more direct copy, in Harvard's first century, of a social distinc-
tion peculiar to the transatlantic Cambridge, was the enrolment of
a few of the richer students as Fellow- Commoners, that is, strictly,
undergraduates entitled to take their meals at Commons at the
Fellows' table.'"* But this badge of aristocracy, never frequent,
had nearly passed out of use before the institution of the collegiate
school in Connecticut, where indeed there would have been little or
no opportunity for its cultivation.
It is, of course, impossible at this distance of time to recover
and estimate in their due proportions all the considerations
determining the arrangement of class-lists formed on a scheme of
social rank; my hope is merely to bring out some of the general
principles which guided the action of the college authorities, and
incidentally to gather some information on social grades in the
community.
It seems to have been the duty of the President — or Rector, as he
was commonly styled at Yale until after 1745, — or the President
in conjunction with the resident Fellows or Tutors as a Faculty, to
arrange the list of each class, soon after entrance into college. The
earliest formal record at Harvard of this sort begins with the
beginning of the first volume of the Record of the Faculty in 1725,
where under date of December is the entry: "Twenty and seven
Scholars were admitted into the College this year. They were
placed or disposed in the Oass by the President and Fellows, as
follows." The list of names of the class as it was afterwards
graduated in 1729 is then given, and similar entries occur annually
thenceforth. With the class of 1732 the residence of each member
is added, and his age by years. Instead of the last item, in the class
of 1741, the exact date of birth is substituted, and in this form the
record continues until the custom expires. The period of the
academic year when the list was thus made out varied from Septem-
ber until June, being most frequently in March or one of the adjoin-
ing months.
At Yale the only corresponding records are those contained in
some private note-books kept by President Qap, which cover the
claiiscs from 1747 to 1757 and from 1761 to 1767; and the lists are
supplemented by occasional memoranda of items respectirtg the
"■Such were Wyllys, class of 1653; Saltonstall. 1659; Browne, t666;
Wainwright, 1686; the brothers Vassal), 1733 and 1733.
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2o6 SOCIAL DISTINCTIONS AT HARVARD AND YALE
Standing and fortunes of the parents, jotted down by the President
apparently for his own information and guidance; the lists in the
Faculty books at Harvard, being mere formal records, contain,
so far as I have noticed, only a single instance of like nature, where
the father of a certain candidate in the class of 1734 is described as
a shipwright.
The lists thus determined near the opening of the college course
stood unchanged ever after, excepting when (very rarely) some
error in the arrangement, due to imperfect knowledge, was subse-
quently corrected, or when an individual was punished by a change
of place, or "degradation," a penalty next to expulsion in severity,
on account of misdemeanors.
Many instances could be cited to prove that a rise in the father's
social or official position during a son's college course "was not
allowed to disturb the class arrangement as already fixed.*** A
pertinent illustration is the case of Joseph Parsons, at the foot of the
class of 1697; at the beginning of his senior year his father was
promoted to a judgeship of the Hampshire County Court, but
without affecting the college rank of the son.
All the evidence tends to show that the problem of arrangement
was, as we should expect, a perplexing one. In the earlier genera-
tions at Harvard, family pedigree seems to have been the paramount
consideration, while the father's individual standing was distinctly
secondary; but as a longer interval separated the colonists from
their English home and its definite laws of precedence, the more
difficult became the determination of family rank in communities as
homogeneous as these of New England. It still remained true,
however, to the latest date, as I believe, both at Harvard and at
Yale, that the general social standing of the family was taken into
account, as well as the father's personal status, in deciding a stu-
dent's grade; and I think I do not exaggerate in saying that, at Har-
vard especially, there was continually a conscious effort to keep up
the respect due to family names of past distinction by concessions of
this sort on the college roll. This influence was less felt and less
welcomed at Yale, where the constituency was always more
democratic and more homespun than that of the elder university.
And yet, even here, the prestige of an honored ancestral name was
always valued. To illustrate : John Still Winthrop leads the Yale
class-list of 1737, although his father by no means fUled such impor-
tant public station as the fathers of the three or four youths next
below him ; but the Winthrop name was second to none in New
England in renown, and carried its own justificaticm for unrivalled
"Mass. Hist Soc Proceedings, VIII., 33.
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SOCIAL DISTINCTIONS AT HARVARD AND VALE 207
precedence. Taking the whole of the class-lists at both colleges
subject to this arrangement, Winthrop is the name which is uni-
formly found in a higher position than any other occurring as often
(ten times in all) ; six of these times it holds the first place, being
surpassed in that special pre-eminence by only two other names,
Hutchinson and Russell, each of which occurs seven times in that
rank.
To continue the statistics on this head, it appears that the next
below the names already mentioned, in frequency of occurrence in
the first place, are Dudley and Saltonstall (five times each). The
names most notably frequent, after Winthrop, in a uniformly high
grade are, Davenport and Wainwright (each six times, and always
in the first four places) ; Quincy (nine times, not lower than the first
five places) ; Danforth (nine times, in the first six places) ; and
Oliver (twenty times, in the first seven places).
Not a single name occurring more than once stands uniformly at
the head of the list ; and the Connecticut name of Wyllys is the only
one occurring as many as four times, which is always in either the
first or the second rank.
It may be worth while in this connection to note the frequency
with which the leading family names are represented in the two
oldest universities of New England, throughout their history.
Taking as guides the latest catalogues of graduates (Harvard, 1890;
Yale, 1892), it is not unexpected to find that the name of Smith leads
all the rest in either catalogue, though by far more common at Yale
than at Harvard."" At Harvard, on the other hand. Brown is a
strong second,**' while barely fourth at Yale,"' where the second
place is still held by Williams,"* a good third at Harvard;"* and
the remaining place, third at Yale,"' and fourth at Harvard,"* is
given to Clark. H the lists of the two colleges are combined
(omitting duplicates), the order of names is Smith, WiUiams, Clark,
Brown, Adams, Hall, Allen, White, Johnson, Jones, Davis, Parker,
Green, Hubbard, — these being all which have as many as a hundred
representatives, and also al! which at either college count up to two-
thirds of that number, besides the Baldwins and the Strongs, who
are exceptionally frequent in the Yale catalogue.*"
■" 154, Harvard ; 219, Vale.
" Seventy-three Baldwins here to 22 at Harvard, and 67 Strongs to la.
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208 SOCIAL DISTINCTIONS AT HARVASD AND YALE
In estimating family rank, I believe also that an ample fortune
was taken prominently into account, and that some of the perplexing
cases, where persons of undoubted family claims are placed low
in the class-lists, may in part at least be explained by straitened
paternal circumstances. This consideration had, as I conjecture,
its influence in relegating the sons of the Rev. Charles Chauncy in
the classes of 1651 andi657 at Harvard to some of the lowest places ;
I may quote also, as suggesting a similar effect, a memorandum
made repeatedly by President Dap of Yale in his notebooks, in
the times of a greatly depreciated currency (about 1753-4), where
he describes the parents of certain students, low in grade, as
"of middling estate, much impoverished."
The point suggested should not, however, be pressed too far.
While I am convinced of an exceptional regard paid to wealth, and
of slights put upon some who failed by this test, I ought also to
direct attention to a small class of instances in the early decades at
Harvard, where certain persons of good family appear by the
records to have paid their way in part by such services as waiting
in the hail or bell-ringing, and yet to have retained the full rank to
which they were entitled. These cases present no inconsistency
with the general rule, family rank being the normal standard, and
wealth or poverty an accessory of varying importance, as connected
with the different problems of each new class-list.
Aside from general family rank, then, in estimating the claims of
a student, the comparative wealth or poverty and the professional
or official standing of his father were mainly to be regarded. So
far as I have seen, the mother's family, and her earlier alliances in
case of a prior marriage, were not much heeded. An instance in
point is that of Samuel Pomeroy, the lowest in rank of the Yale class
of 1705, a son of a country farmer, whose wife, however, had
previously been the wife of a clergyman, a Harvard graduate, and
the son of a distinguished President of that seminary. Neither did
the fact of a student's having had a brother graduate at college
and enter on a learned profession, have usually any perceptible
weight, nor do remoter relationships seem to have interfered with
the application of general rules. A single instance of the practice
in a brother's case is that of Simon Tufts, below the middle of the
class of 1724 at Harvard, and own brother of the Rev. John
Tufts, who held relatively the same position in the class of
1708, and was now established in the ministerial ranks. In the case
of Isaac Browne, last In the Yale class of 1729, and a brother of the
Rev. Daniel Browne, Yale, 1714, we may conjecture that the elder
brother's defection to episcopacy, with Rector Cutler, subjected his
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SOCIAL DISTINCTIONS AT HARVARD AND YALE 309
young relative at least to an unconscious prejudice, and certainly
prevented any substantial advantage accruing to his favor. Some-
what like this would seem to have been the fate of John Brainerd,
in the class of 1746, who entered Yale a few months after his
brother David's expulsion for contumacy, and so, although the son
of a dignified magistrate, was placed next the foot of his class by the
implacable Rector Oap; the oldest brother of the family had been
ranked fourth out of twenty-three in the class of 1732, — a totally
different treatment from that now accorded to the youngest. The
small effect of remoter relationships may be seen in the case of
John Norton, who is placed next the last in the class of 167 1 at
Harvard, though a nephew of the Rev. Jcrfin Norton and of
Sir George Downing, and a great-nephew of Governor Winthrop.
I think it also tolerably clear that, in some cases at least, non-
residents of the colony or province in which the college was situated
were under some disadvantage as compared with residents. So, in
one of the earliest Harvard classes (1649), a son of Governor Eaton
of New Haven yields precedence to a son of the Rev. Nathaniel
Rogers of Massachusetts Bay, who represents a family surely not
superior in blood to the Batons. A similar consideration may have
been a cumulative force in depressing the rank of the sons of the
Rev. Charles Chauncy of the Plymouth Colony in 1651 ; and it may
help to explain the like fortune of a son of the Rev. Thomas Hooker
of Connecticut in 1653. So also at Yale, in the class of 1705,
David Parsons, the son of a Judge of the Court of Common Pleas
in the Province of Massachusetts Bay, was ranked below the sons of
decidedly less prominent laymen who were of Connecticut birth and
residence. The motto for guidance was not apparently "Omne
ignotum pro magnifico," so much as "Charity be^ns at home."
In some early cases it seems as though the father's death had
affected the son's rank unfavorably. An apt illustration is that of
Joseph Haynes, Harvard, 1658, the son of Governor Haynes of
Connecticut, who is put below Joseph Eliot; while in the class of
1656 the order of the names of two brothers of these students is
exactly reversed ; the only apparent difference in the respective
circumstances being that when the class of 1656 entered college.
Governor Haynes was living, and that two years later he was dead.
.Another instance of marked difference in the treatment of two
brothers is seen in the case of the sons of the Rev. Nathaniel Rogers
(Harvard, 1649 and 1659) ; and here again the much lower grading
of the younger son coincides with the father's removal by death.
I doubt, also, whether if Governor Dudley had been alive, his son
would ha\'e stood second in the class of 1665.
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SIO SOCIAL DISTINCTIONS AT HARVARD AND YALE
Another case, that of Ezra Reeve (Yale, 1757), may be cited as
evidence that loss of standing on a father's part affected the son's
position. Reeve's father was deposed from the ministry for intem-
perance about 1748, and presumably for that reason the son is not
ranked along with other ministers' sons in his class, but is placed
in a distinctly inferior group.
We come next to the cases of degradation for personal reasons,
in the Yale experience these occurred but rarely. At Harvard, on
the other hand, at least during the period covered by the extant
Faculty Records, this punishment seems to have been more famil-
iarly used and with a somewhat different scope from that which is
generally assigned to it. From these records I should say that in
common usage degradation was resorted to, not with the purpose of
being a final, but rather as a temporary expedient. At least I
should estimate from a hasty inspection that in fully five-sixths of
the cases recorded, repentance and confession secured, after a few
months, restoration to the original standing.
Yet, after all abatements, degradation remained as a sober reality
for a few cases. The earliest suspected instance is that of James
Ward, next the foot of the Harvard class of 1645, the son of a
clergyman, who is known to have been otherwise punished for the
crime of burglary in his junior year. In the class of two years later,
Wilham Mildmay, the son of a knight, is placed below all his
classmates ; and such a fate can hardly have been the result of any-
thing but personal misconduct. Again, at the foot of the class of
1658 stands a son of the Rev. Thomas Shepard; and in contrast
with the rank of another son who was graduated earlier, this perhaps
implies some censure in his college experience. Another case may
be that of Eezaleel Sherman, last in the class of 1661, the son of a
clergyman, a graduate of Cambridge, England, and a Fellow of
Harvard, who deserved on all family grounds a higher place. A
notable case is that of Samuel Melyen, class of 1696, who was
degraded three places in his sophomore year for connection with a
trifling disturbance, and whose unavailing efforts after graduation
to secure reinstatement have foiuid their way into print'" in our
own day.
During the last forty-five years of the continuance of the system
at Harvard, the evidence of the Faculty Records should be conclu-
sive as to the number of cases in which the penalty of degradation
was permanently enforced; and if I have counted correctly there
are but eight such cases mentioned. The occasions of punishment
in these instances are of the familiar sort, — such as stealing fowls,
"*Mas». Hist Soc. Proceedings, viii., 33-35, 331, 232.
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SOCIAL DISTINCTIONS AT HARVARD AND YALE 311
insulting tutors. Sabbath breaking, and in one case (most severely
dealt with, involving a drop from a place well within the first half
of the class to the very foot) stealing combustibles and making a
bonfire. Details are unnecessary, unless one case may serve as an
index to the others, where a country minister's son, entering college
in 1748, at thirteen and one-half, and being convicted of the mild
crime of breaking windows, was thenceforth degraded two [4aces,
and yet lived to be a most respected citizen, at the head of the
medical profession in the State of his residence."*
The list of similar incidents at Yale begins with the name of
Jonathan Dickinson, of the class of 1731, the namesake of an
honored father, a leader of American Presbyterianism, but him-
self notorious in college and afterwards as a disreputable fellow ; his
place at the foot of the class can only be accounted for as in retribu-
tion for some of his offences. The extant Record of the Acts and
Judgments of the Yale Faculty begins with December, 1751, and I
cite in passing the initial entry as characteristic of the times and
manners : —
"Whereas Holmes, a student of this College, on loth of Nov*,
last, being the Sabbath or Lord's Day, travelled utmecessarily, and
that with a Burden or Pack b^ind him, from beyond Wallingford
to this place ; which is contrary to the I>ivine and Civil Law, as well
as to the Laws of this College:
"It is therefore considered by the President, with the Advice of
the Tutors, that the said Holmes shall be fined 20'', sterl, viz,
20/ O. Tenor."
Holmes was a great-uncle of Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, and
spent his life as a highly respected minister of the Gospel, so that
it is a relief to find a subsequent entry to the effect that "the above-
named Stephen Holmes made a public Confession in the Hall for
the Crime abovesaid, and therefore the abovewritten Judgment was
not put in Execution."
At this period, under the despotic and somewhat petty rule of
President Clap, disorder cwi the part of the students abounded, and
was met with nagging punishments. Probably there has never
l>een a time in the experience at Yale when antagonism between the
authorities and the students has been so ingeniously and assidu-
ously cultivated; but as to the penalty of degradation, the Faculty
Records from 1751 to 1767, including more than half of Cap's presi-
dency, mention only four cases, — the first being that of Isaac Burr,
of the cla<s of 1753, a native of Worcester, the son of a clergyman,
"*Dr. Ammi R. Cutler of PorUmouth, N. H.
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313 SOCIAL DISTINCTIONS AT HARVARD AND YALE
who was moved down three places, late in his junior year, as a part
of his punishment for repeatedly kicking a senior — after what
provocation does not appear. Three of his classmates are known
to have suffered a like penalty at some earlier period in their course,
and three later cases are recorded, for such misdemeanors as playing^
with dice, and bringing rum into college buildings without leave.
To return to the general principles of arrangement : there can be
no doubt that important relations of the students' parents to the
college or to other colleges were recognized in the ranking. Thus
it usually happens that the sons of Trustees and other college officers
or benefactors are given an advantage in comparison with that other-
wise to be accorded them. Thus the youngest sons of the
Rev. Charles Chauncy, already twice referred to, made a great
stride, in the Harvard class of 1661, after their father had become
President, above the position of their elder brothers, who entered
from a poor country parsonage in Scituate. A striking exception
is the case of Joseph Noyes, Yale, 1709, son of the senior Trustees;
and I can only account for the low place assigned him (seventh in
a list of nine) by a reference to his father's rank at Harvard, which
was the lowest in his class, and by supposing that perhaps a
modest adherence to the standard thus set was in conformity with
the father's own preference.
The cases of students who had been previously enrolled in some
other college were not treated by uniform rule. Such a case was
that of Benjamin Woodbridge, who leads the entire Harvard roll, as
the first name in her first graduating class ;"" but his claim for
precedence over Downing, a nephew of Governor Winthrop, and
Bellingham, a son of the Deputy-Governor, rests, I suppose, on the
special circumstance that he had spent nearly four years at Oxford,
so that practically he was merely examined for a degree. In the
•"I do not know how to explain the fact that the list of this first Harvard
class is handed down to us in two different forms — one as given in the Cata-
logue of Graduates, and another as given with the Qnnniencement Theses in
"New England's First Fruits." The two lists are is follows :
Catalogue of Gbaduates. New England's First Frufts.
Benjamin Woodbridge. Benjamin Woodbridge.
George Downing. George Downing.
John Bulkley. William Hubbard.
William Hubbard. Henry SaltonsUll.
Samuel Bellingham. John Bulkley.
John Wilson. John Wilson.
Henry Saltonstall. Nathaniel Brewster.
Tobias Barnard. Samuel Bellingham.
Nathaniel Brewster. Tobias Barnard.
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SOCIAL DISTINCTIONS AT HARVAKD AND YALE 313
next three cases which I have noticed, — those of Edward Taylor
(Harvard, 1671), Nicholas Morton (1686), and Benjamin Prat
(1737),"' admission to advanced standing placed a man at the foot
of his class ; and the same was true in the rare instances where a
freshman after admission was able by superior work to secure pro-
motion to the class above him. But in later usage the rule was
changed ; and I have noted at least four cases in the Yale classes
from 1760 lo 1767, and six at Harvard in the classes from 1761 to
1771, in which students admitted to advanced standing from other
colleges or from private preparation were inserted in the class-lists
according to their proper rank.
Passing now to the consideration of the treatment of professional
standing, it should be said at once that, contrary perhaps to a pre-
vailing impression, there was never any disposition to exalt the
ministerial order above laymen of distinction. For example, in
the Vale class of 1705, the earliest in my own college which affords
any illustration of this point, the leading place is given to a repre-
sentative of one of the honored names of Connecticut, distinguished,
however, exclusively in civil life; and below him stands a scion of
the Mather family, already one of the most conspicuous in the
clerical annals of New England, who was moreover a special can-
didate for promotion as the son of a Trustee of the college.
The same class-list illustrates in its lowest name, Samuel, son of
Deacon Medad Pomeroy of Northampton, another fact of kindred
interest, that the office of deacon and that of ruling elder, in the
New-England churches, were not of themselves regarded as titles to
special distinction.
At Harvard a like treatment of the sons of the clergy is
abundantly manifest, as we should even more confidently have
expected. With all the reverence so justly paid by the early gen-
erations in Massachusetts Bay to their educated ministry, the
clergy themselves brought with them a full appreciation of the
relatively inferior position of the parish minister in their old homes,
which served as an additional bulwark to protect and exalt the
claims of family aristocracy. The Oxford usage in matriculation
fees, already referred to (page 203), put the clergyman's son (when
any distinction was made) much nearer the yeoman than the gen-
tleman, and it took time for clerical prestige to gain an independent
foothold.
An examination of almost any of the larger ctass-lists at Har-
vard or at Yale will illustrate the assertion that the sons of ministers
"■ Cf. Mass. Hist Soe. Proceedings, viii., 35, 36.
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SI4 SOCIAL DISTINCTIONS AT HARVABD AND YALE
were not unduly honored ; but the wide difference between the con-
stituencies of the two colleges appears strikingly in the statistics
on this point. Yale in this early period drew her students largely
from the simple secluded communities of Connecticut and the
country round about it, in which the clergy were to a large extent
easily the leading figures ; accordingly, in the Yale classes arranged
on this system which contained both sons of laymen and sons of
ministers, we find that twenty-six are headed by the former and
twenty-seven by the latter. At Harvard the circumstances were
different from the first; and especially as time went on, the families
enriched by commerce in Boston and neighboring towns were repre-
sented in large proportions, and with them a much more numerous
and important contingent of public officials than ever grew up in
Connecticut, where the machinery of government was every way
simpler and less ambitious. At Harvard, then, the statistics in
regard to the parentage of the names leading the class-lists are, for
the seventeenth century, twenty-nine sons of laymen and sixteen
sons of ministers; while after this date the laity practically crowd
the clergy entirely out of the first place.
Inspection proves conclusively that when professional standing
was combined, especially in the early decades at Harvard, with
slender fortune or obscure family connections, the professional
standing was likely to be shghted ; illustrations of this are very fre-
quent. And down to the latest period we find that .the groups of
ministers' sons are obliged to make way continually for the sons of
civihans of no very special distinction. I recall, for instance, a case
in the class of 1763 at Harvard, where Nathaniel Noyes, who was
first ranked twelfth on the roll, was afterwards found to be the stm
of a Justice of the Peace, and when this not very notable fact was
ascertained — in addition to the other claims which he had for
position — he was moved up five places, thereby passing in his
upward progress one or two sons of ministers.
It is evident from several cases as late as the middle of the
dghteenth century that practitioners of medicine had not by that date
gained a secure position as professional men. In fact, I do not
recall a single instance of that period in which a doctor's son, with
no other recommendation in his favor, takes any special rank. In
one such case, that of Nathaniel Ruggles {Yale, 1758), President
Oap's private memorandum is "Justice of the Peace, Deacon," with
not a hint of a learned profession, and this puts the youth tenth in
a class of forty-three; while Clement Sumner, the son of another
physician who did not happen to be also a Justice and a Deacon,
is thirty-third in the same catalogue.
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SOCIAL DISTINCTIONS AT HARVARD AND YAL£ 315
The legal profession had earned an earlier and fuller recognition,
sufficiently accounted for from its public connection with the courts
of justice and with all the visible machinery of governmental
authority.
Next to the three learned professions ought to come that of the
teacher; but not so in the regard of these college authorities. At
least we find such examples as that of Henry Rust, son of a school-
master in Ipswich, Massachusetts, who is allowed to stand last in
the class of 1707 at Harvard.
Occasionally in these inquiries one stumbles on an interesting
suggestion of the relative status of various other employments. A
very early instance is in the Harvard class of 1653, where Joshua
Long, son of an inn-keeper in England, takes precedence of Samuel
Whiting, the son of a clergyman, who was in turn son of a Mayor
of Boston, England ; no more emphatic testimony could be given to
the honorable regard paid in the old country to that public trust of
keeping a house of entertainment, which we know to have been at
that date a prerogative of citizens of the first rank. So, at Harvard
in the class of 1667, John Harriman, son of an early inn-keeper at
New Haven, led his class, including thus among his social inferiors
the sons of the Rev. Peter Hobart, an English university graduate.
As time passed, however, this particular occupation failed to main-
tain the same rank: witness the instances of Peter Ruck (Harvard,
1685) and James Greaton (Yale, 1754).
Probably the general expectation of those who have not looked
into the matter would be that with a little study an exact order of
precedence, to cover nearly all cases, could be evolved, — somewhat
perhaps like this: first, sons of Governors, then in due succession
sons of Deputy-Governors, of Councillors or Assistants, of minis-
ters, of judges, of lawyers, of doctors, of members of the General
Assembly, of justices of the peace and quorum, of militia officers,
of merchants, of farmers, of mechanics, and so on. But if I make
my meaning clear, it is evident that in practice the arrangement was
governed by no such simple formula. Considerations of ancestral
distinction, of family estate, of paternal position, and the like,
entered into each case in ever-varying combinations, precluding
the jK>ssibility of any cul-and-dried system; though it seems as if
finally the increasing difficulties of the plan had made it necessary to
fall back on a more definite method of classification by groups of
certain fixed characters. I do not profess to have fathomed the
intricacies and perplexities of the subject, nor to be able to explain
particular instances which look like the arbitrary vagaries of per-
sonal partiality or prejudice. No rule and no explanation that 1 am
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ai6 SOCIAL DISTINCTIONS AT HARVARD AND VALE
aware of can meet the case of Henry Saltonstall, son of a Knight
and of an Assistant in the Government, standing seventh in the first
class at Harvard, except it be the inference that in the first attempt
at such a classification a settled plan was not consistently followed ;
nor that of Samuel Phipps, a son of a caqienter of undistinguished
lineage, outranking, as second in the class of 1671, a Sewall and a
Mather, a Thacher and a Norton; nor that of the two Wood-
bridges, both sons of clergymen of note, but relegated to the foot of
the class of 1701, unless they were late in entering. At Yale, where
the conditions were in every way less complex, I know of not a
single anomalous or inexplicable case, besides that of Joseph Noyes,
already mentioned. In every comparison of results between the two
institutions the marked difference of numbers should be borne in
mind ; taking even the most favorable period, the last fifty years of
the system, the average class at Harvard was nearly fifty per cent,
larger than the corresponding class at Yale.
But I may be asked, in view of these unintelligible cases in
the earlier generations at Harvard, whether it is certain that the
system as we have it later was actually in vogue there from the
beginning. Such a question has been raised repeatedly, as by
Mr. John Ward Dean in his Memoir of the Rev. Michael Wig-
glesworlh"^ (Harvard, 1651), but I do not see how the negative
can be seriously maintained, with the facts already known. I
believe that the archives at Harvard have not yet been thoroughly
examined in order to trace the early references to the custom ; but
even if we had no direct evidence prior to the time of Samuel
Melyen, about half a century from the founding of the college, it is,
I hold, practically impossible to account for the system then in use,
except by a development of some such plan introduced by the
founders themselves, and a result, as I have intimated, of their
experience in England. As for the case of Wigglesworth, which
led Mr. Dean to doubt, the New Haven records give evidence
enough of his father's standing as one of the most substantial
citizens of the jurisdiction, to check any surprise at his ranking at
the head of a college class.
Of the working and the incidental results of the system, we
catch an interesting glimpse in the letters of Judge Paine Wingate
of the Harvard class of 1759, written in his ninety-second year, and
quoted in Peirce's History of the University.^" In referring to the
"excitement — generally called up whenever a class in college was
placed," he says : —
"" Pp. 33-35-
"•Pp. 3(*-ii.
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SOCIAL DISTINCTIONS AT HARVARD AND YALE 317
"The parents were not wholly free from influence; but the
scholars were often enraged beyond bounds for their disappointment
in their place, and it was some time before a class could be settled
down to an acc[uiescence in their allotment. The highest and the
lowest in the class was often ascertained more easily (though not
without some difficulty) than the intermediate members of the class ;
where there was room for uncertainty whose claim was best, and
where partiality no doubt was sometimes indulged. But I must
add," writes Judge Wingate, "that although the honor of a place
in the class was chiefly ideal, yet there were some substantial advan-
tages. The higher part of the class had generally the most
influential friends, and they commonly had the best chambers in
college assigned to them. They had also a right to help themselves
first at table in Commons, and I believe generally whenever there
was occasional precedence allowed, it was very freely yielded to the
higher of ihe class by those who were below," judge Wingate
could speak from experience, his own rank being eighth in a class
of thirty-eight. He writes again: — "The freshman class was, in
my day at college, usually placed {as it was termed) within six or
ninemonthsafter their admission. . , , As soon as the freshmen
were apprized of their places, each one took his station according to
the new arrwigement at recitation, and at Commons, and in the
Chapel, and on all other occasions."
Of other college customs, allied to this, the most important were
those connected with the maintenance of a system of carefully
graded precedence in the college world as a whole; this included,
on the one hand, a much more formal behavior of pupils towards
teachers than later generations would have relished, and on the other
hand a fine development of the institution of fagging. The early
Faculty Records of both colleges bear ample witness to these facts.
Thus, on almost the first page of the Yale Records, we read on
January 9, 1752, "Whereas it appears that Babcock tertius
[a Freshman] has lately been guilty of Disrespect and Contempt
of the Sophimores, and being absent from his Chamber two after-
noons successively, with some aggravating Circumstances, 'tis
therefore declared that the said Babcock for the Crimes aforesaid,
be publicly admonished." Again, on January i8, "Whereas last
Tuesday evening, Cary [a Freshman, afterwards a student of
theology and a physician], being called before the Sophimores,
went out of the Room in Contempt of them, and said these Words,
'I swan I will not stay here any longer,' which is contrary to the
Laws of God and this College, it is therefore considered by the
President, with the advice of the Tutors, that the said Cary shall
be suspended from all the Privileges of this College."
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3l8 SOCIAL DISTINCTIONS AT HARVARD AND YALE
Already, by the time the rule of arrangement by rank was given
up, we have evidence that there had begun to be some relaxation of
the traditions of undergraduate subordination,'*' and these gradually
faded away by the end of the century.
What special combination of circumstances led to the abandon-
ment at Yale, for all the undergraduates, in the latter part of the
year 1767, of the system of social rank in the class-lists, no record
remains to show. In the lack of testimony it may be of interest to
quote a brief paragraph from a letter of a junior, David Avery,
writing on December 17, 1767,'" to his old instructor, the
Rev. Dr. Wheelock, as follows :
"There appears to be a laudable ambition to excel in knowledge.
It is not he that has got the finest coat or largest ruffies that is
esteemed here at present. And as the class henceforward are to be
placed alphabetically, the students may expect marks of distinction
to be put upon the best scholars and speakers.""*
We know, of course, that President Clap retired in September,
1766, from the office which he had held for more than a quarter
of a century, and that Dr. Daggett, the Professor of Divinity, a
much younger man, not yet forty years old, was entrusted for the
time being with the duties of the Presidency. We know, too, that
Professor Daggett's gifts were not in the line of strict discipline,
and that he cared comparatively little for the minutiae of ceremony
and the dignity of office; and it was probably for him personally
a welcome step, to discard the elaborate and perplexing system of
class -arrangement. We know, moreover,"' that the practical
management of the college at that time was almost wholly left to
the three Tutors — the senior Tutor, Ebenezer Baldwin, twenty-two
years of age, with Stephen Mix Mitchell, aged twenty-four, and
Job Lane, aged twenty- six — all men of exceptional ability and
hospitable therefore to new ideas and responsive to new influences.
From this point the modern era begins. A citation just made from
the letter of an undergraduate shows how, in connection with the
abandonment of these antiquated and now artificial class-distinc-
tions, a new emphasis was placed on that which the college really
stood for, scholarship and literary training, and by this means the
way was cleared for a new and richer future. To such a change the
rising sentiment of the colonies just then distinctly lent itself. The
'** Hours at Home, x., 331-333-
'" The law of the Corporation authorizing this change was passed on
April 22, 1766, in the midst of President Gap's stormiest troubles.
"" Hours at Home. x.. 333.
'" Sprague, Annals of the Amer. Pulpit, i., 637.
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SOCIAL DISTINCTIONS AT KARVAKD AND YALE SI?
preceding year had seen the collapse of the attempt to enforce a
Stamp Act in America; and the widespread indignation against a
tax on tea, to take effect on November i, 1767, was just lifting the
curtain on a new scene of approaching rebellion and independence,
with which the college and its special friends were mainly in
unmistakable sympathy.
The corresponding change at Harvard was eflected about two
and a half years later, and the accompanying circumstances can be
somewhat fully traced. In August, 1769, the College Faculty
{then consisting of four Tutors — the Presidency being vacant) had
before them a complaint against the order of arrangement which
had been adopted for the class then Sophomores, and on a review of
the facts were obliged to revise their former action. The case was
that of Samuel PhilHps,"' best known to posterity in connection with
the foundation of Phillips Academy, Andover, and the point
made was that his father had been commissioned as Justice of the
Peace and as Justice of the Quorum at earlier dates than the father
of Daniel Murray, who was placed next higher, or in the words of
the record, "at the head of the sons of Justices." The matter seems
to have brought to a crisis the long-fell dissatisfaction with the
system, and to have been the occasion of a report to the Overseers,
on May i, 1770, about six weeks after President Locke's inaugura-
tion, from the committee of that body appointed to make inquiry
into the state of the college, etc., to the effect "that the inconveni-
ences attending the method hitherto practiced of placing the
Individuals in each class of the Freshmen according to the
supposed Dignity of the Families whereto they severally belong,
appear to the Committee to be so great that they have unanimously
agreed to report as their opinion that such practice be laid aside,
and that for the future the names of the Scholars in each class be
placed in alphabetical order." This recommendation was at once
consented to, and went into operation without — so far as the rec-
ords show — being referred to the Corporation for their approval.
In putting the vote into effect the class then Freshmen, and
waiting to be placed, was arranged alphabetically ; but the upper
classes, which had already been placed by the old system, were
retained in that order. On the Catalogue of Graduates, therefore,
the alphabetical order does not appear until the class of 1773 ; while
the Yale Catalogue, on the other hand, though proceeding on a
vote of only two and a half years earlier, begins its alphabetical
arrangement with the class of 1768, which was in its Senior year
'"Quincy. HJat of Harvard Univ., ii.. 157, is8; Mass. Hist. Soc. Proceed-
ings, ix,. 253, 2S4: Taylor. Memoir of Judge Phillips, 21. 347, 348-
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aao SOCIAL DISTINCTIONS AT HARVAKD AND YALE
when the change was adopted here. The new order of things
took effect in print first at Yale with the Triennial Catalogue,
published in 1769, and at Harvard with the similar publication in
In this review of the abolition of the custom at Harvard reference
should also be made to the fact that from right to ten years earlier
a determined effort had been made in Western Massachusetts to
secure the establishment of a new college,"* at Northampton,
Hatfield, or Hadley; and it was understood'" that the leader in
that movement. Colonel Israel Williams (Harvard, 1727), had
been largely prompted by chagrin at the low rank accorded to his
eldest son in the Harvard class of 1751 (fourteenth in a class of
thirty-five, while his father had been tenth in a class of thirty-seven).
The project of a college in Hampshire County had been quashed,
but the annoyances and risks continually arising in connection with
the administration of the ranking system were growing all the time
more formidable.
By the ist of May, 1770, also, the new American spirit was much
more buoyant and defiant than in December, 1767, when Yale had
led the way in breaking down the bars of aristocratic precedence.
Committees of Correspondence between the different colonies had
organized public opinion, and most recently of all the Boston
Massacre had tended to knit the community together as one
against arbitrary power. It was a good time for any step in the way
of abandonment of superior privileges and dignities, the prerogatives
of rank and station.
The old custom, however, died hard; and it may be a surprise
to the present generation to learn that, nominally at any rate,
degradation continued to be a recognized penalty in the college for
at least half a century longer. The Records of the Faculty {or the
Immediate Government, as the phrase then was) contain abundant
evidence for some years later than 1770 that, notwithstanding the
classification by social rank had been abandoned in the catalogues, it
was still found convenient to keep up some system of placing the
students otherwise than alphabetically, and punishing by alterations
in this order. A sample of a number of such penalties is a vote of
October 1 1, 1782,'-^' by which Rowe is degraded to the bottom of his
class, and is to "take his place accordingly in the Chappel and
meeting house and on all occasions when the class appears before
'"Quincy, HisL of Harvard Univ., ii., 105.
™Mass. Hist. Soc. Proceedings, xx.. 47.
™ An earlier instance is quoted in Hall's Collection of College Words and
Customs, s. V. DegrcdatioH, p. 94-
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SOCIAL DISTINCTIONS AT HARVAKD AND YALE 331
the governors of the college." Still later, in October, 1789, Joseph
Dennie, whose brief literary career was so felicitously described by
the Rev. Dr. Peabody in our Council Report four years ago, was
degraded ten places. I am not aware of any similar entries after
this, but the various editions of the College Laws continue to
enumerate degradation as one of the established penalties down to
and including the issue of 1820; the next issue, that of 1825, omits
the familiar phrase, and we are at liberty to surmise that in the latter
part of the time when the name was thus continued in the Laws, the
penalty was a dead letter, unless in the form of degradation to a
lower class."' There was nothing at Yaje corresponding to this so-
to-speak post-mortem existence of a discarded system.
I have failed entirely to trace the adoption of the custom by any
other of the American colleges. Of those in New England, the
next in age is Brown University, but no students were entered there
until 1765, and none were graduated until 1769; by which time
it was out of the question for a new institution to adopt a custom
so nearly worn out. Still less could it have taken root at Dartmouth
College, which began in 1770, or in any of the later growths of this
region.
In the Middle Colonies, the College of New Jersey began in 1747,
and Columbia in 1754, while the University of Pennsylvania was
first chartered as a college in 1753; but so far as I can leam, none
of these at any time followed the rule of arrangement by family
rank. The same is true of the College of William and Mary, of
whose development in the ante-revolutionary period even fewer
memorials remain.
Of customs of similar import outside, it may be sufficient to
instance the New-England and more lastingly the Connecticut habit
of dignifying the meeting-house. This annual allotment of seats
for Congregational worship was, as we all know, the work of a
committee appointed from time to time for the purpose, who were
supposed to be guided in their decisions mainly by regard to
family descent, wealth, social standing, age, and general usefulness
to the community. — or as the Glastonbury (Connecticut) record
puts it, "age, state, and parentage."*" In Waterbury, Connecticut,
in 1719, for the purpose of this allotment one year in age was
ordered to count as the equivalent of £4 on the tax-list,"* that is,
a man one year younger but paying £4 more of taxes than another,
"I am indebted to Mr. W. H. Tillinghast, of the Harvard Library, for
calling my attention to this survival.
"•Qiapin, Glastonbury Centeonial, 79.
"* Bronson, Hist, of Waterbury, 333.
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233 SOCIAL DISTINCTIONS AT HAKVAKD AND YALE
would be entitled to an equally good seat ; while later in the century,
in the adjoining township of Southington, £15 was required to
balance an additional year of age, and after 1800 even as high as
f8o.^" Military tUies were also in some places a ground of special
dignity. This quaint relic of unrepublican distinctions disappeared
in most localities before the present century, lingering awhile later
in a few specially secluded or conservative congregations, as in
East Hartford, Connecticut, until 1824,"' and latest of all in the
remote parish of Norfolk, Connecticut, where it was retained —
more as a form than as a reality — until so recent a date as 1875.*"
To those who know that picturesque village, rarely favored by
nature, and now made doubly attractive by the good taste and
unremitting care of those who love it, there is an added charm in
identifying it as the last refuge of the latest surviving usage in
evidence of the special deference paid to social rank in the earlier
generations of New England.
*" Timlow, Sketches of Southington, 182.
"* Goodwin, East Hartford, 132.
* Bassett and Beach, Centennial Discourses, 54.
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THE FIRST PUBLIC LIBRARY
IN NEW HAVEN.
[From the Papers of the New Haven Colony Historical Society, Vol. VI,
iQOO. Head November as, 1895]
Governor Theophilus Eaton, the most eminent layman and
the wealthiest proprietor in the original New Haven Colony, died
here in January, 1658. His last will and testament was dated
seventeen mwiths earlier, in August, 1656, and contains the follow-
ing somewhat obscure passage: —
"And whereas I received of Mr. John Evance, sometime of New Haven,
now settled in London, by order of Mr. Nathaneel Riley of London, the sum
of one hundred pounds for a legacy intended for the good of some part
of New England, though not so expressed, I hereby declare, that I have
already delivered to our reverend pastor, Mr. John Davenport, certain books
lately belonging to my brother, Mr. Samuel Eaton, intended for the use of a
college, and apprised, as I take it, to about, or near twenty pounds, as by my
brother's account may appear, as a part of the said hundred pounds ; and
further, I have disbursed in rigging, iron-work, blocks, and other charges,
several years since, toward the ship Fellowship, I conceive, the whole
remainder of the said £100. all which, I take it, is in the hands of
Mr. Stephen Goodyear, as by an account he hath under my hand ; or if it
should fall anything short, my will and mind is, that it be duly made up out of
my estate, and be improved for the good of New Haven, by the advice of
the magistrates and elders there."
"Mr. John Evance, sometime of New Haven, now settled in
London," of whom Governor Eaton says that he received by order
of Mr. Nathaniel Riley one htindred pounds, was among the
wealthier of the New Haven planters during his stay here, fr(Mn
1639 to 1652. He was of Welsh origin, as his name indicates, but of
London birth, the son of Hugh Evance, of Lcmdon, clothworker ; and
had formerly been a parishioner of John Davenport, at St. Stephen's,
Coleman street, where the record of his first marriage, to Aime
Young, on May 2, 1624, may still be seen. On leaving New
Haven he returned to London, and there died about three years
after Governor Eaton.
It is not clear from the Governor's language whether the one
hundred pounds which he had received of Mr. Evance was Evance's
own gift: indeed the use of the term "legacy" seems to imj^y
distinctly that Evance was only the agent of some deceased
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394 THE FIRST PUBUC LIBRARY IN NEW HAVEN
benefactor ; but in the absence of any knowledge respecting the
"Mr. Nathaneel Riley of London," by order of whom the m<Miey was
received, and who may fairly be thought to be the missing bene-
factor, further inquiry seems baffled. Of Mr. Evance's will (dated
December, 1660, and proved May, 1661) a full abstract is in print,'"
showing that he made no public bequests.
Of Samuel Eaton, however, some twenty pounds of whose
property, in books, was turned over by his brother's will, as a part
of this legacy, we have better knowledge, and the opportunity is a
fitting one to recall briefly the outline of an interesting figure, which
has perhaps had less than justice done it, in comparison with the
more prominent personalities of his older associates.
The Governor and he were respectively the eldest and third sons
in the large family of the Rev. Richard Eaton, — Theophilus having
apparently been bom just after the father removed from Stony
Stratford, in Buckinghamshire, to Trinity Parish, in Coventry,
where his son Samuel's baptism is recorded on January 21, 1603,
nearly seven years after the same hand had entered on a preceding
page the baptism of John Davenport.""
Theophilus Eaton passed directly from the Coventry grammar
school into mercantile life; but Samuel was duly matriculated at
Magdalene College, Cambridge, where he was graduated Bachelor
of Arts in 1624, at the age of twenty-two.
He took orders in the Church, and was at first a curate in the
parish of West Kirkby, on the northwest coast of Cheshire; but
although that diocese was administered by a tolerant bishop. Laud
made his overruling hand felt even there, and Eaton was in conse-
quence visited with suspension for nonconformity in 1631.
After a sojourn in Holland he joined the New Haven emigra-
tion, and not unnaturally was called, when in his 37th year, to
assist Davenport in ministering to the Church in this place, being
assigned a homestead lot next his brother's, on the north side of
Elm street, at the corner of State.
The story is familiar, how differences soon developed between the
two ministerial colleagues respecting the restriction of the franchise
and of office-holding to church members, — of which a permanent
memorial remains in one of Davenport's best known composi-
tions, his Discourse about Civil Government in a new Planta-
tion whose design is Religion, which is understood to present
his sideoLy^argument in a discussion of this question with Samuel
EaU(i;^^l|(^|m)cated a larger freedom. Of course, as we know,
"■ Essex Institute H^^^^ontSct'ons, """• ^^■
"Cf. N. E. Hist and GeneJ- Register, xxxvin, 30.
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THE FIKST PUBLIC UBSASY IN NEW HAVEN 315
Davenport, with the hearty concurrence of the elder Elaton, carried
the day, and the younger Eaton bowed to the will of the majority.
But as Cotton Mather informs us,"*" "his brother advised him to a
removal."
This was in 1639, and the next year he went back to England,
sailing from Boston, where an honorable settlement in the First
Church was offered him and refused, his mind being bent on a plan
of collecting a new company of planters for Toloket, which is now
Branford, this site having been granted him by vote of the Colony
Court on August 5, 1640. That he should have made such a plan
shows that he had accepted in good faith the recent decision about
the franchise, as it was out of the question that any new plantation
in connection with New Haven would be allowed to introduce a
different mode of government.
He found, however, such a change in the situation at home, after
three years' absence, that emigratifwi was no longer necessary or
even desirable; and the result was, in brief, that he remained in
East Cheshire, to become the chief founder and pillar of Congrega-
tionalism in that county. He was settled, before 1645, over a
church in Dukinfield, near Manchester, and continued in that
immediate neighborhood, until his death, on January 9, 1665, at the
age of 62.'" He left a widow, Alice, who survived till 1681, but
no children.
His will, made the month before his death, and recently for the
first lime printed,'" distributes his property widely, and thus adds
somewhat to our scanty knowledge of the various branches of the
family. It enables us, especially, to correct the previously received
conjecture that Ann or Hannah, widow of the Rev, Francis
Higginson, of Salem, who died at New Haven in 1640, was to be
ideniified with the sister of the Eatons bearing that baptismal name,
as mention is distinctly made in the will of "my sister Hannah
I'arke," wife of Robert Park.
Samuel Ealon was not only a famous organizer of Congrega-
tional churches, but a somewhat voluminous writer, being concerned
as r.cjk' or joint author in at least eight different works, published
from 1645 to 1654. These have mostly lost their interest for later
generations, being chiefly polemical — aimed against Presbyterians,
Socinians. and Quakers. Mather characterizes him as "a very holy
man. and a person of great learning and judgment, and a most
*" Magnalia, cd. 1830, i, 5^
™ Dictionary of National Biography, xvi, 338-40; Bacon, Hist. Discourses,
59-62.
" Earwaker, Hist of E. Gieshire, it, 33-34.
15
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336 THE FIRST PUBLIC LIBKARV IN NEW HAVEN
incomparable preacher" ; and it is not at all surprising that such a
scholar and teacher should have brought with him in removing into
this wilderness a good theological library, nor is it strange that in
returning to England, as he supposed for a temporary purpose, he
should have left behind him these bulky volumes, nor again that on
determining to stay there he should never have reclaimed this part
of his possessions.
From what we know otherwise it is probable that the books left
with his brother were such as were already duplicated in his
fellow -minister Davenport's library, so that Davenport did not need
them; it is an interesting coincidence that the Yale Dbrary has
copies of several in this list, bearing John Davenport's autograph;
but as we know that the Eaton books were in the possession of the
town of New Haven, after the date of Davenport's death, it is
reasonably certain that the College copies cannot be the same as
those disposed of in Governor Eaton's will.
But I pause here to bring out another obscure element in the
story. The language of the Governor's will is, "certain books lately
belonging to my brother Mr, Samuel Eaton, intended for the use of
a College," and there is not any declaration that they were meant for
the use of the town in general.
Now in 1656, when this bequest was made, Davenport was
earnestly advocating a scheme for higher education in New Haven,
which included a Collie, for the foundation of which a grant
had been secured from the town some eight years before. It was
therefore altogether natural that the Governor should at that date
incorporate in his will a phrase which looked towards such an
institution; but not long after the prospect materially changed.
Davenport deserted the Colony in 1668, mainly from chagrin at its
absorption into Connecticut, and the College plan was thereafter
quite in abeyance, if not thought to be extinct. So that the books
which had once been "intended" by one or both of the Eatons "for
the use of a college," reverted not unnaturally to the custody of the
town, and are described in the later references to them as "the
Townes Books."
It is time, however, to inquire what the hocAcs were which thus
came to constitute what I have ventured to describe as our earliest
public library. For the list we are indebted to some unknown
official chronicler — perhaps the secretary, James Bishop (the writing
strongly resembles his) — who has inserted among the records of the
meetings of the "Townes men," i. e., selectmen, for the year 1670,
what he has styled "A Catalogue of the Townes Bookes left by
Mr. Eaton with Mr. Davenport for the towne of New Haven as it
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THE FIRST PUBLIC LIBRARY IN NEW HAVEN ta?
was taken at Mr. Davenports the 28th of the sth month [i. e., July]
1658," which was two months after the probate of Governor Eaton's
will. The transcriber has done his part with commendable accuracy
and clearness, as may be judged by the fact that so far as the ink is
legible not more than three or four items in the list fail of satisfac-
tory identification.
The fact of such an entry in the records was recalled to the notice
of the present generation by a member of this Society, Captain
Charles H. Townshend, some two or three years ago; at which
time Captain Townshend printed in one o-f our daily papers an
imperfect transcript of the entire entry.
The heading above quoted is followed by a list of about 96 titles,
representing a little over a hundred volumes (perhaps two-thirds of
them in Latin), mainly theological, and solid and bulky at that. The
author most numerously represented is John Calvin, with eleven
Latin folios, including his Institutes of Religion and a nearly
complete set of his Commentaries on Scripture; and next to him
comes David Pareus, sometime an eminent German divine of the
Reformed Church, with eight volumes, likewise mainly of
Commentaries. Naturally, with these helps, the collection rs found
to be strongest on the exegetical side— more than a quarter of the
whole number of titles being of this description.
But other departments of theological learning are also richly
represented, especially dogmatics, practical theology, including
sermons, and various branches of polemics — notably defences of
Independent as opposed to Episcopal church government; and as
might be expected the more noted expounders of the Congrega-
tional polity, such as John Robinson and Henry Ainsworth, are
prominently included.
Plutarch and Vergil in Latin and Ovid in English are the more
important classical authors represented ; while Sir Thomas Mere's
Utopia and Erasmus's Proverbs stand for modem Latin hterature;
and English literature, properly so called, is a blank, except for the
Ovid just referred to, which is George Sandys's poetical version of
the Metamorphoses.
In general history the only author is Sir Walter Raleigh ; for
ecclesiastical history, there is nothing but Foxe's Book of Martyrs ;
and for geography, Heylyn's Cosmography.
In mental philosophy there are two or three inferior Latin
manuals, and in science the collection is even more markedly
deficient ; in fact the only books which can under any canon be
credited to that side appear to be Keckermann's System of Mathe-
matics and two medical treatises of little note — Barrough's Method
of Physic, and an Anatomy of which the author cannot be identified.
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aaS THE FIRST PUBLIC LIBRARY IN NEW HAVEN
I might rehearse the catalogue in brief, but it is better to ask
leave to append it in detail to my paper.
It is almost needless to add that this ancient public library has
totally disappeared and left no trace of its existence beyond the
barren catalogue, which at the latest does not continue the history of
the collection more than a dozen years after its probable transfer
from Mr. Davenport's hands to the town's keeiMng. There
remains a boundless field of conjecture as to the manner in which
since 1670 these scores of ponderous folios and quartos have been
scattered to the winds. A modern Connecticut writer has made
"The Lost Library" a subject for a novel ; but here at our very door
is a like mystery which challenges elucidation, and I for one cannot
solve it.
It would be interesting to compare this collection of books with
any similar collections brought to this region in the same genera-
tion ; but material for such a comparison is scanty. In the case
of John Davenport's library we have nothing but the single item of
books in the inventory of his estate, which stands at £233 17s.; at
Hartford in Thomas Hooker's case is a similar item of books valued
at ^300, and in Samuel Stone's case the corresponding item of £127.
John Cotton of Boston left books valued by himself at £150 "though
having cost much more" ; and John Norton £300 worth, — 729 vols.
in all, of which nearly one-fourth were folios; while John Wilson,
whom Davenport succeeded in Boston, left less than £20 worth.
The most obvious parallel, however, is with the remarkable library
of about 400 volumes, gathered by Elder William Brewster, of
Plymouth, and inventoried in full detail after his death in 1644,
when it was valued at the surprisingly low figure of less than £43,
That marvelous collection, which raises one's respect for the
intellectual standing of the Plymouth Colony greatly beyond all
other testimony yet adduced, is of far wider and more varied interest
than this, and deserves, as it has already had,'" special study.
About five-sixth of the books are in the English language, as con-
trasted with two-sixths here, and the range of subjects represented
is much more extended than in the New Haven library. Indeed
the former is vastly more appropriate for use as a town-library
than ours can ever have been ; if it had none of the fiction which
our age demands, it might boast of more than a dozen volumes of
poetry and two dozen of history, with a much larger number of
curious miscellaneous lore. But to speak candidly I cannot con-
ceive that the "Townes Library" here could be of any practical
*" H. M. Dexter in Mass. Hist Soc. ProcMdings, Oct, 1881).
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THE FIRST PUBLIC LIBBARY IN NEW HAVEN 139
use, except to a professed theologian who was also a skilled
Latinist, like its original owner. Outside the scanty tale of books
in the vernacular included among those I have mentioned (Foxe's
Book of Martyrs, Raleigh's History of the World, Heylyn's Cosmog-
raphy, George Sandy s's poetical translation of Ovid's Meta-
morphoses, an unnamed book on military discipline, and a Method
of Physic), the only other refuge for the ordinary English reader
was those solid tomes of theology which his descendant of this
century would never dream of opening. Elder Brewster's library,
on the other hand, though .still far removed from what the modems
would expect, was not ill adapted for the mental food of a specially
intelligent English-speaking community of that date. But that
library was dispersed on Elder Brewster's death, intestate, among
his heirs, and like ours here has vanished inexplicably from sight. *••
I revert for a moment, before I close, to the paragraph from
Governor Eaton's will which formed my text, to complete the
account which he gives of the balance of the hundred-pound legacy
for which he had assumed the responsibility. He says, in substance,
that he had probably spent £80 in fittings for the ship "Fellowship";
and the published Colony Records show that a ship of this name
was built and equipped for intercolonial and foreign trade by a
syndicate of New Haven merchants in 1646 and 7.
The vessel is identified by the same Records as in use at least
as late as 1649, and so is not to be confused with the famous
"phantom ship," which was built near the same time and furnished
the fabric for our earliest and most fascinating New Haven ghost
story. About the disappearance of the "Fellowship" there is no
weird halo of mystery like this; it is simply that those generations
had no adct|uale chronicles of ships, of libraries, or of the daily
lives of silent heroism which men and women lived in these squares
and streets, unremembercd and unsung.
APPENDIX.
[To the following list are added identifications, as far as possible,
of ihc various items, and when the rarer volumes are in the Library
of Vale University that fact is stated.]
.•\ Catalogue of the Townes Bookes Left [by} M'. Eaton, vi^. W. Daven-
port for the towne of New Haven as il was taken at M''. Davenp'" ye
28"' s"' mo. 1658.
"* Mr. Henry T. Blake, in his entertaining Chronicles of Xnii Haven Green,
published since this paper was written, informs us (p. 200) thai in 1689 the
town sold to the Rev. James Pierpont, for £12 i8s., the books then in hand;
very probably in this way some of the identical volumes may have passed to
the Library of Yale College.
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THE FIRST PUBLIC LIBKARY IK NEW HAVEN
1. Institutiones. [Jean Calvin: Institutio Christians Rcligionis. In
many editions.]
2. Commentarium in Genesin, cum harmonia in reliquos 4 libros Mosis.
[J. Calvin: In V. libros Mosis commentarii. Genesis seorsim; reliqui in
forniam harmonis digesti . . . Genevse, 1595. In Yale Library.]
3. In Job. [J. Calvin: In librum lobi conciones . . . GenevK, 1593- In
Yale Library.]
4. In psalmos. [J. Calvin: Commentarivs in librvm Psalmorvm.
Gwievse, 1578. In Yale Library.)
I Isaiam prophetam. 4th edi-
6. In Jeremiam & Lamentationes. [J. Calvin: Prxlectiones in librvm
prophetiarvm Jeremis, et Lamentation es. Editio tertia. Genevae, 1589. In
Yale Library,]
7. In Ezekielem & Danielem. [J. Calvin: Praelectiones in Ezechielis
Prophetae XX capita priora . . . Genevx, 1583; and, bound with it, Praelec-
tiones in librum prophetiarum Danielis. Genevz, 1591. In Yale Library.]
8. In minores prophetas. [J. Calvin: Prjelectionw in XIL Prophetas
(qvos vocant) Minores. Genevae, l6ia In Yale Library,]
9. In quatuor Evangelia. [J. Calvin: Harmonia ex Evangelistis tribvs
composita, Matthao, Marco, & Lvca . . . Et in lohannem Evangclistam com-
mentarivs. Genevae, 1595. In Yale Library.]
10. In acta Apostolorum. [J. Calvin : Commentarii in Acta Apostolorvm,
rec(^[nit', Genevse, 1609, In Yale Library.]
11. In omnes Pauli Epistolas. [J. Calvin: Commentarii in omnes Pauli
Apostoli Epistolas , . . Genevse, 1600. In Yale Library.]
12. Ainsworth on the Pentatukc 8r psalmes & Canticles. [Henry Ains-
worth: Annotations vpon the Five Bookes of Moses, the Booke of the
Psalmes, and the Song of Songs. London, 1627. In Yale Library.]
13. Zanchi Opera, 3 volumes. (Girolamo Zanchi: Omnia Opera theo-
logica. GenevjE, 1619. 8 vols, bound in 3, In Yale Library.]
14- Ferd: Quirini De SaK Defens. [Ferdinandus Quirinus de Salaaar:
Defensio pro immaculata Deiparse Virginis Conceptione. In Yale Library,]
15, Tossani Index. [Jacques Toussain (Jacobus Tussanus or Tossanus) :
Index in Sacra Biblia ex Latina Treraellii et Junii versione et Beiae col-
lectum.]
16. Scapulse Grfecum lexicon. [Johannes Scapula; Lexicon Grseco-
Latinvra novvm . . . Many editions. In Yale Library, Basileae, 1615, and
Basileae, 1628.]
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THE FIRST PUBLIC LIBKAKY IN NEW HAVEN a$l
17. Junii Opera, in 2 volumes. [Franciscus Junius: Opera thcologica.
Genevae, 1613. In Yale Library.]
18. S*. Walter Raughley's History of y« world. tThe Historic of the
World. Anonymous. London, 1634. In Yale Library.]
19. Plutarci Opera. [Many editions.]
ao. Salazar in Proverb. (Ferd. Quirinus de Salazar: Expositiones in
Proverbia.]
21. D'. Halls Workes. [Joseph Hall : Works. London, i6aa-3i ; also,
London, 1634. In Yale Library.]
Erasmi Adagia, [Inserted here after this part of the list was drawn
up, in the ink used in the later part of the list Many editions.]
22. Swarez in 2 volumes. [Francisco Suarez: Metaphysics Disputationes.
Paris, ifiigL In Yale Library.]
23. Concordant!* in y* Btbtia. [Probably, Johannes Buxtorf: Concor-
dantiz Biblionim Hebraicx . . . Basileae, 1632. In Yale Library.]
mos. [Stephanus Fabricius : Sacrse Condones in
. Genevx, 162O; In Yale Library.]
25. Acts & monument, in 2 voll. [John Foxe ; Actes and monuments of
matters most special! and memorable, happenyng in the Church . . . London,
1583 or 1596.]
26. Dion ; Alix : Romans Antiquitates. [Dionysius Halicamassensis. In
many editions.]
27. Junii Opera in 2 volumes. (Repetition of No. 17, t^pra.]
28. Peter Marf, com: in Judg & Samuell. [Pietro Martire Vermigli:
Commentarii in librura Judicum et in duos libros Samuelis.]
30- Ovid Metamor : in English verse. [Ovidis : Metamorphosis Elng-
lished ... By G. S(andys). Oxford, 1632. In Yale Library.]
31. I paper booke in Leath'. cover.
2. BooKES In 4*"
1. PolanI Sunetagma, in 2 vol. [Amandus Polanus: Syntagma theologiae
Christiana.]
(At this point the record was interrupted; what follows is in a dif-
ferent ink)
2. Pareus In Genesis. (David Pareuj: In Genesin Mosia Commentarivs
. . Genevae, 1614. In Yale Library.)
3. In Hoseah. (D, Pareus: Commentarius in Hoseam Prophetam.]
4. In Romanes. (D. Pareus: In divinam ad Romanos S. Pauli . .
Epistolam commentarius.]
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93^ THE FIRST PUBLIC LIBRARY IN NEW RAVEN
S- In i" epistle to y* Corinthians. [D. Pareus: Commentarius in I.
epistolam ad Corinthios.]
6. In Galathians. [D. Pareus: In divinam ad Galatas S. Pavli . . epis-
tolam commentarivs . . . Heidelbergx. 1613. In Yale Library.]
7. In Hebreos. [D. Pareus: In divinam ad Hebrseos S. Pavli . . epis-
tolam commentarivs . . Heidelbergx. 1614. In Yale Library.]
8. In Apocalypsin Johannis. [D. Pareus; Commentarius in apocalypsin
Job an n is.]
9. Rivetus In Decalogon. [Andre Rivet: Praelectiones in cap. XX.
Exodi . . In qvibvs explicatur Decalogus . . Lugdvni Batavorvm, 1637. In
Yale Library]
10. A fresh Suite against Seremon . . [William Ames ; A Fresh Svit
against Hvmane Ceremonies in Gods Worship. (Anonymous.) 1633. In
Yale Library.]
It. M''. Jn°. Downeham against some abuses. [John Downame: Foure
Treatises tending to disswade all Christians from the Abuses of Swearing,
Drunkennesse, Whoredome, and Bribery.]
t2, D'. Lait; Zions Plea. [Alexander Leighton: An Appeal to the Par-
liament; or Sions Plea against the Prelacie. 162S. In Yale Library.]
t3, M'. Dodd & Qever. [John Dod and Robert Cleaver : A Plaine and
Familiar Exposition of the Ten Commandments. Or, Ten Sermons on the
Lord's Supper.)
t4. Ainsworth against Johnson. [Henry Ainsworth: A Reply to a Pre-
tended Christian Plea for the Anti- Christian Church of Rome ; Published by
M*. F. Johnson. 1630. In Yale Library.]
t5. Mf Robinson Def : Syn: [John Robinson : A Defence of the Doctrine
propovnded by the Synode at Dort . . 1624. In Yale Library.)
17. Heilins Cosniographye. (Peter Heylyn : MiKpoKoir/ioi. A little descrip-
tion of the Great World.]
18. M''. Sprint for Conformity. (John Sprint; Cassander Anglicanvs;
Shewing, the Necessity of Conformitie to the prescribed ceremonies of our
Church, in Case of Depriuation. London. 1618. In Yale Library.]
[Thomas Goodwin: Aggrava-
>ns.]
so. Bains Epitomie. (Paul Baynes: An Epitome of Man's Misery and
Deliverie : in a Sermon . . .]
21. D'. Prestons new Covenant. [John Preston: The New Covenant, or
The Saints Portion. (Edited by Richard Sibbes and John Davenport, Lon-
don, 1629).]
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THE FIRST PUBLIC LIBRARY IN NEW HAVEN »$^
22. M'. Robis: Religious Communion. (John Robinson: Of Religious
Commvnion Private. & Publique. 1614. In Yale Library.)
1 Jackson : A Treatise of
24. Replye to M''. Downhams defence. [A Reptye answering a Defence
of the Sermon, preached at the Consecration of the Bishop of Bathe and
Welles, by G. Downame. 1613. In Yale Library.)
25. I pap', hooke in Leather,
26. Bullin^s Decades. {Heinrich Bullinger: Fiftie Godlie and Learned
Sermons, divided into Five Decades . . . London, 1587, In Yale Library.]
27. Lawsens (?) Anatomy,
28. t pap', booke in parchment.
3, Books in 8°, 12° & 16*,
1. Dan: Pareus in Ursini cat. . . , [ Explication vm catecheticarvm
Z. Vrsini absolvtvm opus . . D. Parei opera . . recognitum . . . 1608. In
Yale Library,]
2. John Buxta. |Some work of J, Boxtorf.]
3. New test, in greekc w"*. notes. [In many editions.]
4. Eustak: summa philos: [Frater EusUchius: Summa Philosophise
quadripartita. Cantahrixiz. 1610: also, Colonix, 1616, In Yale Library.]
Canticorum Solomonis versibus et com-
trochaicam Theodori Beza; paraphrasim.]
6. Opera Virgill cum notaL |In many editions.]
7. Tileni Sunta^. [Daniel Tileniis: Syntagmatis tripartiti dispvtationvm
theologicarvm partes III. Herborm, 1607; also, Genevje, 1622. In Yale
Library.]
8. Keeker. Syst mathem. [Bartholomaus Keckermann: Systema totious
Mathematices.]
9. Goler 8r Econ.
or Johann Fischer :
11. -Ainsworth against Smith. [Henry Ainsworth: A Defence of the
Holy Scriptures, Worship, and Ministerie, used in the Christian Cliurches . .
ABaiii?t the challenges . . of M. Smyth. , . .'Amsterdam, ifiog. In Yale
Library-.]
12. Dictiona: nom in. propria.
13. Merlini in Hester. [Pierre Merlin: Commentarius in Librum
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334 THE PtRST PUBLIC LIBRASY IN NEW HAVEN
14 Thotnae Mori Utopia. [Sir Thomas More: Utopia. In many edt-
tiom.]
15. B". of Winchesters true obed . . . [Stephen Gardiner: An Oration
touching True Obedience, 1553.]
16. Martins hebrew Grammar. [Pierre Martinius: The Key of the Holy
Tongue: wherein \a conteined . . the Hebrue Grammar . . Englished . . by
I. UdaU.1
17. Buxtor. [Some work by John Buxtorf.]
iS. D'. Denison. [Probably some work by John Denison, D.D., died 1629.]
19. D*. Rivett Disputat & Miscell . . . [Andr£ Rivet: Disputationes
theologicae et Miscellanea.]
ao. Barro Meth: Phisik: [Philip Barrough: The Method of Physick.1
zi. M' Torsels Saints humiliation. [Samuel Torshell : The Saints Hvmil-
iation. Being 9 . . Sermons. London, 1633. In Yale Library.]
22. Trog; pomp: Justine history. [The Abridgement of the Historyes
of Trogus Pompeius, gathered . . by the famous Hystoriographer luatine, &
translated , . by Arthur Golding. London, 1578. In Yale Library.]
24. IF. Amis Sciag: [Wm. Ames: Christians Catecheseos Sciagraphia.
Franekers, 1635. In Yale Library.]
25. D'. Amis against Grevitt [Wm. Ames : Rescriptio Scholastica &
brevis ad Nic. Grevinchovii Responsum . . . quod opposuit Dissertation!
de Redemptione . . . Lvgdvni Batavorvm, 1633. In Yale Library.]
26. Comesto*. pansophia.
27- Culv'. on Faith. [Eaekiel Culverwell: A Treatise of Faith.]
. . Explicatio DispuL poUt
. . Keckermann Syst. Logicae. (Bartholomaus Keckermann: Systems.
LogicEC . . . Editio secunda. 1603. In Yale Library.]
. . Pasoris Lexicon Novi testa. [Georg Pasor: Lexicon Graeco-
Latinum in Novum Testamentum.]
. . Laltine bible.
. . Greeke Grammar.
. . Militarie discipline. [Perhaps, The Souldier's Accidence. Or an
introduction into Military Discipline . . By G(ervase) M(arkham). Lon-
don, 1635.]
. Practice of y* faithfull. [A work of this title, by J. T., London, 1684,
is in the British Museum.]
. . Hebrew Bibli' in two p*». lent to . . . Kimberiy Loi^ since per . .
Gov'. Order.
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THE MANUSCRIPTS OF JONATHAN EDWARDS.
[From the Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, March,
I trust I shall not be misunderstood in venturing, though a
layman, to discuss briefly the manuscripts of New England's great
theologian. They have come under my scrutiny as a librarian, and
I cannot help taking stock of them as human documents, without
pretending to appraise them theologically.
In January, 1758, Edwards left Stockbridge to go to Princeton
for inauguration as President of the College of New Jersey. His
eldest unmarried daughter went with him, while the rest of the
family and their household effects, including his books and papers,
were to follow when summer opened. His sudden death occurred
on March 22, and when his widow died in the ensuing fall there
were left two married and four unmarried daughters and three sons.
The eldest son had already been graduated at Princeton, and
remained for some years in New Jersey, not following a profes-
sion; while the other sons were at their father's death respectively
nearly thirteen and eight years of age.
Edwards had made his last will in 1753, and his estate, valued at
over £goo, was settled the year after his death. The will gave his
manuscripts to Mrs. Edwards, and in the inventory are entered under
this head fifteen folio and fifteen quarto volumes, besides 1,074
sermons, — the whole appraised at £6. The manuscript collection
which I am to speak of appears to contain the major part of the
fohos and quartos thus enumerated, and more than the requisite
number of sermons.
In 1765, while the only son who followed his father's line of
study was still an undergraduate, Edwards's pupil, Samuel Hopkins,
of Great Barrington, published two volumes from the manuscripts.
In 1774 the son just referred to, Jonathan Edwards the younger, then
a pastor in New Haven, began, in connection with Dr. Erskine, of
Edinburgh, the publication of what became a series of four volumes
derived from the same sources. But he died early, in 1801, leaving
in the care of his executor the remaining material. In 1809 a
uniform edition, in four volumes, of Edwards's Works was issued
by the Rev. Samuel Austin, of Worcester, but this included nothing
before unprinted.
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336 THE MANUSCRIPTS OF JONATHAN EDWARDS
After this President Dwight, a grandson, contemplated at the
request of his uncles the preparation of a new life, and had for
this purpose a portion, at least, of the manuscripts for some time
in his keeping. There is also good evidence that President Dwi^t's
son, Dr. Sereno E. Dwight, received from his father, who died in
1817, an injunction to carry out the work not yet accomphshed, and
accordingly soon began lo gather material, securing some manu-
scripts by gift and copies of others, and finally completing in 1829
the issue of the collected works in ten volumes, the first of which is
occupied by a Life. A portion of this material is believed to have
been secured by Dr. Dwight at Windsor, Connecticut, the home of
Edwards's boyhood.
Dr. Dwight's collection of manuscripts and copies was bequeathed
at his death in 1850 to his brother, the Rev. Dr. William
T. Dwight, of Portland, Maine. This collection, which is now at
Andover, embraces many papers of the highest interest, including
personal and family letters and early speculative and scientific
writings. The main collection, which had been loaned to Dr.
Sereno E. Dwight, was by a written agreement of the surviving
grandchildren placed in 1847 in the hands of a great-grandson, the
Rev. Dr. Tryon Edwards, then of New London, Connecticut, as
trustee, with the understanding that he might arrange for a new
edition of the Life and Works. A scheme for such an edition,
under the care of Dr. William T. Dwight (who was to contribute
the Life), Professor Edwards A. Park, and Dr. Tryon Edwards,
was for some years under discussion. In the meantime, in 1854,
the Rev. Alexander B. Grosart, of Scotland, visited New London
to examine the Tryon Edwards collection,^"* and took with him on
his return some portions of it, to be copied and prepared for such
an edition.
Finally, perhaps about 1870, Dr. Edwards loaned what was in
his hands to Profes.sor Park, who contemplated the preparation of
a new Life; and about ten years ago a number of the surviving
great-grandchildren, under the efficient lead of Mr. Eli Whitney,
senior, of New Haven, united in signing an agreement that after
Professor Park had done with them the manuscripts thus loaned
should be deposited in the Library of Yale University. Professor
Park died in June, 1900, and the manuscripts were received at
Yale in August.
To come now to the contents of the New Haven collection. In
the first place, negatively, it does not contain any of Edwards's
s printed in "The Independent" of
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THE MANUSCRIPTS OF JONATHAN EDWABDS >37
more famous early writings, such as the "Resoluticms," the "Diary,"
and those remarkable illustrations of precocity, the "Notes cm the
Mind and on Natural Science";"* and with one slight exception, it
contains none of his correspondence.
As might be expected, the largest item in the inventory of his
mature productions is an immense number of sermons — 4)etween
eleven and twelve hundred, of varying degrees of completeness —
more than one-third, that is, of the whole number which would have
been required, at the rate of two a week, for the thirty years of his
career as an ordained minister.
Such an amount of material gives of course the means of tracing
very fully the author's sermonizing habits. For manuscript he used
folds of paper stitched together, of a convenient size to be laid in
a small preaching Bible or held directly in one hand while resting
the elbow on the desk, — the size of the paper ranging from three
to four inches in width and from four to six in length.
In date of composition, the sermons fall naturally into four
groups.
There are, first, about fifty, undated, of uniform size and appear-
ance, which from the handwriting and other indications undoubtedly
belong to the earliest years of his ministry, — some probably ante-
dating even his settlement at Northampton.
Next come about live hundred, on pages of a smaller size, usually
written out in full, or approximately so, and mostly with the month
and year in which they were first preached."'
Then, about 1741, he gets more into the habit of using outlines
instead of fully written sermons, and we have about three hundred
and fifty specimens of this sort, prepared in the last decade of his
Northampton pastorate, quite a number of which were repeated in
.Stockbridge ; while there is also a fourth group, on still another size
and shape of paper, of about one hundred and seventy-five briefer
outlines of sermons prepared for the Mdiawks at Stockbridge, in
which the themes are evidently much more simply treated.
Supplementary to the sermons is an interesting volume of a
hundred and fifty pages, apparently begun about 1738, and filled with
plans of discourses and the enumeration of texts from which the
writer proj>osed to preach, with the doctrines deducible from them.
.\ study of this volume only deepens the impression that preaching
was a matter of great joy to Edwards, and that the change from
Northampton to Stockbridge, where there was next to no need for
"What Dr. Dwight. in his Life (pp. 41, 42. 702, 703), calls the cover page t&
the "Notes on Natural Science" is, however, here.
*" Edwards adopted this custom of noting the date in 1733.
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238 THE MANUSCRIPTS OF JONATHAN EDWARDS
this kind of preparation, was painful for this reason also, that
it removed an incentive to a specially attractive exercise of mental
power.
Everything so far enumerated is unpublished ; but besides these
there is a group of about fifty sermons, more or less fully written
out, which appear in Edwards's printed works. These have a
special interest, in the case of those which he himself sent to the
press, as showing how much the original manuscript was elaborated
in delivery or in printing.
For instance, here is one of his most famous sermons, "Sinners
in the hands of an angry God," which was, as appears frcnn the
margin, prepared for his own people in June, 1741, and was preached
with such startling effect the following month at Enfield.**' The
tradition is that in the delivery this was closely read from the manu-
script; but the original shows that the discourse was not entirely
written out, so that the tradition is hardly to be relied on.
There is rather an unusual proportion of "occasional sermcms,"
on Fasts, Thanksgivings, Deaths, Quarterly Lectures, Contribution
Lectiu-es, Society Meetings, Private Meetings, Children's Meet-
ings, etc.
The few specimens of distinctive preaching to children are exposi-
tions of texts which our degenerate days would consider strong
meat for such a purpose. One, for example, is from 2 Kings ii.
23, 24: "And he went up from thence unto Bethel: and as he was
going up by the way, there came forth little children out of the city,
and mocked him, and said unto him. Go up, thou bald head ; go up, .
thou bald head. And he turned back, and looked on them, and
cursed them in the name of the Lord. And there came forth two
she bears out of the wood, and tare forty and two children of them."
And a second is from Matthew x. 37 : "He that loveth father or
mother more than me is not worthy of me." I ought to add that
the doctrine inculcated in these cases seems less hard than the texts.
In such a long series of sermons there cannot fail to be some
that connect themselves with striking events in the preacher's life.
Such are, to mention only a few, the one preached from Job xiv. 2,
on the Sabbath after the death of his second daughter, Jerusha, who
was betrothed to David Brainerd, though this was strictly an old
sermon, preached seven years before "at a private meeting of young
people after Billy Sheldon's Death," and now provided with a new
"application." There is one of peculiar interest from Jeremiah
""In the collection is another earlier (undated) sermon from the same
text, with a different line of argument
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THE MANUSCRIPTS OP JONATHAN EDWABDS '39
xxiii. 29, preached in April, 1749, just at the height of the fierce
controversy which ended the speaker's Northampton career ; and
another, one of the very latest which he preached there, before hts
dismission, the text of which, Isaiah xxxii. 17, 18, is suggestive of
the peaceable spirit which he strove to inculcate. There is also one
of the latest (from Luke xxi. 36) to his Indian flock at Stockbridge.
There is at least one,'*" and I think more, marked as preached at
Northampton during his residence in Stockbridge, and similarly in
the book of plans of sermons there are in the same period at least
three notes of texts and doctrines marked as designed for Northamp-
ton, though it is commonly said that he never occupied his old puljMt
after his dismission.
Among the general impressions about the way in which he did
his work as a preacher, one of the first is, as already intimated, that
he found sermon- writing very easy and very enjoyable. And besides
the spontaneity and copiousness of it, there is about his ordinary
style great simplicity and directness, and if I may so say, a certain
unexpected freshness and modemness, — not at all the impression
of aridity and remorseless logic which one might have looked for.
In fact, the impression of the manuscripts as a whole is to make
Edwards seem very human, with much more of the yearning and
pleading attitude of a devout pastor than the aloofness and absorp-
tion of an abstract metaphysician.
The spelling throughout is almost unexceptionable, — far better
than in the ordinary clerical manuscript of his century. The hand-
writing is minute and often illegible, but intentionally so, as only
meant for his own eye ; what he writes for others is plain enough-
He used a shorthand of his own devising (remarkable mainly for
its obscurity) in some of his early manuscripts, and continued
to use it to a limited extent, chiefly in brief memoranda on his
sermons and seemingly for economy of space rather than for
concealment of thought.
Down to the time when he adopted the habit of using outlines
rather than fully written sermons, he was fairly particular in
having good paper, evenly cut and folded. But during the latter
half of his ministry it is the exception to find his notes written on
fresh, unused paper. He utilized scraps of all obtainable sorts, —
bills; family and business letters; physicians' prescriptions; mar-
riage publishments; requests for prayers and for thanksgivings in
the meeting-house ; children's copy-books ; fly-leaves, title-pages,
and margins of books; proof-sheets; circulars; proclamations;
■" From 2 Cor. iv. 6. Preached in May, 1755.
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340 THE MANUSCRIPTS OF JONATHAN EDWAXDS
subscription papers for his own books ; and most frequently of all,
scraps of the thin soft paper said to have been used by his wife and
daughters in making fans.
To illustrate, we find employed as sermtm paper several specimens
of Mrs. Edwards's letters and several of his own. Thus, from a
sermon preached in May, 1743, on Ephesians iv. 15, 16, the {(^ow-
ing to his wife is rescued: —
Lebanon at Mr. Metcalfs, March 25, 1743.
Dbak Spouse, — I recieved this morning by Mr Potwine the short Letter
you sent me, with the Books, papers &c — for which I thank you. By this I
would inform you that I have been considerably amiss since I came from
home; riding in such tempestuous weather increased my cold, and ahnost
overcame me. But am now a little better. 1 faild of seeing Mr Wheelock as
I came down, and so had no opportunity to agree with him about the altera-
tion of the time of my absence from home : but intended notwithstanding
to have gone home next week. But many ministers have been urging me to
go to New-London, but I refused unless a number of them would go with
me; and last night Mr Meacham, Mr Williams & Mr Pumroy agreed to go
down with me the next week, to endeavour to reclaim the People there from
their Errours. So that I believe I shall not be at home till the week after
next. Give my Love to my Children 4 Mr Wheelock. Br. & Sister Metcalf
give their Love to you & the Children. Remember me in your Prayers.
I am my dearest Companion
Your affectionate Consort
Jonathan Edwabds.
The allusion to New London is understood by recalling the
bonfires of unsound religious bo(J(s which the fanatical followers
of the crazy revivalist, James Davenport, had kindled there two
or three weeks before.
The household bills preserved in the same way give us occasional
items of interest: as when a jeweller's account shows that
Mrs. Edwards had purchased in 1743 "a Gold Locket & Chane"
for fii, we have a right to feel that her rare graces of spirit were
not disjoined from a human love for the beautiful. And again,
when we find the great preacher charged twice in a list of common
household goods at three months' interval with "one dozen of long
pipes," we feel that he too had his human side and his solace for
overmuch study. But perhaps the most gratifying of all is a little
entry in the midst of humdrum purchases of foolscap paper and
sealing-wax and Bayley's spelling-books, — "i childs Plaything,
4/6." A glimpse of Jonathan Edwards buying playthings for his
children is worth all the rest of the sermon. As it happens, the
same sermon is written in part (in July, 1744) on a leaf of an old
writing-book on which familiar rhymes of the "New England
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THE MANUSCRIPTS OF JONATHAN EDWARDS 241
Primer" have been copied as exercises by the two of these self-
same children, Esther and Mary, who were in turn to be the mothers
of the two most widely known, not equally honored, grandchildren
of Jonathan Edwards, — Aaron Burr and Timothy Dwight.
After the sermons the most voluminous section of our manu-
scripts is the commonplace book, well known to students of Edwards
by the name of "Miscellaneous Observations," or "Miscellanies,"
as he himself called them. From this source mainly were selected
the two volumes, published at Edinburgh in 1793-96, with the titles
"Miscellaneous Observations on important Theological Subjects,"
and "Remarks on important Theological Controversies." These
jiortions were reprinted by Dr. Ehvight in his edition of 1829, with a
few supplementary extracts, making nearly five hundred pages in
all; bul these are only a fragment of the whole amount, which is
here in eipht folio or quarto volumes, aggregating over 1,400
minutely written pages. They were begun at an early age, and
continued to be added to until near the close of the writer's life.
They arc all theological, but, as the title implies, entirely discon-
nected, following each other in numerical order up to No. 1,360"°
(or more exactly 1,412, as two alphabetical series preceded the
numbers) ; and no representation of Edwards as a thinker is quite
complete so long as so many of these "Miscellanies" are still in
manuscript.
I should add that our associate Professor Egbert C. Smyth
iniMished in 1880 a few additional selections. One of these, entitled
"Observations concerning the Scripture (Economy of the Trinity
:ind Covenant of Redemption," was printed from a copy apparently
I'repared for the son. Dr. Jonathan Edwards, when publishing the
\nlume of "Miscellaneous Observations" above referred to. The
"tber extracts were from the copies made for Dr. Sereno Dwight.
Another large item in the collection is a Bible, interleaved, in
<|uarto. which Edwards seems to have acquired as late as 1748, and
which is nearly filled with comparatively brief exegefical, doctrinal,
iiiid practical notes. Mr. Grosart printed in 1865 a hundred and
twenty i)ages of excerpts from this volume. Entirely distinct from
this is a series of longer manuscript "Notes on the Bible," in three
<]uarto volumes, a good part of which appeared in Dwight's edition
of the Works.
"° I find a note in one of Edwards's MS. sermons (on Rom. iv. s), which
was written in November, 1734. and published in 1738. referring to "No. 668"
of this series. It is clesr. then, that he had reached this number by 1738, at
the latest
16
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94' THE MANUSCRIPTS OF JONATHAN EDWARDS
Of the manuscripts of other pubhshed writings than those already
mentioned, there are, I beheve, but two, — that of a portion of the
work on the "Doctrine of Original Sin," and an early draft of the
"Reply to Solomon Williams on the Qualifications for Communion,"
Some briefer manuscripts may be mentioned less in detail.
There is, for instance, a thin folio, "Images [or "Shadows"] of
Divine Things," which seems from the handwriting to be ahnost as
early in date as anything in the collection; it was at one time
intended for publication, and two alternative titles are given on the
fly-leaf; namely, "The Book of Nature and Common Providence"
and "The Language and Lessons of Nature." The conception of
the treatise is to illustrate Scripture and God's dealings with men
by the types of natural events, reminding one of a passage in
Edwards's Diary, of August 28, 1723, where he writes: "When I
want books to read ; yea, when I have not very good books, not to
spend time in reading them, but in reading the Scriptures, in perus-
ing Resolutions, &c., in ziniting on Types of the Scripture and other
things."
I quote one section of the work by way of example : —
"73. The way of a Cat with a mouse that it has taken captive is a lively
emblem of the way of the devil with many wicked men. A mouse is a foul
unclean creature a tit type of a wicked man. Levit ir, 29, These also shall
be unclean^The weasel & the mouse. Isai. 66, 17, Eating swines Flesh and
the abomination & the mouse. The Cat makes a play & sport of the poor
mouse, so the devil does as it were make himself sport with a wicked man.
The cat lets the mouse go & it seems to have escaped, it hopes it is delivered
but is suddenly catched up again before it can get clear & so time after time
the mouse makes many vain attempts, thinks it self free when it is still a
captive, is taken up again by the Jaws & into the Jaws of its devourer as i(
it were just going to be destroyed but then is let go again, but never quite
escapes till at last it yields its life to Its Enemy & is crushed between his
teeth & totally devoured. So many wicked men especially under false Pro-
fessions of Religion & sinners under Gospel Light are led captive by Satan at
his will, are under the power & dominion of their lusts & tho they have many
Struggles of Conscience about their sins yet never wholly escape them, when
they seem to escape they fall into them again & so again & again till at length
they are totally & utterly devoured by Satan."
Of another manuscript of similar appearance, but miscellaneous
in contents, the date may be in part inferred from a long series of
questions on Old Testament history, which is found at the end,
and which were assigned as topics for investigation to boys in the
Northampton congregation, whose names are given, about 1735-40,
— a sort of early substitute for the modem Sunday-school or Bible
class. The date of these pages, which may be confidently assumed.
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THE MANUSCRIPTS OF JONATHAN EDWARDS 343
is of interest in connection with an essay which stands first within
the same covers. This is an early metaphysical and scholastic but
entirely orthodox argument on the Trinity, without title, which is
thought to be the treatise alluded to by Professor Park in two
articles in Ihe "Bibliotheca Sacra" for 1881, which were called out
by the publication of Professor Smyth to which I have already
alluded.
There are also a very few separate papers of personal interest, —
perhaps the most important being a series of half a dozen letters to
Joseph Bellamy, a favorite pupil and friend. I select one as a
sjiecimen of Edwards's familiar correspondence: —
Dear Sir.— 1 receiv'd your Letter by Mr Strong this day. Mr. Searl
was here at my House presently after, and I gave your Questions to him, and
told htm the Bearer intended quickly to return.
(As to the affair of sheep, I ani much obliged to you for the Pains you have
taken. I believe you have acted the Part of a trusty Friend therein. I sup-
pose it is known by this time, whether the man that went to Newtown htu
succeeded. If he has, & the sheep are bought, we shall rest on what yoti
have done; but if not. & you shall have found no opportunity 'till this Letter
reaches you, it is so late in the year, that 1 desire you would keep the money
'till shearing Time is over, Sc then buy; when I suppose they may be bought
much cheaper than now. But I would pray you to send us word by the first
opportunity, that if we are not like to have any sheep this year, we may sea-
sonably be looking out. & laying in for woo! else-where, for the supply of the
Family. In the spring, if you can give us any encouragement, 1 should be
glad to lay out 6o£ more for sheep in those parts, as soon as shearing time is
over, besides the 3o£ you have in your Hands. Bui, if you buy so many
sheep for us. it might be perhaps expedient, on some accounts, for the pres-
ent, not to let it be known who the sheep are for.)
As 10 the Books you speak of: Mastrict is sometimes in one vol. a very
thick large Quarto; sometimes in two Quarto volumes. I believe it could
not be had new under 8 or 10 Pounds. Turretine is in three vols, in Quarto,
and would probably be about the same Price. They are both excellent
Turretine is on Polemical divinity; on the 5 Points, & all other Controversial
Points ; & is much larger in these than Mastrict : & is better for one that
desires only to be thoroughly versed in Controversies. But take Mastrict for
divinity in general, doctrine Practice & Controversie ; or as an univerjal
system of divinity; & it is much better than Turretine, or any other Book in
the world, excepting the Bible, in my opinion. I have Thoughts of sending
myself this year to England, for a few Books, and have written to
Mr, Quincy.^' a merch', in Boston, about it, to desire his advice & assistance,
as to the Course to be taken to obtain 'em. If I employ him to send for me,
I shall be willing to serve you (as I desire you to serve me about the sheep.
I am wilting) to take your money, put it with my own, & put your Books into
my Catalogue & have all come as mine; or shall be willing to serve you, if I
can in any Respect, by writing to my Correspondents in Scotland.
I have been reading Whitby, which has engaged me pretty thoroughly in the
study o( the Arminian Controversy; and I have writ?*, considerably on it in
*" Edmund Quincy (Harvard, 1733), the uncle of Josiah Quincy, Jr.
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344 THE MANUSCRIPTS OF JONATHAN EDWARDS
my private Papers. I must mtreat you, if possible, to borrow for me Dr Steb-
bing, on the Spirit. I had rather pay something for the use of it, than not
have some considerable opportunity with it I have got so deep into this con-
troversy, that I am not willing to dismiss it, 'till I know the utmost of these
I have very lately received a Pacquet from Scotland, with several Copies of
■ memorial, for the continuing and propagating an Agreement for joint
Prayer, for the general Revival of Religion : three of which I here send you,
desiring you to dispose of two of 'em where they will be most serviceable.
For my Part, I heartily wish it was fallen in with by all Christians from the
rising to the setting sun. — I have returned you Mr Dickinsons Book, but must
pray you to let me have further opportunity with Dr Johnsons." If you
could enquire of Dr Johnson, or Mr Beach, or some other, & find out what is
the best Book on the Arrainian side, for the defence of their nolion of Free
will ; & whether there be any better & more full than Whitby, I should be
glad ; provided you have convenient opportunity. I don't know but I shall
publish something after a while on that subject.""
Dear sir, we have so many affairs to confer upon, that concern us both,
that I would propose you should come this way again in February or March.
You han't a great Family to tie you at Home, as I have. But if you can't
come I must desire you to write fully & largely on all the foregoing partic-
ulars of this Letter. Herein you will oblige, your cordial & affectionate
Friend & Brother,
Jonathan Edwabps.
Northampton Jan. 15, 1746, 7.
P. S. It now comes to my mind that I heard that Dr. Pynchon of Long-
meadow, has Turretine, and that he lately offered to change it away for other
Books; so that in all probability you may there have it at a moderate Price.
This letter shows, as do others, that Edwards took an active part
in administering the worldly concerns of his household, though
Hopkins in his "Life" gives Mrs. Edwards the credit of the charge
of such things. And I may express with emphasis my conviction, on
examining this mass of his papers, that Edwards himself was, with
all his genius, altogether practical and efficient in business affairs.
Hardly otherwise could he, after having portiraied off three married
daughters and .sent a son through college, have left at his death
what was for that time and place so really ample an estate as to be
appraised at £900.
Anecdotes are repeated of his absent-mindedness ; but there is in
the manuscripts no suggestion of anything of this nature, unless
it be his fashion of putting in large letters at the end of his sermons
""The reference is to "A Letter from ArJstocles to Aulhades," Boston, 1745,
anonymous, by the Rev. Samuel Johnson, of Stratford. Connecticut; and "A
Vindication of God's sovereign free Gract," Boston, 174(1, by the Rev. Jona-
than Dickinson, of Elizabeth. New Jersey.
•" The "Enquiry into the Freedom of the Will" did not ippear until 1754.
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THE MANUSCRIPTS OF JONATHAN EDWARDS 34$
minutes of church notices which he had to give, or official acts to
be performed.
Passing over other papers of minor importance, I mention last
what is in some respects the most interesting manuscript of the
collection, — a thin quarto memorandum book, labelled on both
covers in Edwards's hand simply "Catalogue." This is a book
which he kept at hand from the period of his tutorship at Yale
down to the last year of his life, and in which he jotted down from
time lo time various literary memoranda, mainly the titles of books
which he heard of, or desired or intended to read, and other items,
culled from his correspondence or from papers and magazines that
came in his way, which excited his literary interest. The record
is brief and fragmentary, and theological books naturally engross
most of his attention; but it is as near lo a literary autobiography
of Kdwards as we can get, and something in the nature of a revela-
tion of tlie lircadlh of his horizon in the country solitudes of North-
ampton and Ihe unbroken wilderness of Stockbridge.
Here, for instance, are a few of the entries on what appears as
the opening leaf of this record of iegcnda, — a fold of a letter
addressed to him while residing at Yale after graduation, that is,
between the ages of 17 and 23. The six earliest are the Bible,
Mr. Baxter's Life, Mr. Stoddard's Safety of Appearing, his manu-
scripts. The English Grammar, and Mr. Watts's Poems; and later
on the same leaf — to name only some of the more significant non-
theological items — there are The Guardian, Locke on Human
Understanding, Milton's Paradise Lost, Luther's Colloquies,
Quarles's Poems, Xewton's PrincipJa and Opticks, Scarburgh's
Euclid. Cowper's Anatomy, Plutarch's Lives, and Walter Raleigh's
History. In some of these cases the works were probably named
for re-reading, notably so with Locke, who was a favorite author.
The sco[ic of his special interests may be illustrated by a quota-
tion from these early pages, where he writes : —
"Books lo be enquired for. — The best Geography ; the best history of the
World : the best Exposition of the Apocalypse : the best General Ecclesias-
tical History from Xt. to the Present time; the best upon the types of the
Scripture; which are the most usefull & necessary of the Fathers; the best
Chronologj'i the best historical Dictionary, of the nature of Bayle's Diction-
ary: the best that speaks of (he Ecclesiastical learning of the Jews; the best
History of Lives of Philosophers."
In regard to the introductory pages of this "Catalogue," it should
l>e added that many of the titles noted are familiar, as those of
books which he was able to find in the Yale Library in 1720 to 1726,
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246 THE MANUSCRIPTS OF JONATHAN EDWARDS
from certain special large additions recently received there through
Jeremy Dummer and Governor Yale.
A close study of these pages may help to fix the dates when
Edwards became acquainted with various writings which influenced
his own; but this is a slow and somewhat laborious task. The
mooted question of his anticipation of Berkeley's idealism has this
light thrown upon it, that Berkeley's "Principles of Human
Knowledge" and "New Theory of Vision," published respectively
in 1710 and 1709, are entered on the fifth page of this list, which
must mean not earlier than 1730; and it is hardly possible that
they were then entered if previously read.
As the entries already quoted show, he is attracted by all current
good literature, both in prose and poetry. We find here, for exam-
ple, Pope's Homer and Miscellaneous Works, Prior's Poems,
Quarles's Emblems, The Spectator, Addison's Works, Young's Night
Thoughts, F^nelon's Telemachus, Richardson's Clarissa and Pamela,
and Fielding's Amelia. The closing entries on the hst, as if to
show that he was not merely a theologian, relate to an Abridgment
of Johnson's Dictionary, and a new work on the Elements of
Geometry.
I pause here in this rapid review of the calendar of the Edwards
manuscripts, with the obvious remark that they supply the material
for a new and more detailed study of the successive phases of his
mental development.
It should also be added that, besides this collection and the manu-
scripts which I have referred to as formerly belonging to the
Rev. Dr. Dwight, no other considerable collection exists. At
Princeton, where the fame of Edwards is reverently cherished, a
portion of his hbrary has been acquired ; but, apart from this, the
only specimen of his handwriting there preserved is the letter of
dismission for his daughter, Mrs. Burr, from the church in
Stockbridge; and the single letters and other documents which are
scattered elsewhere are valued in proportion to their rarity.
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YALE COLLKGE IN SAYBROOK.
(From the Papers of the New Haven Colony Historical Society, volume
V'H. Read al a commemoration in Saybrook, November ii, 1901, and again
in New Haven in January, 1902.]
We are met to commemorate the establishment in Saybrook, on
the nth of November, 1701, of the Collegiate School of Con-
necticut, which the intervening centuries have transformed into Yale
University. And if the change is great in the University, how
greatly also is Saybrook changed with these two hundred years!
The statement is commonplace, but I emphasize it, since it happened
that the summons to this commemoration found me in one of those
charming cathedral cities of Southern England, in the precincts of
which "a thousand years are but as yesterday when it is past," while
the lapse of these latest centuries has left hardly a perceptible trace.
With us how far different! and as we pause to recall a passage in
the older history of Saybrook, we have almost no help from exist-
ing monuments or local traditions in reconstructing the picture of
those years. It is beyond my powers to describe the Saybrook of
1701 or to repeople the streets of the Point with the life which
centered there in that generation. I can only rehearse a twice-told
tale of the events which brought the College to Saybrook, and the
vicissitudes which marked its passage to a more permanent home.
The beginnings of New England included also the beginnings of
the higher education; and Connecticut has the credit of furnishing
nearly sixty names to the list of students in Harvard College before
1701, But the long and hard journey to Cambridge, the expensive-
ness of the course and the need of economy, the demands of local
pride, and the influence — conscious or unconscious — of a plan for a
College in New Haven urged sixty years before by the leader of
that settlement. — these with other like reasons prevailed at length
to bring about in 1701 a combined movement on the part of a
few influential men in the Colony, which resulted towards the end
of that summer in the informal organization of a Board of clerical
Trustees, who agreed at Branford, as the tradition runs, "to give
books for the founding of a College."
At that moment the political sky was stormy. Enemies were
active at the English court against the colonial governments, and
the last advices from London had been that the Connecticut charter
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948 YALE COLLEGE IN SAYBROOK
was in immediate danger of forfeiture by Parliament. With this
prospect it was a bold act for the General Assembly, with their own
chartered authority imperilled, to stretch their power, as they did,
by granting to these founders, with their nucleus of books, a
charter for a new institution, the real design of which they
endeavored to disguise under the title of a "Collegiate School."
This charter left to the Trustees full power to direct and manage
the School which they had founded; and it behoves us to ask who
were likely to be the leading spirits among them.
The eldest of the group was James Noyes, of Stonington, in his
62d year, and the youngest Joseph Webb, of Fairfield, who was only
35. To Mr. Noyes special deference was given by reason of his
age; but the men of most influence in these formative years were
Abraham Pierson, of Killingworth, now Clinton, James Pierpont, of
New Haven, and Samuel Andrew, of Milford; and of these
Pierpont was beyond a question foremost. He was now in his 426
year, of gentle birth and eminent intellectual gifts, while his portrait
— the only one that remains of any of the group — shows a strikingly
refined and spiritual presence.
The history of Yale College, like that of many another society,
has been largely a personal one, dominated that is to say by a
succession of individuals in the governing body, who have
determined by the strength of their character the channels into
which the life of the College has been directed. And the first in
this line of controlling forces was James Pierpont, from 1701 to his
death in 1714. After him no one at once succeeded to his full
influence; but if I read aright the records of the next quarter-
century, during most of that time the leading figure among the
Trustees was the Rev. John Davenport, of Stamford. After his
death, the College came in 1739 under the strong sway of Rector
Clap, who recast it in a material sense — like the great Roman
Emperor, he found it of wood and left it of brick — and who as the
chief among many great services created the office of the Presi-
dency, and thus opened the way for the legitimate primacy of
Stiles and Dwight and their successors.
We see, then, in October, 1701, the future of the Collegiate School
committed to a Board of ten Connecticut pastors averaging in
age a little under fifty years, among whom the next to the youngest,
James Pierpont, had been hitherto the prime mover. Seven of
them resided along the coast, from Fairfield to Stonington, and
three on the banks of the Connecticut, at Middletown, Hartford,
and Windsor, — though Samuel Mather, the Windsor minister, was
at no time an active member of the Board,
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YALE COLLEGE IN SAYBROOK >49
In the three or four weeks which elapsed between the grant of
the charter and the first Trustee meeting, the question of a site
for the School was of chief interest. The location of the more
active Trustees would obviously lead them to favor a place on the
coast, and if that place were also easy of access from the river,
a workable compromise might be reached. The only bit of
remaining evidence of these discussions is a letter from one of the
Trustees which argues for New Haven.
An estimate of the number of students likely to come from the
various sections of the Colony might have been deduced from the
actual numbers of Harvard graduates from these sections down to
i/Oi : in fact, over one-half of these had come from New Haven
and Fairfield Counties, and only one-third from Hartford County.
With this showing, it was hardly to be expected that Hartford,
though the richest and most ancient settlement, could secure the
honor of receiving the College; but Saybrook recommended herself,
alike with regard to the old local jealousies between the Con-
necticut and New Haven Colonies and the probable lines of future
develojiment. Additional prominence came from her central posi-
tion as a post-town on all three of the routes between New York and
Boston, and from her historic fort, kept in constant efficiency for
defence.
One weighty adviser in the early conferences respecting the
College has not yet been noticed, the Rev. Thomas Buckingham, now
about 55 years of age, who had been for upwards of thirty years
the ordained minister of Saybrook. Reared in Milford in the old
New Haven Colony, but early left an orphan, he had failed to get to
College, and entered promptly on pastoral work. There is evidence
that he was one of the inner circle of intimate friends, with Pierpont
and I'ierson and Andrew and Noyes and Israel Chauncy, who had
promoted the College scheme and were now the most active of the
Trustee-^. And so it was not strange that the first meeting under the
charter was appointed at his house on Tuesday, the nth of Novem-
ber, 1701.
Uhal was done at that four-days' meeting is perhaps best told
in a letter from Mr. Buckingham to the Governor of Connecticut,
l"iiz-|()hn W inthrop, son of the founder of Saybrook, as follows: —
Saybrook, 15.10"". (=Dec,], 1701,
Honorable Sjk ;
Considering the countenance it hath pleased your honor to afford unto the
desicne of foiindinp a Collegiate Schoole within ihis Government, I have
thought it no Ic^se than my duty to informe your honor what proceedings
have heen made in that affaire since the Court.
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35° YALE COLLEGE IN SAVBROOK
Seven of the Trustees mentioned by the honorable assembly had a meeting
at this towne 12. No*)^. last and a very comfortable, unanimous meeting was
had, very well agreeing upon the person, who under the name of Rector
might preside in and take the charge of s^. school (viz.) the Rev™^. Mr.
Pierson. Wee also had no great difKcultie about the place (viz.) Say-Brook
(in case no considerations come in to alter our thoughts), that appearing to be
the place for the best accommodation of the Colonie in general!, and adjacent
places ; whereupon M''. Nathaniel Lynde by subscription engaged a legall
deed of his house in the Town plot with eight or ten acres of land adjacent,
and three or four other persons subscribed to the value of fifty pounds in
money, provided the s''. Schoole bee at Say-Brook.
A letter from the Trustees was left with mee to the people at Killingworth,
and I have been there and offered it to them. 1 the last weeke received
their answer, the summe of which is that they do not see it their duty to
consent unto the parting with WP. Pierson. I doubt if they should persist in
that answer it might bee an occasion to worke some hindrance to and possibly
some confusion about that so good and greate a worke: yet our God whom
we desire to serve is able to make darkness to bee light before us and unto
him wee desire to looke.
The reference to the Governor's interest in the enterprise is con-
firmed by another letter of Mr. Buckingham's, written ten weeks
later to the Governor's pastor, Gurdon Saltonstall, on hearing of
Governor Winthrop's dangerous illness, as follows :> —
"In a letter from the westward [was it from Mr. Pierpont?], I find these
sayings which I thinke best to transcribe to yo'.selfe verbatim.
"After hearty Condolence to y*. Governors sorrows, and prayers y'. he may
bee spared in y*. o^. criticall hour ; however y*. he and wee may be prepared
for the divine good pleasure. These may serve to suggest whether it would
not be best to jogge M'. Noyes and Saltonstall to propose to the Govemo*.
that hee would testifie his regard to the Collegiate Schoole. Hee has under
God given it breath, and a tender beginning, his benevolence would doubt-
lesse no'ishe it to farther strength, bee an honorable good worke, and doubt-
lesse acceptable unto God. Its pity hee should forget it, or it loose his
kindnesse, for want of a word."
The seed thus sown produced its fruit, in Winthrop's will, dated
.seventeen days later, which bequeathed iioo to the Collegiate School,
"provided the s'* School be setled and upheld and while it shall be so
upheld, in the town of Saybrook." But the testator recovered from
this illness, and not dying until 1707, by that time a distrust of the
School's continuance in Saybrook seems to have operated to prevent
the payment of the bequest.
To return to the meeting of November, 1701. The matters of
most interest are, the selection of a Rector, the location of the School
at Saybrook, and the timely gift for its use of a house, so long as
the School should remain there. The exact language of the vote
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YALE COLLEGE IN SAYBROOK I5I
for location was: — "Upon mature consideration, that so all parts of
Connecticut and neighbours adjacent may be best accommodated,
we agree & conclude y' unless further considerations than those now
before us do offer themselves, we purpose to erect and form a
Collegiate School in the Town of Saybrook."
The reference to neighbours who may be accommodated, con-
cerned mainly, I suppose. Long Island and the Massachusetts towns
in the Connecticut valley though possibly Rhode Island may also
have been thought of.
The house in Saybrook which was offered to the Trustees was
on the spot on Saybrook Point now marked by a granite boulder
for lasting remembrance; and the donor, Mr. Nathaniel Lynde,
was a wealthy and hberal resident, who was also at this meeting
elected the first Treasurer of the School, though it is uncertain
whether he actually entered on that service.
The Rector put in charge of the expected students was the
minister of KiJlingworth, the next town to the west. It is known
that this choice of Mr. Pierson was in the minds of the leaders from
the first, and this was another argument for deciding on Saybrook —
the only site in view which could have ensured the retention of the
rectorship by the one man who was wanted for the post.
We have, then, the Collegiate School erected in Saybrook in
November, 1701 ; but before pursuing the story of its fortunes, let
us ask what sort of a world it was in which the new-born College
found a place.
The charter of organization was granted by the Governor and
Company of His Majesty's Colony of Connecticut — His Majesty
being King William the Third, now in the closing months of his
reign. To realize the distance of that time from ours, one need
only glance at the sole English newspaper which was issued dur-
ing that meeting at Saybrook, the semi-weekly London Gazette,
America is not so much as named in the number for November 13,
which is chiefly concerned with the Proclamation dissolving one
Parliament and calling another and the stream of loyal addresses
on occasion of the French King's ungracious backing of the Pre-
tender's title to the claims of James II, who had just died in exile.
In English arms and statesmanship it was the age of the great
Duke of Marlborough; in letters, the age of Defoe and Swift, of
Steele and .Xddison, of Bentley and Evelyn, of Congreve and
Cibber ; in science, of Newton ; in philosophy, of Locke ; in religion,
of Burnet and South ; but these great names were practically as
far away from the life and experience of the Connecticut Colony
in her scattered and obscure villages, as they are from the life and
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351 YALE COLLEGE IN SAYBKOOK
experience of to-day. Though the colonial government was in
theory dependent on the English crown, in fact the people enjoyed
high privileges, notably that of electing thrir own Governor and
inferior officers; but these blessings were held with constant risk
of loss, more by reason of rash legislation in the sister Province
of Massachusetts Bay than from Connecticut's own imprudence.
Happily the present danger was averted, and the undisturbed con-
fidence of the community justified by the event.
Of the details of life and activity in Saybrook, I have no right
to speak : it is enough that the same simple surroundings, there as
elsewhere in the Colony, developed a sturdy, self-reliant stock, not
easily overawed by dignities.
The erection of the College at Saybrook was as yet, however,
merely nominal. The Trustees held thdr second meeting at New
Haven in April, 1702, when Mr, Pierson, who had already one or
two students, announced his readiness to accept the rectorship, but
declined to promise a removal to Saybrook. It was voted at the
same meeting that the School should not be permanently settled
further eastwards than Saybrook nor further westwards than New
Haven ; and a commentary on this vote is found in a letter written
soon after by Mr. Buckingham to Major James Fitch of Plainfield,
who had offered to the Trustees a tract of land described in the
accompanying deed as a gift to "the Collegiate School in Saybrook."
His interest in the School was increased perhaps by the fact that
he was himself a Saybrook boy, the child of the first Saybrook
minister ; but Mr. Buckingham wishes to request that the deed may
run instead "to the Collegiate School in Connecticut," adding, "A
strong designe hath risen up to carry it farther westward: it is not
yet fixed : whether the continuing it in an hovering posture be to
advantage, time will discover."
Five months later, on September 16, 1702, at Mr. Buckingham's
house, which faced the College house, the Green lying between
them, the first Commencement was celebrated privately, when one
candidate, who had finished his studies with the Rectw, was
admitted to the degree of Master of Arts, and four Harvard
Bachelors were also advanced to the grade of Master. In contrast
with modem standards the bill of £3.4, which the Treasurer paid
for the expenses of the occasion, seems modest enough.
The second College year began with this date, and during its
course some eight students were under the care of the Rector,
aided by a Tutor, — the Senior Oass of one being Jcrfin Hart, o£
Farmington, afterwards pastor in East Guilford, and the father of
a more distinguished Saybrook pastor, whose descendants are with
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YALE COLLEGE IN SAYBBOOK >5}
US to this day. For the next three or four years the School con-
tinued on the same plan, — the students being taught in Killingworth,
and Commencements held at the meeting house on Saybrook Point.
Very likely the Trustees could not afford to pay what was needed
to compensate Killingworth for the loss of a pastor, and so they
allowed the existing arrangement to go on ; but it pleased no one,
least of all the Rector's parishioners, who were just threatening final
measures to rid their village of the School, when the Rector died
suddenly, in March, 1707.
As soon as possible a pro-tempore Rector was named — the Rev.
Samuel Andrew, of Milford — and the Senior Oass of that year
migrated to his house, while the rest of the scholars settled in Say-
brook under a Tutor, Soon after that the whole School was brought
together in Saybrook and a second Tutor employed, while Mr.
Andrew served thenceforth merely as a referee in difficult cases and
as presidinf; officer at the Commencements. And in recognition of
this stej), which marks the full establishment of the School in Say-
brook, Mr, Lynde at length, in 1708, executed the deed of the house
which he had offered seven years before to the Trustees who now
for the first time took formal possession of the premises.
Henceforth the students increased in number — up to or just over
twenty-five, — and the graduating class twice swelled to a total of
nine, the average being less than half that figure, and the age of
graduation just beyond nineteen years.
Of the sixty young men who received degrees at Saybrook, nearly
one-half filled Connecticut pastorates. The most eminent of the
group in their after careers were Jared Eliot, Rector Pierson's
successor in the Killingworth pulpit, unrivaled amongst his genera-
tion as an investigator in physical science, Jonathan Dickinson, first
President of Princeton College, and Samuel Johnson, first President
of Columbia College and the father of Connecticut episcopacy.
If we ask what the classes at Saybrook studied, a general answer
only can be furnished. On admission they were examined in Greek
and Latin grammar, in the translation of easy passages in both
tongues, and in Latin Composition. The first two years of the course
were given mainly to the three learned languages, the Scriptures
being the text-book for Hebrew and Greek, and a stiff course in
Logic being added in Sophomore year, which was taught either by
oral dictation or by a Latin tcxt-bocJc. The third or Junior year
was devoted mainly to Physics, which was studied from a manu-
script Latin treatise by Rector Pierson ; while the Seniors were
engrossed with Metaphysics and Mathematics. Besides these sub-
jects, Rhetoric and Theology were assigned to fixed hours weekly
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354 YALE COLLEGE IN SAYBROOK
through the whole four years. Proficiency in colloquial Latin was
thought to be secured by requiring all the undergraduates to use
that tongue in their intercourse with one another, outside the class-
rooms.
The day began with public prayers at six o'clock — or at sunrise
when that was after six, — and the rest of the forenoon, except the
half-hour for breakfast, was given to study and recitations. After
the noon dinner came an hour and a half for recreation. The day's
work ended at evening prayers, except for any who chose to study
between nine o'clock, when all must be in th«r own rooms, and
eleven, when lights must be out.
Regularity in College duties and respect for the rights of the
outside community were secured by a system of penalties, in which
pecuniary fines held a large place. And there were some compensat-
ing privileges, as in 1703, at the beginning of a tedious French and
Indian war, when the General Assembly passed a special Act exempt-
ing students from military service.
In the later part of the life of the School at Saybrook, important
changes occurred in the Board of Trustees. By 1714 one-half the
original body, including such conspicuous members as Chauncy,
Buckingham, Pierson, and Pierpont, had died ; and their places had
been filled with successors whose choice was natural from their
prominence in the Colony, but whose local affiliations strengthened
on the whole the dormant claims of New Haven to the final posses-
sion of the School.
In 1714 one notable event happened: the Trustees received from
England over 700 volumes at once, to be added to their slender
library, and the immediate result of such riches was an absolute
necessity for a larger building. The Assembly was approached for
aid, and ^500 was at length granted, to be paid from the sale of
lands transferred from Massachusetts to Connecticut in compensa-
tion for encroachments on her boundary.
In April, 1716, when this payment became due, the question of
remaining at Saybrook came up in a new form. A crisis had
arrived. The School had a non-resident Rector, two Tutors, who
happened to be young, inexperienced, and unpopular, and about
twenty-five scholars, some of whom were unable to find lodgings
within a reasonable distance. Perhaps the choice of Saybrook had
not fully justified itself by the measure of prosperity attained in
the past fifteen years. For instance, three students only had cCMne
in all these years from Western Massachusetts, four from Long
Island, and none from Rhode Island— not a hopeful response to
the argument advanced when Saybrook was chosen, that so adjacent
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YALE COLLEGE IN SAYBXOOK 355
neighbors might be best accommodated. And the Trustees were
divided among themselves. Some of tliose desirous of removal had
so far fomented the dissatisfaction with the tutors, that the Board
were compelled at this meeting to sanction a general dispersal of
the scholars into small groups, studying for their degrees wherever
they could find fit teachers.
in May, two influential Trustees who lived in Hartford took the
extraordinary step of joining with other gentlemen in asking a
hearing from the Assembly in behalf of a removal of the School
to that town. This attempt to ignore the chartered rights of the
Trustees was happily unsuccessful, the chief result being to arouse
a more violent opposition to the movers.
A graduating class of three met for the annual Commencement
at Saybrook in September, 1716, the last College functitm to be
held there, .^t a Trustee meeting in New Haven the next month,
the decisive vote to remove to that town was carried, the "hovering
posture" which Mr. Buckingham had deprecated fourteen years
before was at an end, and Saybrook knew its student population
no longer.
Much ingenuity has been wasted in the manufacture of reasons
of New Haven's securing the College, but the problem is really a
simple one. The deciding factors were the Trustees and the various
towns which invited the College. But the affiliations of the major-
ity of the Trustees were now naturally with the coast towns to the
westwards; and while other offers of land and money were made,
the most generous offer of all was from the citizens of New Haven.
In the grand list of taxable estates for 1716, New Haven stood
at the head of the roil. She had just secured a new parish minister,
Joseph \oyes, of Stonington, and by this means the valuatile support
of his father and uncle, the two senior Trustees, had been more or
less openly diverted to her side. The Governor and the Lieutenant
Governor were also commonly identified with the New Haven
party, — Go\ernor Saitonstali through his landed interests on the
shores of l-ake Saitonstali, and Lieutenant Governor Treat through
his lifelong residence in Milford. It should, however, be said that
the Governor, in a letter still extant, emphasizes strongly his careful
abstention from any attempt to influence the Trustees.
The Hartford members of the Board made a long and gallant
fight against the majority, but in vain. Charges of bad faith
lowartis Saybrook were easily brought, but in view of the temporary
nature of the first settlement there, they failed of support. As far
as patronage went the vicinity of Hartford and the western coast had
resjicctively sent about the same number of students during the
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t$6 YALE COLLEGE IN SAYBROOK
Saybrook period ; but at the time of this discussion, of the living
Saybrook graduates nearly twice as many were resident in the
New Haven region as in the neighborhood of Hartford, and this
result exerted its natural influence.
Mr, Mather, Mr. Buckingham's young successor in the Saybrook
ministry, was not his equal in reputation or in influence, and was
never made a Trustee of the College. The bond of connection
between the graduates and Saybrook was too slender to induce any
active demon stratiwi on their part; their loyalty was apparently
transferred to New Haven without a murmur.
I have endeavored thus to tell without reserve or embellishment
the plain story of the Collegiate School which found at Saybrook a
friendly shelter in the days of its feebleness. It was a period in
our annals not marked by specially picturesque incidents and not
dominated by specially heroic or striking figures. A "manifest
destiny," against which institutions no more than nations or
individuals can struggle, carried the School away ; but the memorial
stone now erected on Saybrook Point will mark for posterity the spot
where a great University was nurtured, where the stream of its
influence, which has in the progress of the centuries embraced the
whole earth, began its course.
We gladly pay a tribute of honor to the fair town of our origin;
while we have also to confess that Saybrook knew us only in an
undeveloped, experimental stage. Our story is not unlike that
of Kipling's "Ship that found herself." Our pre-natal history
goes back to the plan of a College which was part of the civil order
devised by that sagacious leader, John Davenport, of New Haven.
But while the region comprehended under the original Colony of
Connecticut had two centres — one in and about Hartford, and one
in Saybrook — in neither of these was the College idea a component
part as it was in the New Haven Jurisdiction. And so it came
to pass that, although the College was launched in Saybrook, and
there began her trial voyage, it was only after a doubtful period
of stress and storm that she settled compactly and steadily to her
work in the world ; after half a generation of halting and hovering
posture she "found herself," and thereby in consistency with the
traditions of her origin brought the fame and glory of her ripened
career to New Haven instead of to Saybrook.
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AUHAHAM BISHOP OF CONNKOTIOUT,
AND Ills WRITINGS.
[From the Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, March
1905]
Abraham Bishop died in 1844, — not recently enough to be held in
general remembrance, and not so long since as to have become, if he
e\'er will, a really historic character. In these circumstances I have
not endeavored to gather any personal reminiscences, and shall con-
fine myself mainly to tracing his story by means of what he put in
print about himself.
He was the eldest son of Deacon Samuel Bishop, a respected
citizen of New Haven, who was much employed in public office, as
Deputy in the General Assembly, Town Clerk, Mayor and Judge of
the County and Probate courts. The son was so precocious as to
begin his college course in Yale at the age of eleven years and nine
months, in the class of 1778, the most brilliant class of that genera-
tion, with such comrades as Joel Barlow, Noah Webster, Oliver
Wolcott, Jr., Zephaniah Swift, and Uriah Tracy.
Graduating at fifteen and a half, he could afford to proceed
leisurely, and did not take his examination for the bar until April,
17S5, at the age of twenty-two.
Early in 1787 he started on an extended European tour, then a
rare experience for a New Haven youth, from which he returned
twenty months later, as President Stiles wrote in his Diary, "full of
Impro\ement and Vanity," This tour, mainly performed on foot,
is best remembered by allusions to it in "The Echo," a collection of
poetical squibs by the Hartford wits, which ridicules his alleged gift
of the shoes which had carried him over his journey, to the Museum
of Vale College, and describes their subsequent fate, in being tossed
out of window by an un appreciative tutor. What basis of truth
there was in the tale, I do not attempt to decide.
One thing more should be said of this foreign trip, that the lime
spent in France seems to have left a permanent mark on Mr.
Bishop '.* character, in the unsettlement of his inherited religious
views and the development of a passion for democracy.
We learn from Dr. Stiles's Diary that the traveller launched out
at once on his return as a public orator, on a stage of his own pro-
viding. He writes, for example, on December 25, 1788: "Mr.
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25^ ABRAHAM BISHOP AND HIS WRITINGS
Bishop began his Lecture on Moral Philosophy in his Theatre or
Play House," — that being a house just built by his father, who had
been persuaded to alter it to suit the son's purpose. And again,
three weeks later: "In the Evening I attended Mr. Bishop's political
Lecture against the new Constitution, as I did Mr. [William] Hill-
house's Defence of the Constitution last Monday." It was certainly
in keeping with his later career, that the first report of him as a
political speaker should be in the character of an opponent of what
we know as the Federal Constitution.
In the following year another characteristic performance was his
posing as an innovator in educational theory. He had evolved an
elaborate plan for a graded school system, embracing the public and
private schools of the city, and the Hopkins Grammar School, an old
endowed foundation preparatory to college, as well. His plan was
straightway approved and adopted by a large representative meeting
of citizens, and he was himself named Director of the associated
institutions, and head of the Academy into which the Grammar
School was to be transformed; but beyond a public oration by the
Director, and five or six explanatory articles in the newspapers from
the same hand, the scheme seems to have had no results, and socwi
drops out of sight. With its collapse his employment in the Gram-
mar School also ended, and we next hear of him in Boston, where
he spent most of the year 1791. Of his occupations while here I
can only say certainly that he was a frequent contributor to some of
the local papers on political and philosophical subjects; probably
also he gave, or at least offered to give, instruction in oratory and
other branches.
And here, in October, 1791, his first known pamphlet was printed
by Isaiah Thomas. This was: "The Triumph of Truth. — History
and Visions of Clio- By J(An Paul Martin, A. M., M. S. P." The
origin and meaning of this pseudonym are not clear; but I note that
several articles contributed by our author in the same year to the
"Boston Argus" are signed with the same name or with its initials.
The piece is a sort of rhapsody, professedly in support of Christi-
anity, and pretending to describe the spiritual progress of a friend
named Clio, A prefatory note States that parts of it "will be deliv-
ered by the author, as an exercise of sacred Oratory," with intervals
for the introduction of music; and suitable hymns by Watts are
noted in the text. I cannot make out whether the whole thing was
a hidden attempt at burlesque or a pious affectation.
Another result of his Boston residence was his marriage in New-
buryport, in March, 1792, at the age of twenty-nine, by the Rev.
Dr. Bass, to Nancy, only daughter of the very rich and very eccen-
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ABRAHAM BISHOP AND HIS WRITINGS 159
trie "Lord" Timothy Dexter, a young schod-girl in her sixteenth
year.
Then his wanderings ended, and he returned to New Haven, to
make his home in the old family residence on the corner of Elm
and State streets for the rest of his hfe.
He had no legal practice of any moment, but held for a time the
appointment of County Surveyor, and in 1795 became clerk of the
County Court, as also of the Probate Court in the following year.
To these offices he added, when the Superior Court of New Haven
County was established, in 1798, the clerkship of that court also;
hut lost these employments after two or three years.
At his father's death, in 1803, he succeeded him as Collector of the
I'ort of New Haven, and this office he retained tuitil President Jack-
son's accession in 1829. In the preceding campaign he had opposed
Jackson, having by this time adopted protectionist views, and accord-
ingly he failed to secure a reappointment. He was then sixty-six
years of age, a dozen years younger than his father had been when
selected for the same post ; but he accepted his fate, and spent the
remaining fifteen years of his life in retirement.
His marriage was unhappy, and after the birth of a daughter he
secured a divorce from his wife, who returned to Newburyport
She outlived her husband, an object of constant care from mental
and physical infirmity. He was subsequently twice married, and
at his death, in April, 1844, was survived by three daughters and by
his third wife, who did not die until 1863.
Of his active interests, outside of his facial engagements, during
the first years after his final return to New Haven, I find no trace
except in a pam^^let, in two parts, which he printed at Hartford, in
1797-98. with the title "Georgia Speculation Unveiled." He was
probably one of the many Northern victims of the speculative land
companies to which a corrupt Georgia Legislature had pretended to
sell its fictitious rights to the Indian land on its western borders ; and
this essay discusses, with considerable parade of legal technical-
ities, the objectionable features of what was really a fraudulent
transaction.
Mr. Bishop's ability as a ready writer and speaker was now recog-
nized, and this led naturally enough to his app<Hntment in 1800 at
orator of the Phi Beta Kappa Society in the college at their annual
public meeting, which was regularly held in the Centre Church on
the evening before Commencement.
In that year and the years just after, party spirit in New Havea
ran as high as it has ever run in her history; and not only was
Abraham Bishop any man's equal in ardent putisanship, but to him
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z6o ABRAHAM BISHOP AND HIS WRITINGS
belongs the distinction of outstripping all his contemporaries through
the help of this occasion and his mode of using it.
He was of course an Anti-Federalist or Republican; and here, if
he dared seize it, was a chance of capturing a crowded audience,
mainly of the opposite political faith. To be sure it was unpre-
cedented to treat of practical politics on these occasions ; but he went
^ead, and printed in advance his oration "On the Extent and Power
of Political Delusion," which was neither more nor less than a cam-
paign speech. He sent a copy, on the day but one before the date
of the meeting, to the committee of the Society, and there was just
time for them to insert in the newspaper of the following day an
indignant repudiation of the orator and all his works by the cancel-
ing of his appointment. But he was not caught napping, and the
same paper contained a notice from Mr. Bishop that his oration
would be independently delivered, in the meeting-house of the White
Haven Society (in which his father was a deacon), and that it would
be on sale immediately.
The extraordinary oration, thus effectively advertised, is in a
totally different vein from the author's previous pamphlets. The
style is characterized by great apparent frankness, verging on impu-
dence, by great facility in the use of Scripture phrases, and by the
strongest partisan flavor. The main thesis, as announced in the
preface, is that a monarchy is impending in this country, with some
oflicial like Hamilton at its head ; and the points of special repro-
bation are the relations of the government to banking, trade, and
military and naval expansion. Perhaps, in view of the author's
later career as commercial agent of the government at the port of
New Haven for over a quarter of a century, as striking a point as
any is his fixed opposition at this time to all extension or fostering
of commerce. I may not stop to analyze the argimient, but I quote
the opening and closing paragraphs as samples of the style. The
orator begins :
"On the eve of a day set apart for a literary feast of fat things, I have
adjudged that a plain dish would be most acceptable. Indeed, had it been
assigned to me to speak to you of Greece and Borne, of the inexhaustible
treasures of Hebrew, Greek and Arabic, or to have discussed the height and
diameter of the antediluvians, or to have explained the cause why a black
man is not a white man, or why an elm tree does not bear apricots ; you
must have sat here in silence, and the spirit would never have moved me to
address you. Avoiding literary discussion. I have selected as the theme of
extent and power of political delusion."
And he closes thus : —
"If in any of you present, delusion has wrought its perfect work, if yon
have bowed the knee to the political Baal, it you are slavishly devoted to the
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ABRAHAM BISHOP AND HIS WRITINGS 261
self-stiUd friends of order and good government, then bid an eternal adieu
to the freedom which you never merited ; prepare your necks for the
yoke, hail Issachar as your venerated ancestor, say to delusion, 'thou art
our father,' and to funding system, federal city, foreign intercourse, army,
navy, 'ye are our brethren and sisters.""
The flame of indignation at this performance, in a community
overwhelmingly Federal, was fanned by two published replies, —
one, issued within a week; anonymous in form, but by clear internal
evidence the work of Mr. Bishop's classmate, Noah Webster, then
living in N'ew Haven, which bore the stinging title, "A Rod for the
Fool's Back," and the other also anonymous, published at Hartford
a month later.
The strategical boldness of this incident added to Bishop's pop-
ularity and prominence in the councils of his party, and led to his
appointment as orator at a mammoth Republican festival held in
Wallingford, in New Haven County, in March, 1801, to celebrate
the election of Jefferson and Burr, who had been inaugurated the
week before. The occasion was a notable one, and the orator's
iiiiitriliution was ambitious and telling. It began with a suggested
comparison, almost blasphemous to many who would read it, between
"the illustrious chief who, once insulted, now presides over the
Union," and the Saviour of the world, "who, once insulted, now
presides over the universe" ; and then proceeded to develop, at great
length and with many distinct persona] allusions, the proposition
"that the character of the self-stiled friends of order and good
government, at the beginning of the Chri.stian aera, in the successive
ages since, and at the present moment, is precisely the same com-
bination of error, self-love, deceit, hostility to the true interests ol
man, persecution and cruelty."
Tlie style, and to some extent the arguments, are the same as in
the author's New Haven oration, and the local situation in Con-
necticut is held up to the strongest reprobation. This was in fact
almost the opening gun in the long campaign which ended in the
adoi>tion of the State Constitution of 1818.
When it was printed, an appendix of half a dozen pages was
added, giving a racy account, from the author's point of view, of
the Phi Beta Kappa affair in all its details. Raciest perhaps of all
its hits was that addressed to Noah Webster, who was fond of giving
advice, and is here advised in turn "to persecute to conviction and
sentence of death, the man or men who ever told him that he had
talents as a writer."
This pamphlet was quite of a sort to recommend Mr. Bishop to
the President's approval, and no wonder that the Federalists sur-
mised some connection between the oration published in May, 1801,
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36l ABRAHAM BISHOP AND HIS WRITINGS
and the appointment by Jefferson in June of Deacon Samuel Bishop,
then almost an octogenarian, as Collector of the Port It was of
course charged that the nomination of the highly respectable father
was a blind to cover what was practically a reward for the highly
obnoxious son; and it was thoroughly characteristic of Abraham
Bishop that he himself presently took a hand in the controversy.
After the New Haven remonstrants against the appointment had
memorialized the President, and the President had replied to them,
the new Collector's son published over his own name, in a short-
lived New Haven newspaper called "The Sun of Liberty," a slashing
criticism of his opponents, which is even now vastly amusing
reading. The opening sentences are as follows: —
"When the islanders of Melita saw the venonious beast fasten upon the
hand of Paul, they considered it a gone case with him ; but Paul shook the
beast from his hand and felt no harm. From this we learn that the Melita
salamanders were very harmless, for with all their disposition to destroy
they had not the power. I have no intention of comparing myself with
Paul, but my direct object will be to show that a number of the New Haven
remonstrants are a miserable set of Salamanders,"
In 1802 Mr. Bishop appeared as an author in a more pretentious
manner by the publication of an octavo volume of 166 pages, entitled
"Proofs of a Conspiracy against Christianity, and the Government
of the United States; exhibited in several views of the union of
Church and State in New-England." The title was of course par-
odied from that of a foolish book issued five years before by Pro-
fessor Robison, of Edinburgh, which had been widely read on both
sides of the Atlantic, "Proofs of a Consfuracy against all the
Religions and Governments of Europe, carried on in the secret
Meetings of Free-masons, Illuminati, etc."
To those who know Connecticut history it is evident that our
author's book, dealing with the union of Church and State, was
really an argument for a revision of the State Constitution. I
quote a few sentences from the Preface, to show the siMrit of the
whole : —
"Living in the midst of men whom my subject contemplates, it has
occurred to me that their steady habits and good professions have brought
them sufficient profits, and that our pious ancestors have been bought and
sold often enough; therefore that some man, who has paid his proportion
for these habits, should take it in charge to put an end to the trafRc. and
to place the dealers in a way of laying in a new stock of their own
manufacture.
"This subject is like a new country; he who first enters into it must
encounter some briers and some serpents ; but a succession of laborers, work-
ing with their axes at the roots, will open a way through the wilderness,
and hereafter the solitary place will be glad for them, and the desert will
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ABRAHAM BISHOP AND HIS WRITINGS 36}
In this, as in his former pieces, but with even a more unrestrained
ton^e, the author indulges in the frankest and most pungent dis-
section of, and attacks upon, his contemporaries and neighbors, and
in shrewd cxjwsure of the weak points in the Federal armor. He
was more in his element as a pamphleteer; but his book remains as
a part of the effective warfare of a long campaign.
After this, Mr. Bishop but once more a|>peared in a printed
l>an)phlet wilh his own name. This was in 1804, and the perform-
ance was another "Oration" profe.ssedly in honor of Jefferson and
the acquisition of Louisiana, delivered at a Republican festival in
Hartford ; but the main strength of the orator was given, as before,
to a scathing arraignment of the abuses of Connecticut government
under the old alliance of Church and State. Here, for the first time,
the discovery was announced that Connecticut was without a con-
stitution, and a ccmstitutional convention was, for the first time,
prominently advocated. I quote a single paragraph, which suggests
the trend of the main argument: —
"Repuhlicatis, what our eyes have seen, what our ears have heard, and
what we have personally experienced, will be better impressed on our mem-
ories than what our fathers have told us. We have lived in a State, which,
exhibiting to the world a democratic exterior, has actually practised within
itself all the arts of an organized aristocracy, under the management of the
old firm of Moses and Aaron."
And to illustrate yet ag^in the author's fondness for an audacious
and {>erverse use of scriptural phrases, the passage may be cited
where he represents each one of the annual appointees to minor
judicial office at the hands of the Governor's Council as having
constantly sounding in his ears like a catechism in the cars of a
child, "Remember now thy Creator, lest the evil days come and the
years draw nigh, wherein he shall say. I have no pleasure in thee."
I ought also to refer to two other pamphlets in this contest, for
which he was res]X)nsible, though not bearing his name. One,
issued in 1802, without any name of place or printer, was entitled
"Onirch and State, a Political Union, formed by the enemies of
both"; and consisted mainly of the documents connected with two
famous (|uarrels of that date, — the first between the Rev. Stanley
(iriswold, of \ew Milford, and the Rev. Dan Huntington, of
I.itchlicid, Connecticut, and the second between Colonel Ephraim
Kirhy. of Litchfield, and the Rev. Joseph Lyman, of Hatfield, Ma.ssa-
chuseits, Itoth were (Kcasioned by accusations of slander, growing
out of jKilitical rancor, and chiefly interesting in connection with
the personal fortunes of the participants.
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264 ABRAHAM BISHOP AND HIS WRITINGS
In 1804 he wrote and published another pamphlet, which pur-
ported to be an "Address by Major William Judd," of Farmington,
to the people of the State, on his prosecution before the General
Assembly for taking part, though an office-holder, in a convention
which denied the legal powers of the existing government. The
pamphlet remains as a landmark in the struggle which Judd himself
did not live to see.
In 1S04 Abraham Bishop was forty-one years of age. He was
just settled in a lucrative public office, which imposed responsibility
and dignity beyond ordinary private station ; and with this year his
activity in the role of public censor ceased. He still made himself
felt tlirough anonymous writing in the newspapers; but his appear-
ances in pamphlet warfare were practically over.
One specimen of his further authorship is "Some Remarks" pub-
hshed without his name in 1808 in criticism of a letter by the Hon.
Timothy Pickering, then a Senator from Massachusetts, which con-
demned Jefferson's policy of an embargo as likely to lead to war
with England. The change of tone in this pamphlet as compared
with most of Mr. Bishop's other writings, is very marked ; and the
result is a decorous and loyal defence of the President, without
the personal assaults and local allusions which are so characteristic
of his earlier essays. It is all very proper, but alas ! very dull,
I trace his hand only once more in any separate publication, and
this is in an anonymous pamphlet published in 1824, made up of
articles contributed to a New Haven newspaper in that year and
entitled "Remarks on Dr. Griffin's Requisition for 700,000 Min-
isters." These form a slashing criticism of a speech at a meeting
of the American Education Society in New York by the Rev. Dr.
Edward D. Griffin, then President of Williams College, in which
he made a scmiewhat rhetorical plea for the evangelization of the
world. In this Mr. Bishop finds an excuse for a caustic attack on
the policy of foreign missions and kindred enterprises. He pre-
tends to find in the advocacy of the spread of missions, of Bible
distribution, and of ministerial education, renewed dangers to civil
and religious liberty. Probably I have not covered the entire list
of his independent publications ; an author with a penchant for the
anonymous has doubtless covered his tracks too cleverly for the first
investigator to follow him.
Of the few briefer contributions to the writings of others which
I have found, I mention one only, as illustrating another phase of his
interests. In 1821 the monuments on the New Haven Public Green
were removed to the new Grove Street Cemtery, and Mr. Bishop
was prominent in carrying out the removal. In this connection a
public religious service was held, at which a "Funeral Address" was
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ABRAHAM BISHOP AND HIS WRITINGS 265
read, which had been composed by Mr. Bishop ; this was constructed
on the sermon plan (with text and Scripture citations), making a
rhetorical exercise in striking contrast with his usual political
utterances.
In the preparation of these hasty notes I have glanced over nearly
eight hundred pages of Abraham Bishop's published compositions,
and they leave with mc the clear impression of stronjj native ability,
combined with quick mother-wit, and a keen |X?rccption of the ludi-
crous. Convinced of the justice of his own contention, he gave his
adversaries hard blows, delivered fairly and squarely.
In a time of intense party feeling, no doubt there were intrigues
on both sides, and I am far from claiming that his skirts were clear
of blame ; but although in his writings there is abundance of vanity,
of perverse logic, and of bad rhetoric, there is also a certain buoy-
ancy and openness, an absolute fearlessness and apparent confidence
in his cause, which compel one's sjTiipathy if not one's admiration.
In his palmy fighting days one can sec that he relished the combat
heartily, and he carries his reader with him to the finish, whether
he makes him a convert or not. We stay to see the end of the fun,
and there lingers with us a kindly feehng for the sturdy champion
who has kept us so well entertained in a plucky fight against tremen-
dous odds. And when the full historj- of Connecticut pohtics in the
beginning of the nineteenth century comes to be written, there will
be no more interesting or diverting chapter than that which treats
of Abraham Bishop.
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STUDENT LIFE AT YALE IN THE EARLY DAYS
OF CONNECTICUT HALL.
(From Vol. VII of the New Haven Colony Historical Society Papers.
Read January 1907,]
To begin with an evident truism, student life in 1750 was in
essentials very closely akin to student life in 1907. Undoubtedly
there was more coarseness and less luxury, more formal relations
with the governing body and less mental improvement, perhaps more
experience in grace and certainly less experience in the world, — but
this is only saying in another way that the college shared the general
character of its century, and was not, as we should not expect it to
be, ahead of the times.
And how different from our standard the times were !
A record is still extant of a part of the faculty judgments of these
early days; and the opening entry, in 1751, affords us a homely
picture of the average student coming up to college at the opening
of the year, which may be worth quoting as an introduction to his
story:
"Whereas Holmes (who was a great uncle of Oliver Wendell
Holmes) on loth of November last, being the Sabbath or Lord's day
traveled unnecessarily, and that with a burden or pack behind him,
from beyond Wallingford to this place: which is contrary to the
divine and civil law, as well as to the laws of this college.
"It is therefore considered by the president, with the advice of
the tutors, that the said Holmes shall be fined 20 pence sterling."
But the fine was remitted a week later, on his making public con-
fession of his so-called "crime" in the hall.
Arrived at college, his day's work may be described in the words
of a diary which is already in print, written by a distinguished
graduate of the class of 1763, when a junior, who says:
"The method in which I divide my time is as follows nearly: Go to bed
atgo'clock; rise about perhaps (sV^) '• (the figures are uncertain) ; prayers
and recitation, which last to about J'/i; go to breakfast, and, if the weather
is good, commonly take a small walk. This carries it to 8 or 8J4- Commonly
from this time till 11 pursue my studies, unless something special; then
attend recitation, which lasts to 12 ; then go to dinner : after, walk or
follow some other exercise till (3?): then pursue my studies again till
near 6. when T attend on prayers ; after prayers go to supper, and spend the
remainder of the evening commonly in conversation."
Not a very strenuous life, as compared with a diary of the present.
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STUDENT LIFE AT VALE IN EARLY DAYS 267
I recur to the pages of the Faculty Judgments for illustration of
the changed times in another respect.
When we recall, as a matter of course, among the expenses of
building Connecticut Hall, an itein of 67 pounds worth of strong
drink, we may better understand how a typical instance of the cases
of disorder then current was such an one as the following:
In the restoration of Connecticut Hall after the use and abuse of
forty generations of students, the indefatigable committee have been
content with restoring the portion above ground; but in the original
plan the cellar also played an important part. This was carefully
divided into bins, corresponding to the rooms above, subject to
separate rental, and intended for the storage of perishable supplies
brought painfully from home on horseback or despatched during
term-time by friendly carriers. In the case now referred to,'-" the
disorder consisted in breaking open the bin allotted to an unpopular
tutor, stealing sundry bottles of wine (valued at six shillings six-
pence), and letting out half a barrel of cider {valued at four
shillings), "which damnified the cellar," says the careful record, "to
the value of two shillings." Four luckless youths, of whom one
(Theo<iore Sedgwick) was afterwards a United States senator and
justice of the supreme court of Massachusetts, were fined from ten
to twelve shillings apiece, — at least triple the amount of actual
damage — for the escapade.
And this example leads me to say that, of course, the overfree
use of liquor was frowned upon by the government ; but unques-
tionably a good deal of drinking went on without notice or protest.
It seems as though it was only in consequence of excesses like that
described by the records as "a general treat or compolation of wine,
Ixith common and spiced — at which the greater part of the sopho-
more class was present," that the faculty endeavored to check the
abuse by a libera] distribution of their most usual penalty, pecuniary
fines, ranging in case of the treat just noticed from two to five
shillings.
That the devil of strong drink was not thus, however, totally
cxorcise<l. may appear from this subsequent record, where a student,
"wiihnut any permit, sent a freshman to bring in a quart of rhum
into college, and on the next Lord's day when he came into the
cha|i[>cl at the public worship, brought in part of the said rhum in a
hotile or phial, and gave it to some scholars, who then and there
drank of it."
The mention of sending a freshman on an errand without permit
suggests two phases of the college life which also deserve notice.
''' Kingsley'a Yale College, I, 445.
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268 STUDENT LIFE AT YALE IN EARLY DAYS
The sending outside for liquor was in violation of the arrange-
ments which provided a college buttery in the south front corner
room on the ground floor of Connecticut Hall, In that office cen-
tered a very essential part of the social life of college for more than
a century; the butler, who was a recent graduate, kept for sale
among other things a supply of what perhaps that age regarded as
"soft drinks," cider, metheglin and beer, and doled them out in small
portions on easy terms of credit; it was the "Yale Cooperative
Store" and something more of its generation, and a focus of gossip
and good fellowship. By thus licensing a traffic jn the milder
drinks, it was hoped to remove the temptation for ordering stronger
liquors, which by other laws were prohibited.
Again, we are reminded in this account of that other ancient
custom which was handed down from the earliest generations, and
lasted until the dawn of the modern era under the elder Dwight —
namely, the subordination of the freshmen to the upper classes,
and their authorized instruction by the sophomores in their social
duties. In the eyes of the faculty this provision was almost the
chief cornerstone of good government, as may appear by this quota-
tion from a vote of January 18, 1752:
"Whereas last Tuesday evening, Cary, a freshman, being called before the
sophomores, went out of the room in contempt of them, and said these
words: 'I swear I will not stay here any longer,' which is contrary to the
laws of God and this college. It is therefore considered by the president,
with the advice of the tutors, that the said Cary shall be suspended from all
the privileges of this college."
He was, however, restored, four days later, on making suitable
pubhc confession for his crime in the hall.
The safeguard from abuse of their power by the sophomores lay
in their being in turn subject to the seniors, who had the right of
investigating the behavior of underclassmen and reproving them
for undue harshness. But seniors themselves were by no means
immaculate, in matters of dignity and proprietj'; as appears, to cite
a trivial instance, by one of the earliest mentions of the incomplete
"New College," as Connecticut Hall was originally called, where
some of the seniors who were first allowed as a special privilege to
room there, before the whole was ready, were found guilty of
breaking open the garret doors and moving their beds into the
attractive unfinished expanse.
When Connecticut Hall was in its pristine newness, special rules
were framed to ensure that no damage be done to the building,
though the ingenuity of depredators could not be entirely foreseen.
One of the earliest offenses on record is when half a dozen venture-
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STUDENT LIFE AT YALE IN EAKLY DAYS 769
some sophomores and freshmen (one of them — ^Chandler Robbins —
in after life a doctor of divinity) cut out their names upon the leads
and shingles on the top of the "New College," and were fined from
fourpence up to one and six. Another similar but not so unfa-
miliar an impropriety was the cutting of names upon the doors, or
on the solid oak tables which in those days were handed down as a
part of the permanent furniture of each room.
The penalties for misconduct which I have thus far cited from the
ancient records have been mainly in the form of fines ; another
effective weapon in the hands of the faculty was the penalty of
degradation. Until 1766 the list of each class was arranged at
entrance, riot alphabetically, but on the basis of supposed social
rank ; and any grave misdemeanor might be punished in a way that
would be keenly felt, by changing the culprit's place in the class
list, and ranking him below some of those less fortunate youth whom
he had hitherto been privileged to look down upon as his social
inferiors. The custom had a long pedigree, and had come to Yale
in the most natural manner from Harvard ; but I am confident that
it had never been congenial to the spirit of the place, and was foimd
by the authorities to be exceedingly difhcult in practice. It was,
however, of avail as a penalty, and there .are instances on record
where it was resorted to for what seems such a comparatively trivial
offence as going out of town without leave.
The question of the efficiency of the various punishments in vogue
was sometimes debated by the faculty, with this curious conclusion
in one instance, in March, 1753, where the record runs:
■'Whereas the ringing of the bell, contrary to the laws of this college, is
a thing of very bad tendency, and is the occasion of great disorder in the
college; and a great variety of punishments have been heretofore inflicted
upon those who have been guilty of that crime, which have not been
sufficient to stop and suppress it And, whereas, last evening, the bell was
rung almost incessantly, for the space of about an hour, partly before and
partly after Q o'clock; and Miner (a freshman) was catched in the act
of ringing of it. It is therefore considered and determined by the presi-
dent wilh the advice of the tutors, that the said Miner shall have his ears
boxed by the president. This punishment was forthwith inflicted."
But it did not stop unlawful bell ringing.
The mention of the college bell, a valued possession dating only
from 1742, suggests a notice of the other buildings in existence at
the opening of Connecticut Hall. The bell then hung over the
middle entry of the original college, henceforth to be known as "the
Old College"; that long and hi^ though narrow wooden structure,
which had been built in 1718 on a part of the ground now covered
by Welch and Osbom halls. This had the honor of having been
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37° STUDENT LIFE AT YALE IN EARLY DAYS
the building to which the original name of "Yale College" was
attached, an appellation which passed easily from the building to
the whole institution, but which always remained in a peculiar sense
the designation of this structure. In its palmy days it is described
as an especially sightly building, with something of an air of gran-
deur, which Connecticut HaJI never aspired to. It contained, besides
bedrooms and studies, a dining hall (used also for daily prayers and
after November, 1753, for Sunday services) and a library.
In the dining hall commons were served daily to all the students,
except the few who had liberty to board at home or with near
relatives; and the fare provided by the steward was a source of
perennial complaint. It was the frequent custom for students in
want of pocket money to dispose of a portion of their daily com-
mons — as, for instance, of their bread and beer, — and the nnse
and confusion attending this barter became such a nuisance that
the faculty were obliged to adopt (in 1752) an order that no scholar
should publicly cry or attempt to sell his commons on the Lord's
day, or the evening preceding (which was holy time), or in study
hours, on penalty of having them forfeited to the waiters, who were
themselves appointed from among the needy undergraduates.
The only other building belonging at this date to the college was
the president's house, a wooden Colonial mansion, built in 1722, and
standing until 1834 nearly on the site of the present College Street
Hall.
The president was the Rev, Thomas Gap, then (in 1752) in his
50th year and just half way through his long term of office. He
was a really great man in the breadth and sagacity of his plans for
the college, and we have not yet outgrown the impress of his
molding hand. Yet in his relations with the students he can hardly
be described as successful, and later in his career an element of ■
rebellion and direct personal defiance brought about his melancholy
exit. An entry from the Faculty Judgments of January, 1764,
which was after a separate chapel, later known as the Athemcum,
had been built, gives an example of his trials : "Whereas it appears
that on the evening of the Sabbath of the 15th instant White Tertitis
stood up and profanely mimicked the president at prayers. . . .
It is ordered that the said White shall set up gallery some consider-
able time after the rest who have been ordered to set there with him
may have liberty to set below."
The mention of the library in the old college raises the question
how much that solid collection of towards 3,000 volumes touched
the student life of that day. But in general it must be acknowledged
that the books there gathered were beyond the needs of most tmder-
graduates. A stray record is preserved of the loans made by the
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STUDENT LIFE AT YALE IN EARLV DAYS 3?!
president as acting librarian during two or three years just before
Connecticut Hall was finished ; from which it would appear that
the library was mainly made use of by graduate students. Indeed
the only exceptions that I notice on these lists are when a senior
borrows a volume of Pope's Homer and one of that sound com-
mentator, Matthew Henry's "Exposition of the Old and New Testa-
ment," and a junior borrows Clarendon's "History of the Rebellion,"
in three ponderous folios.
The first contribution toward Connecticut Hall had come from a
public lottery, and it should not be surprising that lotteries as an
amusement came to be so much the rage among the students that
they had to be checked by authority. The old records give some
particulars of these ventures, in a few of which it is evident from
the nature of the prizes that the pleasure of the sport lay rather in
the excitement of the struggle than in the reward to be gained.
Thus, in 1763, a successful lottery, in which the participants were
disciplined, had as prizes Pope's Homer's Iliad, seven volumes of
"Voyages," Bayley's Dictionary and two copies of "Virgil," and
another still more surprising case of the same date was where five
tickets at three and ninepence each were sold for the privilege of
drawing Wilson's "Trigonometry," Cicero's "Orations," and "The
Complete Letter Writer." One cannot avoid the suspicion that the
game was utilized as a convenient means for disposing of some-
body's old text-books, while it also gratified the passion for gambling.
The social life of the students also included some privileges now
lost, such as ball playing on the public green and some gala occasions
of special censure. Here, for instance, is a memorandum from the
Faculty Judgments of January, 1756:
"Whereas it appears that a play was acted at the house of William
Lyon (a tavern-keeper on Slate street), on the evenings after the
2d, 6th, 7th and 8th days of January instant, and that all the students
(excepting some few) were present at one or other of those times,
and many of them continued there until after 9 of the clock, and
had a large quantity of wine, and sundry people of the town were
also present. And whereas this practice is of a very pernicious
nature, tending to corrupt the morals of this seminary of religion
and learning, and of mankind in general, and to the mispence of
precious time and money." Accordingly, those present were fined
eight pence, and the actors, who were all students, the most notable
being Silas Deanc, the diplomatist of the Revolution, three shillings
each.
You may have noticed that a special grievance is here made of
the fact that "people of the town were also present"; reminding
us that the barriers then existing between town and gown were
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37* STUDENT LIFE AT YALE IN EARLY DAYS
vigorously upheld. But collisions now and then occurred in the
streets, in regard to which the college authorities took the ground
that students should be above such riotous action, and should set a
better example, "Town and gown," by the way, was not a mere
fashion of speech, as the college law which required all the scholars
to wear their gowns and hats, caps or wigs outside of their rooms
was supposed to be rigidly insisted on.
I regret to say that we get not infrequent glimpses of a different
point of contact between the young gentlemen of Connecticut Hall
and their less cultured neighbors ; as, for instance, when a party of
five sophomores and freshmen in 1764 was found guilty of having
stolen eight hens, of the value of one shilling each, out of Widow
Brocket's henhouse, and taken them to one of their rooms in
Connecticut Hall, and there (after having plucked and cooked them)
were found in the act of eating them.
As for the relations of the students with each other in their social
and oratorical clubs, there is rather a lack of detail. No doubt such
clubs existed in every college generation, but they usually lacked a
power of continuance, until finally, just after the first occupation
of Connecticut Hall, the Linonian society was started, as was the
Brothers in Unity fifteen years later, of which the names remain to
our own times. The regular meetings were of course held in the
students' own rooms, which prevented strict privacy; but on special
occasions, tike the anniversaries, recourse was had to a public house,
where some sort of dramatic entertainment could be attempted.
The ordinary exercises included something in the way of orati(MlS
and dialogues ; and during one period in the early history of the
Linonian society a special form of intellectual diversion was current,
whereby at each meeting one member, in alphabetical order, should,
instead of making a speech, propose a question, to go upon record,
with the appropriate answer. The existing minutes preserve a
series of these themes and so give a curious insight into the mental
operations of college youth of that day. Many, perhaps most, of
the questions were prompted by the studies of the curriculum and
suggest how limited was the range of interests before the daily
newspaper as we know it existed. Here are some specimens : At
what time did the Latin language arrive to the greatest perfection
in the city of Rome? How is the greatest common measure dis-
covered in algebraick quantities? Why is the weather coldest when
the sun is nearest to us ? What thing is the most delightful to man
in the world? Aeneas and Dido, in what time did they live?
Can we fancy our college friends of this day interested in prc>-
pounding and answering inquiries of such a sort?
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STL-DENT LIFE AT YALE IN EARLY DAYS 273
The pro\ision of the college laws that "every student shall in
his ordinary discourse speak in the Latin tongue," was in the earlier
days, I su])pose, observed after a fashion on occasion, but by the
time we are concerned with it had come to be a counsel of perfection,
which no one pretended to live up to; and in its best estate it can
have been only an excuse for the manufacture of incredibly bad
Latin.
In general, my conception of the little community of that epoch —
varjing in size from 90 members to nearly twice that number —
represents it as substantially homogeneous, living in the main a
separate cloistered life, with few great excitements and little knowl-
edge of the world outside, not excessively studious nor remarkably
quiet, but reasonably responsive to the appeals of conscience and
appreciative of the gaieties of hfe. In proportion to their means,
they were, I am inclined to think, as lavish in personal expenditure
and as ready for combined extravagance as any generation since.
There was always a considerable group of candidates for the min-
istry who had chosen their vocation at a somewhat advanced age,
and thus contributed a more settled and sober element; yet even
with this makeweight the community abounded in liveliness.
With our different habits we may imagine their life uncouth and
barbarous; but we need not waste our pity. To them it was a life
of breadth and freedom and stimulus, compared with that in the
ordinary Xew England village of their earlier years ; and the college
brotherhooil, then even more than now, found in itself a zest and a
capacity for enjoyment beyond the reach or perhaps the compre-
hen.'iion of maturer years.
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EARLY PRIVATE LIBRARIES IN NEW ENGLAND.
[From the Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society, April, 1907.]
Our notions of early New England and its intellectual and social
condition are perhaps unduly affected by a conviction of the hard-
ships and discords of frontier life; and it may be worth while to
aim at some discovery of the countervailing elements ; and, confining
myself for the present to one particular, to ask what sort of literary
baggage the original settlers brought with them, and what printed
books their children and grandchildren fed on. The inquiry might
be variously undertaken; but I have preferred, as the most sure,
if not the most picturesque way, a scrutiny of some of the more
detailed inventories filed in the Probate Courts in connection with
the settlement of estates.
In such a day of small things the majority of estates were so
slender that it was natural in these to register somewhat minutely
the several items ; and thus we may be prepared to find in many
instances a separate entry of every book included in an estate, with
the value at which it was appraised, side by side with the like
enumeration of household goods and farm utensils.
In most cases of course the inventory betrays an utter absence
of books and book-learning. And equally, of course, where one
book only is named, that is invariably in such language as "a Bible,"
"an old Bible," "a great Bible," or "a small Bible." Occasionally the
appraisers are more emphatically descriptive, as in the case of John
Smith, a respectable miller of Providence, dying in 1682, where out
of an estate of upwards of ^90, the only literature made note of is
'"An old Bible, some lost and some of it torne," which is assessed
at gd.
It should also be said that it is not uncommon to find two, three,
four, five, six, or in one case (John Kirby, of Middletown, Con-
necticut, 1677) nine Bibles, enumerated as the property of an other-
wise bookless testator.
Next in frequency to the Bible, in such unlettered estates, is "A
Psalm book," by which I suppose is generally meant in the earliest
time Ainsworth's metrical version, first printed at Amsterdam in
1612, which the Pilgrims brought with them, or after 1640 the "Bay
Psalm Book," only a shade less barbarous in poetry and rhythm.
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EARLY PRIVATE LIBRARIES IN NEW ENGLAND 375
But the ordinary run of single volumes, owned by a Puritan house-
holder, apart from his Bible or Psalm-book, was almost inevitably
some doctrinal or practical treatise in religion, by a popular author,
such as Ainsworth, or Goodwin, or Perkins, or Preston, or Sibbes;
but occasionally a Catechism, or more rarely a Concordance.
In our annals the seventeenth -century instances are very intre-
(]uent, in which a short list of books contains any sample of a
different sort from these. Of such exceptional cases a fair instance
is the inventory of Deacon George Clark, of Milford, Connecticut,
in 1690, where "Record's Arithmaticke" appears; or that of Deacon
George Bartlett, Lieutenant of the train-band of Guilford, who left
in 1669 two books of "Marshall Discipline"; or, less remarkably
perhaps, that of Dame Anna Palsgrave, of Roxbury, in the same
year, a physician's widow, in which besides ordinary medical books
is found Pliny's "N'atural History," undoubtedly in Philemon Hol-
land's noble translation; or, most outstanding of any case in my
knowledge, that of William Harris, one of the strong men of early
Rhode Island, compeer and rival of Roger Williams, whose scanty
library of about 30 volumes in 1680 contained such unusual treasures
as no less than eleven law-books, headed by Coke upon Littleton;
"The London Despencettory," besides two other more commonplace
medical works; a "Dixonarey"; Richard Norwood's Trigonometry;
Gervase Markham's "Gentleman Jocky"; Lambarde's "Perambula-
tion of Kent," the prototype and model of English county his-
tories; Morton's "New England's Memorial," that foundation-stone
of Pilgrim history; a treatise on "The Effect of Warr"; with only
a faint s]>rinkling of theology, and that enlivened by such a standard
jticce of literature as Sir Matthew Hale's "Contemplations, Moral
and liivine."
l!ut, most generally, in the ordinary lists of estates, the entry is
apt to read, "Some old bookes ;" or, with still more inglorious uncer-
tainty as in the case of Mr. John Wakeman, of New Haven, a lay-
man of distinction, who died in i66i, leaving an estate of £300
(e<|uivalent lo i>erhaps six or seven thousand dollars with us,) of
which ime item is "three shirts and some old Bookes, fifteen shil-
lin;;s;" or in that of Nathaniel Bowman, of Wethersfielcl, who
possessed "Books, bottles and odd things," grouped in value at 12
>hillinf:s; or in that of Robert Day, of Hartford, progenitor of a
notable line, who died in 1648. leaving in an estate of ii43, "one
pound in iMiokcs, and sackes, and ladders;" or in that of Joseph
Clark, of \\ indsor, 1655, who died possessed of goods valued at £44,
in which ime item ran, "For bacon, 1 muskett, and some bookes,
ij.lJS."
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aj6 EARLY PRIVATE LIBRARIES IN NEW ENGLAND
When we come to details, we must remember at the outset that
many of the largest libraries are not itemized, but simply entered in
bulk ; and passing on to some of the larger collections of which we
have fuller particulars, I select for analysis ten inventories, of such
as are most conveniently at hand. Of these it happens that a bare
majority belong to the Old Plymouth Colony, — which is not to be
taken as a proof that that short-lived, unprosperous Pilgrim com-
munity was especially well supplied with cultivated men, for the
exact opposite was the fact; but rather, as already suggested, that
poverty of resources led to a more minute enumeration of such goods
as they had, and has thus preserved more details than comparative
abundance elsewhere deigned to furnish.
Of our ten specimen cases the first from the New Haven Colony
is that of one Edward Tench, who died in 1640, a substantial layman,
of whose history and occupation nothing distinctive is transmitted.
Here, out of an estate of £400, one thirty- second part, £12^, is
accredited to books, 53 volumes of which are enumerated ; and the
contents of the collection are sufficiently typical. There are six
Bibles, namely, "i Geneva Bible, with notes," "i Bible, Roman
letter," and 4 small ones ; a Concordance ; some 40 volumes of com-
mentaries and practical religion — the writer chiefly represented being
Dr. Richard Sibbes, an intimate friend of John Davenport, the testa-
tor's pastor; two or three medical books; one law-book, Dalton's
"Country Justice ;" one book of cookery and household ecmiomy ;
and two standard works in agriculture — Markham's "Husbandry"
and Mascall's "Government of Cattle;" but of general literature,
ancient or modem, and of the whole domain of science as then
understood, absolutely nothing.
The only other collection of books in the New Haven Colony o£
any importance to be noted in this connection is the library of over
100 volumes belonging to the Rev. Samuel Eaton, colleague pastor
of the New Haven Church from 1638 to 1640. This collection, left
behind as a gift to New Haven when the owner returned to England,
and catalogued while in the town's possession,*'' is a representative
working library of an educated theologian, to whom Latin was as
familiar as English ; but outside of theology and scholastic phil-
osophy, it contains barely a dozen titles. Of these the more notable
are a few classical authors, such as Plutarch, Dionysius of Halicar-
nassus, Virgil, Ovid, and Justin, and two modem Latin classics,
More's "Utopia" and the "Proverbs" of Erasmus ; in history and
geography, Raleigh's "History of the World," Foxe's "Book of
"New Haven Colony Hist Society's Papers, VI, 301-13.
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EARLY PRIVATE LIBRARIES IN NEW ENGLAND 377
Martyrs," and Peter Heylyn's "Cosmography;" a couple of sec-
ond-rate medical hand-books; Keckermann's Manuals of Mathema-
tics and of Lofiic ; and a book of Mihtary Discipline. The nearest
approach to literature is the Ovid, which was George Sandys's
poetical version of the Metamorphoses ; and the entire list of inven-
tories entered in the \ew Haven Probate Court down to 1700 affords
nothing to rival this one poetical attempt in the lines of belles-lettres.
In the neighbor Colony of Connecticut I have found few detailed
inventories, and so far as I can gather, the records of the original
Probate District, that of Hartford, exhibit nothing of literary inter-
est. The only collection of books within the Colony of any extent
which is even in part recoverable is that of Governor John Winthrop
the younger, traveller, physician, and diplomatist, who died in 1676.
About ,"^00 volumes from his librarj- (a fraction only of the whole)
were given many years since by a descendant to the New York
Society Library, and form an exceptionally interesting collection.
Among them are representatives of all the then known sciences, and
of ahuost every department of knowledge ; and the lines displaying
special strength are distinctly unusual. For instance, nearly one-
fourth of the whole is made up of books dealing with the occult
sciences, magic, alchemy, astrology, etc. Besides these should be
cmjihasizcd many rare and notable works in Mathematics, Astron-
omy, and Medicine, and a valuable collection of helps to the study
of numerous languages. There is besides an unusual number of
works written in the leading modern tongues — French, German,
Dutch, Italian, and Spanish being all well represented. To name a
few of the notable authors, there are two of Tycho Brahe's astro-
nomical works, Machiavclli's "Prince," Mcrcator's Atlas {1610),
Napier's work on Logarithms, Pascal's "Provincial Letters," and
Ronsard's Hymns.
In Massachusetts Bay a pendant to Samuel Eaton's library is that
of J<ihu Harvard, who immortalized an undistinguished name by
be(jucaihing his estate to the infant college in Cambridge at his death
in ifi^S. The list as entered on the college records*" seems to imply
atmut 440 volumes. As might be expected, a considerable majority
fall under the regular designation of theology and philosophy. — the
next largest division lieing those in classical and modern Latin litera-
ture, about one-tenth of the whole; of these, the principal classical
texts in Greek are .Xesop, Epictetus, and Isocrates, and in Latin,
Horace. Juvenal. Lucan, Persius, Plautus, Sallu.st, and Terence. In
tJic domain oi history there are hardly a dozen volumes ; in medicine
"■ Bibliographical Contributions to Harvard University Library, No. 27.
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278 EASLY PRIVATE LIBRAKIES IN NEW ENGLAND
and law, three or four each. The most outstanding individual
works are Chapman's inspired translation of Homer and Holland's
Pliny ; the Colloquies of Erasmus and the Letters of Roger Ascham,
both in the original Latin ; Minsheu's "Guide into Tongues," that
most wonderful of seventeenth- century dictionaries ; Camden's
"Remaines concerning Britain ;" Bacon's "Advancement of Learn-
ing," his Essays, and his Natural History; Feltham's "Resolves,"
and (to represent English poetry) one volume of Francis Quarles
and one of George AVither.
With this bequest of John Harvard one is tempted to compare
briefly three other lists of seventeenth -century gifts to the same
college, which are extant, namely, forty volumes from Governor
Winthrop the elder, about twenty from Governor Bellingham, and
nearly forty from the Rev. Peter Bulkley. In the Bellingham list"^
there is nothing outside the usual lines of philosophy and theology,
except a copy of Grotius de jure belli. Governor Winthrop's"* gift
is, like its donor, distinctly less commonplace, comprising such com-
parative rarities as a French version of the Bible, a Book of Common
Prayer, and a Life of the Virgin Mary. There is one book in the
field of modern history — Polydore Vergil's Historia AngHcaita, and
among the items on the classical side so useful an acquisition as a
Greek lexicon.
The last of the Harvard gifts to be mentioned is that from Peter
Bulkley, of Concord, whose inventory at his death in 1659 includes
as one item £123 in books. Of these certain are specifically men-
tioned as bequests in his will; and combining these with his earlier
gift to the college we get about 60 titles from a working Massa-
chusetts pastor's library. Of these at least three-fourths fall under
the usual class of theology and philosophy, while the remainder are
mainly historical. The volumes most worthy of special notice are
Father Paul's "History of the Council of Trent," a copy of the
Pontificale Romanum, Camden's Descriptio Britannur, and a tract
of King James L against demonology.
For the sake of comparison, it may be worth while to glance also
at the inventory of the stock in trade of Michael Perry,"* a Boston
bookseller, who died in 1700. This list foots up apparently about
6000 separate volumes, though of these many are insignificant in
size and unimportant in contents. Of the entire number nearly
three-fourths would be classed as theology; about 300 volumes
belong to classical literature ; and about 50 to mathematics. So far
'^ Harvard Library Bibliographical Contributions, No. 27.
■"Winthrop's Life and Letters. II, 438-39.
""Dunton's Letters from N. E. (Prince Society), 314-19.
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EARLY PRIVATK LIBRARIES IN NEW ENGLAND 279
as 1 can distinguish there is but a single volume to be credited to
belles-lettres — Fairfax's translation of Tasso's "Jerusalem Deliv-
ered." Hut there are 34 copies of a |>opular astrological work-
nearly 1500 "Assembly's Catechisms," 3 copies of the Pilgrim's Pro-
gress" with cuts, 6 Common Prayer-Iiooks, 170 Bibles or parts of
Hibles, and upwards of 300 Psalm Books.
If we turn now to Plymouth Colony we find accessible the inven-
lorics of six collections of books, which deserve comparison with
those already named, — those of William Bradford, William Brew-
ster. Samuel Lee, Ralph Partridge, Thomas Prince, and Miles Stan-
dish.
Taking first the clergymen, Ralph Partridge, of Duxbury, died in
iC>SS. leaving a library of upwards of 420 volumes, which was
npiiraised at l^J. 9s. — an average of iH pence :l volume. The titles,
however, of only a small numl»er are spread upon the records and
these indicate a prcjKinde ranee of theology, with a sjtecial leaning
to the Church Fathers and to ecclesiastical history in general, and
link- else of importance.
.V generation later, "the Reverend and learned Mr. Samuel Lee,"
oi I'risiol, died in 1691, on a return voyage from America; and the
Catali>gue of his library, which was exposed for sale in Boston, was
printed there by Samuel lireen in 1693.-"" About 1300 volumes are
recorded, of which fully four-lifths are in Latin. With the usual
exiiericnce. Divinity, including I'xciesiastical History, absorbs 30
|ier cent ; and the next largest list, that of secular History, is less
than half the jirevious division in extent. Of classical authors,
mainly in what seem to t)C school editions, there is an almost etiually
large representation; and after these comes another numerous divi-
sion, comprehending Medicine, Chemistry, and Alchemy — about 125
vdiuincs. There are smaller groups \» Mathematics and Astronomy
( including Astrology ), alxnit (">o in all ; alxnit JO in (ieography ; and
only S or 10 in Law, — but annmg ihcm works of such note as Jus-
tinian's Institutes, the Cor/>iis Juris Civilis, and Crotius de jure belli.
Judged by quality instead of quantity, the somewhat obscure
entries indicate a library strongest in divinity and the classical
l'mgu<'s. an<l including in these lines some unusual treasures, such as
the \\ iirks oi the Venerable Bede, Casaubon's lipistolae, Barclay's
. ir;^t'iii.<. and ."^elden's accomit of the Arundel Marbles. On the side
'if natural science the selection was a good one, as may l>c judged
from such siiecimens as a part of the Royal S<Kiety's "Philosophical
Transactions." Kvelyn's Sylva, and Harvey's epoch-making t>ook on
tiic circulation of the blowl. In philosophy we find Bacon's "Ad-
■" i(aas. Hist Societ>-'s Proceedings. 2d series, X. 540-44.,
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aSo EABLY PRIVATE LIBRARIES IN NEW ENGLAND
vancement of Learning;" in history such an uncommon book as
Ashniole's account of the Order of the Garter; but in pure htera-
ture only a single volume, and that probably not chosen by the owner
from its literary interest, — Sir Thomas Browne's Religio Medici.
Of the Plymouth laymen whose libraries we have in detail, two
were Governors of the Colony — William Bradford and Thomas
Prince.
Bradford, also its historian, died in 1657, leaving about lOO
volumes,"' the appraised value of which was ^15. 3; substantially
the same volumes reapi>ear in the inventory of his widow. Mistress
Alice Bradford, thirteen years later; and an entrj' of identical
amount ap|)ears for the third time in the estate of their son. Major
William Bradford, in 1704. About half the books only are entered
by title, and of these but half a dozen are outside the usual theo-
logical routine. Of those in theology but one is at all unfamiliar,
Jeremy Taylor's "Liberty of Prophesying;" while the balance
includes one medical treatise, Barrough's "Method of Physic," the
most popular of its kind in that generation, judging by the frequency
of its recurrence in these lists; a copy of Guicciardini's "liistory
of Italy ;" and Jean Bodin's treatise on government, which was far
from advocating the principles of the Plymouth Compact. Fre-
quent reminders appear of the owner's sojourn in Holland; as in
the inclusion of a "History of the Netherlands," of four separate
books of John Robinson's, and three of Henry Ainsworth's, of one
at least of the books printed in Leyden by Elder Brewster, and of
"Calvine on the epistles, in Duch, with Divers other Duch bookes,"
Governor Thomas Prince, who died in 1673, left 187 volumes,""
valued at £13. 18. 8, out of a total estate of £422; of this number,
however, 100 are "Psalme books," worth 18 pence apiece, and 50
"Small paper bookes to be distributed bound up." The remaining
volumes are almost all of a theological cast. There are, however,
three law books ; a copy of the "London Dispensatory ;" a Hebrew
Grammar ; Laud's "Account of his conference with Fisher the
Jesuit," and Prynne's "Account of Laud's Trial;" Morton's "New
England's Memorial;" and finally a single volume which may with-
out violence be classed as English literature, the "Essays" of Sir
William Cornwallis, a feeble seventeenth century imitator of Mon-
taigne.
Next comes the library of Miles Standish, the military leader of
the early Colony, who owned a collection"*' of upwards of 50 books
"•Maydower Descendant, II, ajz-s,!; Ill, 146-47; IV, 147.
"Mayflower Descendant, II, 208-09.
"■ N. E. Hist and Geneal. Register. V. 337.
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EARLY PRIVATE LIBRARIES IN NEW ENGLAND 301
at his death in 1656, appraised at in. 13 in a total estate of ^358.
Oi the titles on record, two-thirds are books in theology and kindred
siilijccts, but a few of the others are somewhat notable. Such are
Raleigh's "History of the World," and half a dozen other equally
solid historical works; Chapman's Homer's Iliad; Ciesar's "Com-
mentaries," undoubtedly in English, with one other military treatise;
Gcrvasc Markham's "Country Farmer;" Dodoens' "Herbal;"
single law and medical books; and a translated volume of French
essays. Standish has been claimed as a concealed Roman Catholic,
but the inventory of his Ixwks, so far as it affords any argument, is
certainly on the Protestant side. It is hard to imagine a Romanist
acquiring and retaining such an array of Protestant theology as is
here, including some distinctly anti-Catholic works, as Thomas
.Sparkc's ".Answer to a Discourse against Heresies," and Calvin's
"Institutes."
Last of all we come to the very remarkable private library of
lUdcr \\'i!liam Brewster,^''* who died in 1644, leaving an estate of
only £150. of which nearly one-third, about ^43, was in books, com-
prising over 400 volumes, one in every six of which was in the Latin
tongue.
When we analyze this extraordinary collection, certainly appraised
much below its value, we find that four-fifths come under the head
of distinctly religious literature; while the next largest division,
perhaps two dozen volumes, is that of history. Perhaps a dozen
volumes — an altogether unprecedented experience in these sum-
maries, may l>e credited to English literature; and the rest are scat-
tered (ivor the entire field of kno\vle<ige, — including, for instance,
live nr six lK)<)ks [)ertaining to the science of government, two on
ihc art of Surveying, two in Medicine, and one (Dodoens' "Her-
bal " 1 a masterpiece in Botany. There are Latin and Hebrew Gram-
mars and lexicons; but very few texts or translations of classical
authiirs. Lodge's Seneca being the chief example. Among the more
striking single items may be specified Hakluyt's "Voyages," John
Smith's "Descrijrtion of Xew England," Rich's "Newes from Vir-
ginia," Camden's "Britain" (both in Latin and English), Brooke's
"Catalogue of the English Nobility," and Machiavelli's "Prince"
(in the I.atin version).
Amtmg the works to be included under English literature there
i* none of the first rank, except I^rd Bacon's "Advancement of
Learning ;" for poetry, two volumes of George Wither's must stand
at tlu' head ; and I fear that there are sjiecimens of no other author
wlio-e name is even faintly rcmeml>ered at the present day, save
"'Mass. Hist. Society's Proceedings, 2d series, V, 38-81.
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aSz EARLV PRIVATE LIBRARIES IN
Richard Brathwait's Description (in verse) of a Good Wife, and
Thomas Dekker's account of a magnificent entertainment given to
James I. on his reception in London.
In studying these lists one thing perhaps worth notice is the fre-
quent recurrence of certain volumes, which are not now remembered
as anywise remarkable, but which seem to have enjoyed a reputa-
tion now outgrown. Such a book, for instance, is "The French
Academy," a collection of essays translated in 1586 from Pierre de
la Primaudaye, a copy of which is found in one after another of the
libraries here chronicled. The title is borrowed from Plato's "Acad-
emy," and the book is concerned with the study, by way of dialogue,
of manners or ethics. It is now hard to see whence this popular
work, of which large editions must have been printed, so often does
it still appear in second-hand catalogues, derived its charm.
Still more worth notice is the deduction already anticipated, of the
absolute dearth in these lists of all that we have learned to regard
as the glories of Elizabethan literature. A master in these studies
has told us-"" that "before 1700 there was not in Massachusetts, so
far as is known, a copy of Shaksi^eare's or of Milton's iwems;" it
does not need so sweeping a statement to convince us of the narrow
horizon and the limited interests of our forefathers of that genera-
tion. W'e should recognize, however, in partial explanation of this
dearth, the inherited prejudice against the drama which made Shake-
speare an impossible element in most of the collections we have
noted ; and the same Puritan temper counted much else in contem-
porary letters frivolous which later generations have agreed to
honor.
Another fact to be remarked is the strange lack of books in some
houses where better things might be expected. One such surprise
is in the estate of Governor John Haynes, of Hartford, an early
Connecticut leader in character and lineage as well as wealth, who
left property amounting to upwards of £1400, but whose only literary
baggage is included in the entry, "i greate bible and i gilded look-
ing glass, 16 shillings."
It would be only fair to compare with these lists such libraries of
the Southern Colonies as come within our knowledge. Such an one
is the library left by Colonel lialjih Wormelcy, of Middlesex County,
at the mouth of the Rapiiahannock, in Virginia, once a student of
Oriel College, Oxford, who died, in 1701. About 400 volumes are
mentioned in his inventory, ''" and of these, as in our previous
"■"Mellcn Chamberlain, Address at Dedication of Brooks Library,
Bratde bo rough. 1887. 26. But one of Cotton Mather's works, about 1695,
gives a quotation of several lines from MiltOH.
"•WiUiam and Mary College Quarterly, II, 169-74.
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F^RLY PRIVATE LIBRAKIKS IN NEW ENGLAND aSj
instances, theology is still the largest factor; but works in civil his-
tory and law form a very considerable part of the whole, and there is
what would be a most unusual proportion for New England of books
which may be ciasscd aR literature. The English drama is repre-
sented, among other authors, by the Works of Sir William Davenant,
by Beaumont and Fletcher's "Fifty Comedies and Tragedies," and by
Ben Jonson's "Every Man in his Humour;" English Poetry by Hudi-
bras and the poems of Herbert, Quarles, and Waller; while among
the many exi>onents of the best English prose are such masterpieces
as Lord Bact»n's "Essays," Burton's "Anatomy of Melancholy," Ful-
ler's "Worthies" and "Holy and Profane State," the "Golden
Remains" of John Hales, Hooker's "Ecclesiastical Polity," Howell's
"Familiar Letters" and Taylor's "Holy Living and Dying." The
most striking items in foreign tongues are Montaigne's "Essays"
and Don (Juixote.
Another library of which we have particulars is one of over 200
volumes brought in 1635 by the Rev. John Gotxlborne,-"' bound to
Virginia, who died upon the voyage. In this case there is nothing
to distinguish the Southern minister from his Northern brother.
Roughly s|>eaking, two-thirds of the whole are theological, and the
rest is mainly given up to editions of classical writers or helps to
classical study; but nothing can be detected of a literary flavor,
exccjii so far as that is represented in Hooker's "Ecclesiastical
I'olity," and in versions of Plutarch's Lives or Virgil's Aeneid. Of
smaller collections a typical one is that of Captain Arthur Spicer^'"
of Richmond County, Virginia, who died in 1699, leaving about 125
Ixjoks, valued at £10. Of these towards one-half are to be accredited
to law, — theology following as a faint second. The only really
noticeable items are Lord Bacon's "Advancement of Learning," Sir
Thomas Browne's "Religio Medici," and the "Eikon Basilike"
attributed to Charles the First.
The materials are too .scanty for safe generalization, but so far
as any can Ijc suggested they imply, as we might expect, a freer com-
merce in the Southern Colonies with London bookshops than in our
k>s fertile and less opulent New England, and a more catholic taste,
unham]>ered by austere prejudices.
For New England the fact remains, and can hardly be stated too
balilly, that the early settlers and their children lived without the
inspiration of literature. It was "plain living and high thinking,"
and that their lives and their work were worthy of reverence is all
the more to their credit,
^Anier. Htst, Review, XI, 338-32.
■"William and Mary ColleRC Quarterly, III, 133-34.
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THE BKNKFACTORS OF YALE COLLEaE.
[Read to "The Oub," New Haven, March, 1909.]
I ought to begin with a confession: that my motive in preparing
this slight paper was more or less a selfish one, inasmuch as I wanted
to get certain statistics before my own mind in their proper order
and relations, and as we alt know, the simplest way in such a case
to clearness of apprehension is to marshal one's facts on paper.
\Vc have high authority for stating that "there is no new thing
under the sun" ; and I should acknowledge at once that the title I
have chosen is not — strictly speaking — original, though borrowed
from a forgotten source. So long ago as 1733 a New Haven jrfiysi-
cian, who was also addicted to letters. Colonel and Dr. John Hub-
bard, afterwards the father-in-law of President Stiles, printed
anonymously in Boston a brief "Poetical Attempt," as he deprecat-
ingly styled it, under the title of "The Benefactors of Yale College."
Of the literary merits of this effort, little need be said : indeed, little
could be. It may suffice to quote a few of the introductory lines: —
"Connecticut, be thou the destin'd theme,
Minerva dei^jns a visit to thy stream;
In thy Neolimen, till now unknown
In verse, the Muses humble seat is shown."
In a foot-note the writer adds: "I think every Reader will readily
own that Xcolijiicn sounds better even to an English ear than New
Haven, which I hope will justify the Use of it in this Place."
It falls to me, then, after the passage of nearly two centuries, to
retrace Dr. Hubbard's sonorous steps in unambitious prose, and to
prolong his story to the present. In so doing I shall aim especially
to indicate the chronological succession of large givers, showing thus
how the standard of beneficence has risen from one generation to
another.
The record cannot fail to begin with the well-known tale (or
legend, shall I be expected to say?) of the little group of country
ministers of the poor Colony of Connecticut, who had formed the
project of a Collegiate School, and now insured their right to chris-
ten and direct it by a promised gift of books, which was definitely
agreed on, as tradition asserts, at a meeting of some of their number,
in Mr. Russet's parsonage at Branford, in the early part of October,
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THE BENEFACTORS OF YALE COLLEGE 285
This agreement is justly held to be the proper and legal founding
of the School ; and the momentous act is not shorn of its importance
by the circumstance that the books thus promised were almost cer-
tainly not at once hande<l over into any common repository.
Rut essential as this act of the founders was, the gift which they
offered was nevertheless in vain until money could be added from
some other source; and the stream of material aid began to flow at
once, and effectively, with the api)ropriation generously granted in
the charier from the Colonial Assembly of Connecticut, passed on
Octolier i5, 1701, namely, "f lao in country pay, to be paid annu-
ally," until otherwise ordered, — the phrase "country pay" meaning
the prices set for ihe payment of rates, and equivalent therefore to
only almut ii>o, or somewhat under $275 in hard money, which in
purchasing power answered perhaps to thrice that amount now.
The College records for the earliest i>eriod arc incomplete; but
enough of the Treasurer's accounts for the first nine years (to 1710)
remain, to show that the Colony grant for those years averaged
slighdy more than the amount guaranteed in the charter; and this
subsidy was what assured the continued existence of the School
while at Saybrook.
For fifty-four years this bounty was regularly received, besides
repeated additional gifts, especially for the erection of buildings;
and later, when officials of the State were admitted to seats in the
Corporation, another considerable sum was advanced, mainly for
the erection of South College.
In 1755 the regular grant was withdrawn, out of dissatisfaction in
the Assembly with the notions and plans of President Clap, especially
l>erhaps with his repudiation of the -A-ssembly as the founder or
visitor of the College. Again, after 1792, the date when the State
on reviving its patronage had paid so large a sum (upwards of
$20,000) to the College, another attempt was made by so skillful a
hand as President Dwight to secure a second grant of like amount;
the attempt indeed succeeded {in 1796), but only at the expense of
much bitter feeling, which so rankled as to block similar efforts for
the future.
Smaller gifts, however, in 1816 and 18.^1 swelled the total of the
sum computed to have come from the Colony and the State since
1701 to slightly over $80,000; and at this figure our direct indebted-
ness to the State Government rests.
A\'hile the Collegiate School lingered in a feeble condition at Say-
brook, the Colony grant was its main dependence ; but two hundred
and seventy-five dollars a year, although corresponding in purchas-
ing power to perhaps eight or nine hundred dcrflars, was hardly-
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286 THE BENEFACTORS OF YALE COLLEGE
enough, though assisted by modest tuition fees, to run a growing
institution ; and the Trustees and their friends — including such
persons of influence as Cotton Mather, of Boston {a Harvard gradu-
ate, but much out of conceit with his own Alma Mater), and Jeremy
Dunimer (the able agent for Massachusetts and Connecticut at the
Court of St. James) — exerted themselves to get a generous bene-
faction from some individual donor abroad.
In 1718 Mather and Dummer united in soliciting such a gift from
the Hon. Elihu Yale, a retired East-India merchant, of wealth and
liberality, then living in stately ease in London; and a cargo of
Eastern goods contributed by him was received just in season to
make glorious the fortunate removal of the College to New Haven,
with which Yale himself was connected by ancestral ties, his father's
mother having married Governor Eaton, the New Haven founder,
and brought her son hither, where many of his relations still resided.
Governor Yale's recorded gifts, in the last three years of his life,
were in the form of merchandise and books, representing perhaps
from seven to eight hundred pounds, or something over $2500, in
value. For the time this was undoubtedly a large gift, though we
may now think that he purchased immortality somewhat cheaply.
A contemporary judgment may be quoted from Dr, Hubbard's poem
of 1733, which speaks thus of the building first called by his name: —
"The pile by Yale's beneficence was rais'd,
Who pious honours to his country paid,
And deep and strong the sure foundations laid
Of virtuous learning in his native soil ;
A generous bounty and a God-like toil.
His country back her grateful vow repeats,
And Yale in every thankful bosom beats."
It is too late to say anything new of Governor Yale; taking him
with all his faults, he is yet a very presentable figure-head. But the
oddest thing about his prominence is that the appropriation of his
name by the institution was something of an accident, the intention
of the original action of the Trustees being merely to name the newly
built hall "Yale College," and the transfer of the title to the entire
College being a speedy popular error.
In connection with the removal to New Haven, two gentlemen,
who each gave the College in 1718 fifty pounds sterling, deserve
commemoration as the largest American benefactors of the first
generation. Governor Gurdon Saltonstall, the occupant of a country
house on the borders of Lake Saltonstall, and Jahleel Brenton, a rich
and childless aristocrat of Newport.
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THE BENEFACTORS OF YALE COLLEGE aSj
In 1 732-3 Yale's rank as our most generous donor was yielded to
Dean CieorgL- Berkeley, an equally picturesque but more genuinely
admirable cliaractcr, who through his interest in a loyal alumnus of
the Collegiate School, the Rev. Samuel Johnson, of Stratford, made
over to the College his house and farm on Rhode Island and a noble
collection of books, — the value of the whole in cash being estimated
at from four thousand to forty-five hundred dollars, an amount not
surpassed by any individual patron for ninety years to come.
Accustomed as we are to the story, it is difficult to realize the
emotions experienced on the receipt of Berkeley's gift. Here was a
highly-placed dignitary of the Church of England, of real eminence
as a scholar, as a theologian, and above all as a philosopher, welcome
in the foremost literary circles of Britain, and not in special sympa-
thy with this obscure sectarian School, which he had never visited,
and only incidentally heard of; yet he bestowed on it a series of
gifts which must have seemed in their unexpectedness and their
romance like touches from a fairy's wand, — as romantic and as unex-
I)ected as the recent bequest of Mr. Itlount in our own generation.
Dr. Hubbard's "Poetical Attempt" of 1733 was written princiiwilly
in Berkeley's praise, but 1 spare you all but a brief quotation : —
"Berkeley, prodigious nianl with solemn bow
Thy name 1 mention and perform the vow
Of gratitude the Muse astonished made
W'licn first she saw the plan thy genious laid.
Yalensia owes the pow'r of knowing more
Than all her Sisters on the western shore.
To Berkeley's liberal band that gave a Prize
(To animate ber sons to glorious fame.)"
It is an example of poetic justice that Berkeley's design in coming
111 .\mtrica. the founding of a College for the education of the native
tribe-i. should have found its nearest fulfilment in the first award
made of the Berkeley Scholarship in 1733 to Eleazar Wheelock, who
devoted a good part of his life to schemes for the training of the
Xorlh .\inerican Indians, at the school in I^banon and at Dartmouth
0.!lc-c.
Hcfnre we reach the next largest giver, three or four other benc-
fartio!!- deserve commemoration.
The earliest .Xmerican to have his name connected, even tempo-
rarily, with an endowment of instruction at Yale was Philip Living-
stnn. the head of a distinguished family in New York Province,
fniir of whose sons had studied here, and who signified his appreci-
aiiiin '.I their training by the gift in 1745 of fifty pounds New Tenor,
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288 THE BENEFACTORS OF YALE COLLEGE
or twenty-eight and a half pounds sterling, to the College Treasury.
The money was sent without conditions, but President Clap was just
then planning to organize a College church, and this was made the
nucleus of a fund for the support of a Professor of Divinity and
College pastor. Thus it came about that our oldest professorship
was known for over a century as the Livingston Professorship of
Divinity, until the much larger gifts of Mr. Simeon B. Chittenden
in 1863 caused his name to be substituted in the title; as no pro-
fessor, however, has been appointed since Dr. Barbour's retirement
in 1887, both designations are alike unknown to this generation, and
the professorship itself is ignored in the University catalogues,
A second endowment in the undergraduate department, for
instruction in the Hebrew and other Oriental languages, was created
in 1781 by a former Trustee, the Rev. Dr. Richard Salter, of Mans-
field, who gave for this purpose a farm which was leased a few years
later for $3700 for a term of 999 years. In my own days as an
undergraduate the income of this fund was paid to a teacher who
offered Hebrew as an optional study, at a time when optional sub-
jects were otherwise almost unknown.
In 1782 came the earliest gift of any substantial amount frmn a
regular graduate of the College, in the unrestricted bequest of five
hundreds pounds or $1666 by Dr. Daniel Lathrop, of the Qass of
1733, a well-to-do childless druggist of Korwich, from whom the
late President Oilman derived his Christian name. Considering the
pecuniary condition of the most of the graduates of that period,
there is no need of surprise that we had waited eighty years for such
a gift from their ranks. Harvard College, with a richer constitu-
ency, had no equally large benefaction from a graduate until 1770 —
one hundred and thirty years from her foundation.
The example of Dr. Lathrop was not contagious, and another
quarter of a century passed without any equal accession to the funds
from the graduate body. Finally, in 1807, came a donation from
the Hon. Oliver W'olcott, of the Class of 1778, a rich New York
banker, of two thousand dollars, of which the interest was devoted
to the increase of the Librarj'.
Thirteen or fourteen years later was received the news of a
bequest of about $2600 from Noah Linsly, a bachelor lawyer in
Virginia, of the Class of 1791, and formerly a tutor, whose name
with that of a pious nephew is commemorated in a recent addition
to the University Library, while the original gift raised by accumu-
lation to $3000, in 1833, and augmented later by the same nephew,
is devoted to the purchase of books in the department of modem
languages.
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THE BENEFACTORS OF YALE COLLEGE 389
The year 1823 marked the beginning of a notable series of contri-
butions from another picturesque figure in our gallery of bene-
factors, Sheldon Clark, a plain farmer in the secluded hill-town of
Oxford in this county, of limited early advantages, who had grasped
the idea of the pleasure of providing advantages for others, and who
now by paying over five thousand dollars as the first instalment of
an accumulating fund for a new professorship, placed himself at the
top of the roll of individual benefactors to the institution ; the chair
thus provided has been held in honorable succession by President
Porter, Professor Ladd, and Professor Bakewell.
Only a few weeks later, David C. DeForest, of New Haven, a rich
South American merchant, of even less scholarly antecedents than
Sheldon Clark, who had recently built on the comer of Elm and
Church streets, the house known to us as the residence of the late
Mayor Sargent, also gave five thousand dollars as the basis of an
accumulating fund for the education at College of his kindred of
future generations, or in default of these, of other "young men of
good talents," a provision which covers al present the annual tuition
of nine or ten persons.
Again, in 1824, the first President Dwight's eldest son paid down
a like amount (promised two years before) towards the foundation
of the first endowed chair in the Divinity School, a chair which by
means of this and other contemporaneous gifts became more liberally
endowed than any other in the College at that date.
But to return to Sheldon Oark. His purposes were by no means
exhausted in the provision for a Professorship of Moral Philosophy
and Metaphysics. In 18^4 he gave one thousand dollars as the
nucleus of an accumulating fund for graduate scholarships. Again,
in iS-'S-g, he provided twelve hundred dollars for the purcha^^c of a
(elocnpc and a pair of globes; and finally at his death in 1840, the
ColU'^'C as residuary legatee received over seven thousand dollars in
ca-li and the land alwut his homestead, of enough value to bring up
llie lotnl of liis gifts to over $J0,000, or including the interest applied
to accumulating funds to $30,000, thus making him the largest indi-
\iilual benefactor down to the era introduced by Mr. Sheffield, Mr.
Salisbury, and Mr. Street. He deserves remembrance for the
unusual breadth of his interests, aiming as he did at the promotion
of both literature and science, and also for his early recognition of
the usefulness of graduate scholarships, which would detain at the
College a succession of promising students of advanced standing,
who might later recruit the teaching force. His gifts have a further
interest as representing the savings of a plain countryman, devoted
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ago THE BENEFACTORS OF YALE COLLEGE
to a high purpose in surroundings uncongenial to such a develop-
ment.
To the same general period belongs the first considerable gift to
the library funds, — that of ten thousand dollars bequeathed by Dr.
Alfred E. Perkins, of Norwich, of the Class of 1830, and received in
1836-7. The donor was a scholarly young bachelor, of cultured
antecedents, who appreciated the opportunity of perpetuating his
influence in a congenial way; and his was the largest single gift
which had been received by the Corporation to that date.
In 1842-3 the erection of a Library building gave occasion for the
first considerable contribution from an eminent benefactor whom
some of us recall as a member of this Qub, Professor Edward E.
Salisbury. His gifts covered a wide field and a long series of years,
■^in fact are not even yet wholly matured ; and some were made with
such self-effacement that I am not able to be sure that I have credited
the whole number. The chief items already received, after the one
first mentioned, are the partial endowment of a professorship for Mr.
Dana in 1851-2; the founding of a professorship for Mr. Whitney
in 1862-70; gifts towards the erection of the Divinity Halls in 1868-
73 ; and further gifts to the Library after 1870. The total of Mr.
Salisbury's contributions has been said to be about $130,000, but
although this estimate is possibly correct, I am only able to account
definitely for a little under $100,000 ; but even at that figure the sum
is sufficiently notable, and will be ultimately much increased. Mr.
Salisbury was made a Professor in 1841, without salary, at the sug-
gestion of his brother-in-law, Mr. Woolsey; and thus was the first
holder of that office possessed of any considerable independent
income. In inherited tastes and manner he differed somewhat from
the ordinary Yale type, reproducing rather the old-fashioned Har-
vard type; and those who knew him in his active years retain a
deep respect for his character and his infiuence.
Israel Munson, a native of New Haven, and a graduate of the
College in 1787, died in 1844 after a long and honorable career as
a merchant in Boston. He had given five thousand dollars to the
College in 1833, to which he added by his will twenty thousand more,
which made him the largest individual donor up to that date. His
name was in gratitude attached to what was regarded as one of the
more important professorships, that of Natural Philosophy and
Astronomy ; but that chair also has suffered an eclipse, having been
lost to sight since the death of Professor Loomis in 1889.
Mr. Woolsey succeeded to the presidency in 1846, but it was not
until 1854 that any of the new group of benefactors who made his
term of office so memorable, began their activity.
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THE BENEFACTORS OF YALE COLLEGE 29!
In that year Joseph Battel], a New York merchant, who though
not graduated here, was closely connected with Yale by family ties,
made a gift of five thousand dollars for the promotion of the Chapel
nmsic; his other large gifts, during the next twenty years, aggre-
gating about one hundred thousand dollars, went mainly to the
erection in 1875 of the Chapel bearing the family name.
In 1854 came also the first gift, of five thousand dollars, to the
Scientific School, from Josq>h E. Sheffield, a native of Connecticut,
resident for the past twenty years in New Haven, who was now
just retiring from a remarkably active and successful business career
in the South and West, A second gift from him of like amount
followed in 1856; and in 1858 began the expenditure involved in
the purchase and equipment of Sheffield Hall, amounting to over
one hundred thousand dollars. Mr. Sheffield's bounty, next beyond
Israel Munson's in extent, was confined to the Scientific School ; but
the general facts of his munificence are so well known that I need
only chronicle their probable sum, which I suppose was near two
million dollars.
The gifts of another citizen, Augustus R. Street, the son of a
wealthy business-man of New Haven and a graduate of 1812, but
debarred by delicate health from active life, began in 1855 with the
first instalment of the foundation of a professorship of Modem
I..anguages, completed in 1864. From him and his wife came also
in later years a foundation for a professorship of Ecclesiastical
History in the Divinity School, and the important gifts which
established the School of the Fine Arts, making a total of about
S4OI ),(XX).
In 1S55 began also an interesting iSeries of gifts of • Simeon B.
Chittenden, a Brooklyn merchant, who was a native of Guilford in
thi-^ cuuiity and had exiK'ctcd to enter college, but by the failure of
his re~m:rces was divcrtetl into a business life, at first in New Haven.
His later completion of the endowment of the College pulpit and
j)r()visi()!i for the erection of a new Library building, swelled the
sum of his U'nefactions to over 5175,000.
I Icnry L. Eilsworth. a graduate in 1810. of renowned Connecticut
-iwk. whose life had been mainly spent in the Government service
and tlie develoimient of the West, died in New Haven in 1858, and
I well rcmem^>er the thrill of excitement which accompanied the
announcement that he had left to Yale a vast revenue for the educa-
tinn of indigent students. The sum actually realized, from the sale
i>f \\ extern lands, after a prolonged htigation, now stands at a little
short of Sioo,ooo.
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991 THE BENEFACTORS OF YALE COLLEGE
Oliver F. Winchester, a successful manufacturer of New Haven,
who had not had the advantages of a college training, made in 1856
his first gift to the Scientific School; and his munificence to the
Observatory in 1871 raised the sum of his donations to over
$100,000; while the more recent benefactions of the members of his
family, especially to the Art School, the Scientific School, and the
Medical School, have increased that total to at least $375,000.
Henry Famam, another son of Connecticut, whose business career
had begun in New Haven, and had been continued at the West with
well-deserved success, retired at the age of sixty in 1863, and at that
date, before again taking up his residence here, made his first gift
towards the erection of Famam Hall. He himself, during the
remaining twenty years of his life, and the various members of his
family since, have been unfailingly generous in their prompt and
cordial responses to the multifarious demands presented to them.
Their gifts must already have amounted to between three and four
hundred thousand dollars, besides the real estate devised in Mr.
Famam's will, now subject to a life-interest. The older ones among
us recall our frequent enjoyment of the hospitahty of Mr, Farnam as
a member of this club, and treasure the memory of his keen and
kindly interest in the welfare of the College.
In 1865, Bradford M. C. Durfee, then recently an undergraduate
in the College, made a partial foundation (afterwards increased)
for a professorship of History, to be held by his former tutor, Mr.
Arthur M. Wheeler; he also contributed in 1870 the amount neces-
sary for the erection of Durfee Hall, the two items being over
$100,000.
In October, 1866, George Pcabody, an international benefactor
(whose interest in Yale had beai aroused by the appointment, three
months before, of his nephew, O. C. Marsh, to the professorship of
Paleontology, without salary), offered to the College, upon terms
drawn up by Professor Marsh, $150,000, a larger sum than any
previous single gift, for the erection and upkeep of a Museum of
Natural History, — with which was later combined the memorable
bounty of Marsh himself (of which it is hardly possible to estimate
the money value), in pursuance of kindred objects. Of Marsh
himself, as my immediate contemporary and close personal friend,
I can hardly speak without prejudice or what might seem Uke
fulsome praise; I doubt if he knew except in the vaguest way how
much money he had spent for the Museum; it is enough to adopt
the felicitous phrase of the inscriptions on his monument, "To Yale
University he gave his services, his collections, and his estate,"
In 1869 by the death of Philip Marett, an adopted citizen of New
Haven, on whom the College had no other known claim, a bequest
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THE BENEFACTORS OF YALE COLLEGE I95
was received, not available, however, until twenty years later,
amounting to over $150,000, for scholarships and other College
purposes.
In 1871 came the first of an important series of ^fts to the
Divinity School from Frederick Marquand, a native of Connecticut,
and New York merchant, which during the next eight years reached
about $125,000.
Passing by a notable succession of what by the standard now
attained must be dismissed as smaller givers, we come in 1881 to the
offer of the Sloane Physical Laboratory by Henry T. and Thomas
C. Sloane. graduates of the College in 1866 and 1868, respectively,
and other subsequent gifts from these and other members of the
same family to other objects (especially to the library), which now
amount in all to over $425,000.
In 1886 Albert E. Kent, a native of Connecticut and a graduate of
the class of 1853, gave a building fund for a Chemical Laboratory;
this sum, increased by his own bequest and by a further gift of his
son. a graduate of the class of 1887, amounts to over $166,000.
In 1SS7 Mrs. Charles J. Osbom, of New York City, at the sug-
gestion of her legal adviser, John W. Sterhng, a graduate of the
class of 1SC4, offered to erect a recitation -hall as a memorial of her
deceased husband, which was completed in 1889 at a cost of $180,000,
the next largest gift since Mr. Peabody's in 1866; it is also under-
stood that a further and larger sum will ultimately be received
from Mrs. Osborn's estate.
But this gift of Mrs. Osborn was overtopped two years later on
tlie di'ath of Elias Loomis, the Senior Professor in the College,
w hose will provided for the eventual endowment of the Observatory
with a fund of $312,000, the remarkable savings of a life engross-
ingly dcvoled, not to money-making, but to scholarly pursuits and
research.
This sum in turn was outdistanced the next year on the death of
l>aiiiel P.. Fayerweather, a New York merchant of Connecticut
birth and connections, from whom this University (together with
(ithcr similar institutions) received a generous bequest, which eventu-
ally yielded about $436,000.
Pierce \. Welch, of Xew Haven, a graduate of 1862, in 1891
assumed the expense of erecting a new dormitory, which with an
(lutlay for subsequent repairs and improvements made a total gift
of over $140,000.
Edward M. Reed, a valued official of the New York, New Haven
and Hartford Railroad and a resident of New Haven, bequeathed
in iSyj about $125,000 to the Observatory, which is, however, not
yet available.
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394 THE BENEFACTORS OF YALE COLLECB
In 1893 Mr. and Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt, of New York City,
made their gift of Vanderbilt Hall, as a memorial of a deceased
son; but so far as I am aware no estimate has been made puUic
of its cost. In 1900 a bequest of $100,000 was also received from
Mr, Vanderbilt ; and a son has since made a subscription of $250,000
to the University funds. Probably the total of these sums will be
nearly three-quarters of a million of dollars.
In 1893 also Dr. Andrew J. White, an alumnus of the Medical
School (1846), whose son was then an undergraduate in the Col-
lege, presented a dormitory to the Corporation, the cost of which
was somewhat over $125,000,
In 1897 the death of William Lampson, of Leroy, N. Y., a gradu-
ate of the College in 1862, and a man of highly cultivated tastes,
brought to the College a large estate, which has yielded nearly
$450,000, thus placing the donor for the time at the head of the list
of individual givers, and in this respect making the epoch of Presi-
dent Dwight's administration yet more remarkable.
In 1900 came the beginning of a series of gifts from the family of
James W. Pinchot. of New York City (two sons having been gradu-
ated here in 1889 and 1897 respectively), for the establishment of
the Forest School, which have already amounted to upwards of
$200,000.
In 1902 the death of Edward W. Southworlh, an alumnus of the
College in 1875, from New Haven, and a man of rare intellectual
gifts — Multh illc bonis fiebilis— brought an endowment to the
Library, which with a few earlier gifts of like nature made up a
total of over $140,000.
The gift of Byers Hall in 1902, from Mrs. A. M. Byers, of Pitts-
burg, in memory of a deceased son. deserves to be mentioned,
although I have no knowledge of the cost.
A similar lack of information exists in the case of the very large
gifts of Frederick W. Vanderbilt, a graduate of the Scientific School
in 1876. which began in 1903, and those of John Hays Hammond, a
classmate of Mr. Vanderbilt.
Under date of 1902 mention should .il.so be made of the gift by
Mrs. William W. Boardman, of New Haven, to the Sheffield Scien-
tific School of money for the erection of Kirtiand Hall, in memory
of her uncie. Dr. Jared P. Kirtiand, of Cleveland, a graduate of the
Medical School in 1815, at an expense of $108,000.
In 1904 was received a bequest from William B. Ross, of New
York City, an alumnus of the College in 1852, for the erection of a
building, in honor of Dr. Jared Linsly (Class of 1826). The amount
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THE BENEFACTORS OF YALE COLLEGE IJS
of the gift (over $370,000) was expended for an addition to the
Library and the creation of a maintenance fund for its repair .
In (Q04 came also the largest sum yet given by any individual at
one time, one million dollars from John D. Rockefeller, of New
York.
In 1905 came the remarkable bequest to the Sheffield Scientific
School of $250,000 from Levi C. Viets, of Hartford.
In 1906 two brothers, Charles W. and Edward S- Harkness,
graduates of the College in 1883 and 1897 respectively, contributed
$500,000 to the University funds.
In lyoS a recitation-hall was built for the Sheffield Scientific
School, at an expense of $150,000, by Mrs. James Brown Oliver, of
Pittsburg, to commemorate the name of a son who had died before
graduation.
.-\nd the list end.s, as it began, with the receipt of a gift from the
mother ciiuiitry, in the shape of the bequest from Archibald Blount,
of Hereford, amounting to upwards of $320,000.
I recall that ont- of the most persistent and censorious critics of
the University has been fond of the assertion that our own graduates
do not give u.s money, and neither do residents of our own city ; but
any one who has followed this record will certainly find both of
these imputations unfounded.
There are many other interesting figures in this gallery of our
benefactors, besides Elihu Vale and George Berkeley and Sheldon
Clark. To name but a single cxam|>!e : for many years wc had
auKmg the fre(|uentcrs of the Library a quiet elderly man, so ajipre-
cialivc of goiid literature that it was always a pleasure to help him.
In earlier life I hiive learned that he had kept a small shiiji in the
centre of the city, retiring early with some savings ; and at his death,
in iSHS, he left ten thousand dollars to the Library funds and five
thousand for scholarships in the Divinity School. The gifts were
modest, in keeping with the personality of the giver; but I never
-ee in one of our books a plate crediting the volume to the llabriel
I'und without a thrill at the thought that we owe a constant succes-
sion of such literature to the careful thrift of a humble tradesman
without early ()pportunitics, who so prized his later opportunities as
lo df-ire to extend them to others.
Til take another example: the donor of the University Professor-
siiip (jf Comparative .\natomy, Dr. Henry Bronson, of this city, a
former Professor in the Medical School, was a man of unusually
vigorous mind and comprehensive interests. His gift of $8o,000
for this jiurposc testifies to his forethought and his scientific acumen ;
and those who knew him find an added interest from the remem-
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396 THE BENEFACTORS OF YALE COLLEGE
brance of his gruff, austere personality, with a matmer as complais-
ant as a March wind — the external qualities not usually associated
with wise plans and munificent provision for others not of one's own
household.
I have dwelt thus on the larger benefactors of Yale, and they
deserve great honor ; but our praise of them should not obscure the
remembrance of the far greater number of givers of comparatively
small means, representing often more self-denial and as much devo-
tion, whose loyalty has ever been and even will be the strength and
the support of such an institution as ours.
Note. The remarkable increase of large endowments in the last
ten years has rendered the above statistics very inadequate ; but it
has not been convenient to bring the story down to date.
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Rj;jIINISCENCES OF THE OFFICERS OF YALE
COLLEGE IN 1867.
[Read to "The Club," New Haven. February, 1911.]
Of the ten clerical Fellows of the Yale Corporation at my entrance
into College in 1857, 1 have personal recollection of only six.
The Rev. Dr. Noah Porter, of Farmington, father of President
Porter, remained in office as a Fellow until 1862, but I remember
seeing him only once or twice, — particularly at one of the Friday
evening Church meetings, held in what was known as the President's
Lecture-Room, on the first floor at the rear of the Lyceum. These
meetings were attended by the members of the Faculty and their
families, as well as by students; and the custom continued until the
Marquand Chapel was built in 1871, when the meetings were trans-
ferred thither, though soon after discontinued. They were sus-
tained mainly by the Facultj-, though the students were also encour-
aged to take part.
I have a distinct mental picture of Dr. Porter's figure as he
appeared on the occasion referred to; he impressed me as rather
under than over medium height, somewhat broad-shouldered and
square- I'accd. with decidedly plain features and a rusty brown wig.
He >cenicd to ine a typical country clergyman of the early part of the
century, a curious survival of antiquity, without any special grace or
attractiveness. He perhaps took part in the exercises, but I do not
recall the effect. He was very deaf in his old age. and for this
reasdii resigned from the Corporation four years before his death.
One specially remarkable thing about his long and eminent career
in the ministry was that, although Farmington was his native town,
and his family had not been a conspicuous one, he maintained
himself in the community where he was born and bred, and gained
a positiiin of unique influence which has been maintained by the
succeeding generations.
I'rcsidt'nt Jkrkmiaii Day survived until July, 1867, dying at the
age (if ninety-four. He was graduated in 1795, when Dr. Dwi^t
was inaugurated as President; I have no distinct recollection of
any graduate of earlier standing. During my first College term I
lived on ihe northwest corner of College and Crown streets, in what
was then the next house on the Crown street side to that bmilt by
President Day just before his election to the Presidency, The Cor-
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39S REMINISCENCES OF OFFICERS OF VALE COLLEGE
poration declined to allow him to remain there, as he would not be
able to manage the College while living at such a distance ; and the
house was rented to successive tenants (among others to Professors
Fitch and Gibbs), until the owner retired from office in 1846, when
he returned thither from the College Green, to make a home with
his new son-in-law, Professor Thacher. It thus happened that
among my earliest recollections of New Haven is the venerable
figure of the Ex-President as I saw him in his daily walk to the
Post-office, which was then on Chapel street, just below the rail-
road cut ; and there was little change in his appearance througti the
remaining ten years of his life.
He was of spare habit, above middle height, somewhat bent; his
head was large, with square forehead, sunken eyes, and overhanging
eyebrows ; the general impression of his bearing was one of extreme
seriousness, almost mournfulness, and of painful deliberation of
movement. He wore always, unless in the heat of summer, the long
black cloak with broad velvet collar which was commonly worn by
the older professors of that time ; his stove-pipe hat was apparently
as venerable as himself; and the melancholy slowness of his gait
was exaggerated by the use of large india-rubber overshoes, in which
he shuffled feebly along the pavement. This vision of him is supple-
mented by another, as he appeared on Sundays in his pew in the
South gallery of the College Chapel ; or at the monthly communion
service, when he sat alone in one of the slightly raised boxes (for
officers) on either side of the pulpit stairway; on such occasions
not infrequently his wig would be awry, adding to the pathetic for-
lomness of his appearance; he looked somehow, with his furrowed
face, burnt-out eyes, and trembling form, like a relic of long past
generations, waiting in resigned feebleness and dejection for the
release which was his rightful due.
I had but one personal interview with him. On the occasion of
some gathering at Professor Thacher's house, probably about 1864
while I was a Tutor, I was presented to the Ex- President, in his
study in the east wing of the house. My awe of him prevented my
using the opiwrlunity to converse with one who had been a pupil of
President Stiles, in whom I was already much interested; and
nothing passed between us but some brief reference to my connection
with the College.
I once heard President Day, probably also in 1864, when he was
91 years of age, make a public address. The Day of Prayer for
Colleges was then held in February of each year, and was observed
as a half-holiday here, a meeting of Faculty and students being held
in the afternoon. The Ex-President made a brief address, and
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REMINISCENCES OF OFFICERS OF YALE COLLEGE 399
showed no si^ of mental failure, such as might have been expected
in one of his extreme age. I remember also that he said grace at
the public dinner held in Music Hall, on Crown Street, in Com-
mencement Week, 1865, in commemoration of the connection of the
Alumni with the Union army in the Civil War. His voice was not
audible at any distance in that vast assembly, but the benediction of
his presence added distinctly to the impress] veness of the occasion;
I also heard him officiate in like manner at some of the annual
dinners of graduates on Commencement Day in Alumni Hall in other
years. The tones of his voice as they come back to me in this review
emphasize the impression of his extreme seriousness. I should sup-
pose from what I have heard that he had little sense of humor ; yet
the files of his correspondence, now in the University Library,
include a sheaf of letters from his College classmates, during his
undergraduate years, which imply a share on his part in all their
boyish pranks ; and he used to tell a story of one occasion when a
part of his class met to read disputes before Dr. Stiles : the President
had just received a parcel of foreign newspapers, and Day was the
first summoned to read his essay; he saw that Dr. Stiles was
absorbed in his pajwrs, and when he had done he quietly handed his
manuscript to the next reader, and so it passed on through the entire
list ; and when repeated for the last time, the Doctor roused himself
to say, "Vou have disputed verj- handsomely," and the session
ended.
From Professor Thachcr's testimony I know that his religious life
was peculiarly humble and earnest, and that the habit of self-exam-
ination so characteristic of thai j,'eneration was kept up to ihe last.
His self-command and reserve are shown most remarkably in ihe
record of his extraordinary medical experience, published after his
death in the State Medical Society's Proceedings by his physician.
Dr. Stephen G. Hubbard.
.\t the time of his death he was perhaps the oldest citizen of \'ew
Haven. lie used to tell of having held the chain, while a student,
for Ihe survey of the plot of ground (then a berry-pasture ) belong-
ing to [.imcs Hillhouse, which became the Grove Street cemetery.
opened in 1795.
.\s Ihe head of the College the impression transmitted by his pupils
rei>re<cnts him as eminently paternal and benevolent in his dealings
with them. I have sometimes thought of Dean Wright as his lineal
successor in a certain reticence and judicious calmness. President
Day won the respect and trust of the student community through
their sense of his fairness and justice, rather than by commanding
mental endowments. A typical example of his influence was given
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3O0 REMINISCENCES OF OFFICERS OF YALE COLLEGE
me by a member of the Class of 1828, who recalled meeting a class-
mate who had been caught in some deviltry and was just returning
from an interview with the President, overcome with real penitence
and declaring that he "didn't know the President was so good a
man."
It is characteristic of the force of his example that so long as he
lived, Professor Thacher's family, of which he was a member,
retained the observance of the beginning of the Sabbath at sunset
on Saturday,
The Rev. Dr. Joel Hawes, of Hartford, was a member of the
Corporation from 1846 to his death in 1867. My recollections of
him in my student days are confined mainly to his appearances in
the Chapel pulpit; but there he made a strong impression from his
earnestness and old-fashioned plainness. I remember vividly his
awkward and ponderous gestures with his abnormally large hands
(the Doctor was large and long-limbed in every way), and especially
his wetting his big thumb in his capacious mouth to sweep over the
successive leaves of his yellow manuscript. With al) drawbacks,
however, we recognized him as a man of real power, though cast
in an ungainly mould.
Later, when I undertook the tutorship (in 1864), it was with con-
sternation that I saw him enter the room where I was examining a
division of Freshmen, not a few of whom were older than myself,
in Euclid. It was the custom for the Corporation to name a Com-
mittee of their own number, at each Winter and Spring examination,
to visit the various class-rooms and report. No doubt Dr. Hawes
as an examiner meant to be courteous and affable; but it was like
an elephant at play. There was something overbearing, or at least
overawing, in his natural manner ; and the effect of his appearance,
in my room at least, was invariably to cause a scattering of wits, (Hi
the part of the pupils if not of the tutor also.
He outlived his usefulness in his own parish; but when at his
funeral President Woolsey with characteristic candor spoke the
truth in regard to his treatment of his associate pastor, some of the
leaders in the Society, who had not hesitated to feel mortification at
the fact, were greatly scandalized at its open imputation, so that the
language used was smoothed down in the published proceedings.
The Rev. Dr. Joseph Eldridge, of Norfolk, was the Senior
Fellow when I became Secretary of the Corporation in 1869, and
died in 1875. Though slightly under middle height, he was gifted
with striking nobility of presence, due to the dignified and com-
manding expression of his fine face. In my observatiwi of his
influence in the sessions of the Corporation there was abundant
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SEHtNISCENCES OF OFFICERS OF YALE COLLEGE $01
reason for crediting him with sound judgment and superior intel-
lectual force. He was also the soul of kindness, and I felt towards
him a stronger personal attraction than towards any of his associ-
ates in that period. Though his entire ministry was spent in a
remote country parish, he was recognized among his brethren as the
peer of the most accomplished. Doubtless a part of his distinction
was a result of his alliance with the Battell family, which has effected
so much in his own and the succeeding generation for the prosperity
and the adornment of Norfolk.
I remember but faintly his occasional sermons in the College
Chapel while I was a student ; my impression is that if he had been
fully aroused by circumstances he would have been a powerful
preacher, but that from indolence or shyness or some kindred cause
he fell a little short of what from undeniable intimations his hearers
felt that he was competent to accomplish.
The Rev. George J. Tillotson died so recently as 1888, having
held a scat in the Corporation for almost forty years — since 1849.
His selection was due to the old principle of local representation,
under which for more than a century the nine clerical Fellows were
distributed evenly over the nine counties of the Colonial or State
government. Mr. Tillotson's active ministry was spent in Windham
County ; but I doubt if he added at any time any strength to the
Board of Fellows. He was of thin and wiry habit, closc-shavcn,
bright-eyed, sharp- featured, with dark hair almost untouched to the
end by any i^ign of age, with a brisk manner and chirrupy tone; but
.so far as I could see a complete cipher in the counsels of the Cor-
poration. I had no personal relations with him, beyond what
resulted from seeing him for many years in the formal sessions of
the Corporation. Though he accumulated some property, and was
generous in founding an Institution in the State of Texas to perpet-
uate his own name, he gave nothing, I believe, at any time to the
College whose work and needs he had such intimate opportunities
of knowing.
The Rev. Edwin R. Gii.rert, of W'allingford, was a member of
the Corporalion from 1849 until his death in 1874. A pale, slender,
liglu-haircd man. of a little over average height, he impressed me as
a ]>astor of m<xlcst, unassuming worth, with no remarkable gifts of
intellect or expression. There was a tinge of gentle melancholy
about liim, as of one who was fitted by frequent experience of sor-
row to console others.
I never heard but one public performance of Mr. Gilbert's, a paper
on Wallrnglord history, read before the New Haven Colony Histori-
cal Society ; the matter recounted was intcUigently put, but included
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303 REMINISCENCES OF OFPICEBS OF YALE COLLEGE
nothing unknown to historical students. From the fact that,
although residing near by, he was never in my time seen in the
College pulpit, I infer that he was not distinguished as a "preacher.
I recall a characteristic utterance of President Woolsey in the brief
address which he made at Mr. Gilbert's grave, when he observed,
in substance, that our deceased friend was well aware that his talents
were but moderate and indulged in no undue pretensions.
The Hon. James E. English, of New Haven, who was afterwards
Governor of the State and United States Senator, was an ex-officio
member of the Yale Corporation in 1857, as being one of the six
senior State Senators. I have no recollection of him at that date;
but later his erect, trim figure was familiar on the city streets, and
I came to know him personally when he was again in the Corporation
as Governor, from 1867 to 1870. He was then remarkably vigorous
for his years, and noteworthy for his shrewd common-sense and
native dignity. I think, however, that he did not feel sufficiently at
home in the Board to exert direct influence. Possibly his lack of
early opportunities made him somewhat reserved in such a group,
though he had their genuine respect for force of character and
uprightness, as well as for remarkable business capacity. It has
been said that his large fortune was in some measure the result of
his foresight in shrewd purchases of articles needed for army sup-
plies at the time of the Civil War, as suggested to him by his
mother's recollections of her experience in the War of 1812.
The Rev. Samuel R. Andrew, a lineal descendant of the Rev.
Samuel Andrew, of Milford, who served as Rector of the College
pro tempore after Rector Pierson's death, was the Secretary of the
Corporation from 1846 to his death in 1858. He spent his later
years in New Haven, after retiring from the active ministry.
I never met him, but recall distinctly his appearance in Chapel on
Sundays, when he occupied with his family one of the middle pews
in the front row of the South gallery. He was of an ample figure,
with soft white hair and dark green spectacles,— a very placid,
benign-looking old gentlemen, though I believe that some experi-
ences of his early years, while a teacher in the South, were quite at
variance with this appearance.
He wrote a round, legible hand, and kept the records of the Cor-
poration with evident accuracy and fullness.
Mr. Edward C. Herrick held when I entered College, as he had
already done for five years, the two offices of Librarian and Treas-
urer ; and the fact is significant of the poverty of the College and
the small volume of its affairs, as well as of his energy and versa-
tility. Of course he had assistance in both positions ; but his own
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REMINISCENCES OF OFFICERS OF YALE COLLEGE 303
labors were very heavy, and as he did not know how to spare him-
self, I have little doubt that his early death was in part caused by
overwork.
Mr. Herrick was of tall, spare habit, rapid in his movements, with
a cheerfulness bordering on merriment, and kindliness and frank-
ness which won the hearts of both old and young. Though a man
of large acijuisitions in many directions, there was nothing of the
reserved scholar in his bearing; he was affable and chatty, in his
office or on the sircel. and impressed one as a busy man of affairs,
least of all as a ]>edant. His exactness and accuracy were proverbial
and these were perhaps his most marked traits to the ordinary
observer of his official career. A special characteristic was his neat,
clear, regular penmanship, which could on occasion be wonderfully
minute, and was always a delight to the eye, and which served more-
over (unconsciously) as a model for many of his friends.
His .•icientiftc tastes were strongly developed, and in the depart-
ments of astronomy and entomology especially his keenness of vision
and logical clearness of mind made his observations and deductions
of signal value.
He died in 1862, and if I can trust my own recollections, his
charming simplicity and frankness, combined with his mental quick-
ness and breadth of interests, were what endeared him most to those
who knew him best. The bas-relief in the University Library by
rainier gives fairly well the pleasant expression of his face in
repose, though the sculptor never saw him and worked from very
insufficient materials.
Some natural affinity of tastes drew me to him, and I felt grati-
fied and honored in the later part of my college course by admission
to some slight degree of intimacy in relation to his current historical
interests, i remember, for instance, assisting him in the preparation
of the Obituary Record of deceased graduates for 1861, and in that
connection going to President W'oolsey's office for his revision of
the proof-sheet containing the notice of his brilliant young nephew,
Theodore Winthrop. I had already explored pretty thoroughly the
nKnui^cri|Hs of I)r, Stiles in the College Library, and this had helped
to bring nic into sympathy with Mr. Herrick, who was the recognized
oracle in respect to all matters of College antiquity. Little did I
forc-ec ihiit his early death, and the friendship of such men as Presi-
dent \\ oolsey, and Professors Porter, Thachcr, and Gilman, would
0])en a wnv for my succeeding to his place as College historian.
Mr. Herrick had been known for many years to be gathering
material for the biographies of the graduates of the eighteenth cen-
tury ; and it was a disappointment to find at his death that he had
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304 REMINISCENCES OF OFFICERS OF YALE COLLEGE
done practically nothing in carrying out his intention, though having
prepared a series of folio volumes for the purpose. His rough
collection of notes was of much value for my own work, but I always
regretted that he did not have the time to put his material into final
form.
He was only fifty-one when he died ; but sharp illness and inces-
sant labor had aged him prematurely. I ought perhaps to qualify
what I have said of his kindliness by mention of his natural impa-
tience at having his time invaded by bores, which may have on occa-
sion given him the appearance of brusqueness, but no man was ever
at heart more friendly or in action more helpful. The experience
of the helpless daughters of one of his old friends was a typical one;
they placed in his care their scanty means, and when an investment
of their father's proved worthless, Mr. Herrick forbore to expose
the facts, but continued while he lived to furnish the expected
amount of income from his own resources.
President Woolsey was first known to me by his conduct of
morning prayers in the Chapel, and in these exercises his evident
deep religious feeling affected even the most thoughtless. The awe
with which I then regarded him continued to be ever after, even
when I came to stand in somewhat close relation to him, the predomi-
nant sentiment in my mind. As students we thought of him as a
stern and awful embodiment of rectitude, capable of flashes of
indignation which might wither like lightning from Sinai.
I remember on some occasion of foolish masquerading, perhaps
in connection with a "powwow" early in Sophomore year, being
halted on the pavement in front of the colleges, while wearing a
flimsy disguise, by the President and Professor Larned, and made to.
give my name; the severity of the President's tone frightened me
beyond measure, but there was no after effect, beyond the order to
go to my room and remove my disguise at once.
As Seniors we came under his instruction in History, Political
Economy, and International Law ; and the main impression made
on my memory is quite as much of amazement at his marvelous
retention of minute details as of his command of principles. These
imperfect recollections do not lead me, however, to think of him as
eminently successful in the teaching of these branches. I have no
doubt that in his earlier field of study, the Greek language and litera-
ture, partly perhaps from the impulse of his younger years, he both
felt and was able to arouse much more enthusiasm. As I knew him,
there was rather a chilly atmosphere of repression about his appear-
ance in the class-room.
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REMINISCENCES OF OFFICERS OP YALE COLLEGE 305
As an administrator I had the opportunity to observe him at close
range in later years, and one predominant feeling is of wonder at
his unwavering devotion to petty and repellent details. After
becoming Secretary of the Corporation, I wished to take out of his
hands such burdens as might fitly fall within my province; but he
was unwilling to give up even such mere drudgery as the enveloping
and directing of catalogues in response to daily requests. He had
conscientiously undertaken, in assuming office, irksome duties, which
Ik- loathed as interfering with his scholarly life ; but beyond any man
I iiave known, having put his hand to the plough, he would not draw
back. His high conception of duty carried him through an amount
of drudgery which would have daunted most men.
In the presidential office he was perhaps often regarded, at least
amonfj the younger members of the Faculty, as autocratic; and he
certainly was so, though frankly and bluntly to a degree which did
much to silence discussion. An infirmity of hasty temper, which
was natural to him as a young man, and which was in some quarters
thought of as a serious objection to his election as President, was
in great measure overcome in later life, but he had to the last the
power of summarily overriding opposition, and vetoing unwelcome
suggestions or requests by simply pocketing them. His judgment
of men was not, I think, particularly good, and he acted too often,
even in grave matters, on hasty impulse, without giving much heed
to consultation. I have in mind instances, both of appointments to
office and of failures to appoint, which were due apparently to hasty
action on his part, which resulted to the injury of the College.
-Vnd yet, autocrat though he was, he was not in this respect any
more to be criticised tlian were others, who veiled their autocracy
under a greater show of fairness and accomplished by indirection
what the old President would have scorned to do in any but the most
open and abrupt way.
For, afler all, he was the most guileless and upright of men;
humble and childlike in his religious faith, and obedient to the sway
of iliat failh in the secret springs as well as the open manifestations
of his character.
I .cmcmbcr as characteristic of his humility and sincerity a chance
remark as I walked wiih him after the Commencement exercises in
1871 lo his room, where he was to disrobe before going to the
Alumni Hall for dinner : it was in substance, "Now I must go over
there and be beslobbered with compliments," and was said in the
tone of one who loathed all pretence and all affectation of praise for
what was merely from his point of view duty done.
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3o6 REMINISCENCES OP OFFICERS OF YALE COLLEGE
As a preacher he exercised a distinct influence, the more remark-
able from the circumstance that for twenty years before his pro-
motion to the Presidency he had abandoned all thought of preach-
ing. As may be seen from his printed sermons, his style was
severely plain, and it was furthered by no graces of oratory; but
there was a sincerity of conviction and depth of feeling in his utter-
ance which stirred the consciences of his hearers. That such com-
position was no burden, but rather a pastime, I know from the indif-
ference with which he once accepted the return of some penciled
drafts of sermons, found in a book which he had brought back to
the Library, saying frankly that he had often written sermons, with
no thought of using them.
The bronze statue of President Woolsey, placed in the College
grounds in 1896, presents a satisfactory likeness in profile, especially
on the northern side; but the effect of massiveness hardly does
justice to a certain delicacy of feature and spiritual expression which
were an essential part of the entire man.
Highly characteristic was his reply in the Library on a hot August
day, when asked if it was true that he was to preach next day in
the Centre Church : "Yes, I said I couldn't, but when they said they
should go next to Dr. — ■ — -, I concluded that I would rather preach
myself than hear him."
Professor Benjamin Silliman, Senior, then the almost unique
holder of what is now becoming a hard-worked title, Emeritus, was
nearly eighty years of age when I first saw him; my recollections,
therefore, can hardly do him justice. He was, of course, wholly
retired from public duty, and my most distinct impression of him is
gathered from an address made to our class when Seniors, by
request, on the annual Day of Prayer for Colleges. He was
evidently gratified by the invitation, and his brief talk to us was
frankly egotistical in its simple personal character. His manner was
strikingly courteous, that of a polished {gentleman of the old school,
accustomed to the veneration of a targe family circle. He was more
a man of the outside world than any other of his generation among
his colleagues, with a buoyant confidence in the good-will of all
mankind. He had stood forth for a long period as the public orator
and spokesman of the College, and must have been in his prime strik-
ingly dignified and handsome. His portraits do not do him justice,
and the bust in the University library unfortunately preserves his
severest expression, while his customary aspect was specially genial
and benign. I am not competent to pass judgment on the statue
by Professor W^eir as a work of art, but it certainly reproduces in
general his noble face and figure.
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REUINI5CENCES OF OFFICERS OF YALE COIXEGE 307
The Rev. Dr. Nathaniel W. Taylok, the head of the Divinity
School, died in my Freshman year, and my only sight of him was as
he lay in his coffin at the funeral in the Centre Church. Two dis-
tinct recollections which I retain are of the prayer of Dr. Bacon,
with its felicitous petitions, especially one in behalf of "Thine aged
handmaid," the widow, who was too feeble to be present; and of
the impressive rendering of one of the hymns to the tune of Wind-
ham, which was unfamiliar to me and seemed wonderful in its weird
and mournful effect.
Later, as I became intimate with Mrs, Porter, Dr. Taylor's
daughter, and Professor Fisher, I gained some impression of his
traits of character; but this is not fairly included under the head of
personal recollections.
Dr. Jonathan Knight continued in the full discharge of the
duties of the I'rofessorship of Surgery until 1864, but I did not know
him personally. He delivered a short course of lectures on Anatomy
to my class in our Senior year, and I recall vividly his gracious
presence. There was about him a special air of suavity and cour-
tesy, combined with the easy bearing of an assumed master of his
subject. He wore, as the old-school physicians of that time were
wont to do, a dress-coat and spotless white neckerchief in many folds
which seemed to comport well with his soft white hair. I do not
suppose that he had been really handsome, but he almost gave that
impression in old age, although his head shook with palsy and his
feaiures were furrowed by care. The marble bust executed just
after his death and belonging to the Medical .School is a faithful
representation of his features.
Professor JosiAii W. Gibbs was a unique figure beyond any other
in the College world of 1857. My ideal picture of him is as I
rcniemhcr him, an attenuated, fragile wisp of a man, in the tradi-
linnal long black professional cloak, traveling slowly along the wind-
swept street and clinging to the board fence for safety. There was
a weinl, uncanny look about his haggard face and scanty gray locks,
a= if he were steeped in unworldly lore and not quite conscious of
the earth and his surroundings. I recall his occasional exegetical
remnrk'^ in the Friday-evening prayer-meetings, learned and inge-
nious and wholly siit generis. He was Professor of Sacred Litera-
ture in the Divinity School, and was undeniably for many years the
nio-t cnidite and acute representative of advanced scholarship,
wliithtT broad or minute, on these grounds; but with a peculiar tem-
perament which led him to hold his judgment in suspense about
every question which admitted of more than one answer, and thus
interfered with his practical success as a teacher. In the lecture-
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$oS REUINISCBNCES OP OFFICERS OF YALE COLIXGE
room of his later years, as I judge from what I was told, his energies
were largely given to parrying the efforts of irreverent pupils to
extract from him positive expressions of opinion; and it was said
of him that when as a young candidate for the ministry he had
appeared in the Chapi:! pulpit, his manuscript was so interlined with
alternative readings that he foiind great difficulty in completing his
sentences.
The Rev. Eleazar T. Fitch retired from the College pastor-
ate in 1852, and had ceased to preach before my knowledge of New
Haven. On one occasion only, the commemoration of the centen-
nial anniversary of the founding of the College Church, in Novem-
ber, 1857, he assisted in the exercises by reading one or two of the
hymns, a part of the service for which in his prime he had been
justly eminent.
He had been made Professor of Divinity and College pastor at an
early age, and enjoyed a distinguished reputation as a preacher.
This was rather due to special sermons, perhaps, than to his ordi-
nary ones; and those which had won special favor were preached
over and over, at judicious intervals, with marked success. It was
apt to be whispered abroad whenever either one of these noted
sermons or one newly composed was to be given, with the reward of
a large and attentive audience in the galleries ; but his more ordinary
discourses were also preached over and over, with less satisfactory
results.
His voice had a clear, ringing quality, and in the reading of the
Scriptures and of hymns he was peculiarly effective in modulating
his tones and in introducing rhetorical pauses. For extempora-
neous service and for pastoral duty he was, however, ill-adapted,
probably owing to excessive shyness.
On the only occasions of my meeting him he gave no indication of
power or genius, but impressed me as a prematurely aged man, with
a thick-set clumsy figure, mild-mannered and hesitating as an over-
grown child.
The Rev. Dr. Chauncey A. Goodrich was the exact opposite of
his classmate, Dr, Fitch, in important particulars regarding their
public appearances. Indeed he had gladly, so long as Dr. Fitch
occupied the pulpit, supplemented his deficiencies as a pastor in all
ways that involved direct contact with the student world.
Dr. Goodrich's throne, as I saw him, was the chair in the Presi-
dent's lecture-room in the Lyceum, from which he delivered, directly
after the supper-hour on Sundays, a series of felicitous extempo-
raneous addresses on themes of practical religion. This meeting he
had sustained for years, and it was unquestionably the most efficient
religious influence in the College, Part of the service was its appa-
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KEMINISCENCES OF OFFICEBS OF YJlLE COLLEGE 309
rent informality. Discarding the methods of an ordinary prayer-
meeting, the speaker sat easily in his chair and talked in a familiar,
natural manner to an audience which very rarely failed to fill the
room to its utmost capacity. Dr. Goodrich had been for forty years
Professor of Rhetoric, at first in the College and afterwards in the
Divinity School, and no doubt his method was most carefully selected
so as to produce the best effect. Ars est celart artem, and the result
was to impress us most of all with the artiessness of the effort.
Accordingly Professor Goodrich's meeting was always popular,
even with the undevout majority, who went to the service for what
seemed like an exercise in the most highly trained logic set off with
the most finished and graceful oratory.
He never preached in Chapel in my day; and this added to his
power in his special province. He was the embodiment, in the
Faculty, of the emotional element in religion, and took the lead in
guiding the revival of 1858, the last great College awakening. As
one who joined the College Church at that time, I can testify that
little discrimination was shown in sifting the candidates for mem-
bership, and I fear that some who then professed a new hope after-
wards renounced it.
In his earlier position in the College Faculty, Dr. Goodrich had
the name of being specially entrusted with the management of diffi-
cult cases of discipline, and the administrator of a highly unpopular
sviitem of espial.
1 have heard a graduate of that time relate a story which seems to
indicate on his part slight power of recognition of faces. This was
to the effect that a certain student who was a good speaker was
ah\a\s ready to declaim before the Professor in the place of his
more indolent classmates, and would mount the stage day after day,
imptTsonating one candidate after another.
['rofessor Denison Olmsted died in my Sophomore year, so that
1 never came under his instruction; but no one who had seen him
could fail of a vivid recollection of his appearance.
He was slightly under middle height, but an abundant shock of
>liff, iron-grey hair, brushed straight up from a high forehead,
aiidcd inches enough to his stature lo make him seem imposing, and
hi* stately, old-fashioned urbanity increased the impression.
I renieml)er him chiefly by his conduct of College prayers on one
evening of each week, and by his occasional remarks in the Friday-
wtning prayer-meetings ; and these appearances revealed a trans-
[larenlly self-complacent man, of simple, natural piety, with the
courteous manners of a passing generation. In this last particular,
as compared with Professor Silliman, Professor Olmsted showed a
slight flavor of rusticity; but his unaffected goodness no one could
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3IO REMINISCENCES OF OFFICERS OP YALE COLLEGE
doubt. From these glimpses of him, I should be inclined to describe
him also as probably credulous, a little vain, and superAcial in
scholarship.
The Hon. Thomas B. Osborne was a Professor in the Law
School, then in a seemingly moribund condition. His figure was a
familiar one on the street, but I have no personal reminiscences of
him. He looked the embodiment of comfortable moderation and
grave decorum, but the expression of his face was so veiled by large
opaque green goggles that there was little on which to frame a judg-
ment.
The Hon. Henry Dutton gave a few lectures on the United
States Constitution to our class as Kent Professor of Law in our
Senior year, but my recollections of the matter are quite indistinct.
He was also the head of the Law School, which had been allowed to
decline, owning to the advancing age and other engagements of the
two Professors. Of a tall, erect, spare figure, with smooth, homely
face, and short, iron-grey hair, he gave a suggestion of wiry alert-
ness and endurance in his prime, now weakened and softened under
the burdens of age.
Professor William A. Larned held the chair of Rhetoric and
English Literature from 1839 to 1862. My first contact with him
was at his meeting our class in divisions as Freshmen, to lecture on
English Composition and assign to us our first topics for that exer-
cise. We met him individually in Sophomore year for criticism
of the essays written in competition for prizes ; and again in Junior
year with regard to our orations for delivery at the Junior Exhibi-
tion. As Seniors we studied under him the Oration of Demos-
thenes on the Crown as an exercise in rhetoric, using as a text-book
a privately-printed volume of notes prepared by himself ; and met
him also for the criticism of our Commencement orations. As long
as evening prayers, just before supper, were continued (until the
close of our Sophomore year), he took his turn in conducting them,
and was generally an active and prominent figure in the small
Faculty circle.
He had an abrupt, frosty manner, the awkwardness of which was
probably due mainly to shyness and shortsightedness ; but under an
outward armor of stiffness and formality, I for one could discern
clearly his essential kindliness and desire to be friendly. As a critic
I found him personally helpful, though he was usually held to be a
dry and uninspiring instructor. We used to laugh at the cut-and-
dried phrases which recurred regularly in his Chapel prayers, — the
only (we which I now recall being his petition for "those who have
come up hither to acquire useful knowledge," — and to mimic a
fancied pomposity of manner ; but I do not doubt that he was at heart
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REMINISCENCES OF OFFICEBS OF YALE COLLEGE Jll
a man of a genuinely simple and humble character, as much afraid
of us as we ever were of him.
In the held of Enghsh hterature he gave almost no instruction in
my time, though previously he had occasionally given a few lectures
on that subject; as, however, the work which he undertook must
have occupied him fully, this omission should not be charged to
neglect.
Though in earlier life a parish minister, he never preached in my
day ; but it is hardly likely that he can have been very successful in
that vocation, owing to constitutional shyness.
His death, in 1862, was painfully tragic. Towards the end of a
winter's day, while returning home in a snow-storm, from a visit
of kindness in the outskirts of the city, he fell unconscious in an
apoplectic fit. He was found by a policeman and removed to the
station-house, on the supposition that he had been overcome by
drink; and no attempt was made for hours by the officers in charge
to learn his identity. He died before his wife, stricken with anxiety,
had reached him.
Dr. Henky Bronson retired early from a Professorship in the
Medical School ; but 1 afterwards knew him in connection with a
common interest in historical matters. He was not at this later time
in active practice, and his gruff, downright manner must have pre-
vented his ever being a favorite as a family physician; though he
was thoroughly equipped in learning. He was a shrewd business
man, and left a large property. His historical and biographical
writing was of a high order, and he spared no fiains lo make it full
and accurate. Personally I found him always kind and considerate,
but it was evident that he had a strong will, and woe to him that
crossed it. His prejudices were intense, and he appeared to be
wholly unresponsive to what we call sentimental considerations.
Rugged and stern as a New-England boulder in his exterior, the
same qualities reappeared in the inner man.
His sketches of the former physicians of New Haven County
abound both in information and entertainment.
My relations with President Porter were for many years so inti-
mate and almost affectionate that I shrink from putting on paper any
cool estimate of him. As an undergra.duate I knew him as Professor
of Mental and Moral Philosophy, and found him uniformly kind and
helpful ; the impression of his teaching often was that he failed of
winning the highest success through seeming too tired or too bored
to do himself full justice. To some extent this effect was an epitome
of his whole impression on his generation.
Partly from the desire of increasing his resources, and partly from
an intense enjoyment of mental exercise, he had early bec<»ne fixed
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REMINISCENCES OF OFFICBKS OF YAl^ COLLEGE
in the habit of unstinted labor, with the result that by the time 1 1
knew him well he had always on hand so many more things waiting
to be done than he could carry through to perfection, that he did
few of them quite at his best.
That he was remarkably facile in turning^ off work goes almost
without saying. None the less was he remarkable for the versa- ■
tility of his mind and the fertility of resource with which he attacked' I
each new set of circumstances that was presented to him.
As a friend he was ardently faithful. He delighted in the oppor-
tunities of counsel and of assistance which came to him in connection
with his position as a teacher, and was unwearied in suggestion and
encouragement. He may sometimes have been thought unduly
biased in his devotion to the cause of those whose side he espoused
in a controversy; if he erred in such cases, it was from a mistaken
exaltation of the standard of loyalty to a friend in need.
As a public speaker he often did not do himself justice for the
reason already given .^because he had always, as the vulgar phrase
is, too many irons in the fire. For a considerable part of his presi-
dency a vacancy in the College pastorate led to his preaching often
and with little preparation, so that his sermons fell into a certain
familiar strain, and were not as stimulating to his fickle audience as
he might with more care have made them. He had one peculiar
habit in aid of composition, which I never knew of in anyone else.
He often went into the pulpit with a manuscript-case, which held
only a few introductory sentences, followed by notes of the subse-
quent heads of his discourse, and he would go on fluently, using his
notes and the otherwise blank pages as a help to extempore com-
position, while perhaps not one in a hundred in the audience would |
discover that he was not reading a written sermon.
President Porter was of medium height, with no superfluous flesh, I
and with a homely but attractive face and winning expression. He'l
retained his bodily and mental vigor to a surprising degree, but!
relying too confidently on his youthfulness of feeling he continued I
in his office after a number of the influential graduates and friends I
of the College had begun to feel that the public interest required^
the succession of a younger man.
When he reluctantly laid down the presidential duties in i88(_
his 75th year, he had retained them to a greater age than any one of!
his predecessors, although no doubt to himself he seemed quite asJ
capable as when ten years younger. I do not know what suggestion 1
led to his resignation ; but when the spur to effort was withdrawn^ f
his powers speedily failed. There was something inexpressibly!
melancholy in the sudden relapse into old age; but this was no justt-r
fication for the unfeeling manner in which he was treated as ncr]
longer a person of influence or consideration.
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KEUINISCENCES OF OFFICERS OF YALE COLLEGE $1$
He Still retained his professorship, and gave some graduate in-
struction for nearly six years, or up to the year of his death ; but he
soon grew unable to use a pen, and this with extreme feebleness of
voice and other infimiities, made his old age a painful decline, and
his release welcome to those who loved him.
Professor William A. Norton, then the oldest professor in the
Scientific School, was a familiar figure to my eyes for a quarter of
a century, and for the last few years of his life I was his next-door
neighbor, yet I only knew him in a somewhat superficial way. He
was a close student, and something of a recluse, though affable and
even cordial in casual intercourse.
In figure he was above middle height, with high, broad shoulders
and an amiable expression. His short-sightedness increased the
effect of the shyness which characterized his bearing.
His scientific attainments deserved respect, but his modesty pre-
vented anything like parade. His influence was distinctly that of a
devout ChristaJn ; while his happy wedded life, though not blessed
with children, was idyllic in its perfection.
Professor James D. Dana was perhaps forty-five years of age
when I first saw him, but was already eminent, even to my untau^t
apprehension. He was in appearance as remarkable as he was in
reality. Though not of commanding stature, in every other respect
he was a most striking figure. His compact, wiry frame was instinct
with life and vigor, and a glorious, buoyant energy seemed to radiate
from every feature and every limb. As is well known, his intense,
incessant mental activity wore out his physical strength and re-
stricted his enjoyments in social and domestic life; but the elasticity
of his tread and alertness of his look bore witness until late in life
to the unconquerable strength of his will.
His fir.st serious failure of health came in my Junior year, so that
instead of our having him as a lecturer in Senior year, we had only
sonic of his lecture-notes on Geology read to us by his brother-in-
law, the younger Silliman.
In later years I knew Professor Dana well, in the Facidly meetings
anil in private intercourse, and no one could know him without
genuine rcj;ard and admiration.
.\s a member of the Faculty he was conscientious in attendance
on his duty, but not greatly interested in the petty details of business
and ratlier impatient of the needless waste of time. In the grasp of
principles he was a recognized leader ; the expansion of the elective
system in the College in 1876 was due to his inspiration.
Professor Thomas A. Thaciier was one of the examiners at my
admission to College, and from that time to the day of his death (in
t8S6) I knew him with increasing intimacy of attachment. No
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314 REMINISCENCES OF OFFICERS OF VALE COLLEGE
College officer during that period, and I am inclined to think no
earlier officer here, commanded truer or deeper regard and affecti(Mi.
The service which he rendered in the College as a teacher of Latin
was to some extent overshadowed by his usefulness in other ways ;
but he is eminently deserving of remembrance as a judicious and
stimulating instructor.
He brought up a large family, and was hampered during much of
his life by limited means and by indebtedness incurred for the assist-
ance of a near relative, so that he was obliged to undertake various
miscellaneous duties, which might add to his income. These avoca-
tions absorbed much of his time; but they brought him into wider
contact with the students and the city, and gave him new oppor-
tunities of influence which he might use to advantage. The under-
graduates felt that he sympathized with them more actively and fully
than any of his associates, and the graduates looked to him as their
closest and most direct bond of connection with the College.
He was of average height, with sturdy figure and square, deter-
mined face, the most striking features of which were his keen, blue
eyes and bushy eyebrows. When at rest his face had an expression
of sternness, from the firmly-set jaws ; but in conversation it kindled
into the most winning kindliness and sympathy.
Professor Silliman, Junior, gave us in Senior year such instruc-
tion in chemistry as was thought necessary for an educated man, but
neither the amount nor the character of the instruction gave much
satisfaction. His verbose and flowery style as a lecturer perhaps
caused a suggestion that his attainments were brilliant rather than
solid.
My personal relations with him were most friendly, and in his
home he was a charming host. Unfortunately an over-sanguine
temperament exposed him to the abuse of his name and scientific
reputation by unscrupulous promoters for their own ends.
James Hadley, professor of Greek, was the typical scholar among
our instructors. He taught us during our first College term, and
our dominant impression was that of an austere yet kindly man, of
probably unapproachable heights and depths of learning, to whom
our awkward flounderings furnished a species of mild amusement.
His instruction was carefully graded down to our average capacity,
and perhaps the better trained among us felt that his method was
rather too evidently elementary; certainly there was scanty encour-
agement to any effort beyond the limits strictly prescribed. He was
elaborately courteous and fair in his demeanor in the class-room,
with possibly a suspicion of being bored alike by the forward and
the dull.
His plain, irregular features were made attractive by his eyes,
which were large and full of expression. I have rarely known so
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REMINISCENCES OF OFFICERS OF YALE COLLEGE 31$
homely a man whose face was so changed by the soul shining
through it.
His mind was an extremely interesting one. He had in unusual
degree the power of lucid and precise exposition ; and I have never
known anyone intimately who had an equal capacity for setting
forth a limited amount of knowledge on a given subject in such a
finished and satisfying form. I can recall definite instances, where
I was cognizant of the sources of his information on a topic under
discussion, and was startled at the way in which he handled his
material, and without indulging in false or undue emphasis put in
luminous order the meagre and scattered items with which he had
been supplied.
We ranked him, 1 suppose, above anyone else in the Faculty as
a natural genius ; and he certainly was not deficient in that mark of
genius which is the capacity for taking pains. He impressed us as
most orderly and methodical, inflexibly just, and so impartial as to
seem almost devoid of human interest ; but later and closer inter-
course with him revealed a very tender and kindly spirit, not at all
the unsympathizing machine that I think we should at first have
deemed him. I commend to all who remember him the remarkable
sketch of his life contributed by his son to the Biographical Memoirs
of the National Academy.
Professor William D. Whitney taught in my Junior year an
optional class in German which I attended; but I have to confess
that through my own fault I learned but little. He could not have
been as much interested in this elementary work as he would have
been in teaching advanced students in his specialties of Sanskrit and
Comparative Philoogy ; and one fancied that he felt something akin
to contempt of our shortcomings, which was not encouraging.
In later years 1 came to appreciate gratefully, at least in some
degree, his remarkable gifts and his real friendliness; but I never
outgrew a covert dread of his sarcasm and of his disgust at poor
scholarship.
Professor George P. Fisher, whose death is more recent than
that of any other of this group of associates, was the College pastor
during my undergraduate life, and was then in the prime of hia
manly beauty ; but the enthusiasm with which he had assumed in
1854 his arduous position was already chilled, and his resignation in
1861 to accept a chair in the Divinity School, though nominally on
account of impaired health, was in reality a confession of disappoint-
ment and defeat, and I remember that when President Woolsey, at
the inauguration of a successor in the pastorate, charged him not to
abandon his post when tired of it, this was construed as a fling at
Mr. Fisher (who was not present on the occa»on) and was omitted
in the published version of the President's remarks.
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3l6 KEHINISCENCES OF OFFICERS OF YALE C»IXEGB
As a stated preacher Mr. Fisher showed the characteristics which
those who knew his later and really eminent career as an historian
and general scholar would expect. His sermons were always inter-
esting to a cultivated taste and very far from ccunmonplace ; but his
delivery diminished their effect, and there was always an impression
that he was himself tired and disheartened and somewhat doubtful
of the result.
We met him also in the class-room, where his teaching of Butler's
Analogy showed him at his best, as a model in the art of lucid and
distinct exposition, I think none of us saw anything of him per-
sonally, so that we did not see the side of his nature which was most
familiar and most captivating to his associates in later life.
Professor Hubert A. Newton carried in our day the heavy
burden of instruction in Sophomore mathematics, and we could not
be expected to appreciate the difficulties of his task; but I am sure
that the majority did appreciate the earnestness of his efforts to
overcome our lack of interest or of comprehension.
Mr. Newton was hampered by his own modesty and by a certain
impracticalness which is apt to embarrass the steps of a teacher so
far in advance of his pupils ; while at heart he was most anxious to
be kind and considerate. Later I used to wonder how he ever
accomplished anything in his study, as every caller found him appar-
ently at perfect leisure, and it was apt to be difficult to finish one's
business with him and to get release. We always, I think, imagined
the range of his interests to be rather limited ; I am now sure that
in this respect we did him injustice,
Daniel C. Gilman as the Librarian met our class at the opening
of Junior year, when by the law then in force we were for the first
time allowed to draw books from the College Library, having previ-
ously been satisfied with the collections in general literature be-
longing to the two open societies, Linonia and the Brothers in Unity.
He gave us a discursive and vivacious talk on the character of the
collection and the way to use it to most advantage. I had long
before begun to frequent the building as a casual reader, and al-
ready knew Mr. Gilman well. His cordiality and ready helpfulness
influenced deeply, not merely my life for the years in College, but
ever since.
He had then, as later, a special faculty for making other people
exert themselves to do their best ; but what then more impressed me
was the multiform variety of his avocations and his unfailing readi-
ness always to undertake a new one. As a librarian the office, with
the very small income then available for books, did not appeal to
him as having sufficient scope, and accordingly he did not take his
duties with entire seriousness. He was, however, chagrined that
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REMINISCENCES OP OFFICERS OF YALE COLLEGE $IJ
his hasty resignation in 1865 was taken in earnest by President
Woolsey ; and possibly also he was surprised that his claims for the
Presidency were not considered in 1871 ; but it was fortunate for
him and for the future of Amedcan education that Providence
instead opened another door, leading to his distinguished success as
President of the Johns Hopkins University from 1875 to 1901.
FisK P. Brewer was the Senior Tutor in 1857, and instructed us
in Greek during part of Freshman year. He came to us with the
tradition of extreme unpopularity; but otherwise we should have
accounted him merely a strict disciplinarian and a competent and
careful teacher, with certain unpleasant peculiarities of voice and
manner. If it had not been, therefore, for the reputation which
he brought with him, we should not have disliked him actively ; but
it was the College fashion to decry him, and most of us stupidly fell
in with it. Personally I respected him, and later had a high regard
for him. He lacked, however, the wholesomeness and heartiness
which were so charming in his younger brother, Mr. Justice Brewer.
Lebeus C Ciiapin has the distinction of having retained a tutor-
ship for eight or nine years, a longer period than any other person
earlier or later for many generations ; and when at length he unex-
pectedly offered his resignation during the brief winter vacation of
1863-4, there was reason for haste in accepting his offer, lest he
might withdraw it, and in the emergency, as the most available man
within reach, I was much to my own surprise elected his successor.
My earliest impressions of Tutor Chapin are connected with
Sunday evening prayers. He was a candidate for orders in the
Episcopal Church, and used the prayer-book in Chapel when offici-
aling on Sunday evenings. The service on those evenings was by
custom made specialty attractive musically, and was apt to be
attended by an unusually large number of townsfolk in the galleries ;
and when the novelty {for those days) of a churchman reading
prayers in the Chapel pulpit was added there was everything to make
variety. Mr. Chapin, however, was a dull reader, and did nothing
to improve his opportunities.
In Junior year we studied Olmsted's Natural Philosophy under
him, and conceived a poor impression of him, both as a scholar and
a teacher. I think we wondered how he could have retained his
place so long without more evident fitness for it.
In ihese notes I have not attempted to give any account of a few
individuals who are still Hving, or of a number of others concerning
whom I had no sufficient knowledge.
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THE NEW HAVEN OF TWO HUNDRED
YEARS AGO.
[From the Papers of the New Haven Colony Historical Society, VoL VIIL
Read December, 191 3.]
Among the most substantial and worthy citizens of this town two
hundred years ago, then known to everybody, but now as universally
forgotten, was Capt. Francis Browne, a namesake of his grand-
father, who was one of the seven original settlers at Quinnipiac in
1637, and who took up his permanent abode on East Water Street,
facing the harbor. There Captain Browne was born in 1679, and
died in 1741. Though an only surviving son (of Samuel and Merty
Tuttle Browne), he had a large family connection, which was
expanded by his marriage into another still wider circle — his wife
being a daughter of Judge John Ailing. Francis Browne united
with the New Haven church, probably in 1715, as his wife had done
before her marriage. His piety was shown by his gift to the church
of a silver tankard, which is still used in a modified form.
His oldest son was graduated at the college in 1728, and left
numerous descendants; but the line of representatives of Francis
and Hannah Browne, with which we are more familiar, trace their
descent from the only daughter of the household, Mabel, who
married Daniel Trowbridge, also a Yale graduate, and is the ances-
tress of the Trowbridge families who have been and are so prominent
in this community.
Francis Browne, a skilled seaman, was commander and part owner
of a sloop called the SpccdweH, and for many years did a prosperous
business by plying between New Haven and Boston, carrying from
this port consignments of grain, pork, beef, tow cloth, and other
products of the farm and of the loom, and bringing back their value
in merchandise bought for his customers in Boston shops.
The day-book in which he kept the record of twenty-five such
voyages, between 1707 and 1716, has been lately given to the Uni-
versity Library, and has suggested the present paper. His patrons
included about two hundred men and women of prominence in New
Haven and its suburbs {the present East Haven, West Haven,
Woodbridge, North Haven and Ilamden), with perhaps twenty of
the leading inhabitants of Derby, and smaller numbers in Walling-
ford. Stamford, Stratford, Middletown, Woodbury and Killing-
worth. Occasionally the vessel had to be piloted up "Darby River,"
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NEW HAVEN TWO HUNDRED VEAttS AGO 3I9
as the Housatonic was then also called, to take in freight, and quite
regularly stops were made in New London and elsewhere on the
route ; once at least a detour was made to New York City. I note
that the skipper always describes his course as down to Boston and
up to New Haven.
I have mentioned the general nature of the articles exported from
New Haven. Wheat and flour, Indian com and rye were the usual
crops, with a few oats; there were large amounts of pork and
bacon, beef in much smaller quantities, and a good deal of spring
butter ; also occasional lots of peas and beans, but no other vegetables
(the potato was still unknown here) ; honey, beeswax, and bayberry
wax or tallow; hazel nuts, butternuts, and chestnuts; once or twice
a basket of eggs, and equally rarely a bag of mustard seed and a
bushel of oysters. The last, by the way, sold for a shilling, but we
must remember that the prices of that date need to be nearly doubled
to correspond to money values of our day. We do not know the
sloop's tonnage, but the cargo on any voyage did not usually exceed
more than 1,600 bushels of grain. I may add that in the later years
the exports increased in variety, the first shipments being almost
entirely of wheat and butter. Flax and wool were also furnished
to a large extent, both in bulk and manufactured, with the coarser
linen and worsted cloths, especially tow cloth, sail cloth, and shoe
thread. Barret and hogshead staves and lumber (in boards) were
also occasional exports; but these were, after 1714, by order of the
Colony government, subject to a special prohibitory duty. Another
large item which New Haven contributed consisted of furs, specified
in detail as wolf, bear, fox, raccoon, mink, otter, marten, beaver,
and cat, that is wild-cat, skins.
.\ study of the names of Captain Browne's consignors is a good
introduction to the figures prominent in New Haven life two hundred
I have spoken of the captain and his large circle of kindred.
.\iiioii;,' these the most important was his father-in-law, John Ailing,
who had conspicuously served the public for many years as deputy
in ilic (ii'neral Assembly, one of the governor's council, and judge
of the probate and county courts, and held for fifteen years the ofl!ice
of ircaMtrcr of the Collegiate School in Saybrook. He was orig-
inally a blacksmith, and lived, I think, on Church Street, near the
silo at the Bijou Theater. .As recorder of the town for over twenty
vcars, his bold, regular handwriting is a joy to all who consult the
records for that period.
Captain Browne's list of "Father Atling's" commissions includes
manv items significant of the simple scale of living demanded here
at that date for an elderly official personage, of solid financial
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330 NEW HAVEN TWO HUNDBED YEASS AGO
Standing. He buys, for instance, in 1707, a silver spoon, costing
13/3. the next year a pair of silver shoe buckles, and later pays for
mending a silver chain — doubtless for his wife; other single pur-
chases are a silk handkerchief, a quire of paper, a small Bible, an
ivory comb, and in 1713, in striking contrast to all his other pur-
chases, one real luxury, a brass kettle, costing £3.13,9.
The various sons and daughter of his family were also frequent
patrons of the Speedwell. I need not exemplify further than how
"Sister Whitehead" orders a black gauze fan on one voyage, and on
another a small pair of shears and a jack knife, or a silk gauze
handkerchief, or a pound of whalebone (unusual extreme of
fashion), or 500 pins; how "Sister Susanna," an ancestress of the
present White brothers, invests in a pair of shoe buckles or a pair
of gloves; and "Sister Sarah Ailing," afterwards Mrs, Mansfield,
when a young woman of twenty-two, sends on four pounds and a
half of beeswax and a couple of bushels of hazelnuts, from which
she gets a pound in silver for pocket money, a fragment of which is
invested six months later in one wine glass. To the captain's credit
be it said that in the case of his numerous relations and relations-
in-law, as well as in the case of other specially favored or respected
friends, like his pastor, his custom of charging freight on the goods
sent from here and a commission on purchases was generally inter-
mitted. In ordinary cases his commission varied, but was usually,
I think, about five per cent.
It was the natural result of the Ailing connection that Captain
Browne was sometimes employed to purchase supplies for the Col-
legiate School, which later became Yale College, and of which, as
has been said. Judge Ailing was the treasurer, while the New Haven
minister was the most influential member of its board of trustees;
and so these records help us to a few hints of the requirements of
that feeble community on Saybrook Point, numbering perhaps from
a dozen to twenty members, and devoted to plain living, if not also
to high thinking. It may be significant of popular usage that Cap-
tain Browne's entries sometimes call the institution "the college,"
instead of by its strict title, "the Collegiate School."
On the first voyage of the Speedivell of which we have record,
in the spring of 1707, just after Rector Pierson's death, the sloop
took on at New Haven, on account of the Collegiate School, fifty
bushels of wheat and about half as much rye, the value of which was
mainly returned to Treasurer Ailing in cash, the sole item of mer-
chandise being a couple of casks of green, that is, not fully matured
wine, costing about four pounds. In the fall another quarter-cask
of green wine was needed, and at the same time twenty yards of
material for a set of curtains (bed curtains, I suppose), with a set
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NEW HAVEN TWO HUNDRED YEARS AGO Jll
of brass drops or rings, a pewter basin, a pound of alum, a pound
of nutmegs, and seventeen yards of silk crape. The last item,
which might to the uninitiated imply a new dress for the house-
kee]>er, was doubtless meant for gowns for the two resident tutors.
In the following spring the amount remitted went (horresco
referens) for a hogshead of rum, costing £12.16.6. On the next
voyage the proceeds of 180 bushels of corn and fifteen bushels of
rye were mainly paid in cash to Mr. John Dixwell of Boston, doubt-
less in settlement of accounts which he had contracted for the school ;
other trifling purchases for use in the modest establishment at
Saybrook were two and one-quarter yards of blue calico, — the first
recorded instance of the traditional Yale color, — a hair sieve, a
brass skillet, a steel candlestick, and an ounce of lace thread. Bu.si-
ness for the school on later voyages consisted mainly in providing
by the sale of grain for payments to other agents in Boston besides
Dixwell.
But Captain Browne had higher patronage still ; the colony gov-
ernment itself appears on one occasion in his accounts. This was
in September, 1711, just after Governor Saltonstall and his council,
of whom John Ailing was one, in session in New Haven, had taken
part in equipping a futile expedition under Admiral Walker against
Quebec ; and a couple of barrels of poor beef, presumably the refuse
of the outfit, were entrusted to the skipper of the Speedwell for the
Boston market; the proceeds, £2.14, were invested on the colony
account in "hats," if I read aright the blurred entry.
The first citizen of New Haven in this decade was the Rev. James
Pieri>onl. an ancestor of our friend and secretary, Mr. Blake, and
our vice-president, Mr. Whitney, of Presidents Woolsey and Dwight,
of -Anron Burr and l'icri>ont Morgan, and countless other notable
person;-, the pastor of the only church in town (until that in East
Haven \va^ gathered in 1711), whose life closed in 1714 in the par-
sonage on the pubhc library lot on Elm Street. His refined and
gentle cnuntenaiice is familiar to us in the only portrait which is
preserved of any Connecticut minister of that generation. He was
a liiit-ral ]i;itron of Captain Browne's facilities for trade, and it may
be of inicre-ii lo noie some of the household supplies which he was
pronipli'd 111 imiH>rI. In 1707, at a cost of £1.3.10, he acquired two
[ifmnds of while sugar, two of raisins, two wine glasses, a pound of
allspice, a ]>icce of ia])c, an ounce of treacle (doubtless for medicinal
usci, one (jI mifbridatc ( a i)anacea for all ailments), a little saffron,
half an uunce of mace, a yard and a half of ribbon, and 1,000 pins.
In [7<fc^ ibc good minister laid in a barrel of green wine, a tobacco
bi)x, aiiii a dozen pijres, which last supply was so nearly exhausted
seven inonths later, that another dozen had to be ordered. In 171 1,
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3>a NEW HAVEN TWO HUNDRED YEASS AGO
a horn book was purchased, for thrip-pence, from which no doubt
his youngest daughter, then fifteen months old, who became the wife
of Jonathan Edwards, was destined to learn her letters. In 1712
four gallons of rum were added to the parson's store-room. In 1713
two looking glasses were among his acquisitions ; also three boys'
hats of felt, for his three eldest sons, aged from 14 to 9; also "12
Sarmons," copies I suppose of that sermon which he had preached
in Boston during a notable sojourn there in 171 1, when his portrait
was painted, and which had been printed under Cotton Mather's
direction. The most expensive items among his purchases (besides
the wine) were materials for clothes; twice, it would appear, within
six brief years, he had new broadcloth suits, and twice a new
preacher's gown of silk crape ; while Mrs. Fierpont and her children
were equally amply provided for.
The families of Mr. Pierpont's predecessors are also repre-
sented in these lists, by tW venerable widow of John Davenport's
only son (a sister of Rector Pierson), and her children; and by
Samuel and Nicholas Street, grandsons of the second New Haven
pastor. The elder of these brothers, both active business men in
WaUingford, was the progenitor of many well-known New Haven
citizens, among them Abraham Bishop, Augustus R. Street, and of
the living Mr. Justus Street Hotchkiss.
Of Governor Eaton, the civil leader of the colony, the one
descendant whose name I am sure of in this record is his grand-
daughter, the widow Sarah Morrison, who in 1707 invested the
proceeds of three pounds of old pewter in a couple of wine-glasses,
a beaker (or goblet), and a pint of wine. Of the Yale family, who
were a part of the Eaton household, and who otherwise deserve
special notice, the only representative on these pages is Nathaniel
Yale of North Haven, a first cousin of Elihu Yale, and a Deputy to
the General Assembly. There are also grandchildren of Deputy
Governor Goodyear and of Deputy Governor Gilbert.
A step below the chief magistracy and the ministry in dignity
were the deacons of the church ; and Abraham Bradley and John
Punderson, then in office, are of this company. There is nothing
special about their commissions, except that Deacon Punderson,
living on the south side of Oiapel Street, on York, seems to have
been more than usually inclined to lay in a good stock of wine;
Deacon Bradley was also prominent in civil life as for years one of
the deputies to the General Court.
It is fair, pcrhap.s, to name with these, four others who subse-
quently attained the rank of deacon, — Isaac Dickerman, John Pun-
derson, Junior, John Munson, and Jonathan Mansfield. Two of
these. Deacons Punderson and Mansfield, married sisters of Mrs.
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NEW HAVEN TWO HUNDXED YEASS AGO 32$
Browne, and availed themselves pretty constantly of Captain
Browne's services. "Brother Punderson," by trade a cooper, occa-
sionally barters hogshead staves for articles of merchandise; he
was also a small store-keeper, importing jackknives and inkhoms
and ivory combs and alchemy spoons by the dozen, and molasses by
the hundred gallons. Alchemy spoons, it may be noted, were the
customary inexpensive substitutes for silver spoons, of baser metallic
composition, imitating gold in color. "Brother Mansfield," who
lived on the site of the new county court house, was an ancestor of
the most of the bearers of that name among us, and it may empha-
size for us his environment to find on his record of purchases in
1708 an account book and a sermon book, that is, a volume of ser-
mons, and to trace at the same date some employment of his, under
his father-in-law, Treasurer Ailing, in the conduct of the money
matters of the Collegiate School.
The next minister ordained within the ancient limits of the town
after Mr. Pierpont, was Jacob Hemingway, whose nearly seven years
of informal pastoral employment in his native village at the iron
works, or East Haven, were followed by his ordination there in
October, 1711. His need for Captain Browne's agency first appears
in 1709, when he equips himself with material for a black broadcloth
coat and with an expensive castor hat, presumably made of rabbit's
fur, and costing one pound; besides other scattered purchases, in
1711 he orders a thousand eight-penny nails, implying perhaps that
he was engaged in enlarging or repairing the parsonage, preparatory
to his marriage.
The other learned professions were more slowly recruited. In
1708 for the first time regulations were framed by the General
Assembly for the admission of attorneys to the bar, and the first
person thus admitted, for this county, in the following October, was
Jeremiah Osborne, already for years a deputy to the General Court,
and a justice of the peace and quorum. As his wife was an aunt of
Mrs. Browne, he naturally made use of Browne's agency. Among
his errands were the purchase of a pair of silver buckles and clasps
in 1707, and of eight metal (probably brass) buttons and a tankard
in 1 70S. I regret to say that our only lawyer died insolvent in
1713, and that he had no successor during the period of our survey.
So far as we know there was in these years no regular practitioner
of medicine in New Haven except Warham Mather, who would in
anv ca,-e deserve mention here as a leading citizen. A Harvard
graduate, and first cousin of Cotton Mather, he had served for some
twenty years as a preacher in various locahties, before settling in
Xew Haven aliout 1705. Here he held honorable rank as a justice
of the peace and quorum, and eventually succeeded John Ailing as
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334 NEW HAVEN TWO HUNDRED YEARS AGO
judge of the probate court. Like many of the bright intellects of
that day, he had added the study of medicine to his clerical training,
for on the rude map of New Haven in 1724 his name, "W. Mather,
Physician" is affixed to the old Davenport house, on the site of the
Presbyterian church on Elm Street, which he occupied as the inher-
itance of his wife, a daughter of John Davenport, Jr. He sends
by Captain Browne continually for physic, and for drugs from the
apothecary's, to large amounts. Moreover, in 1711 he is credited,
besides his wheat and rye and money, with three shillings, eight
pence, for "physics at home," which means clearly thai Captain
Browne had employed him, to some extent at least, as his faniily
physician and was thus paying a debt. The remaining incident of
note in Mr. Mather's accounts in Captain Browne's day-book is
that in 1710 he indulged in ordering a knife and fork. Now knives
were a necessity, but forks came into use in New England very
slowly, after 1700, and there is hut one other mention of them in
these records. Judge Mather's name is memorable also on account
of the inventory of his estate in our probate records, with a list of
his theological library, mainly inherited from distinguished relatives,
and of unparalleled length and minuteness. I may add that it is
not a mere coincidence that the physician next preceding Mather in
New Haven, Nathaniel Wade, a native of Massachusetts, was the
husband of another of John Davenport's granddaughters, a sister
of Mrs. Mather and of a former wife of Mr. Pierpont. Mrs.
Mather, I presume, after Wade had left, about 1700, took her
sister's place in the care of the aged Madam Davenport, and
Mather, perhaps as a makeshift, succeeded to the abandoned medical
practice of Dr. Wade.
Next to these professional men should be counted the rector of
the Hopkins Grammar School, who was for all this period Samuel
Cooke, a college graduate, who married a New Haven girl, Anne
Trowbridge, in 1708, and was ordained over the Stratfield, now
Bridgeport, church in 1716. His youthful promise gained for him
for several of these years election as a deputy to the General
Assembly. His purchases through Captain Browne seem to have
been mainly for his wife's wanlrohe, and were probably paid for
with her money, not from the meager stipend of the rector.
One of his classmates whose name is also here is the Rev. Samuel
Whittelscy, pastor in W'allingford and father of a future pastor of
New Haven. He was ordained in 1710, and in 171 1 sent to Boston
for the items needed for a country parsonage — among them camlet
for a suit of clothes and a pair of worsted stockings for himself;
Scotch cloth (a thin dress stuff) and a mourning veil for his mother.
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NEW HAVEN TWO HUNDRED YEARS AGO 315
he being still a bachelor ; a pair of money scales ; and (a unique
order) six wash-balls, equivalent, I take it, to our cakes of soap.
With these graduates may be mentioned also the Rev. Joseph
Moss, jr., a Harvard bachelor and Yale master of arts, a native of
New Haven and first cousin of Mrs. Browne, who became the
minister of Derby in 1707. We trace his process in these pages
by his purchase of 6,000 eight-penny nails in June, 1707, probably
for house repairs or enlargement; and marvel at his temperance in
ordering a single pint of wine therewith for refreshment. A year
later he is able to afford the customary broadcloth coat and crape
gown of his vocation. In 1710 he buys a large Bible, and an expen-
sive record book, a barrel of gunpowder, 200 pounds of shot, and
half a grindstone — the other half being credited to a parishioner.
In 1711 we detect his growing prosperity by his indulgence in a brass
kettle costing £5.3 and twenty-four glass bottles, at six pence each, a
glass inkhorn (an unusual luxury), and a trunk with drawers; and
by 1712 he rises to the extravagance of six gallons of madeira.
Twice during these years he buys a book, his selections being Henry
Care's "English Liberties," a digest of documents with ample com-
mentary, and a small book called "The Clerk's Guide," both volumes
useful in his capacity as town clerk and general public counsellor.
A few other prominent citizens, besides those already specified,
had served, or were serving during these years, as deputies to the
•.General Assembly. Of these one of the oldest was Capt. John Bas-
f^ett, among whose significant purchases are a rapier in 1710, two
gold rings in 1711, two more in 1712, and a valuable pair of silver
shoe buckles in 1713. Another long-time deputy was Col. Joseph
W biting, of Hartford birth, whose name still lives in Whiting Street,
which marks at its entrance into State the site of his former dwell-
ing. It must have been a house abounding in hospitality, as the
owner's first recorded payment to Captain Browne was for six dozen
wine gla^.ses, at six shillings apiece. Jared Ingcrsoll, the stamp
agcnl. married one of his daughters, and the Rev. Chauncey Whit-
telscy of ihe P'irst church a second. Another of these ancient office-
bearer- was the Joseph Moss whose wife was an aunt of Mrs.
I'erliiijis also I should mention in this connection two of the
l-^a-t Haven patrons of Captain Browne, Thomas Goodsell and
John Russell, who had been sent by their neighbors to the General
.\s>cnilily after ICast Haven was granted village and church privi-
lege-, Imt who had no right to the representative function, and on the
ri'nion-lrance of ihe mother town were debarred from further ser-
vice, as Uast Haven was not then legally a separate body politic.
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3^6 NEW HAVEN TWO HUNDKED YEAKS AGO
Among other leading citizens of somewhat ample means, and of
the leisured though not the professional class, was John Hodson, or
Hudson, who died in 1711, in his forty-fifth year. Young though
he was, he appears in Captain Browne's record as acquiring a peri-
wig, which cost him fifteen shillings, the year before his death. His
house, I think, was on the west side of State Street, between Chapel
and Crown. Another leading citizen who had dealings with Captain
Browne, though partly retired by age, was John Prout, a sea captain,
of English birth, who lived on State Street, opposite Water Street,
where his name is preserved in the narrow crooked alley called Prout
Street. His only son was a graduate of the Collegiate School in
1708, Still anotiier of the wealthier magnates of that generation
was Mr. Thomas Trowbridge, third of that name, with his domicile
on Meadow Street to the north of the armory. The house is still
standing, in the rear of other buildings, greatly changed, and with a
mistaken legend on its front, implying that it dates from 1642
(instead of 1684). With this exception no house of 200 years ago
is now, or has been for many years, extant.
Another marked group with claims to distinction may be found
among the "honorable women , . . not a few," who made more Or
less regular purchases through Captain Browne.
There were, for instance, Mrs. Dixweli, the venerable relict of
the regicide, on the garden of whose home lot this building stands,
and who lies buried in the city Green; the widow, Elizabeth Gaskell,
a great-aunt of Roger Sherman; Mrs. Elizabeth Maltby, by a later
marriage mother of Judge Abraham Davenport, the hero of the
"Dark Day"; and Mrs. Lydia Rosewel!, the wealthy widow of John
A 1 ling's predecessor as treasurer of the Collegiate School, whose
mansion occupied the northwest corner of Meadow and Water
Streets, and one of whose daughters became in later years Captain
Browne's second wife. Among Mrs. Rosewell's descendants was a
former active member of this society, Hon. Lynde Harrison.
On the earliest extant map of New Haven, that of 1724, while the
occupations of many householders are given, only one person 13
described as a "merchant" ; and probably at the time of which I am
siJeaking there were very few general stores in the town, though I
realize that Captain Browne's recorded transactions give us only a
partial view of the situation. As far as his pages show, the largest
dealer was Jonathan Atwatcr, an ancestor of the late Wilbur F. Day
and the late K. Hayes Trowbridge, who lived on the west side of
College Street, north of Crown, and whose transactions with Boston
as here shown were of far larger volume than those of any other
citizen. He seems, also, to have been part owner of the sloop; and
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NEW HAVEN TWO HUNDRED YEAKS AGO 3*7
I surmise that this relation may have led both Browne and Atwater
to some extent into general trading as a profitable pursuit. At any
rate we lind Jonathan Atwater debited with numerous entries such
as these, which could hardly have been meant on the scale of living
of that day for the consumption of his own household : in 1708,
three dozen jackknives, two dozen thom-hafted knives, three dozen
combs, and 600 gallons of rum; in 1711, 60,000 nails, 15 scythes,
two dozen large scissors, 300 flints, six pounds of pepper, and a
dozen primers; and in 1713, three dozen more primers, at three-
pence apiece, and 1,000 pounds of sugar. As an example of his
mode of payment, he is credited on the voyage of these last purchases
with bulky items like 42 barrels of pork, which sold for f 157, and
over 400 pounds of bread, bringing about £$. There is also evidence
in their accounts that Jonathan Atwater's nqshew, Joshua Atwater,
an ancestor of many of the Hotchkiss and Townsend families of the
present day, and Samuel Smith of West Haven were part owners
of the Speedwell; the former seems also to have been one of the
ship's crew on some voyages.
Besides Jonathan Atwater and Captain Browne himself these
pages intimate that Richard Hall also, who lived (I think) on State
Street, opposite George, did some business as a general trader.
How else can be explained such wholesale exports from Boston as a
dozen jackknives at a time, repeatedly, half a dozen hour-glasses,
half a dozen catechisms, half a dozen pounds of alum, and half a
dozen bottles of elixir?
There were also one or two merchants in Derby who were fre-
quent customers. John Weed, for example, imported all kinds of
needles and pins by the hundred and the thousand, basins and por-
ringers by the donen, and other goods in like proportion.
One index of the standing of our colonists is seen in the friend-
ships which these entries reveal with Boston people. In a large
number of accounts, for instance, there is evidence of the most
intimate friendly and business connections with John Dixwell, jr.,
ihc only son of the \ew Haven regicide, and a leading gold and
silversmith, .\gain we find repeated proofs of familiar relations
with Mrs. Sarah Knight, the lively school mistress, to whose pen we
owe a well-known record of travel from her home in Boston to N'ew
^'ork in 1704. In 1713 Captain Browne delivered to her, free of
chart;c, a barrel of pork and two bushels of wheat, as a present from
Mrs. (iaskc'H. a Massachusetts woman by birth, who sent also on the
same occasion similar gifts to other friends, in one case including a
basket of eggs. And similarly Madam Hannah Trowbridge, the
widow of Thomas the second, sends the same Madam Knight in
1707 a bag of shoe thread and a couple of bushels of wheat.
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3>8 NEW HAVEN TWO HUNDRED YEARS AGO
A long list might be made of Boston merchants of old familiar
names, headed by the Huguenot, "Andrew Funnel!," uncle of the
munificent donor of Faneuil market, with whom the New Haven
planters were in constant intercourse.
One special class of commercial correspondents of Captain
Browne should be noticed, though I am not entirely able to explain
their standing. I refer to Boston merchants, who were certainly
never resident here, but who appear to have had considerable deal-
ings by this channel with the New Haven market. Thus, Andrew
Belcher, a wealthy provincial councilor of Massachusetts, father of
a future royal governor, was one of Browne's chief customers,
exporting from here very large quantities of the regular staples, for
which he received part pay in money and part in such common
necessities or luxuries as green wine, rum, molasses, salt, and powder
and shot, which he sent back to New Haven. Among these ven-
tures of his for sale here there is but one of a unique sort, that of
2,000 shingles, or shindels, as the name was then. Details are, how-
ever, wanting as to the agency through which these staples were
gathered for him and others like him for transmission to Boston,
and through which the realized proceeds were distributed here.
Mention has been incidentally made of many importations which
New Haven households owed to Captain Browne's enterprise, but it
may be of interest thus to trace something of the progress of com-
fort and comparative luxury in such a community.
The ordinary table supplies which were not the products of the
native fields and gardens and stockyards formed a major part of
each cargo, being chiefly sugar, molasses, salt, and various kinds of
spices and liquors; the wines were sometimes direct imports from
Fayal, on which Captain Browne paid the freight and the duties.
Of what might be called luxuries of diet I recall only salad oil, salt
mackerel, figs, raisins, and currants. (Tea and coffee, it should be
remembered, were not then known here.) Tobacco was indulged
in to a moderate extent, as repeated ilems of tobacco pipes, boxes,
and tongs testify ; an occasional entry such as "fifty canes" refers,
I suppose, to this usage, the weed being supplied in slender sticks
or canes.
Utensils and requirements for the household, the farm, and the
sailing vessel formed another bulky item. Among the things most
frequently necessary, which craftsmen of the neighborhood could
not furnish, were iron and steel bars, powder and shot, oakum, tar,
nails, knives of all sorts, scissors, razors, sheep-shears, scythes,
grindstones and rubstones (the equivalent of whetstones), fishhooks,
pots and kettles, pans and basins, platters and dishes of pewter and
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NEW HAVEN TWO HUNDRED YEAKS AGO 319
earthenware, and implements for weaving and for navigaticm.
Glass and lead, evidently for windows, are mentioned but once.
Ever\' householder with pretensions to comfortable living had to
supply himself from outside with vvarming pans for his beds, and
with pewter platters and mugs and one or two wine glasses for his
table ; ]>ewter instead of wooden plates and tankards were almost
equally necessary, and alchemy spoons of unhealthy brass or copper
alloy, while one or two glass tumblers and one or two silver spoons
marked a slightly higher style of living. Once or twice a silver cup
is ordered through Captain Browne, but the richer citizens preferred
probably to deal directly with Mr. Dixwell and others of his trade,
rather than trust another's selection. The most expensive single
household utensil was the big brass kettle, the bright apparently of
universal ambition.
Ordinary benches, stools, beds and tables were put together by the
village joiners, but occasionally half a dozen chairs would be
imported ; also the more elaborate needs in heating and cooking
a|>|>araius, as tongs, shovels, bellows, and chafing dishes.
Rugs are scantily mentioned, and carpets unknown. I note, how-
ever, in the town records for 1715 that the term "carpet" is affixed
as a marginal reading to the entry of the generosity of Jonathan
Atwater in "freely offering to the town a cloth to be serviceable at
funerals," presumably as a pall, though called a carpet. Clocks
and watches do not appear, but hour and half-hour glasses are
in frec|uent demand. Looking glasses are also regular articles of
commerce. Lanterns and candlesticks had constantly to be got, and
occasionally a tin lamp; the former were mainly equipped with
candles of home manufacture, though "white amber," that is sper-
maceti, and whale oil and blubber were also imported, the latter not
SI) nnich fur lamplight as for use in curing leather, one of the infant
industries of the town.
These pages instruct us also in the dress of the clients for whom
Captain Hrowne bargained. Xew Haven, to be sure, had its tailors
and dressmakers, but they carried no stock of material, and a large
vocaliulary of fabrics then in vogue might be compiled from these
entries. Sailcloth, bed-ticking and bunting had, of course, other
uses, and linsey-woolsey, though also for clothing, appears mainly in
demand for bed-curtains.
I'or co;irsi', heavy clothes there were stuff, frieze, fustian, buck-
ram, druj^'gct. cantaloon, twist, serge, sagathy and kersey; and finer
grades in broadcloth, camlet, calamanco, russel, and tammy. The
most cuMtcd manufactures of fine linen were cambric, garlits,
holland. and kenling, and of the coarser linens, dowlas and osna-
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33© NEW HAVEN TWO HUNDRED YEAKS AGO
burgs. Besides these were calicos and muslins, Scotch cloth (a
cheap sort of lawn), and shalloon for linings. Of silks there were
the heavier and coarser grograms and poplins, ordinary black silk
for gowns, the glossy lutestring, the thin light atamode (the favorite
summer wear), crape for mourning and for the clergy, and damask
and plush for persons of extra style. The luxuriance allowed in
men's dress appears in the item of buttons, which were regularly
ordered with the material for coats and waistcoats at the rate of
three or four dozen for each garment.
Hats for men and boys, of felt, beaver and castor were called for
in great numbers. What were brought for women's headgear I
do not so clearly make out, except "silk caps," which were doubtless
hoods. In one case only, a hairbrush was ordered. Gloves of all
sorts, sometimes of wash-leather, were frequent articles of com-
merce, occasionally also "half-handed gloves" or mitts, and mittens.
The "worsted stockings" which often aiq)ear as purchased in
Boston were not I suppose knitted, for those could be had at home,
but sewn together of cloth. Handkerchiefs were among the com-
monest articles of merchandise, especially of silk, and of the inferior
or cotton material known as romal. In one case Captain Browne
charges himself with three neckcloths. Shoes were commonly well
enough made by local cobblers, but a few of better style were
imported, and one constant item was women's wooden heels. It was
the decree of fashion that high heels be worn, and the wooden con-
structions in the Boston market were so cheap as to be attractive,
but wore out so fast that they had to be ordered by the dozen, or
even by the half-dozen dozen.
A pair of spectacles was quite often needed, and Captain Browne
could be trusted to suit the eyes of each customer; occasionally a
cane, or a sword and belt, or a periwig was also left to his judgment.
Of personal ornaments and embellishments of apparel but few
appear. Gold rings are two or three times purchased; silver shoe-
buckles and clasps with considerable frequency, and more rarely
silver chains, shirt buttons, IcHrkets (or lockers), and even whistles
are mentioned. Strings of beads often appear ; and coral is in some
way, I do not quite understand why. a very popular acquisition.
Silver thimbles are occasionally mentioned, but cheaper thimbles,
not especially described, were probably of brass. Fans, often speci-
fied as of gauze, ivory, cane, or leather, were favorite demands of
Captain Browne's female patrons.
A good deal of his time must have been spent in waiting on the
apothecary, for a remarkable assortment of drugs and physic appears
in his ledger. Among the commonest remedies the following, at
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NEW HAVEN TWO HUNDRED YEAKS AGO 33I
least, should be included. — saffron, spirit of hartshorn, aniseed,
licorice, rhubarb, linseed oil, blistering salve, treacle, mithridate,
alum, brimstCKie, jalap, salammoniac, senna, diapalm (a favorite
plaster), cochee pills, and sfwrits of turpentine. The formidable
enumeration might be much lengthened, but this is enough to pro-
voke a reminiscence of the atrocious couplet in Hudibras decrying
those
"Stored witb deletery med'cines
Which whosoever took is dead since."
Any light on the attitude of New Haven people towards books and
learning two hundred years ago is of interest ; but very little is to
be gathered from this source. Browne himself, though he sent one
son to college, was not a devotee of literature. In the list of pur-
chases for his own use are several Bibles and for the use of his
children hornbooks and primers; and finally in 1716, wiien his oldest
child was in his eleventh year, he buys "A Accidence," which
perhaps marks the first steps of this Ix^ in his college training.
The Speedwell in these voyages brought to this port some forty
copies of the Bible to as many private families — several copies con-
taining also the metrical version of the Psalms by Stemhold and
Hopkins with music, besides copies of this version separately. More
than half a dozen times too, there is record of Bibles sent back by
Captain Browne to Boston for rebinding. Bibles of all sizes are
described, from one great Bible, probably designed for pulpit use;
and Caplain Browne once imports for his own use a "painted Bible,"
which may mean one with colored plates. Hornbooks and primers
are ordered many times; an arithmetic more than once; and once
what is summarily described as a "military book." Other literary
ventures for New Haven and vicinity include a copy of that staunch
Prcsljytcrian, John Flavel's "Husbandry Spiritualized," bought in
1711 for Jacob Johnson of Wallingford, an ancestor of the late Hon.
Frederick J. Kingsbury; "The Mariner's Compass," a manual of
navigation, ordered by Moses Mansfield, himself a veteran sailor,
in 1713; a curious, not very high-toned miscellany, called "Wit's
Cabinet, a Companion for Gentlemen and Ladies," affording
instruction in the interpretation of dreams, in palmistry, and the con-
coction of cosmetics, together with a collection of songs— consigned
in 1708 to John ISeach of Wallingford. In the same year Stephen
Muiison, a learned blacksmith for his day, who lived on the north-
west coriier of (irove and State Streets, and is said to have been an
ancestor of Thurlow Weed, became Ihc owner of an edition of the
"PilKrim's Progress" and of a compilation called "The Experi-
enced Secretary," besides a "Psalm BofJc."
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33* NEW HAVEN TWO HUNDRED YEARS AGO
His older brother, Theophilus Munson, a gunsmith and locksmith
of College Street, near the south end of Woolsey Hall, in 1711 with
astonishing foresight bought a Latin dictionary for seventeen
shillings — though his son Daniel, who was graduated from Yale in
1726, was then only two years old and can scarcely have been
expected to begin his classical training at that age or through that
vehicle. But however this may have been, when Samuel Mix, who
lived on the Battell Chapel site, is credited in the same year with
"3 Latin books," we may feel sure that they were destined for the
use of his oldest son, a boy of eleven, who was graduated nine
years later.
I said just now that our captain was not a devotee of literature;
and a fortunate result of this is that he used in his accounts a system
of phonetic spelling, so complete that we can almost universally teli
just how he pronounced the names of every person and thing that
he dealt with. In general his practice leans toward economy, as
for instance in reducing Goodyear to five letters, Gudyr, and Cooke
to three, Cuk, and checkered (describing a Hning) to six, chekrd.
Of course in most cases the result is altogether natural. We find
thus that Derby was to Captain Browne Darby, just as the cis-
Atlantic namesake of the English Hertford had already become
Hartford ; and just as he wrote sarmons for sermons, and sarge for
serge, so to him Sherman was usually Sharman. But the unex-
pected thing is that he persists in this particular vowel-change in
unaccented syllables in his common vocabulary to a remarkable
extent ; I content myself with only an example or two of what is a
constant practice; thus Mather is written Mathar, primer, primar,
and even father, brother and sister, fathar, brothar and sistar.
Similar changes with other vowels are shown in Thorp always
becoming Tharp, and the Christian name Dorcas becoming Darlds.
The converse of this change in traceable in the name of a family,
of the nieces and nepliew of Mr. Pierpont, who came hither from
Boston early in the iSth century, the Haywards, as we should call
them, but always known then as Ha(r)wards, and later, after the
y had been discarded in the spelling, Howards.
Other vagaries in the pronunciation of family names are such as
Balding for Baldwin, Hodson for Hudson, Person for Pierson (as
Perse in our own day for Pierce), Relshar for Belcher, Punshard
for Punchard, Stodder for Stoddard, and Orsburn for Osbom.
Other common words which apjiear in Captain Browne's manu-
script with the mispronunciations which we now think vulgar, such
as hankcrchcr or handkcchif, ornery, leftenant, jiher for joiner, and
Ciiney for Jeimy, need not detain us; nor need reasons for raisins,
which was still considered proper, I believe, within hving memory.
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NEW HAVEN TWO HUNDRED YEARS AGO 333
On the other hand, in the only reference on these pages to the insti-
tution of domestic slavery, a record of money paid to the negro of
the Rev. Joseph Moss, the spelling is faithful to the correct sound.
This incidental mention of slavery calls up the sole reference in
these pages to another of the ordinary social conditions of life, in
the expenditure of upward of £i6 on securing and bringing from
Boston in 1713, a "Jarsey boy" to be apprenticed to Samuel Riggs,
a wealthy merchant of Derby.
In a desultory way I have thus attempted to make a prosaic
account book tell something of our predecessors of 200 years ago,
and their way of living, but I have left myself little space, even if
I had the power, to construct a satisfactory picture of the plantation
as a whole. We must remember primarily that the settled part of
the town extended only from York and Grove Streets to the water ;
and that the whole region between York and Church was compar-
atively sparsely peopled, since the business center was on the water-
side and its tributary streets, especially State Street. The plantation
had still so much the character of a village that the streets had no
distinctive names, but each one is likely to be described in deeds and
wills of the period as "the town street."
The central green was the common rendezvous, where the towns-
men drilled for military service, where the entire community
gathered in one house for worship, and where in the same house the
General Assembly of the Colony and the County Court held their
regular sessions, as we may all learn fully from Mr. Blake's delight-
ful book.
The inhabitants formed a simple, homogeneous society, with few
distinctions and few pleasures. Captain Browne observes carefully
in his record the usual early gradations of dignity. Military officers
arc punctiliously mentioned by title, and the designation of "Mr.,"
which was at an earlier period so sparingly used, is apparently still
limited to persons of special civil and family desert. The cor-
responding term "Mistress" is reserved for married women— an
inferior social standing bdng indicated in only two cases by the
term "Goody": single women are mentioned without title.
The population of the compact portion of the town I find it hard
to estimate; Iiut I doubt if it was much over 700. In 1707, when
thc^e accounts begin, just seventy years had passed since the advance
guard of the first settlers had arrived here ; and their generation had
already disappeared, the last male survivor, as I supjwse, being
DeacoTi William Peck, who died in 1694; but his widow lived on until
1717, and the widow of Matthew Gilbert, one of the original seven
pillars of the church, hved until 1706.
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334 NEW HAVEN TWO HUNDRED YEASS AGO
In 1715, just before the termination of Captain Browne's rectu'd,
Joseph Noyes of Stonington was called to succeed Mr. Pierpont as
the minister of the town ; and this decided the removal of the ct^ege
to New Haven, Rival towns were contending for it, and when
young Noyes accepted the call here, this threw the weight of the
influence of his father and uncle, two of the most influential trustees,
into the scale in favor of New Haven. The definite settlement of
the college here in October, 1716, created a new local center of
activity, with immediate and permanent changes in the vicinity of
the college buildings, all of which resulted in the development of a
different life in the town, with intellectual interests and aspirations
before unknown.
In the New Haven of our story, before it was spoiled or improved,
whichever you choose to consider it, by the introduction of the
college, intercourse with the outside world was maintained by post
as well as by water. A post-boy rode regularly between New York
and Boston, and vessels like the Speedwell were not permitted to
carry letters except for delivery in port directly to the postmaster.
Some half dozen times in Captain Browne's day-book we find charges
to customers for postal dues which he has paid, usually for a
single letter, varying from six pence to a shilling, and in one case,
that of the Rev. Mr. Moss of Derby, he settles an account amounting
to ii.4.6.
By water there was important commerce with the West Indies,
besides doubtless other common carriers than our friend. Captain
Browne; but it may be that no record as complete as his is stiU
extant ; and imtil one is made public, and annotated by some future
and more skilful investigator, I venture to hope that these scattered
notes may serve to illustrate our early domestic commerce, as well
as to revive the memory of one of its worthiest promoters.
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NOTES OF SOME OF THE NEW HAVEN LOYAL-
ISTS, INCLUDING THOSE GRADUATED
AT YALE.
(From the Papers of the New Haven Colony Historical Society, Vol IX.
Read January, 1915.]
A good many years ago, while spending a summer in London,
I was interested in turning over, in the Government Record Office,
the manuscript reports of the Commissioners appointed in 1783 to
review the applications made by the American Loyalist refugees
for compensation for losses which they had suffered. At that time
I made notes of the testimony in cases of special interest; and some
of these notes have formed the basis of the present paper. I should
mention, however, that more recently a full transcript of all these
records has been secured for the New York Public Library, in New
York City; and as this transcript can be freely consulted by any
one, with very slight trouble, my notes have no longer even the
modest \alue which I may have once attached to them.
Any sketch, however shght, or superficial, of the sentiment m
Connecticut at the time of the Revolution must be based primarily
upon our historical development. Under the self-government pro-
vided by the comparatively liberal charter of 1662, this Colony had
been, generally speaking, quiet and prosperous for a century; with
the consequence that in the exciting decade before the outbreak of
the Resolution, a large proportion of the shrewdest and most influ-
ential public and professional men doubted, to say the least, if they
were not likely to be better off under existing conditions in this
favored spot than they would be if independent of Britain: — this
being not merely a conviction in relation to their individual welfare,
but al*o in consideration of the permanent interests of the com-
munity. Foremost in the opposite scale was the healthy instinct of
loyal cofiperation in the united action of other provincial govern-
ments, which in its turn involved also a broader and more com-
|jrehensivc self-interest; and in most cases this process of delib-
iratiou and argument resuhed in the ungrudging support of a policy
I'f armed resistance.
P.v a law of human nature, hesitation in taking up the attitude
of rebels was at first especially the role of the older generation of
public men. under the dominion of the habits of a hfe-time. Of
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336 NOTES ON THE NEW HAVEN LOYALISTS
this class an early example was the Governor of the Colony, Thomas
Fitch, of Norwalk, born in 1700, and graduated at Yale in 1721, who
after a lifelong service of the State, culminating in twelve-years'
tenure of the chief magistracy, was relegated to private life in 1766,
for regarding it his bounden duty to take the oath required by the
British government to put in operation the odious Stamp Act. Of
course I would not imply that Governor Fitch is to be classed as a
pronounced Loyalist ; but his attitude, and that of the four members
of his Council who stood by him in this crisis (John Chester, of
Wethersfield, Benjamin Hail, of Cheshire, Jabez Hamlin, of Middle-
town, and Ebenezer Silliman, of Fairfield), and of Jared Ingersoll,
of New Haven, the unhappy Stamp- A gent, was practically an
anticipation of that of many others who were active in public mat-
ters eight and ten years later ; and when the need of decision arrived
for these also, we cannot wonder if a natural instinct constrained
some such to remain faithful to their traditionary obligations.
Perhaps I may illustrate the customary ways in which the thinking
men of this next generation were affected by the problem set before
them, by taking the examples of five of the more conspicuous public
men of the group of Yale graduates in Connecticut, — a group, how-
ever, which included a large proportion of the leading men in civil
life. The five whose names suggest themselves, and who were all
about sixty years of age in 1774, are George Wyllys, of the Class
o£ 1729; Elihu Hall, Class of 1731; Abraham Davenport, Qass
of 1732; and Benjamin Gale and Samuel TaJcott, Qass of 1733.
Colonel Wyllys, of Hartford, had grown gray in official service as
the Secretary of the Colony, and continued to hold that useful station
acceptably until his death at the ripe age of eighty-five; and though
he was currently understood to be averse at first to the change of
allegiance, he refrained prudently from overt action, and not only
outgrew completely the faint odium of loyalty, but even the repute
and recollection of it.
Colonel Elihu Hall, of Wallingford, on the other hand, is the sole
representative in this group of pure and consistent toryism. His
birth and family connections opened to him the best that Connecticut
had to offer; and after his admission to the bar his success as a
lawyer was phenomenally rapid. An extensive practice led to
repeated trips to England, which increased his attachment to the
mother country, and ensured his choice of it as a refuge after war
began. He fled from New Haven to Xcw York in January, 1779;
and a letter is preserved, retailing his report to British authorities
of conditions in Connecticut at that date, which is as untrustworthy
as such reports were apt to be. He estimates, for example, that
two-thirds of the inhabitants of tlie Colony are in favor of reunion
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NOTES ON THE NEW HAVEN LOYAUSTS 337
with Great Britain ; and announces that Governor Trumbull's pop-
ularity is declining — as evinced at the polls: an assertion entirely
inconsistent with all other evidence. He also intimates that import-
ant conversions to the British side are imminent; but unfortunately
the only two examples which he specifies do not display shrewd
judgment. One of these, his own brother-in-law, the Rev. Chauncey
Whittelsey, pastor of the First Church in New Haven, is abundantly
known as of unswerving and otherwise unsuspected patriotism; and
the same is, so far as I can learn, true of the other individual named.
Colonel Thomas Seymour, of Hartford. Such baseless gossip was
bound to react on the informer and his value as an adherent; and
the sequel is not out of keeping with this prologue. For our latest
glimpse of Colonel Hall is in London, after the war, [heading that,
having lost his large American property, his only support, in an
infirm and lonely old age, is his pension of £80 a year, which will
not allow him to keep a servant. Others of the London colony of
refugees add their testimony to the dismal picture, — to the effect
that he had in earlier life been confined in a madhouse, and how
squanders the little he has in liquor and debauchery.
In the College class below him was Abraham Davenport, of
Stamford, a great-grandswi of the first minister of New Haven, a
prominent member of the Governor's Council, or Upper House of
the General Assembly, and Judge of the County Court He was
naturally conservative in his judgment of public questions, and it
was no secret that he viewed with great hesitation and disfavor a
rupture with Great Britain; but when it became necessary for the
Colony to range itself definitely in the organized struggle, he yielded
to the paramount claims of the common cause, and thenceforth no
one was more firm or more constant in its service.
Ill the Class of 1733 were Dr. Benjamin Gale, of Clinton, and
Colonel Samuel Taicotl, of Hartford. Dr. Gale was a learned and
skilful physician, of very pronounced and not altogether orthodox
views in religion and philosophy. He took also a deep interest in
jiolitics. and had served for years in the Assembly. He was one of
the nio>t striking characters of his generation in Connecticut, very
{lessiinistic and critical in his outlook, and acknowledging no man
and no grou]) of men as master. To such an observer the revolu-
tionarj- movement was full of danger. He was firmly attached to
tlic cause of lil>erty, as he conceived it, but differed conscientiously
from his ncighlwrs and associates as to the proper mode of opposi-
tion to Cireat Britain ; but in the issue, even this perverse and captious
critic was clear-sighied enough to concede that one's preferences as
to mode must give way, in cases where another mode has been
cuninionly agreed upon.
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33^ NOTES ON THE NEW HAVEN LOYALISTS
His classmate, Samuel Talcott, son of the Governor of the
Colony, and therefore, like George Wyllys and Abraham Davenport,-
placed at the head of his class by social standing, was by inheritance
and descent counted among the richest and most highly favored
gentry of the period. In middle life he had perfonned his due
share of civil and military service, and now, in a leisurely old age,
his circumstances and habits illy adapted him to welcome the hard-
ships of the Revolution. In the result, however, he too is found
standing firmly by the new State government and withholding
nothing.
Like these, in their different ways, the better part of the maturer
intelligence of the Colony went through the ordeal of a conSict
between self-interest, or private judgment, and public policy, and
rallied effectively in support of independence.
Under the Connecticut charter, the people elected their own rulers,
and accordingly there was here no such large oflftcial class, depen-
dent on the British power, as in the other American colonies; and
what constituted the largest section of the Tory party in most of
the neighboring governments was here practically non-existent. As
one result of this situation, the most numerous group in Connecticut
of those who were by personal affiliations predestined to sympathy
with Great Britain, was the bcxly of missionary clergy of the Church
of England, all of whom, on receiving orders in the mother country,
had taken a special oath of allegiance to the crown, and were more-
over dependent in good part on the stipends furnished by the English
"Society for the Propagation of the Gospel."
If I have counted correctly, there were at the outbreak of the
war nineteen Episcopal clergymen in Connecticut, of whom fifteen
were Yale graduates. The eldest of this group, the Rev. John
Beach, bom in Stratford in 1700, and graduated in 1721, had come
as an undergraduate under the influence of Samuel Johnson, then
Tutor; and after his settlement in the Congregational ministry in
Newtown, while Johnson was in charge of the Church of England
mission in the adjoining township of Stratford, he was led by the
same influence to conform to Episcopacy, and eventually to accept
the cure of missions in Newtown and Reading. It may be an indica-
tion of the weight of his character that the proportion of Episco-
palians in Newtown before the Revolution is said to have been
higher than in any other township in Connecticut, He is specially
remembered for his intrepidity in continuing to use in public wor-
ship, after all his fellow- presbyters had closed their church-doors,
the appointed prayer for the King, which included a petition to
"strengthen him that he may vanquish and overcome all his
enemies."
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NOTES ON THE NEW HAVEN LOYALISTS 339
Next to Mr. Beach, at least among those of Connecticut birtfi,
in length of service in the Colony was the Rev. Jeremiah Learning,
bom on the confines of Durham and Middletown in 1717, and
graduated at Yale in 1745. He also had twen touched by Samuel
Johnson's influence, and, after receiving orders and serving tempo-
rarily elsewhere, became in 1758 the minister of the parish in Nor-
walk, where afler twenty years of devoted labor he suffered unhap-
pily at the hands of both parties to the war, — first as a tory from
wanton exposure while lodged on the floor of the county jail in
winter, which rendered him a wretched cripple for the rest of his
days, and secondly from the destruction of all his personal effects,
a year later, when General Tryon, though himself a member of the
Venerable Society whose commission Learning bore, with equal
wantonness burned his house and his church in the invasion of
Norwalk. He was then transported within the British lines, but
after the peace came back to Connecticut, and found in his destitute
and forlorn old age an asylum here with that devoted Church-
woman, Madam Hillhouse, in whose mansion, known to us as Grove
Hall, he died in 1804.
The most blatant and most notorious member of this group of
Church clergy was Samuel Peters, of Hebron, bom of Episcopal
parents in 1735, and graduated at Yale in 1757, who bo:ame a
missionary in his native town and the vicinity. On the news of
British troops firing on Boston, in 1774, his arrogant and offensive
attitude, and especially his activity in publishing resolutions con-
demning the popular opposition to Parliament, provoked such treat-
ment and such threats that he fled forthwith to England. His sworn
statements of his resources and his losses, still on file in connection
with his applications for compensation, are ludicrously and impu-
dently overdrawn. He claims, for instance, that his father, who
was a plain, ordinarily well-to-do farmer, in one of the poorest
towns in Hartford County, had been the richest citizen of the entire
Colony, and that his own confiscated estate was valued at the absurd
figure of upwards of £40,000. By this extravagant tale he suc-
ceeded in gaining a pension of £200 a year, which was withdrawn
some twenty-five years later, after fuller experience of his pre-
tentious unreliability.
It may seem like slaying the slain to enlarge on the falsehoods
of the notorious Parson Peters; but whenever I read over anew any
of his attempts at narration, I am reassured that his colossal powers
of untruth have never been properly appreciated. Take, for
instance, Iiis article in the Political Magazine of London, on the
Ilisinn- of his near neighbor. Governor Trumbull, of Lebanon, who
had .striven hard to protect him from the mob in his troubles, but
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34° NOTES ON THE NEW EAVEN LOYALISTS
whose life Peters pretends to sketch in a series of the most out-
rageously unblushing and Hbelous falsehoods. In justification of
such a characterization it will be enough to recall the initial state-
ment in Peters' biography: — that Jonathan Trumbull, a scion of a
family of unblemished reputation, was really an illegitimate child,
and probably the scm of the Rev. Samuel Welles, the minister of
the town, — and this regardless of the [dain fact that Mr. Welles
was not settled in Lebanon until more than a year after Trumbull's
bird].
It only emphasizes Peters' peculiar character, or lack of character,
to note that he was the only minister of the Church of England in
the Colony who thought it advisable or necessary to forsake his post
for a foreign asylum, before the war began; though four others,
James Scovil of Waterbury, Roger Viets of Simsbury, Samuel
Andrews of Wallingford, and Richard Clarke, of New Milford,
were induced, after peace was declared, under stress of poverty by
the removal of their flocks, rather than from experience of enmity
or odium, to accept the cure of parishes in the British Provinces, of
kindred origin and sympathies.
There remain a dozen other Episcopal incumbents, whom I have
not mentioned specifically, who retained their places through the
Revolutionary struggle, with more or less discomfort and some
ill-usage, and finally acquiesced peacefully in the results accom-
plished. Of this number were such familiar figures in this vicinity
as Richard Mansfield, Yale 1741, of Derby; Bela Hubbard, Yale
1758, of New Haven, and Abraham Jarvis, Yale 1761, of Middle-
town — ^all of whom lived to be doctorated in a succeeding generation
by their Alma Mater. It should perhaps be noted that Dr. Mans-
field, though not in any wise to be classed with Peters, had once
found it prudent to take temporary refuge on Long Island, on
account of the excitement caused by the report of a letter of his to
a British officer, which merely included some conjectural estimate
of the strength of Loyalist sentiment in Western Connecticut.
Many lay-members of the Episcopal Church were also avowed
or suspected loyalists ; but comparatively few went to the length of
exile. In such a conspicuous case as that of the Hon, William
Samuel Johnson, of Stratford, Yale 1744, one of the most eminent
lawyers in the Colony, he must be credited with an honest doubt
as to the right course of action; on finding himself unable con-
scientiously to advocate independence, he retired definitely from
all public employment, but let it be known that he had no inclination
to aid the enemy, and had without hesitation contributed to the
patriotic cause; and when peace was established, he assumed a
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NOTKS ON THE NEW HAVEN LOYALISTS 341
prominent and effective part in the councils of the State and of
the nation.
One locally well-known lay-churchman who had to be dealt with
for his loyalty was Ralph Isaacs, a native of Norwalk, who had
settled in New Haven as a merchant after his graduation at Yale
in 1761, and became the grandfather of the Hon. Ralph Isaacs
Ingersoll, and uncle of the wife of the elder President Dwight.
He wa'^ a rather volatile person, and was early mistrusted as a
sympathizer with the enemy, so that for over a year he was held
under observation and restraint in one of the interior towns, where
it was presumed he would lack opportunity of making trouble; but
he soon transgressed by taking advantage of his partial liberty to
supply his neighbors surreptitiously with rum. After a further
period of surveillance, he took the oath of fidelity, and lived thence-
forth in comparative retirement, mostly on his farm in Branford.
Another lay-churchman of New Haven, who accompanied Mr.
Isaacs in his temporary banishment, was Captain Abiathar Camp,
a native of Durham ; and he also, after a like period of detention,
took the oath and was allowed to return to his residence here. But
his allegiance was fickle, and finally he and his family went off with
the British after the invasion in 1779. He had been a successful
merchant, and in presenting in 1783 a claim for compensation, he
estimated his income from his business at £200 per annum, and his
total losses at over £8,000, though this claim was eventually much
reduced. It may be of interest to know that while a diligent business
man at that date, of no special educational advantages, he owned a
library of English and I^tin books, valued at ten guineas; and also
that he filed in support of his demands a certificate of loyalty,
furnished in 1786 by his quondam fellow-townsman, General Bene-
dict .-Arnold, — which document praises him specifically for activity
in providing guides and pilots for the expedition which Arnold
himself had conducted against New London in 1781. Captain
Camp died in N'ova Scotia soon after the adjudication of his claim.
I ^ihinild add that there were included in his company in exile a son,
ASiathar Camp. Junior, who had entered Yale in 1773, but did not
reach graduation, and who died in the Provinces at a great age in
H^ii ; and alsn a son-in-law, Daniel Lyman, Junior, Yale 1770, a
enliven to the church, who became eventually a Major in the British
P>e<ide-i the Episcopal ians, there was one other minute group of
li'ss con-picuous sectarian Loyalists.
For local reasons Connecticut had never proved congenial soil
for (Quaker colonists; but about 1764 the disciples of Robert
Sandoman, called Sandemanians, who imitated the Quakers in being
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$4' NOTES ON THE NEW HAVEN LOYALISTS
conscientiously bound to a policy of passive resistance to war, and
thus considered themselves obliged to remain loyal to King George,
had gained a scanty foothold here, especially in Danbury and New
Haven, They were mostly of undistinguished social standing and
small political influence. The best known of the group were Richard
Woodhull, Yale 1752; Daniel Humphreys and Joseph Pynchon, Yale
1757; Titus Smith, Yale 1764; and Theophilus Chamberlain, Yale
1765-
Richard WoodhuH, from Long Island, had been a favorite pupil
of President Gap, and had therefore been employed to fill with
rather indifferent success for seven or eight years a College tutor-
ship. He remained, after his first conscientious protest, peaceably
and inconspicuously in New Haven until his death. Daniel
Humphreys, the ablest member of the company, was a son of the
minister of Derby, and brother of General David Humphreys. He
practiced law here, and also taught a private school of high grade;
but removed by the close of the war to Portsmouth, New Hampshire,
where he had a long and rather brilliant career at the bar. His
classmate, Joseph Pynchon, from Springfield, had inherited a good
estate, and lived in dignified leisure in Guilford, where he had
married. After becoming a Sandemanian, he removed to New
Haven, perhaps for rehgious privileges, but was made so uncom-
fortable here that he retired within the British lines, thus sacrificing
a large portion of his estate. He returned a year or two after the
peace to Guilford, and is to be remembered as the ancestor of well-
known New Haven citizens and of President Pynchon, of Trinity
College. Titus Smith and Theophilus Chamberlain, who were also
of Ma.ssachusetts birth, had both done good service as missionaries
among the Indians, and after thdr abandonment of Congregational-
ism were recognized as the preaching elders in charge of the obscure
handful of Sandemanians in this city. Like Pynchon, they felt
constrained to take refuge with the British, and they both ended
their days in Hahfax.
Aside from these whom I have enumerated, the next most notable
company of Loyalist exiles from the New Haven township was the
family circle of Joshua Chandler, Yale 1747. He was a native of
Woodstock, and a fellow-townsman and first cousin of that stout
Churchman, the Rev. Thomas Bradbury Chandler, Yale 1745, of
New Jersey, who was active just before the Revolution in promoting
the scheme for an American Episcopate, and went later into exile
as a Loyalist.
Joshua Chandler had adhered to the Congregational church, and
had become a successful lawyer, with every worldly motive to
prompt him to side with the popular current. His ample town-
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NOTES ON THE NEW HAVEN LOYALISTS 343
house, built early in the same decade {1760-70) with other notable
old New Haven residences, on the site of the Tontine Hotel and
the new Post-office, and thence removed in 1824 or 5, is now
occupied by Mr. Henry B. Sargent. Like other well-to-do citizens
of the day, Mr. Chandler had also bought extensive landed estates
in the suburbs, and after 1765 lived principally on one of his farms
in North Haven. In 1775, in the full tide of his professional and
political reputation, as Justice of the Peace, Selectman, Deputy to
the General Assembly, and Chairman of the town's Committee of
Correspondence, he announced, from conscientious motives, his
determined loyalty to King George, and accepted the consequent
suspicion and obloquy. Four years later he left town with the
British invaders, accompanied by his wife, a daughter of Joseph
Miles, of New Haven, three daughters, and four sons. He had
moved in the tirst circles in the community, and in letters sent back
after his flight professed a strong affection for his native country;
but the records of the London commissioners in 1783 who received
his appeal for compensation quote his statement to them that he had
remained so long as he did in the Colony, as thinking that he might
thus l)c able to communicate essential information to General Tryon
in his invasion, and in other ways to be of service to the home
government. The property which he abandoned, to the estimated
value of alx)ut £4000. was confiscated by the town, and he recovered
comjiensation. covering three-fourths of that amount.
His eldest son (John Chandler, Yale 1772) alone remained here;
but his career was blighted by the opprobrium of the family record.
The second son, William Chandler, Vale 1773, had early espoused
the British cause, and in 1777 raised a company in New York of
over a hundred men for the King's service; and he and a younger
brother earned infamy by aiding to pilot the British in their invasion
of \ew Haven. It is a satisfaction to know that he failed to secure
an allowance from the government after the close of the war, except
a i)altry annual pension of £40; which was to cease, if he should be
put on half-way as a retired army-officer.
With the family went also Amos Hotsford, Yale 1763, a son-in-
law and a \ew Haven attorney, who stated frankly in his later
application for compensation that he was obliged to flee on account
of the odium arising from the action of his brothers-in-law as
guides to the invaders. He claimed that he had abandoned property
wurth over £2500. including a library, chiefly of law-lnKiks. valued
at £.i7 sterling; and that his annual professional Income was about
i6(»o. of which he had been able lo lay up on an average £22$, after
spending £375 for the support of his family, which included a wife
and three children. He also testified that, when Bling this applica-
tion in .AnnaiMilis, his available income scarcely exceeded thirty
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344 NOTES ON THE NEW HAVEN LOYAUSTS
guineas a year; and on this showing he was allowed an annual
pension of i224.
There remain a few other names of notable New Havenera, who
were temporarily or permanently disaffected. One such is that of
Judge Thomas Darling, of Woodbridge, Yale 1740, a son-in-law of
the Rev. Joseph Noyes, pastor of the First Church: a stubborn,
cross-grained person, of strong convictions, unable on princi[de to
accept without dispute the current arguments for renouncing British
sovereignty, but judicious enough in the long run to restrain himself
from fruitless opposition to the mora! sense of the community in
which his lot was cast. With him may be named his College class-
mate and pastor, the Rev, Benjamin Woodbridge, in whose honor,
when the farmers of Amity Parish asked for town privileges, they
preferred the name of Woodbridge — a sufficient proof that imperfect
sympathy on the part of their old pastor with the new political
order had not made any serious breach in the regard of his people.
The two classmates, Darling and Woodbridge, agreed also in
their theological position, both being firm supporters of the Old
Light party, which some of the patriotic New Lights tried to dis-
credit generally, as applying its conservatism to the political field.
But in fact disaffection was not limited, among the Congregational
clergy, to the conservatives. Dr. John Smalley, of New Britain,
Yale 1756, a leader of the new theology of the day, may serve as a
typical instance of one who, starting from a reasoned policy of
non-resistance, reproved at first the patriotic ardor of his flock, and
was only slowly and laboriously converted to their point of view.
Within College walls sentiment was overwhelmingly on the side
of the American cause. President Ezra Stiles, the typical broad-
minded student of his generation, and strictly speaking neither i
politician nor a theologian, had been from the first an outspoken
patriot ; and Professor Daggett's fearless, not to say foolhardy,
exposure of his person is one of the best known incidents of the
attack on New Haven. But, on the other hand, the only other
permanent member of the Faculty, the Rev. Nehemiah Strong, the
Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy, who was by the
way an Old Light in theology, was decidedly lukewarm in his sup-
port of revolution, and perhaps for this reason in part was provided
so meagre a stipend that he found himself in the course of the
struggle driven to resign his post.
The student body could naturally be counted on as enthusiastic
for liberty, with a few marked exceptions : such, for instance, as
John Jones, a native of Stratford, of the Class of 1776, who went
directly from College into the British army, and Jared Mansfield, of
New Haven, of the following class, a nephew of the Rev, Dr.
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NOTES ON THE NEW HAVEN LOYALISTS 345
Richard Mansfield, who after a lawless and broken College career,
was among those inhabitants who remained passively in the town
when the British troops took possession of it, and thus laid himself
open to the charge of toryism. The public spirit and efficiency of his
later career have redeemed the memory of his early vagaries.
One peculiarly interesting connection of Yale with the contending
armies relates to the family of Dr. George Muirson, of Long Island,
who spent his last years in New Haven, and had in early hfe taken
a highly notable part in the promotion of inoculation for the small-
pox in America. Himself a loyal Churchman, two of his sons,
graduates respectively In 1771 and 1776, fought in the war — the
elder on the British and the younger on the American side, — an
uni)aralleled instance in Yale or N'ew Haven history. Besides at
least one other tine of New Haven descendants, a sister of these
youths was the paternal grandmother of President Woolsey.
There were perhaps somewhat over a thousand Yale graduates
in active life at the time of the Revolution, and it is a satisfactory
evidence of their substantial agreement in sentiment that less than
twenty-five, or 2J/2 per cent, sided at once and permanently with
the mother country and sought refuge in British territory or died
in British military service; of this number the majority were
employees of either the Crown or the Church of England.
Besides such of this brief list as have already been noticed, tmly
some half dozen more of the Yale Loyalists were persons of any
special distinction ; and thrir record can be easily summarized.
There was, for instance, the Rev. Dr. Henry Caner, of English
hirth. ihe son of that master builder who was brought to New Haven
in 171" to construct tht original building named Yale College, and
who through the marriage of a granddaughter into the Hillhouse
family furnished a name for our (misspelt) Canner Street. Born
in the Church of England, he entered her ministry in Fairfield,
after his graduation in 1724, and proved so attractive a preacher
that in 1747 he succeeded to the rectorship of the most conspicuous
and aristocratic Episcopal congregation in New England, that of
King's Chape! in Boston. When the Revolution came, in his cJd
age, lie accomjKinied the British on their evacuation of the town, and
finally -icttled down in England in poverty and obscurity. His
attested loss of an annual income of £^00 was at length made up by
an e<|uivalent pension; and he attained a great age, which made him
for eight years the oldest surviving graduate of Yale.
.\ second venerable Loyalist of prominence, who also attained the
distiiution of being the oldest living graduate, was David Ogden,
of Xewark. New Jersey, Class of 1728, the leading lawyer of that
Pro\ ince, and a Judge of the Supreme Court. As early as January,
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346 NOTES ON THE NEW HAVEN LOYAUSTS
1777, his active sympathy with the British led him to seek the pro-
tection of the troops in New York and to receive honor there as a
political counselor. Then followed exile in England, where he
lived in pitiful illness and loneliness, on borrowed money, under the
care of a servant, until on the representation of his losses he was
given a pension of £200, which he relinquished, however, in extreme
old age, to return to the asylum which he craved under the flag of
the United States.
Of a younger generation was another eminent graduate, who was
firm in conscientious opposition to the Revolution, William Smith
the younger, the historian of the Province of New York, of the
Class of 1745. As a lawyer he stood at the head of his profession
for ability and integrity ; and after he felt constrained to an attitude
of neutrality, his advice in matters of law and policy was stUl
sought by his former associates and freely given. Finally, when
unable to take the oath of allegiance to the new government, he was
driven into the British lines, where he was complimented with the
titular rank of Chief Justice of Xew York, and after the peace with
the real and valid appointment of Chief Justice of Canada.
Three years younger in College age was the Rev, Samuel Seabury,
a native of Groton, who took orders in the Episcopal church, in
which he had been reared. The approach of the Revolution found
him stationed in Westchester, N, Y., on the Connecticut border,
where he had already been extensively occupied as an anonymous
pamphleteer in behalf of the claims of the Church of England, and
in opposition to the union of the Colonies. In 1774 he printed, still
anonymously, a series of remarkably able and even brilliant papers
in criticism of the Continental Congress, die authorship of which he
avowed in his aiJpeals to the Commissioners for compensation in
1783, although contradictory statements over his signature are also
alleged to e.xist. In November, 1775, he was seized and brought to
New Haven by a posse of Connecticut soldiers, who resented his
partisan activity, was paraded ignominiously through our streets,
and was kept here under guard for a month. After his release he
took refuge within the British lines, and there received an appoint-
ment as Chaplain, from which he enjoyed to the end of his life a
small half-pay pension. His later career, as the first Bishop of the
American Episcopal Church, to which ofllice he was chosen after
the peace, while still in New York City, is too well known to need
rehearsal.
Another graduate of high official standing who adhered to the
British side was Judge Thomas Jones, of the New York Supreme
Court, of the Class of 1750. He held court for the last time in
April, 1776; and after repeated experiences of arrest and imprison-
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NOTES ON THB NEW HAVEN LOYALISTS 347
ment for disaffection to the American cause, he embarked for
England in 1781. In 1783 he estimated his losses at upwards of
ii4,ooo sterling; and a small pension was assigned him. which he
received until his death in 1792. He is now perhaps most generally
remembered as the author of a bitterly partisan History of New
York during the Revolution, which was published from his manu-
script in 1879; in this work he refers to his Alma Mater as "then
and still a nursery of sedition, faction and republicanism."
Another of the same group was Edmund Fanning, a native of
Long Island, and a graduate of 1757. He settled as a lawyer in
North Carolina, where he so won the favor of Governor Tryon
as to become a trusted and influential factor in the public service.
When Tryon was promoted in 1771 to the New- York governorship.
Fanning went with him, and there also held important office. In
1776, as an ardent Loyalist, he raised and took command of a
regiment, remaining in the field through the war. Later, as a reward
for his fidelity, he was made successively Lieutenant-Governor of
Nova Scotia and of Prince Edward Island, He accompanied
Tryon on his expedition for the invasion of New Haven, in 1779,
and when soliciting an honorary degree from Yale a quarter of a
century later claimed that through his intervention the College
buildings were saved from pillage and destruction,
I have not as yet emphasized the admitted fact that a considerable
minority of the business men of New Haven in these pre-Revolu-
tionary days are credited with Tory proclivities ; but it is fair to
remember that, however exasperating the differences in opinion
may ha\'e l»een, there was no open scandal and the vote in lown-
meeting in 1766, of 226 to 48 in favor of supporting the Colony
officials in ignoring the Stamp Act, probably expresses about the
usual strength of the two parties.
In any account of New Haven society. I should also mention that,
after the trying experiences of the war were over, and the com-
munity had settled down again into its ordinary routine, the develop-
ment of interests tended to consolidate, in their opposition to the
older and more conservative elements, the greater part of the
Episco|>alians with the more venturesome commercial adventurers
and the restless, drifting fringe of the population, who, with little
at ?lakc. were indifferent to hardly-won standards. These miscel-
laneous elements, the nucleus of the future Jcffersonians and
Tolerationists, absorbed into their camp the remnants of the loyalist
faction, and so conspicuous a part did these form that the whole
grou]) was often described as "Tories," and classed as not altogether
wcll-affecled to the Federal government. Thus, President Stiles,
when he comments in his Diary on the inauguration of the City
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34^ NOTES ON THE NEW HAVEN LOYALISTS
government in 1784, refers with evident asperity to the numerous
Tory element — estimating one-third of the duly enrolled citizens
as "hearty Tories," one-third as "Whigs," and one-third as "indif-
ferent." Of the forty voters who are E^nscopalians he labels all
as "Tories" but two, and includes from the same camp from twenty
to thirty of the First-Church flock. The credulous ft-esident's
figures may have been warped by gossip and prejudice; but at all
events it is clear that thus early after the war a considerable weight
in public affairs was conceded to the party which embraced the
former Loyalists, in whom — so far as local traditions show — there
was no pretence of reversion to dead issues, but a healthy and active
interest in helping to work out the adaptation of the familiar con-
ditions of life in our old democratic Colony to a new set of responsi-
bilities and obligations in the Union of independent States.
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THE REV. HARRY CROSWELL, D.D., AND HIS
DIARY.
[From the Papers of the New Haven Colony Historical Society. Vol. IX.
Read January 191 6.]
I have long been accustomed to count it a matter of peculiar good
fortune that my personal recollections of New Haven go back so
far as to include a living impression of almost every one of that
group of notable men who were the conspicuous figures in this
community at the middle of the last century; and inasmuch as at
my coming here in 1857 I took rooms on College Street, at the
comer of Crown, it is natural that one of the most distinct in that
panorama of stately personages who were then just passing off the
stage was the Rev. £)r. Croswell, as I was accustomed to see him
almost daily on his walks to and from his house, half way down the
next block, on Crown Street.
These glimpses of him, in his long cloak and top boots, joined
with the companion picture of his deliberate march up and down the
central aisle of Trinity Church in full canonicals, have left with me
a striking image of dignified and venerable age, not melancholy and
forlorn as that of his somewhat older neighbor, Ex-President Day,
but distinctly suggestive of active kindliness and of watchful human
sympathy, not altogether crushed and broken by the labors and sor-
rows of almost eighty years,
Harry Croswell, the seventh of eight children of Caleb and
Hannah (Kellogg) Croswell, of West Hartford, Connecticut, was
bom in June, 1778. His father was a native of Charlestown,
Massachusetts, and his mother of West Hartford, where the family
lived in humble circumstances.
He was bred as a Congregationalist, under the pastoral care of the •
Rev. Dr. Xathan Perkins, a graduate of Princeton College, who was
settled in that siiburban parish for two-thirds of a century.
-Noah Webster, the lexicographer, was also a native and early resi-
dent of West Hartford; and Harry Croswell at the age of eleven
lived for one winter as errand-lwy in Mr, Webster's family, receiv-
ing he![> in liis lessons in part return for his services.
After leaving school he became a clerk in a country store in War-
ren, in l.itchlicld County, but soon migrated to Catskill, N. Y., to
learn the printer's art from an older brother, who was also one of the
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350 SEV. HARRY CROSWELL AND HIS DIARY
proprietors of a weekly newspaper, The Catskill Packet. While
thus occupied, he ventured to send occasional anonymous contribu-
tions to that sheet, which led to the recognition of his promise as a
writer, and hnally to his instalment in the editorial chair.
In Auj^st, 1800, he was married to Susan Sherman, a native of
New Haven, of a family lonp identified with Centre Church, who
since the death of her [>arents was living in Catskill in the family of
an older hrothor,
A few months later he removed across the river to the flourishing
city of Hudson, where he estahlished, in May, 1801, in partnership
with Kzra Sampson, a Yale graduate, and a retired Congregational
minister, an independent weekly newspaper, of high character, called
The Palaiice, which soon attained a fair circulation, and is still
esteemed by students of that jwriod for its exceptional literary
excellence. Mr. Sampson wa.s a practiced essayist, and Mr
Croswell's own contributions included frequent poetical efforts, as
well as a constant supply of jirose material, especially in the politi-
cal field. During the most of his editorial career he also conducted
a bookselling business; and for a short time held the rank of
Lieutenant in the Slate Militia.
In the sunmier of 180J he undertook further the publication of
a small occasional sheet, called The li'osp, which was designed
by the Federalists of Hudson as an antidote to The Bee, a Demo-
cratic i>aper just l^gun there; of The It^asp only twelve numbers
were issued.
His senior partner withdrew from The Balance at the end of 1803:
and early in 1804 some of the Democratic State-leaders resolved
to crush Mr. Croswell, in consetjuence of articles which he had
pul>lishe<l rdlciting severely r>n I'resident Jefferson. He was
made defendant in several lil>el cases, founded on matter which had
apiK-arcd in The lUilmui' and the defunct Wasp; and the courts
Unng ci>nlri>lle<l hy his iip|K)nents, he was heavily mulcted, beyond
hi- aliilily Xn pay. One of these suits gained ^^i>ecial renown
fniin tlu- appearaiitr of .\lexaniler Hamilton, then at the zenith of
hi^ career, a* iim- of the voUmteer counsel of Mr. Croswell, and
his delivery <ji a ma-terly arnument in defence of the lil»erty of
the ]>re-i. unly live nxinlli- lielore hi- tragic ilealh.
.\t lhe.l..M-..f iS<«. Mr. Lro-rtell vnilured. unwisely. Ki transfer
the nllire of hi- |«iper tii ,\ll.any, where, however, he failed lo
receive the parly -iippurt of which he h.nd W-vn assured. His
atherii-ini; palronai;e was al><> \erv meat;re. his -uhscript ion-list
>niall. and imilli].li<'.l lihel -nits cnnliimed I., hara-s him. A climax
was reailieil in the .'Spring of iSll. when one of his creditors, who
was a leading l-'ederalist, otitaimd a judgment against him for a
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REV, HARRY CROSWELL AND HIS DIARV 35I
small debt which he could not discharge, and for three or four
months he was obliged to edit his pajier while confined within jail
limits. Cut to the quick by what he felt to be gross disloyalty on
the part of a representative of the parly for which he had done and
suffered so much, he announced that The Balance would suspend
publication at the end of the current year, expressing frankly also
his disgust at the falseness and desertion of his Federalist patrons,
in such terms that he was understood to renounce his former
associations, and was even suspected of a purpose of joining the
Democrats. In fact, he never again attended a political meeting
(unless as a clerical duty), or exercised his rights as a voter; his
revulsion from Federalism was so entire, that in later life his tacit
sympalhy was evidently with the Democratic party.
Early in 1812 he conformed to the Episcopal Church, receiving
baptism ill July, and confirmation a week later at the hands of
Bishop Hobart.
He was then led to consider the claims of the Christian ministry,
and after a hasty preparation, under the direction of a young
clergyman then boarding with him, the Rev. Timothy Qowes, who
was the rector of St. Peter's Church, he was ordained Deacon in
St. John's Church, New York City, by Bishop Hobart, on May
8. 1814, being then nearly 36 years of age; and when we recall that
for upwards of ten years he had been prominent in the public eye as
the strenuously combative editor of a violently partisan journal
in Hudson and the vicinity, it is a remarkable tribute to the respect
inspired by his character that on the first Sunday after his ordina-
tion he assumed charge of Christ Church in Hudson.
While thus engaged, having ocasion to visit New Haven during
the ensuing summer on family business, he was invited, on a sudden
emergency, to conduct the services for a single Sunday in Trinity
Church, at the time when the Rector, the Rev. Henry Whitlock, a
Williams College graduate, of about Mr. Croswell's age, was
prostrated with a fatal illness. Mr. Whillock's resignation was
received in October, and on the same day Mr. Croswell was invited
to till his place, with an annual salary of $1000, the same that he was
receiving in Hudson. The chairman of the committee of notifica-
tion was the venerable Dr. Eneas Munson, an uncle of Mrs. Cros-
well. The offer was especially templing, for the sake of the four
soiK ti' whose education he was looking forward, and as restoring
his wile to the companionship of a large circle of relatives. Accord-
iiit;ly. hi- acceptance followed, and be began his long ministry here
on Sunday. January I, 1815.
At that date the Rev. Nathaniel W. Taylor, eight years younger
than Mr. Croswell, had been for three years pastor of the First
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35' R£V' BARBY CROSWEXL AMD HIS OIABY
Congregational Church ; and the Rev. Samuel Merwin, who was
but three years Mr. Croswell's junior, had been settled over the
United Church for ten years. The new First Church, or the
"Middle Brick," as it soon began to be called, a name changed by a
later and more fastidous generation to the "Centre Church." had
been dedicated cm the previous Tuesday; and the North Church
then building was ready for dedication in the foJlowing December.
Dr. Dwight was the President of Yale College, and pastor of the
College Church, but was soon prostrated under the painful disease
which ended his hfe two years later,
Mr. Croswell was domiciled in a hired house on the east side of
Orange Street, just above Crown; and the Trinity Church of that
day, on the cast side of Church Street (which was named from
this location), and a little below Chapel Street, was an old wooden
structure, with long round-topped windows, doors, vestibules, and
inside entrances, which had undergone successive enlargements
since it was built, 60 years before, but was so inadequate for the
accommodation of the perhaps 130 families of New Haven and
vicinity who made up the parish, that already, in the previous May,
the corner-stone had been laid of a new stone church, on the Public
Green, of which Ithiel Town was the architect.
Five months after his arrival, Mr. Croswell was admitted to
Priest's orders by Bishop Griswold, of the Eastern Diocese, Bishop
Jarvis, of Connecticut, having died in 1813; and in February, 1816,
he was instituted into the rectorship, on the day after the new
church, which was heralded as the first attempt at Gothic in church-
building in New England, and one of the largest structures for
that purpose in America, was duly consecrated,
A large increase in the numbers of the congregation followed at
once, and from the standing of Trinity Parish in the diocese, Mr.
Croswell held from the first a position of avowed leadership; as
was shown in particular by his being mainly responsible for direct-
ing attention to a clergyman of near his own age, the Rev. Thomas
Church Brownell, of the New York diocese, who was elected
Bishop of Connecticut in 1818.
In April, 1821, when he was in his 43d year, and had lived in
New Haven for six years, he began to keep a Diary, which he con-
tinued until his death, in 1858, and which exhibits a remarkable
record of individual activity, and of the shrewd comments of a
critical observer on ix'r.sons and events within his daily experience.
The whole amounts to nearly 5000 pages of manuscript, written in
a beautifully minute and uniform hand.
With reference to this document it should be remembered that
the author wrote and acted under certain obvious limitations.
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ktV. HAtHV CKOSWBLL AND HIS DIAKY 353
I-Jntiarrassed, jwrhaps not allogether consciously, by his lack of
College and ministerial training, and wholly without those intimate
ass(K-i:itions with his contemporaries which naturally accompany
such training, he felt ill 3t ease in the Yale atmosphere, and chose
to keq> aloof from the friendly advances made by gentlemen of the
0>lli'Ke. and to confine his social relations almost exclusively to the
families of his own jiarish. The honorary degree of Master of Arts
wa- coiiferrcil on him at Vale in 1*^17, without any apparent effect
on hi> feelings.
Mnibillered also hy his exiierience in the ixilitical arena, he
assumed frcHii the first an attitude of reserve and suspicion towards
those of differing faith or practice, which tended to induce and to
aggravate similar feeling and action on their part. His conception
of his duty to Church principles prevented easy or natural relations
with dissenters, so that much of the best which other newcomers
found here was to him, from his own chmce, under the Imn, and the
stimulus of friendly contact and sympathy in intellectual pursuits
was so far denied him.
These limitations, on the other hand, made the concentration of
his iwwcrs on Uie daily round of direct pastoral effort more and
more amazingly effective. He did little reading, beyond current
ncwspa(iers and (."hurch jieriodicals, and after the first few years
found the coniiwsition of fresh discourses somewhat irksome; but
outside of his study, the incessant and varied demands of a large
parish were full of absorbing interest and inspiration. He made it
a rule, in his own language, "never to suffer anything to interfere
with pastoral duty" ; and the record of days without number is com-
pletely filled with the recital, not merely of more strictly ministerial
acts, such as baptisms, funerals, and marriages, but of an exhausting
round of visits to the sick, the afflicted, and the needy, among his
own parishioners, as well as to many who were uncared for by any
other agency. His house was also a centre of hospitality and of
-ervice. He enjoyed informal social intercourse, and until ham-
jHTid by age and inlinnity was a familiar and welcome figure in the
homes of his |>ei>|>le, as they in his.
On the other hand, formal g.ntherings of a fashionable sort were
distasteful to him, as might \>e shown by many extracts from his
Diary like the folli»wing:—
July 9. 1S44. Ai 9 p. M. wfnt to Mrs. Keese's, where Mr». Croswell had
ipcnt the evening. Found a larRC and diMRrrrahle party there, and after
endurinic the customary' hardships on such occasions until '/i past ten. came
home, and made a new mcntsi resolution — not to get caught so again.
December 3, 1844. Took tea and spent the evening at iSn. Ingersoll't,
with a imall party — pleasant enounh. but the time thrown away.
>3
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354 REV. HARRY CROSWELL AND HIS DIASY
Akin to such feelings was his strong disinchnation to appear in
public on any show -occasion, unless required by his duty as a clergy-
man. One instance out of many may illustrate this: —
October 9, 1821. This being the day assigned for the Agricultural Fair
and Cattle Show, 1 was solicited by the Committee of Arrangement to join
in the procession, and attend on the exercises at the meeting house, And
afterwards to dine with the Society. It was a great sacrifice of feelii^
and convenience — but I attended. The clergy who attended were Baldwin,
of Stratford, Taylor, congregationalist, Hill, baptist, and Fitch, professor
of divinity in Yale College, Proceeded from the front of the Court
house, around the square, to the North Meeting House — where we were
foisted into the pulpit with the orator, Burrage Beach, Esq., of Cheshire.
Taylor read a psalm — and then made a prayer. Then followed the oration.
Then Hill read a psalm, and delivered a prayer of very handsome composi-
tion, which some friend, probably Abraham Bishop, had prepared to his
hand. Then he read another psalm — and tlius ended this part of the
cattle-show. We we^e next dragged in procession to Hillhouse's Avenne
to see the oxen, &c. — and after this we were conducted to the dinner
table — and by the time the fare was over, it was past 4 o'clock. For my
part, I felt tired and ashamed of the whole business.
And this extract illustrates perhaps as clearly the author's strik-
ing modesty, a crowning manifestation of which is displayed in his
record of the Commencement at Washington, now Trinity, College
in 1831, with its entire omission of any reference to the fact that one
incident of the occasion was his own reception of the honorary
degree of Doctor of Divinity,
A kindred instance of unaffected humility is this entry of March
29, 1822: —
The Bishop [Dr. Brownell] called towards evening, with a prospcctni
for his Commentary on the Book of Common Prayer— wishing me to look
it over and correct it ! It is really a great trial to my feelings to have
such a thing occur; but I endeavored not to discover anything of the kind.
I took the manuscript, and actually suggested two or three verbal altera-
tions, which the Bishop readily adopted.
From almost any page of this voluminous record it would be
possible to select a specimen day in illustration of his unremitting
routine labors in the direct line of professional duty. Any single
example of this sort may be unimpressive; but the cumulative effect
of such a lifelong chronicle of unwearied devotion and self-sacrifice
is unquestionable and overwhelming. I quote as the record of only
a part of an ordinary day's occupations, thi.s extract from his entry
for Monday. April 20, 1835: —
Rose early. Spent an hour before breakfast in making entries in Parish
Register, Journal. &c. After the morning errands, commenced my round
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KEV. BARSY CKOSWEU. AND HIS DIASY 355
of duty by visiting and praying with Dr. Elijah Monson's wife. Then
called at Mr. O'NeM's to see Grace Jacocks. who is here on a visit. Then
called to see Julia Deforest, who, being confined by slight lameness, ia
turning her attention, and apparetitly with much interest to the subject of
religion. . . . p. m. Recommenced my round of duty. Called a moment
to see the bride, Mrs. Granger. Then took a long pull, and visited and
prayed with Mr. Thorp and wife, who are both sick in one room with
typhus fever. [On the corner of SUte & Bradley sts.] This is the
extremest part of the town on the North. Stopped a moment at J. Ball's.
Then visited Mary Ann Bradley, whose case. 1 fear, is beginning; to wear a
threatening a.<pect Next, visited and prayed with Harriet Fitch, who is
declining rapidly. Next visited and prayed with S. J. Clarke's children.
both dangerously sick. Called on Mr. Dykeman, H. W. Brintnall, and
Dr. Robertson. Caught in an April shower, and on coming home found
plent>' of company, who had also got caught Miss Gilbert and
Miss Macbeth and Miss Ogden Staid to tea. In the evening was called to
marry Benjamin D. Norris.
With respect to the demand.<> made upon him, it should be noted
that he served not merely as a spiritual counselor, but placed all his
faciiliies and capacities at the command of his people. As the Diary
testifies, he was often called on, for instance, to draft a new will, to
write a troublesome business letter, to make peace with an unruly
serxant, to plan a new house, or a new church, or even to make a
perverse chimney draw.
In some cases it may be difficult to decide whether the author of
a diary wrote solely for his own eye, or whether he contemplated
the possibility of his words becoming public. In the present case,
there can be, I think, no doubt that Dr. Croswdl's original object
was solely to register, as an aid to memory, the consecutive perform-
ance of professional duty, without thought of other readers. We
may ask, then, if the record should have been preserved, and if it
should l>c a subject of public analysis and criticism. But as neither
thi." writer nor his surviving children expressed any wish to the con-
trary-, when the decision lay wholly in their hands, and as his last
descendant died nearly half a century ago, it seems clear that the
settlement of such questions was willingly left to the discretion of
those on whom the responsibility might fall.
Mi';intinie. some things are certain. I.east of all would Dr. Cros-
ut-l! i>avi.- shrtuik from entire frankness in any exposition of the
(jiiality of his churchmanship and his relations with representatives
lit oihcr Christian bodies. He would be described, I suppose, as a
ty]M(-aI example of the old school of Connecticut High Churchmen,
shari'ly distrustful of the Rroad Church attitude of Dr. Muhlenberg
and Dr. Ilarwood, and equally out of sympathy with the Ix>w
Churchmanship of Bishops Bedell and Eastburn and Dr. Tyng.
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35(> REV. HARRY CROSWELL AND HIS DIAHY
He was inflexibly loyal to the Prayer Book ; and such exceptional
variations as that noted in the following passage from the Diary are
therefore the more remarkable.
April 4, 1822. Was called to attend the funeral of Isaac Basset's child,
the methodist minister being out of town. All strong methodists — so I
wore no gown — used an extempore prayer at the house — and accommodated
myself as far as possible to their feelings, without departing from any
positive rule of the Church.
February 28, i8z8. The funeral of Mr. Sherman la brother o£ Mrs.
Croswell] was attended in the afternoon. I performed the whole service
After returning to the house, I invited old Mr. Stebbins [of West Haven],
who had attended as a mourner, on account of the relationship of his wife
to Mrs. Sherman, to pray with the family. The old gentleman, though a
Congregational clergyman, knelt down and made a very consistent prayer,
closing with the Lord's Prayer. The kneeling and Lord's Prayer would
have been considered by a man more bigoted, as too much of compliance
with church-customs.
Compare, also, with these another funeral entry, which, if unique
in his own case, must have had parallels elsewhere: —
Sunday, November 15, 1835. After afternoon service hastened down to
the Chapel, to attend the funeral of young Murphy. . . . Mr. Bennett
performed the service at the Chapel — and I performed all that was done at
the grave, but as it had become so dark, that I could not distinguish a
letter, I dare not venture on the Collect from memory.
As has been said already. Dr. Croswell found the writing of ser-
mons a burden; and judging from the serial numbers attached to
his discourses, he seems during a ministry of nearly 44 years to have
made on the average a new sermon only once in about three weeks.
His Diary reveals great ingenuity also in the adaptation of old
material to new uses. Witness such entries as these : —
Friday, December 4, 1829. (15 years after ordination.l Tried, in vain, to
set myself about sermons— but finally was obliged to select two from my
old stock, of which the number is so large, and embracing so many topics,
that I find it difficuh to strike out a new one.
Saturday, February 25, 1832. Not having time to finish a sermon,
resorted to my pigeon-holes, and found a substantial old sermon, which had
not been preached in eight years. Let them remember this, if they can.
Saturday, May 5, 1832. Went to work in the morning, and took an old
sermon, and ripped off the collar and wristbands — that is. rigged it out with
a new text, introduction, and conclusion, and intend to try it to-morrow.
May 21, 1848. My sermon, which I had substantially re-written from
an old one, with three convertible texts, to adapt it to Advent Epiphany,
or Easter, was now designed partly as a missionarj- sermon, and seemed to
take very well.
Once he enlarges on his method of composition : —
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REV. HARRY CROSWELL AND HIS DIARY 357
January ii, 1822. In the evening transcribed a few pages into my sermon,
which I had composed in the course of the afternoon. This is a labour
to which I have always subjected myself — composing first in a very small
hand, on small scraps and slips of paper, and afterwards transcribing into
the notes from which I deliver, and which are always written in a fair, though
rather small hand, and broken up into sentences, and parts of sentences, to
assist the eye in the delivery. This last peculiarity has excited the curiosity
of such of my brethren of the clergy as have noticed it : but they don't seem
to understand it — and for one of the plainest reasons in the world : — iheir
sermons have no points, nor are the sentences so formed as to admit of
any regular division of their members. ... I designed the plan, because I
knew my inability to write without emendations — and I cannot hear to see
a manuscript full of erasures, alterations, and interlineations. Sermons
written oShand are apt to be slovenly in their style — and they are as much
extempore sermons, as if they were preached without notes. It is my aim
to ftn'uh my sermons, as much as my great and arduous labors will permit.
There is little in the Diary which bears upon the teaching in his
sermons. He was not given to speculation, and his daily record is
occii]iit-d with practical and external data, — least of all with theo-
logical investigation, or self-examination. Comments on the ser-
mons of others are frequent, and not always favorable, but such
sidentjics as the following, with reference to his own mode of
thought, are unusual :—
Sunday. September 18. 1825. Mr. Shelton preached three times. He
writes handsomely, and preaches impressively — but his sermons have no spice
of gospel spirit He urges obedience, and inculcates the necessity of faiih —
but not one word of repenlance. In his evening sermon he told of every
way of coming to God. but the right one (with a penitent and broken heart
and contrite spirit).
His theoretical attitude towards his neighbors who were outside
the ]iale of the Church, is expressed in the following extract: —
Tuesday. May t, 1821. In the evening held my regular lecture at the
Orange-Street school room, and spoke on Oiristian unity, principally with a
view of pointing out the absurdity of attempting to harmonize the different
denominations of Christians, by drawing them into mixed meetings of la3mien,
to hear lay-preachers. Recommended the unify of spirit, without hoping, in
the present state of the world, to produce unity of sentiment
His method, however, of illustrating the "unity of spirit" in
practice was not specially calculated to promote the object, as may
he gathered from the following out of numerous descriptions in his
Journal of services conducted by nonconformists: —
November 17. 1824. Having been invited by President Day to attend the
dedication of the new College Giapel — went at 2 o'clock. It was rather a
singular exhibition. They first sang an anthenv— not in the best style. Having
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358 BEV. HABRY CR05WELL AND HIS DIASY
no female voices, the treble sotos were murdered in cold blood. Then Presi-
dent Day read some scattered verses from the Psalms^in bad shape, without
any qualification. Then Professor Fitch made a short hobbling prayer — itt
worse style than either of the other performances. Then another anthem
was sung, decently. Then Professor Fitch delivered a dull, cold, labored
sermon, in wretched style. Then President Day made a tolerable prayer.
And last, the choir sung a diddling hymn — and Professor Fitch ended witb
a sort of benediction.
Again, while vi.siting at the house of the Rector of St. John's
Church, in Providence,
June 15, 1822. Mr. Crocker asked me to attend a prayer-meeting
of Mr. Maffit's (the strolling Irish methodist), in the lecture-room of Mr.
Wilson's (congregational) meeting-house. 1 declined — but finding the
family all on a tip-toe to go — I changed my mind and went This lecture-
room is the underground story of a very large meeting-house — the ceiling
low — the walls and floor dirty — the whole very dark — and the air close and
offensive. Into this den an immense crowd followed the miserable adventurer,
who had set the town agog by his vapid attempts to preach the gospcL
People of wealth and fashion, without distinction of age, sex, or condition,
were here huddled together. Tlie desk was occupied by Maffitt, Mr. Taft
minister of the Episcopal Church at Patucket, a young baptist preacher, and
a methodist preacher. This prayer-meeting was opened with a hymn, which
was followed by a short exhortation from Maffitt. Then he sang a song,
of his own composition, tune and all. alone, in a soft, sweet strain which
seemed to produce a wonderful effect upon his female auditors, who lan-
guished as he languished and responded sighs to his sweet notes. Then
Maffitt prayed in the language of the liturgy, for a few minutes. Then he
sang again. Then the baptist exhorted, the methodist prayed, Mafiitt san^
and the rest joined him. He closed with another exhortation, and a hymn, m
true methodist style^ — and thus ended a prayer-meeting, in a cellar, attended by
the Rector of St John's Church. Providence, and his lady, the Re\'. Professor
of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy in Brown University, in episcopal
orders, and the Rector of Trinity Church, New Haven, who blushes to his
fingers' ends on his recording this instance of his departing from a
conscientious sense of duty, from mere complaisance to the good people
with whom he staid.
Again,
March 9, 1825. Having received an invitation to attend the ceremony
of installing the Rev. Leonard Bacon over the first congregational socie^
in this city — went to the meeting-house at Yi past 10. Service commenced
at II. Sermon, by Mr. Hawes. very Rood. Charge, by Mr. Taylor, very
bad. Riftht hand of fellowship, by Mr. Merwin, no better. Singing flat.
Was invited to dinner, but had to attend a funeral.
Then, two weeks later,
March 22, 182;. Called to see Mr. Bacon, the new congregational minister
of the 1st Society in this city. He is. to all appearance, a pleasant jKning
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!IE\'. HARRY CROSWELL AND HIS DIARY 359
I the task which he has undertaken.
Again,
June 3. 1835. Went to Captain Goodrich's, by Invitation, to see his
daughter married by Mr. Bacon to Frederick Uhlhorn. A splendid wedding.
After the ceremony, took my cake and wine, and then took my leave, as I
had no desire to meet the throng of company invited at a later hour. Mr.
Bacon has improved the mode of conducting a marriage, since I have
witnessed one, as performed in the Presbyterian way. But it is still a
July 10, 1829. At 3 P. M- went by invitation to the Dedication of the
new congregational meetinff- house [on Court Street]. It was a shabby con-
cern — all the exercises being meagre and siiiritless, with the exception of the
.sermon by Mr. Bacon, which was probably none of his best President
Day began by reading a portion of scripture, gathered partly from the
Chronicles, and partly from Solomon's dedication prayer, but without any
intimation from whence he was reading. It was all continued on, as i(
nothing intervened^ — and Solomon's prayer was used with omissions, till
he got to the middle— and then he stopped, and gave out a hymn of eight
verse?. This being all sung out. with the congregation sitting — Professor
Fitch made one of his long hitching prayers, with no other difference, only
tliat be began by substituting a wretched imitation of Dr. Barber's drawling
for his native grunt [Dr. Barber being a teacher of elocution]. This was
followed by another singing, and the sermon— and then another prayer, by
a strange clergyman, and another hymn. The main body of the house was filled
with ladies, the galleries with men and boys, the platform under the pulpit
with deacons — one of whom slept quietly through the whole concern, in
which exercise be was devoutly followed by more than one of the fair sex —
and I could not blame them. About five ministers were in the pulpii — which
Professor Fitch was particular to dedicate, together with the seats. — but
nothing else.
May in. i8zi. Passed round to the North-West comer of the Green,
where the Methodists were laying the corner-stone of their new meeting-
house [on the Green). Like a preshyterian dedication, it was a formless
jumble of exercises, consisting of singing three hymns, making a prayer, and
delivering an address, all carried on by their minister. Mr. Thatcher. The
corner-stone, however, instead of being the top of the corner, was the first
stone laid in (he foundation, several feet under ground 1 On this stone,
and in this awkward situation, the little minister performed his several parts —
speaking, not as out of a tub. but as if immersed in a cistern — the people
standing in the deep trenches, or on the banks, or on the piles of lumber
and stone with which Ihe place was encumbered. He discharged the
ofTice, however, with a considerable deirree of propriety — and with a leal
and enthusiasm peculiar to his sect. The Methodists had l>een violently
opposed by the Presbj-terians in their project of erecting this house in so
public a place — but this had in no wise disheartened them : and their
opponents, finding force ineffectual, had resorted to softer means, and had
finally offered them a sum of money, say about $i2t)0. to induce them to
'elect a mnrc retired spot. This was resented, and the work pushed with
renewed ardor. The house will stand within two or three hundred feet of
the Meeting-House of the United Society, and about an equal distance from
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360 REV. HARRY CROSWEU. AND HIS DIAIY
the dwelling-house of the President of Yale College^ No wonder, therefore,
that the Presbyterians are opposed to the erection.
Witliout further multipHcalion of such passages, I pass to other
phases of his disapproval of the manifestations of sectarian activity.
July ig, 1821. Abigail Heaton called to talk with me on the subject of
her joining a missionary family to go to the Sandwich Islands (one among
the latest of the sectarian schemes). She is an excellent, pious, and warm-
hearted eirli who has been persuaded by the arts of Presbyterians to believe,
that it is her du^ to sacrifice herself to the visionary object of civilizing
and then Christianizing the natives of these islands. The plain English
of the business is — that a number of indigent young men have been
gratuitously educated by the Presbyterians for the purpose of going on
foreign missions. But, timid .souls, the terrors of such a mission as their
employers demand are too great, unless the girls will go with them I . . .
Lord help ust what are we coining to? As Miss Heaton is a fine girl, and
a very worthy communicant of the Church, ... I am satisfied that
it is my duty to endeavour to rescue her from the snare thus laid for her
by a set of men, possessing more than Jesuitical cunning.
April 25. 1822. Spent the evening at Mr. Heaton's, where there was
half a dozen of their friends. Here I was informed of another of the ten
^ousand schemes which are Invented to draw Churchmen into aUegiance
with schismatics. Mr. Heaton had been invited by the Presbyterian ladies
to join them in a society for converting the Jews I When will this shameful
ostentation cease?
July II. 1823. Attended a meeting of a few gentlemen at Hitchcock's
office, at the request of Judge White, for the purpose of making some
arrangements for re-organizing a Bible Society, auxiliary to the National
Bible Socie^, Found Theodore Dwight from New York, President Day,
Mr. Merwin, Mr. Luckey, and Judge White, besides Mr. Hitchcock.
Dwight asserted that agents were coming from New York to attend to the
business, and wished a meeting to be notified on Tuesday evening next in the
newspapers and in the pulpits. He pretended that Dr. Lyell [a New York
rectorl was coming among the agents. Having seen the pill well sugared over
in this way, I very deliberately entered into an explanation of my reasons
for declining to promote the object, either directly or indirectly, grotinded
generally upon the impropriety of attempting to amalgamate religious
denominations, &c.
Other pass.iges show how the author allowed his surmises of sec-
tarian politics and of mixed motives to govern him also in the field
of humanitarian effort.
December 13, 1829. Preached my new re-written sermon, on intolerance
and bigotry, from Romans xiv. 4, "Who art thou that judgest another man's
servant," &c. It had been preached (or the last time twelve years ago — and
as I altered the text and the matter, nobody dreamed of its being re-written —
especially as it was supposed to have a bearing on certain tran.sactions now
in progress. The Congregational is ts have entered into a combination to
denounce and proscribe every man. woman, and child, who will not subscribe
to the total abstinence system.
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REV. UAKRY CROSWELL AND HIS DIARY 361
June 8. 1855. A young man came, to get subscribers for Maine-law
publications, and gave me an opportunity to express my opinions on the whole
fanatical concern.
January 8, 1830. Wrote a note to Professor Goodrich, declining his invita-
tion to attend a meeting tD be beld this evening at the "Middle Brick," to
get up a lever about the Georgia Indians Ithat is, for the protection of the
Cherokees in retaining their lands]. . . . [Added later:] A large meeting
assembled, as I understand; and Professor Goodrich took occasion to say,
that ilierc was no political motive in the business; it was a grand Christian
scheme, &c.
June 22, 1854. Had all sorts of calls in the raornitiK. Among others, a
black man seeking aid to buy his family, out of slavery, into poverty and
misery. Treated him kindly, and sent him to the abolitionists.
July 24, 1855. Spent a portion of the forenoon, in preparing a brief and
pungent reply to the circular received yesterday from the New England
Emigrant Aid Company, to be enclosed in an envelope, already stamped, and
directed to Rev. E. E. Hale, of Worcester. An impudent attempt to draw
me into a political crusade against the admission of Kansas, &c.
.\-i A contrast to the picture tjuoted above, of a corner-stone service
by Methodists, I cite the description of the ceremony, eight years
later, when what we know as St. Paul's Church was begun : —
Saturday, April 8, 1829. A fine day — and a proud and splendid day
for the Cliurchmen of New Haven. The Corner-stone o£ the new Chapel was
to be laid in the afternoon — and a considerable part of the forenoon was taken
up in preparation. Opened Trinity Church at 1 o'clock, and admitted the
Sunday School. The congregation collected at 2. Mr, Hawks [the assistant
minister] read a selection of service for the occasion, highly appropriate. A
procession was then formed^Sunday- School first — singers — Wardens and
Vestry — Building Committee — Contractors — Clergy — Officiating Clergy — and
then citizens, etc., a street full. The clergy of other denominations had been
invited— and a part of ihcm attended, with President Day at their head. On
coming to tbe foundation of the new chapel. Psalms selected were read in
appropriate responses — then a Hymn sung — then the stone was laid by me —
then Mr. Hawks read a prayer — and I closed with a .spirited address, which
the puritans won't forget in a hurry.
For sixteen years St. Paul's Chapel was admini.stered in conjunc-
tion with Trinity Church hy the Rector and his assistants ; and it was
only after a long and hard-fought struggle, in which Dr. Croswell
wa< wor-^led, that an independent church was organized. The Diary
for March J^. 1845, tells the restilt: —
Pleasant as the day was ... it had many painful associations, for to-mor-
row tlie parish meeting is to decide the question on the division of the parish
— and doubtless in favor of the suicidal n
TJie error in the gloomy prophecy of the last words recalls an
earlier instance of similar perverseness, respecting the destiny of
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302 REV. HARRY CROSWBLL AND HIS DIASY
what is now Trinity College, which Dr. Croswell had tried hard to
secure for New Haven : —
May 6, 1824. The Trustees of Washington College met in New Haven
this day, and a.fter some discussion, fixed the location of that Institution
in Hartford— a location which will probably prove fatal to the interests of the
institution.
These instances of defeated plans suggest what was Dr. CrosweU's
outstanding fault of temperament, and none the less so, although, so
far as the Diar>' reveals, it was one of which he was utterly unccm-
scious. While gracious and affable in ordinary intercourse, he
showed himself in more serious matters of policy, where opinions
differed, strong-willed, self-sufficient, and autocratic, particularly in
official relations with his assistants and his vestry, and was often
unjust and severe in his reflections on those who were not willingly
subservient to his purposes.
He had a genuine interest in the prosperity of New Haven ; but
was chary, doubtless from convictions of duty, of giving public
expression to his views on any local measure which might possibly
make differences in the parish through sectarian or political contro-
versy, while at the same time indulging in the freest criticism on the
pages of his Diary. An early siiecimen of such criticism occurs in
his notes on the removal of the stones from the old burying-ground,
in the centre of the public Green, in 1821 : —
May 22. Amid the cares and duties which necessarily devolve upon me,
it is my lot to be vexed and troubled with the endless schemes of sectarians
to draw me into responsibilities which may affect my popularity and diminish
my usefulness. Some time last season, a scheme was set on foot to get rid of
the monuments and grave slones in the old burying-ground. It being
a very tender subject, the promoters of the scheme were under the necessity
of proceeding cautiously — and they accordingly caused a town-meeting
to be called, and a committee was appointed to propose plans to effect
the object. I cannot recollect the course which the affair took in all its
details — but the result was. the appointment of a committee to carry a certain
plan into cflect. I heard a rumor at the time, that all the clergymen
of the city were placed on that committee, for the purpose of giving a
sanction to the proposed measure. But I received no notice of the
appointment, nor was I called upon to meet with ihem. Last week, however,
a notice appeared in the newsiiapers, stating that this committee being
now ready to proceed to the removal, would delay till the 20th of the
month, to give to any person so disiiosed. an opportunity to remove the
tombstones or remains of their friends to their private lots in the new
burj'ing- ground. At the same time. Abraham Bishop, Esq.. called upon
me with an address which he had written to be delivered at one of the
meeting-houses on the occasion of the removal, and which he wished me
to peruse and return to him this day. He partially disclosed the scheme —
report furnished me with the rest. The committee, it seems.
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REV. HABBY OtOSWELL AND HIS DtAKY 363
consisted of James Hillhouse. Esq., Abraham Bishop, Esq., William Uix,
Esq., and the four dergyinen of the city — that is. one Churchman, two
Conf^regalionalists, and one Methodist — the laymen of the Committee being
all Congregationalists. This committee, or in other words Mr. Hillhouse,
by the help of Mr. Bishop, had agreed to purchase of the said Mr, Hillhouse
a piece of waste land, near the new burying -grounds in the suburbs of the
town, at a most enormous price [$380 an acre] and to cause all the remaining
gravestones to be removed thither, and set up in the ground in due order,
about a mile from the place where the bodies were deposited 1 ... To
a project so ridiculous it only remained to obtain ^e sanction of the
ministers, and then the projectors flattered themselves that everj'thing
would go down smoothly with the people — a calculation too often made
with great success. I resolved, however, to improve the first opportunity that
had been afforded me, of washing my hands of any participation in the
measure. I stood alone, as the sole representative of tiie largest religious
society in town,— I had no concern in the affair, — had no connections in the
burying-ground — and had a very unfavorable opinion of the plan.
.\fjain, a month later,
June 36. At 8 o'clock in the morning, the bells began to ring for the
grand parade of removing the old buryintf- ground — that is. for preparing
the public mind for the removal of the grave-stones. The people assembled
at Mr. Taylor's meeting-house, and a course of services were performed
in this wise — Singing — prayer by Mr Merwin. giving a detailed account
of many things of which he supposed the people were ignorant, but
of which he codd not have supposed the Being whom he affected to address
was ignorant — singing again — then Mr. Hill, the baptist minister, performed
the dignified office of reading Mr. Bishop's address. He strutted in his
borrowed plumes, and put on such a pompous air as to render this part of the
exhibition ridiculous. He was followed by Mr. Thatcher, the methodist
minister, who laid out tlie ground for a long extempore address — but
observing, before he was through with his exordium, that the people were
withdrawing, he very abruptly broke off. . . , After singing once more,
Mr, Taylor made the concluding prayer. Mr. Hillhouse, with some hired
labourers, now proceeded to the burj-ing-ground. and began to pull down the
old grave-stones, and the work is to proceed until they are all removed.
These circumstances are detailed by others, for. instead of being present,
I visited Nancy Bonticou. &c.
1 may trespass on your time to add a few other notes relating to
sjxri.il localities or more general incidents.
September g. 1825. . . . -Stopped a momnt at Mrs, Sanford's. . . .
Walked on, it being a delightful morning, taking the powder-house road
((. <■., Prospect Street] till I came to the forest about Hillhouse') avenue —
crossed the avenue which I now saw in its whole extent for the first
lie jirnhatily refers to the view from the cleared space on which
the Hiinnnij;c mansion was buih a httle later; the avenue itself had
\nn^ ticen known.
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304 REV. HARRY CROSWELL AND HIS DIARY
May 6, 1826. This day the canal-coromissioners decided on the route
of the Canal through the city, taking the middle or Creek-route — a question
which has excited much interest in the town.
Two Other routes had been especially talked of, — one issuing
through Brewery Street to Long Wharf, and one coming out next
to Tomlinson Bridge,
February ig, 1828. Towards noon tt was announced that the Canal was
full of water — and at 3 in the afternoon a boat was put afloat, and was
lifted up all the locks in town, passing through the whole length of the
Canal to the basin of Mr. Hillhouse, and returning to the last level. The
crowd to witness this first exhibition was immense, and filled the town
with joy, the bells rang, cannons fired. &c.
March 18, 1839. Was called to visit a poor sick woman at Bamesville
[1. e.. Fair Haven], and just as I left her the Steam Boat arrived and
I stopped to see for the first time the train of railroad cars start off. It
was but a small train, but it went off in good style.
Daily trains had been running from New Haven to Meriden since
the 1st of January.
His first embarkation on a railroad had been three and a half years
earlier, in Kew York City, when he wrote :
August 18, 1835. We had barely time to get on board the rail-road line
for Philadelphia. . . . This was my first experience on rail-roads — and
the first sensations were very singular. I could not at first divest myself of
the idea, that we were drawn by a team of horses upon the full run — but I
soon became accustomed to it, and felt perfectly at ease.
Of the conditions of travel on foot at that day, a single citation
will represent what those whose memory goes back before the Civil
War can recall: —
January 26, 1839. A most tempestuous North East rain storm. After
praying with the Superior Court undertook to get to the Post Office [Aat
is, from Temple St to the railroad cut] but the rain came in torrents, and I
found Chapel Street so flooded, that is was impossible to get along without
going deeper than my overshoes would warrant, and so I gave it up.
I quote but one more narrative— that of the commemoration in
1838 of the founding of the town : —
Wednesday, April 25. This day being fixed upon by the Connecticut
Academy of Arts and Sciences, for the celebration of the 2ooth anniversarr
of the settlement of New Haven, it was turned into a gala-day, and many
fantastic pranks were performed, official and non-ofhcial. Ringing of bells
and firing of cannon opened and closed the day. A procession was formed at
9 A. M. at the State House, consisting of everybody and everybody's children,
and escorted by two military companies and a band of music This body
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REV. HAKRY CROSWELL AND HIS DIAXY 365
moved to the corner of College and George Streets, where the Pilgrims held
their first meeting, under an oak — and here were prayers and singing —
and then proceeded round the original squares, and returned to the Center
meeting-house, where they had religious services, and a historical discourse
by Professor Kingsley. I had been invited to take part in these exercises,
but declined, and Mr. Bennett [the Assistant Minister] was called in to fill
the gap. I had a quiet forenoon at home.
From these somewhat rambling excursions into the Diary I return
to the expression in a more general way of the light on Dr. Croswell's
character and influence, to be gathered from his writings. The lapse
of nearly sixty years since his death has left with us scarcely any
who can testify from mature and intimate recollection of what he
was in private intercourse, and what his standards and purposes
were, as shown in the direct results of his prolonged ministry. But
the Oiary reveals, beyond what his contemporaries witnessed or
imagined, the mental habit and springs of action of the author.
lie was not what we call a good judge of men, and his record
bristles with hasty estimates, both favorable and unfavorable — to be
followed later by virtual retractions and revisions of opinion; but
I think 1 am not mistaken in inferring that his severest criticisms
were those of the pen, while in personal intercourse with his fellow-
men he was uniformly genial and overflowing with practical bene-
ficence. With regard to this last trait, it is evident that, like the
rest of his generation, he observed none of the methods of our
modern Organized Charities. Beggars thronged his door, and
found him the easiest of prey, while fully aware of his own weak-
ness.
His standard of duty to his own people was extraordinarily high.
The constantly recurring opportunities of intellectual and social
recreation in a University town were resolutely and consistently set
aside, on principle, for the sake of the commonplace offices incum-
ticnt on the chief pastor of a large city parish, in which the poor and
the frit-ndless were always the major and the more api>ealtng part.
In liis conception of the Christian ministry, here lay his strength and
his .special call to service. To this work he had consecrated in a
characteristically matter-of-fact way all his powers of mind
atid body; he had no ambition for place or power in any wider
s])!iere; hut in his own province he brooked no interference and
allowed no rival. To the last week of his life he kept in his own
hands all the details of his official charge, and fulfilled his ideal of
the rectorship of Trinity Church, without fear or favor, under
res I >on nihility to no <nie but his Divine Master.
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THE REMOVAL OF YALE COLLEGE TO NEW
HAVEN IN OCTOBER, 1716.
[From the Papers of the New Haven Colony Historical Society, VoL IX.
Read October, 1916.]
In these passing days we have all been hearing and seeing so
much of the history of the Collegiate School of Connecticut, that it
may be rash to attack so well-worn a theme from any additional
point of view ; but it is certainly fitting that the Colony Historical
Society should take its part in commemorating such an anniversary
as this, and I have been called to the duty of spokesman. It is
obvious that no new material can be discovered at so late an hour :
I can merely challenge your interest in a plain restatement of some
of the historical data, in such form as the special occasion may
suggest.
In every rehearsal o£ these events, em^diasis is primarily and
justly laid on the fact that the founders of this Colony included a
College in their original plans; it is also noteworthy that the lan-
guage in which this intention was expressed anticipated the [rfirases
to which we are accustomed as the chosen embodiment of the
Yale idea in modern days.
It may be worth while to expand this assertion by recalling certain
significant passages in the history of the earliest plan for higgler
education in New Haven.
First of all, in the revision of the town statutes, in February, 1645,
not yet seven years after the beginning of the settlement, among
other provisions which it is explained had already been agreed upon,
but by oversight had not been put on record, "It is ordered that a
free school be set up, for the better training up of youth in this
town, that through God's blessing they may be fitted for public
service hereafter, either in church or commonwealth." The
phraseology was undoubtedly John Davenport's, though not nec-
essarily original with him, and was frequently re-echoed in his
public utterances.
Three years later, in March, 1648, the General Court of the
Colony took the first active steps towards setting up a college in
New Haven : but necessary funds were lacking, until the will of
Governor Edward Hopkins, whose wife was a daughter of the wife
of Governor Eaton, offered in 1657 a prospect of endowment.
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REMOVAL OF YALE COLLEGE TO NEW HAVEN 367
In May, 1659, therefore, with a view of securing a share in this
betjuest, the General Court, in Davenport's language again, "looking
upon it as their great duty to establish swne course that through the
blessing of God learning may be promoted in the Jurisdiction as a
means for the fitting of instruments for public service in Church
and Common wealth, did order that 40 pounds a year shall be paid
by the treasurer for the furtherance of a grammer school."
A year later, Davenport, as the trustee, to whom the portion of the
Hopkins l>e(|uest intended for New Haven had been paid, in offering
to turn o\er the trust to the General Court of the Colony, described
the design as being "that a small college (such as the day of small
things will permit) should be settled in New Haven for the educa-
tion of youth in good literature, to fit them for public services in
church and commonwealth." And again, in April, 1664, the Colony
having failed to put this design into effect, Davenport offered the
.same trust to the town of New Haven, "to be improved," in his
own language, "to that end for which it was given by Mr. Hopkins,
viz.. to fit youth (by learning) for the service of God in church
and commonwealth."
This, of course was the origin of the Hopkins Grammar SchotJ,
with which Davenport's connection ceased in 1668, when he removed
to Boston ; but he left on file in our records a formal deed of trust
of the legacy from which he had expected so much, declaring it to be
"for the encouragement and breeding up of hopeful youths, both
at the grammar school and college, for the public service of the
country in these foreign plantations."
With this message Davenport passes out of our history; but the
principle which he had labored to implant was not entirely lost
sight of; and .''o, a generation later, when a little company of Con-
necticut ministers, mainly from the seaside townships, took up anew
his project of " a small college," it was a happy and not undeserved
coinci<lcnce that James Pierpont, then occupying Davenport's pulpit,
was in the forefront of the movement, and suggested to the trained
counsellors who drew up the Charter of 1701 a reproduction of
Davenport's phraseology, in the incorporation of "a Collegiate
Schdol wherein youth may be instructed in the arts and sciences,
who ihrouth the blessing of Almighty God may be fitted for public
cmj>loynient both in Church and Civil State." And thus the spirit
(if John Daven(>ort and of New Haven was to a certain extent a
part iif Yale College from its beginning; and it is pleasant to find
amnng the documents which antedate the charter, unmistakable
tvi<lcine that New Haven was at the time suggested as the ideal
placi- fcir the College. But, so far as can now be seen, no pressure
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368 REMOVAL OF YALE COLLEGE TO NEW HAVEN
was brought to bear at that date by Pierpont or by any other repre-
sentative of the town to influence the deliberating Trustees to install
the proposed school here, rather than in Saybrook, or Middletown,
or Hartford, or Milford, or Stratford, each of which places had
some fair claim for consideration.
The extant records of these deliberations are consecutive and
distinct enough to justify the conviction that the preliminary
conferences of the ministers concerned were thoroughly amicable,
and that Saybrook was agreed upon with substantial unanimity as
being the most fairly acceptable compromise for the various interests
involved.
By 1716, however, the case had materially altered. For a good
part of the intervening period Saybrook had been obliged to share
with its next-door neighbor, Httle Killingworth, whatever prestige
or advantage there was in haboring the Collegiate School ; while for
the rest of the time the lack of a settled rector, and the death of the
venerable parish minister (Thomas Buckingham) who had been the
local center of authority and influence for over forty years, had
kept down the School to a discouragingly low level of achievement
and even of promise. Meantime New Haven had outstripped
Hartford as the leading town of the Colony in numbers and in
prosperity; while several of its more thrifty neighbors, such as
Fairfield, Stratford, Milford, and Guilford, had grown faster than
the other plantations of like history, eastwards or inland, and
exercised a proportionately greater influence. In recognition of
this development the General Court, which met in May and October
annually, had resolved in 1713 to hold its autumn sessions hence-
forth in New Haven; and this action should be noted as one factor
in determining the removal hither in 1716.
The changes in the composition of the Board of Trustees since
1701 were also of significance in this crisis. The three men who
had been most prominent in shaping the early policy of the institu-
tion were Abraliani Pierson of Killingworth, Thomas Buckingham
of Saybrook, and James Pierpont of New Haven; but these were
now all dead, — besides two others who had taken no special part in
Collet;e matters. Mr. Chauncy of Stratford and Mr. Russel of
Middletown — leaving as the one strong survivor among the trustees
named in the charier the elderly pastor of the First Church in Hart-
ford, Timothy Woodbridge, who had been kept by illness and
absence in Boston from active participation in the deliberations of
1 701, but who now stood ready to interpose his aggressive and
dominating personality in antagonism to' the prevailing judgment
of the seaside trustees.
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REMOVAL OF YALE COLLEGE TO NEW HAVEN 369
Of the recent accessions to the board the most notable were John
Davenport of Stamford, a grandson of the original John and nejrfiew
of Rector Pierson, and Thomas Buckingham, minister of the Second
Church in Hartford, and nephew of the Saybrook trustee of the
same name. In the struggle which ensued, resulting in removal
to New Haven, Mr. Davenport was chief spokesman of the
victorious party ; while Mr. Buckingham stood as the sole supporter
of his townsman. Mr. Woodbridge. in advocacy of an inland loca-
tion for the College.
Hut Mr. PierjMjnt's death had still another bearing on the con-
troversy. His place in the New Haven pulpit had not been easily
filled, and finally the choice of a successor had narrowed down to
two young Saybrook graduates, — Samuel Cooke and Joseph Noyes.
Mr. Cooke was already a prominent figure in the town. He had
been for eight years Rector of the Hopkins Grammar School, and
during the last six sessions of the General Assembly one of the
Deputies from New Haven. He had also married early into the
locally prominent and wealthy Trowbridge family.
Mr. Noyes on the other hand had the prestige of being a son of
one of the oldest and most eminent ministers of the Colony, and
after a successful tutorship at Saybrook was now being sought as
colleague to his father. Finally Mr. Noyes was chosen, in July,
1715; and his acceptance turned out to be an additional factor of
importance in behalf of New Haven as the .site of the college. In
proof of this it is necessary only to recall the circumstances of the
eventful meeting of eight of the ten living trustees in New Haven
on Wednesday, the 17th of October, 1716. Besides the formal
record of this meeting, we have a brief narrative of what occurred,
api>arcntly written a few months later by Joseph Noyes, the newly
ordaine<l minister He sets down first the convincing argument of
iij;urcs, stating that Hartford county had offered to give 6 or 700
jKiunds lor the college, if settled there, and that New Haven dona-
tions given and offered amounted to 1600 pounds. Five trustees
thou voted for New Haven.^Andrew of Milford, Webb of Fairfield,
Ru^^cl of Branford. Ruggles of Guilford, and Davenport of Stam-
fiird ; while the two Hartford ministers voted in the negative. The
miHleraior, Moses Noyes of Lyme, an uncle of the New Haven
niini-ter, declared, as the record says, that "he doth not see the
necessity of removing the School from Saybrook, but if it must be
renuive<l. his mind is that it lie settled at New Haven," or, as
Joscjih Noyes 's account puts it. "Rev. Mr. Noyes of Lyme was silent
after hi' nephew was settled at New Haven." The absent trustees
were James Noyes of Stonington and Samuel Mather of Windsor,
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37© REMOVAL OF YALE COLLEGE TO NEW HAVEN
To quote Joseph Noyes again, "Mr. Mather was disabled by illness,
but had by letter to Rev. Mr. Pierpont formerly," that is, in 1701,
"signified his approbation of New Haven, And Mr. Noyes of
Stonington gave certain intimations of his mind for New Haven," as
reported, perhaps by letter, "and afterwards signed the doings of
the Trustees", in token of his approval.
The choice, then, of Joseph Noyes for the New Haven pulpit was
immediately justified ; if his rival, Samuel Cooke, had been preferred,
it is at least doubtful whether the event which we now commemo-
rate could have occurred in 1716. He would have brought no
special claim of influence over individual trustees, nor so good a
prospect of usefulness as an assistant in instruction and oversight
as that which his competitor enjoyed. It may be conceded that
Pastor Noyes did not prove ultimately an eminent theologian or a
productive scholar ; but a study of his portrait, hanging on our
walls, gives an impression of buoyant and sanguine youthfulness,
though the hair is silvered, and justifies, I have always fancied, the
promise of his earlier manhood.
And what of the New Haven to which the Collegiate Schocrf came
in October, 1716? The plantation had been in existence for three-
quarters of a century, and the children of the first-comers who
survived were now mostly in advanced years. A daughter-in-law
of John Davenport still occupied the old Davenport mansion, on the
present site of the Presbyterian Church on Elm Street. On the
opposite side of the road one or two grandchildren still kept a foot-
hold on the estate of Governor Eaton ; while the family of Elihu
Yale, Mrs. Eaton's grandson, who was destined to take so con-
spicuous a part in the College history, was also represented just
below at the corner of State Street by a first cousin, the wife of
Samuel Bishop. And a considerable list might easily be named of
other elderly residents whose recollections must have included dis-
tinct impressions of the early years of the settlement and of tlie
men and women who were leaders in it.
There is no reason, however, to suppose that traditions of Daven-
port's purpose of "a small College" still lingered here to any such
extent as to affect public j)olicy : tliere were no persons of out-
standing influence who would have been the natural channels of
such tradition, or strong enough to ensure their wider acceptance,
and local pride had found a sufficient reward in the modest growth
of the Hopkins Grammar School.
The pojiulation of the compact portion of the town was probably
not much over 700; while the membership of the First Church
(still the only church in the whole territory, except that recently
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REMOVAL OF YALE COLLEGE TO NEW HAVEN 37I
organized in East Haven village) was not far from 300. The
entire community conformed to one system of religious belief, and
()robabiy at this date there was not within the town limits a single
adherent of the Church of England, any more than of the Giurch
of Rome, or of the Jewish Synagogue.
The community was also in the main socially homogeneous, much
more 50 than at the beginning, when the distinctions of wealth and
blood brought with the emigrants from the mother country, were
sharply drawn and recognized ; neither was the town dominated by
any commanding personalities, as in the first generation.
Besides the new minister, who was raily 28, there were two other
Saybrook graduates living in the town plot.- — John Prout, Junior,
27 years old, a rising business man on lower State Street and Naval
officer of the Port, and Daniel Browne, Junior, in his 19th year,
who had lately been promoted from the rank of assistant-master to
that of rector of the Grammar School, in succession to Mr. Cooke,
who had just been ordained pastor of what is now the First Church
in Bridgeport, having sold his house on Elm Street, opposite the
Davenport mansion, to Mr, Noyes, who was about to be married to
a daughter of the late minister, Mr. Picrpont. Browne himself was
a native of the village of the West Side, now the borough of West
Ha\'en, and had a younger brother to whom we owe a detailed map
of N'cw Haven as it was in 1724, an invaluable document for our
early history. In addition to these three graduates, living in the
centre of the town, there were Jacob Heminway, the minister to his
kinsfolk and neighbors in East Haven, a graduate of 1704, and
Daniel Elmer of 1713, who was preaching temix>rarily for the "West
farmers," who had taken steps for gathering a church, but were
not yet able to do so. Of the five thus noted, Heminway, Prout
and Browne were the only New Haveners who had been sent to
Saybrook since the Collegiate School began, and during that period
none of their town.smcn had been educated at Harvard ; in the same
time (here had been trained at Saybrook an equal number of Hart-
ford boys, and thrice that number from Saybrook itself.
There was also in New Haven a solitary Harvard graduate,
W arhiim Mather, 50 years of age, of the best Massachusetts blood,
an uncle nf Jonathan Edwards, but, although a man of undoubted
ability, not much of a success in life. He had failed in his chosen
vixation of preaching, and his wife being a daughter of the Madam
l)aveni>ort who was spending her last years in the family home on
Kim Siroot, they had come here to live with and care for her, while
be divided most of his time between amateur medical practice (in
which line he had no competitor) and public business as a side-
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37" REMOVAL OF YALE COLLEGE TO NEW HAVEN
judge of the county court and (subsequently) judge of probate.
He filled a rather prominent place in the community, more perhaps
owing to a dearth of leaders than to the eminence of his own
powers.
These four men, then, Mather, Prout, Noyes, and Browne, stood
for the higher education in the New Haven town plot of 1716; and
ranking with them in dignity and influence were such official persons
as John Punderson and Abraham Bradley, the two ancient deacons
of the Church; John Ailing, judge of the probate court, who became
also treasurer of the Collegiate School ; Samuel Bishop, who shared
with Dr. Mather and Deacon Bradley the station of assistant judge
of the county court; Joseph Whiting, captain of the local militia;
and Sergeant Abraham Dickerman, the first townsman or selectman.
The majority of the community comprised the customary assort-
ment of active or retired farmers, traders, artisans, seafaring men,
voluntary servants, and a small number of negro slaves from the
West Indies ; there were also perhaps an even smaller number of
half -civilized Indians, besides the feeble remnant of a settlement of
the Quinnipiac tribe in the East Haven region. There were few
persons of more than the average amount of estate ; few dependants
on charity; and tramps were then and for a century longer almost
wholly unknown. The nucleus of the original planters had been a
small group of rich London merchants, who had brought with them
a staff of inferior retainers, in the expectation of erecting here a
state of society, modeled after that in the old country, with marked
divisions of standing and culture, in one compact feudal community.
As it was speedily found that this expectation was fallacious, this
humbler class was colonized on some of the farming lands in the
outlying edges of the town, which were in 1716 just developing into
independent villages.
When tlie pioneers of New Haven sailed up in 1638 the West
Creek, then navigable at least to the foot of College Street (a creek
which was long traceable to the north of Chapel Street, just beyond
Park), with admirable foresight they employed one of their number,
John Brockett, who had some experience as a surveyor, to lay out a
plot, of nine equal squares, the meeting-house green or market-place
being the central one. The lines of this plot were determined by
the two creeks on the George Street and State Street borders, with
one unfortunate result, that the streets bounding the nine squares,
being laid out parallel to these creeks, are hopelessly out of relation
to the cardinal points of the compass. We are accustomed, to be
sure, to ignore this patent irregularity, and always speak for instance
of Elm Street as the northern boundary of the Green ; but the earlier
land records do not observe any rule on this head, and are nearly as
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REMOVAL OF YALE COLLEGE TO NEW HAVEN 373
apt to describe a lot on the Giapel Street side of Elm Street, for
instance, as bounded on the west by the highway, as they are to say
bounded on the south.
Within these limits, then, of George, York, Grove, and State
Streets |the intermediate streets being then and until after the
Revolution mostly unopened), and on the outlying roads leading
towards the harbor and the country (Water Street. Meadow Street,
Commerce Street, Broad Street, Broadway and Whitney Avenue),
the main body of the townsfolk dwelt ; and until the College fostered
a new centre of life and interest, the principal activities of the
settlement were gathered about State Street and the water front,
which then of course and for one hundred and fifty years later
began at what is now Water Street.
The Cireen had upon it four public buildings. First, the wooden
meeting-house, built on ground a little to the east and south of the
present Centre Church in 1670, and continued in use during practi-
cally the entire ministries of Nicholas Street, James Pierpont and
Joseph N'oyes. The area was about sixty by fifty-five feet, with
three entrances on the eastern front, two on the north, and two on
the south. The pulpit was placed originally at the west end, as in
the nimlern church, facing two tiers of benches, those on the northern
side for women, and those on the southern for men. Influential
people had been allowed by the town to build private pews on the
north and south walls; and when more room had recently become
necessary, it had been gained by pushing out the western wall
(wi'nty-five feet further, leaving the pulpit where it was, and filling
the added floor-space behind it with more private pews, facing the
main congregation. There were also put at the western end stair-
ways leading to the back and side galleries, and at the northeast and
southeast comers stairs to the large front gallery, in which hence-
forth the College was to hire sittings for graduate and undergraduate
students. Even with these additions the house was hardly sufficient
for the demands upon it, until relieved by the establishment of
worship in East Haven, North Haven and West Haven; but, how-
ever inadequate, it was destined to remain for forty years longer,
and 10 serve, not only as the place for religious assemblage, but
al~o. until a Court House was built south of it in 1719, as the forum
for traii>acting all civic business, in the public town-meetings and in
the ^'CTicraJ court of the Colony and subordinate courts. The graves
of (hi- forefathers were scattered irregularly in the proximity of
(he n)ecting-house to the west and north, those still to be seen in the
crjpt under the Centre Church showing what was the former level
of liie ground in that vicinity.
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374 REMOVAL OF YALE COLLEGE TO NEW HAVEN
The minor structures on the Green comprised a small builditig
used as a jail, on College Street, perhaps somewhere nearly opposite
the present Lawrance Hall: another smaller one, a little further
north, used as a shelter for the night-watch ; and an old building on
Elm Street, about where the United Church now stands, in which
the Grammar School was kept. Such were the only public buildings
of the town.
One striking advantage of New Haven in comparison with other
sites proposed for the College was the sightliness and amplitude of
the meeting-house green; and steps were taken at once by the
Trustees, after October, 1716, for the purchase of land for a building
in a situation commanding this fair prospect. Such was found in
the lot of one and a quarter acres on the comer of College and
Chapel Streets, being the space now occupied by Osbom Hall, the
adjoining wing of Vanderbilt Hall, Connecticut Hall, and about
one-half of Welch Hall, — a lot, which had been bequeathed by Mrs.
Esther Coster some twenty-five years earlier to the First Oiurch,
to be improved for the encouragement of religion and learning by
the maintenance of a semi-annual lecture. These lectures had been
held in Mr, Pierpont's day in the spring and fall of each year, and
had been made more important by the custom of using such occa-
sions for the formal admission of members to the church. On the
Chapel Street side of the Coster lot stood an old dwelling house,
built by one of the first comers, but now so dilapidated as to produce
no income for the lecture fund. The Church, therefore, as allowed
by the donor's will, and in furtherance of the declared object of the
trust, conveyed the property in 1717, to the College authorities, for
26 pounds, about one-fourth of the price which Mrs. Coster had
paid in 1686.
But it should also be remembered that the removal to New Haven
was ensured by the liberal offers of real and personal estate from
public and private sources. Thus, the Proprietors of common and
undivided town lands gave to the College eight unimproved acres
{about half the size of the Green) in the quarter to the north west-
wards of the town-|)lot, near enough to be long utilized as pasture
for the President's cow, of which ownership the memorj- is still
preserved in the name of University Place, opening out of Whalley
Avenue.
It is a pleasure to conuncmorate also the names of some of the
more notably generous donors of land or money, such as Joseph
Peck, Ebenezer Mansfield, Marj' Trowbridge, Richard Sperry,
Senior, and four of his sons, Thomas Hitchcock, Thomas Holt,
William Hotchkit^s, John Morris, John Mix, Samuel Ives, James
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REMOVAL OF YALE COLLEGE TO NEW HAVEN 375
Gibbs, Nathaniel Yale (of North Haven, a first cousin of Elihu),
John Bassett, John Glover, and Samuel Burwell,
Of the New Haven of 1716 the more strikinp natural features arc
all that remain. Of buildings then standing, the only one left, now
or at any time within recent memory, is the frame of an ancient
house, with wholly reconstructed exterior, on Meadow Street, in the
rear of a brick block on this side of the Armory, which was then
the residence of Lieutenant Stephen Trowbridge.
Into this community the Collegiate School, or rather a fragment
of it, was brought in 1716; and what was then the Collegiate
School ?
It had a background of six formative years in Killingworth, fol-
lowed (after Rector Pierson's death) by nine lean years in Saybrook.
During these lifteen years the degree of Bachelor of Arts had been
given in course to fifty-five persons, all but one of whom were still
living. The average age at the time of admission had been about
sixteen years, — the two extremes in this respect having been Henry
W'illes. who entered at twenty-one, and Daniel Browne, who entered
at twelve and a half. Of the graduates, about two-thirds had given
themselves to the ministrj', and more than a score of this number
were now improved in Connecticut parishes. Three or four were
temporarily at least teachers, and about a dozen had settled down
in civil life within the Colony limits.
None of the little group could have been expected to reach as yet
distinction; though it included young men with such capacities as
Dr. Jarcd Kliot, of Killing\vorth, one of the earliest scientific lights
of Xcw I'.ngland, Jonathan Dickinson, the first jiresident of I'rince-
ton, and Samuel Johnson, first president of Columbia.
Xeithcr wa,-: there in the baker's dozen of undergraduates who
as-^cmiilcd here in October, ijif), more than one who attained
cniincnco, — the exception being the English-born Wilham Smith
(the only .'^ophomore ) , who rose to the headship of the New York
bar. and declined the place of Chief Justice of the Supreme Court
(ii ihf rnivincc. But a greater than he, Jonathan Edwards, was
iiMw a I-rcshman in the rival camp of seceded students at A\'ethcrs-
licld. wiio lattT transferred himself to New Haven, in time for
yraduatiiin and a tulorshiji, and for finding here a bride in the person
III thf -airitly dauglUcr of Madam I'ierpont. in the former parsonage
iiti I'.hu Street, where Temple Street now enters the Green.
{■'.niiiicnce, however, was hardly to be expected in such a home-
-^]iun f;roup, as is evident in comparison with the much longer list
of liaihelors of .\rts at Harvard College from 1702 to 1716: out of
their total of 174 names, those that are now best known are only
such as Edward Holyoke, a President of Harvard, Elisha Wilhams,
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37^ REMOVAL OF YALE COLLEGE TO NEW HAVEN
Rector of Yale, Thomas Prince, the Boston antiquary, and Benning
Wentworth, Royal Governor- of Xew Hampshire ; while of the per-
haps eighty undergraduates who made up President Leverett's
flock in Cambridge in October, 1716, there is not a single name that
has now anything beyond the most limited local familiarity.
As a place of study the College in 1716 was not essentially diflEer-
ent from what it continued to be through the eighteenth century.
The conditions of admission were refreshingly simple. Those who
were admitted must "be found expert in both the Greek and Latin
grammar, as also skilful in construing and grammatically resolving
both Latin and Greek authors and in making good and true Latin,"
This sufficed; and on this foundation was built the superstructure
of what was then a liberal education, comprising some degree of
training in Greek, Latin, and Hebrew, physics and metaphysics,
with possibly a little mathematics, and extensive practice of forensic
disputation and other rhetorical exercises.
Certain general requirements in the official "Orders and Appoint-
ments," as the College Laws were at first styled, were doubtless
"counsels of perfection," and not in reality effectual. Such was,
for instance, the order that "No scholar shall use the EngUsh tongue
in the College with his fellow -scholars, unless he be called to public
exercise proper to be attended in the English tongue; but scholars
in their chambers and when they are together shall talk Latin," It
is a matter of tradition that this regulation was early a dead letter —
not merely evaded by the use of mock Latin, but glaringly disre-
garded. So, again, the formal provision (hat "Every student shall
exercise himself in reading Holy Scriptures by himself every day,"
takes for granted a higher universal grade of personal piety than
the facts and conditions of undergraduate life entirely warrant.
Since Rector Pierson's death the teaching staff in Saybrook had
consisted of a couple of young tutors, under the distant and infre-
quent supervision of the Rector pro tempore, Mr. Andrew of Mil-
ford ; and on the transfer to New Haven it happened to be necessary
to fill these tutorships with new appointees. One of those elected
preferred to cast in hi.s lot with the group of .students who went to
W'ethersfield ; an<l this left as the sole resident officer here, Samuel
Johnson, a man destined to large success in mature life as the
Apostle of Ei>iscopacy in Connecticut, but then only two years from
graduation and twenty years of age. But Parson Noyes, who had
retired from the same office only the year before, after filling it with
distinction, now consented to take charge for the coming year of the
Senior class, which apparently consisted of only two members;
leaving to Mr. Johnson a Junior class of eight (two of whom were
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REMOVAL OF YALE COLLEGE TO NEW HAVEN 377
several years older than their tutor), and a Freshman class of two,
besides a single Sophomore. And a somewhat similar scanty and
uncertain attendance of students continued to be the experience for
three jears to come.
I ha\e already referred in a general way to the leaders in the
discussions of the trustees over the site of the College in 1716: on
the one hand the Rev. John Davenport of Stamford, supported by
Mr. Kussel of Branford, Rector Andrew of Milford, Mr. Ruggles
of (iuilford, and Mr. Webb of Fairfield; and on the other hand
the two 1 lart ford ministers, Woodbridge and Buckingham ; while the
two Noyeses of Stonington and Lyme, though not counted in the
ori^'iii^l vote, were ultimately for New Haven.
Outside of the Board of Trustees, the question was to some extent
involved with general Colony politics. Between the Eastern and
Western sections of the Colony there was a growing competition
for place and iKfvver ; and in the present case the Western section
as a rule took up vigorously the support of New Haven; while
J4artford was led in consequence to ally itself for the time being
with New London county, the principal constituent of the
Kastcrn section. In the deliberations of the Upper House of the
Asseniliiy, Or Governor's Council, Governor Saltonstall, who had
active affiliation with both sections, as a former minister of New
l^ndon, as well as a large landowner in his wife's right in Branford
and New Haven, endeavored to hold the scales even between the
contending parties, until the action of a clear majority justified him
ill throwiiij; his influence on the Western side. On the same side
were limathan Ijiw, Judge of the Xew Haven county court, and
M>tni' ill the most active of the Assistants, including especially Judge
John .\liing of Xew Haven, and two prominent citizens of Hartford,
Judge William Pitkin and Major Joseph Talcott, the latter of whom
succeeded next to the governorship, and held the office for a longer
[triiKl than has any one since. These two gentlemen, of the very
liif;lRst standing in their own community, in a spirit of protest
against local jealousies, and in order to maintain their position and
iniUicnce in the colony at large, found it their duty in the present
cniir;;en(y lo side with the Xew Haven party, against their militant
lelicw-iownsmen.
< >nc -opicl of Major Talcott's breach with his pastor, Mr. Wood-
bridge, niay lie mentioned in connection with a further development
of the College history. In the progress, two or three years later,
of ilie tight against the establishment at Xew Haven, after the
.■-^ayliroDk |)eopie had been ordered by the Governor and Council
to gi\c up the College books and records, and had refused, a scheme
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37* REMOVAL OF YALE COLLEGE TO NEW HAVEN
was devised for getting control of the Assembly by electing the
Hartford ministers as Deputies, in the hope that they might shape
legislation which should undo the New Haven settlement. The
result was far different ; Mr. Buckingham waived his election, and
Mr. VVoodbridge's right to sit in the House was at once challenged
by a Fairfield Deputy, on the ground that he had defamed the
Government by virtually charging the Upper House with theft and
constructive murder in ordering such violent measures at Saybrook;
and Major Talcott was cited as a witness to his pastor's defamatory
charges. A voluminous record of Woodbridge's prosecution is on
file in the State Library and further reveals his relations with Tal-
cott, whom he endeavored to debar from the communion table
because of his evidence in this case. The upshot was that Wood-
bridge did not sit in the Assembly, but signed an apology acceptable
to the Lower House, though not to the Upper; the personal con-
troversy was referred to a council from abroad, and in the end %vas
accommodated on the basis of mutual forbearance.
It is pleasant, however, to remember that about the same time that
reconciliation with his aggrieved parishioner was effected, that is,
three years after the settlement at New Haven, Mr. Woodbridge
resumed attendance on the meetings of the Trustees, and thence-
forth took tJie honorable and conspicuous part in College affairs to
which he was entitled by age and dignity. The breach in the
friendly relations of the Trustees was thus healed ; but the injurj' due
to the detention of College property in Saybrook could never be fully
repaired. The loss of books from the Library stored in the house
of Squire Buckingham, the village justice, was not permanently
serious; but the confiscation of the records of the proceedings of
the Trustees from 1704 to 1716 will always remain an irreparable
and seemingly indefensible detention and destruction.
In the discussion of a site, the advocates for New Haven were
able to urge fairly tliat on the evidence of the annual tax lists this
was now the chief lown of the Colony; that it was especially well
placed for direct communication by water as well as by land with
both Boston and New York, and with the river and coast settlements
of Connecticut as well; that the pecuniary encouragement here
offered far exceeded that offered by any other locality ; that the
situation for a college house, facing the Green, was exceptionally
favorable; while the natural advantages of soil and climate and a
relatively low cost of living were crowning arguments. On the
other hand, the Hartford malcontents claimed that they represented
the ancient and centra! seat of government, with a ring of prosperous
towns about it ; and by the unnatural device of coupling New London
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REMOVAL OF YALE COLLEGE TO NEW HAVEN 379
county with their own, as the alternate of the Western section, made
out a larger aggregate both of population and of students in the
school, while also urging against New Haven inaccessible remote-
ness, especially in view of the uncertainties of transportation by
water in the winter season. These alleged disadvantages were
bound to lessen with the passage of time; nor was their place likely
to be supplied by any of greater weight; unless indeed New London
preferred a claim of pre-eminence from having had since 1709 the
only printing-press in the Colony, — a distinction which New Haven
was not able to rival until 1754, nor Hartford until 1764.
The productions of the New London press had been hitherto of a
purely matter-of-fact sort, including mainly official documents, such
as Colony Acts and Laws, the Governor's Proclamations, the annual
Election Sermons, the Saybrook Platform of Church Doctrine and
Discipline, besides primers for children. For instance, in the year
which we commemorate, the only known output of Timothy Green's
press in New London is the Election Sermon preached that year by
the Rev. Anthony Stoddard, of Woodbury; while the much more
prolific presses of Boston and New York were printing such notable
products from our standpoint as the original edition of Col. Benja-
min Church's "History ofTCing Phihp's War," and a treatise on
Infant Baptism, by the Rev Jonathan Dickinson, a Saybrook gradu-
ate of 1706, who by this token won the rank of the first Yale man
to appear in print as an author.
But if we look across the Atlantic, the scantiness of the record of
the same year in the older and richer field of British literature and
history may, serve to remind us how limited was still the horizon,
not merely for the Colonies, but for all English-speaking peoples of
that date. In October, 1716, the first of the Georges had been for
two year-; on the throne, and though Great Britain was stil! in
inlcmiittent turmoil from Jacobite uprisings, the homesick King was
absent on a six months' visit to his beloved Hanover, while the
unattractive columns of the journals of the day are singularly devoid
of interest to the student of two centuries later. Testing them by
the standarii of .American news, the results are almost nil. For
instance. Mi-niirius Pol'iticus, the promising monthly periodical
bf.U'un in May. 1716, under DeFoe's editorship, in its early numbers
corrtaiiiefl absolutely no reference to this quarter of the world; and
frnni the weekly news-sheets near the date we celebrate, the only
recoverable items of value for their bearing on American affairs
arc. one in the Post Boy of July 12, which locates Annapolis Royal
in New England, and a second in a later issue of the same paper,
which chronicles the departure of Colonel Shute on July 31 for "his
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380 REMOVAL OF YALE COLLEGE TO NEW HAVEK
Government of New England," making the same territorial designa-
tion serve as an equivalent for Massachusetts which it had formerly
used for Acadia.
The Boston Nezvs Letter, our only American paper for the same
dates, is a like disappointment to any anxious gleaner for items of
information. The two scanty weekly pages are occupied almost
wholly with foreign despatches, reports of the movements of coasting
vessels into and out of Boston harbor, and a few local advertise-
ments, with otherwise an utter absence of personal and local items —
the elements of success for a newspaper in later days.
Nor was 1716 eminent in the annals of British literary history.
Among the pubhcations of that year, all that can excite from any
of us even the feeblest present interest are one volume of Pope's
translation of the Iliad, and a pamphlet by John Dunton, a former
transient inhabitant of Boston. Of the lights of the Augustan Age
of Queen Anne, DeFoe, Swift, Addison and Steele were then in
middle life; among the active spirits of the younger generation
were Richardson, Pope, Gay and Bishop Butler; while Fielding,
Johnson, Hume, and Sterne were not yet out of the nursery. Of
their fellow-countrymen who were later to have any considerable
i\merican exi>erience, George Berkeley, at the age of 32, was a
college tutor, idling away his time in London ; John Wesley had just
entered his teens and Edward Braddock his majority; and George
Whitefield was in his infancy.
Of the greater historical figures on the American stage. Increase
Mather was now 77, and his son Cotton 53, and Jonathan Edwards
a boy of 13. Benjamin Franklin and Jonathan Trumbull were
children of ten and six respectively, and the rest of the leading
participants in our revolutionary struggle were as yet unborn.
The story of 1716 is incomplete without some reference to the
gifts of Governor Yale, which were directly induced by the con-
nection of his family with New Haven. Yale's father had come
here as a young man with his stepfather, Governor Eaton; but had
migrated after three or four yt-ars to Massachusetts Bay, where his
.son Elihu was born ; and thence returned to England. The friendly
efforts of Jeremy Dunnner. the Agent of Connecticut at the British
Court, had brought before Governor Yale's notice as early as 1711
the struggling Collegiate School of Connecticut; and his timely
suggestions were furthered and made fruitful in 1718 by a per-
suasive appeal from Cotton Mather. Mather, judging from the
language of his diarj', wrote purely of his own suggestion; and his
letter resulted in the handsome gifts, a few months later, which
caused the donor's name by its adoption here to become a familiar
syllable, as we fondly hope, in the thoughts and speech of endless
generations.
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REMOVAL OP YALE COLLEGE TO NEW HAVEN 381
Wealthy patrons, whether British or American, were then rare and
uncertain; and in defauh of this generous assistance the simple
removal of the Collegiate School to New Haven would probably
have had as its immediate result only a more tedious and precarious
development, and a later flowering of many of its historic experi-
ences and achievements. And, on the other hand, without the
event of October, 1716, it is reasonably certain that there never
could have been any Yale College, here or elsewhere, and that the
host of loyal sons of Yale would have been marshaled under the
auspices of some other name of inferior felicity.
I have outlined famiharly the salient points in the local setting of
the event which Yale and New Haven have undertaken to com-
memorate at this anniversary; but it is hardly my province to dwell
on the broader significance of the historic coming together of the
Collegiate School of Connecticut and the mother-town of the
ancient New Haven Colony. Time would fail me to do justice to
even the conspicuous instances in these crowded centuries in which
each of the two parties to this union has been distinctly the gainer
by its combination with the other. In the case of the personal
element only, how greatly have the development and the renown of
New Haven been fostered by the adoption into its life of the stream
of hundreds ufwn hundreds of educated men, apart from the officers
of the College, who have taken up their abode here, subsequent to
graduation; how much, for example, has been due to the new blood
infused by such acquisitions as James Hillhouse and Eli Whitney,
Jonathan Innersoll and Simeon Baldwin, David Daggett and Leonard
Bacon. And if the city has been strengthened by constant and
varied accessions to its professional and civic and social life, with
corresponding constancy and variety it has returned the gift. To
cite again but a sample illustration, what appreciation of the achieve-
ments and aims of the University has been shown, in our own
generation merely, by the resources placed at its disposal by such
typical representatives of our best citizenship as (to name only a
sekdion^ Joseph E. Sheffield and Henry Famam, Augustus R.
Street and Oliver F. Winchester, Henry Bronson and Philip Marett,
Augustus K. Lines and Edward M, Reed, Pierce N. Welch and
Justus S. Ilotchkiss.
The union of the town and the Collegiate School in :7i6 was
aciMniplished without profuseness of words or of display; and
throughout the years the consolidation of their interests has gone
on in ipiietiicss and sobriety. Both the city and the University may
roasonal'ly 10-day review the result with evident and even enthusi-
astic (ienionstration, in devout and earnest gratitude and warm
congratulations for the past, and with confident and eager hope for
the future.
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STUDKNT LIFE AT YALE COLLEGE UNDER
THE FIRST PRESIDENT DWIGHT
(1796-1817).
[From the Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society for October,
191 7. Published 191 8.]
At the meeting of this Society in April, 1910, our associate, Mr.
Hill, contributed an illuminating paper on "Life at Harvard a
Century Ago, as illustrated by the letters and papers of Stephen
Salisbury, of the Class of 1817." I shall make no attempt to follow
the tines of Mr. Hill's study, or to compare the form or Sfnrit of
the two institutions ; but I shall he satisfied if I can give a suggestion
of the ordinary setting of life in my own Alma Mater upwards of a
century ago, and make more real the somewhat rustic figure of the
homespun youth who then cultivated literature at New Haven on a
little oatmeal.
The Rev. Dr. Ezra Stiles, who had filled with some renown for
seventeen years the Yale Presidency, died, after a very brief illness
during the spring recess, on May 12, 1795. Although only in bis
sixty-eighth year, and unusually active, he had long been regarded
by his pupils as a man of venerable age, partly from his formal
manner and dress, as well as from his insistence on a rigid observ-
ance of the social and academic distinctions of a past age whidi
were somewhat out of date in the new Republic.
On the 25th of June, six weeks after his funeral, the Rev. Dr.
Timothy Dwight, pastor of a secluded country church on Greenfield
Hill, in Fairfield, twenty miles distant, a grandson of Jonathan
Edwards, and a graduate and former tutor of the College, now
forty-three years of age, and thus twenty-five years President Stiles's
junior, was elected to the vacant office. He accepted the call in
August, and was inaugurated on Tuesday, the 8th of September,
the day before the annual Commencement.
Of the inauguration ceremonies we have a brief record in the
Diary of an interested spectator, afterwards the Rev. Dr. John
Pierce, of Brooklinc, Massachusetts, then two years out of Harvard
and t«enty-two years of age, who notes that the new President was
required to give public assent to the Saybrook Platform of Doctrine
and Discipline, after which he delivered a Latin address, on the
Benefits of Societj'.
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STUDENT LIFE UNDER PKESIDENT DWIGHT 383
The same kindly observer describes the illumination of the Col-
lege buildings in the evening, with eight candles in each window,
and a parade of the students accompanied by bands of music from
half past seven to nine, and the ushering in of Commencement Day
at sunrise on Wednesday with the firing of cannon and ringing of
bells. He attends the exercises of graduation in the First Church,
a wooden building about forty years old, which stood nearly on the
site of the present Centre Church on the Public Green, and men-
tions the unusual decorum, as it seemed to him, on that occasion,
especially that there was no clapping. He is struck with the
speakers' use of more gestures than are common at Cambridge;
and also remarks on Dr. Dwight's repeated blunders in reciting
the brief Latin formula for conferring degrees, — shps which would
have niurlified the late President beyond measure. As examples of
the class of subjects exhibited on such occasions, it may be recalled
that the programme included a Dissertation on "The Benefits of
Theatrical Establishments," by John Adams, afterwards for many
years the successful Principal of Phillips Academy, Andover, and
an Oration on "Female Education," by Jeremiah Day, the future
Professor and President of Yale,
1 referred just now to the College buildings. These were, first,
the two dormitories, uniform parallelograms, of thirty-two rooms
each, called "The Old College" and "The New,"— that is, the still
extant Connecticut Hall, built about 1753, and Union Hall or South
College, then just completed, but removed in 1893 to make room for
V'anderbilt Hall. Between these two stood the Chapel (afterwards
known as the Alhenasum, and also removed in 1893), which was
then equipped with steeple and bell, and contained on the upper
floor the Library, of perhaps 4,000 volumes, and in the rear of
Connecticut Hall a one-story dining-hall and kitchen, later used as
a chemical laboratory, and taken down in 1888.
In this last building all the students, except a few specially
excused, took their meals in Commons, a somewhat barbarous and
in-;mit;iry as well as unpopular institution, where wholesale dis-
order- were so far as possible discouraged by the presence of
unliiipjiv tutors feeding on elevated platforms, and by such devices
as ilie exclusive use of pewter instead of glass and china. It was
found, nevertheless, that a majority of the ordinary cases of College
discipline originated in the Hall, and in connection with certain
menial services required of the students, such as the shelling of
peas in their season for the use of the cooks; one minor rebellion,
for instance, is on record, caused by an attempt to exact the shelling
of bean- also, in addition to the traditional requirement.
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384 STUDENT LIFE UNDER PRESIDENT DWIGHT
The two dorrnitories were not quite capacious enough to house
all the undergraduates and a few resident graduates ; and indeed
that goal is still unattained, though now definitely promised.
No appropriate rooms for lectures and recitations were provided,
until a new hall, called the Connecticut Lyceum, was erected under
Dr. Dwight, in 1803; before that date, when an entire class assem-
bled, the Chapel had to be used, with the lecturer or instructor in
the pulpit, and the same room was also apparently required wholly
or maiTily for the recitations of the Senior Class, as were the Hall
and Library for the two divisions of the Juniors and of the Sopho-
mores, while the two divisions of Freshmen were probably usually
disposed of in the ordinary living rooms of their Tutors,
After regular recitation-rooms were available in the Lyceum, each
one of these was also utilized as a domicil for two or three needy
students, who in compensation were supposed to tend the hearth-
fires, and sweep and dust the premises, and this arrangement
continued for many college generations.
At one end of Connecticut Hall, or (later) on the upper floor of
the Chapel, was an apparatus-room, in which was stored a hetero-
geneous collection of objects, ranging in value from such essentials
as a telescope, an air-pump, and an electrical machine, down to a
quadrant and a magic lantern. Aiiother apartment, called the
Museum, contained (besides a few valuable portraits) a very mis-
cellaneous assortment of curiosities, impressive perhaps to a raw
Freshman, and appealing to the antiquarian proclivities of President
Stiles, but which under the more practical management of President
Dwight and Professor Day was discreetly loaned to the proprietor
of a local exhibition, and never reclaimed ; this comprised an out-
landish medley of paleontological specimens, stuffed animals,
Indian, Oiinese, and other articles of dress and furniture, a few
such monstrosities as a two-headed calf and a one-eyed pig. and
such traditional or historical relics as a leaf from the tomb of \'ergil.
On the ground-floor of Connecticut Hall another important insti-
tution was housed, the buttery, where a recent graduate, as College
Butler, disi>ensed to faculty and students a variety of welcome
adjuncts to the functions of social life in bachelor quarters. He
seems to have dealt mainly in the softer drinks, such as eider, beer,
ale, porter, mead, and metheglin, — with which were offered as con-
diments rai.sins. almonds, and native nuts, loaf sugar, lemons, ginger,
honey, eggs, biscuits, cakes, and pies. Tobacco, pipes, and cigars
were also main items in his stock, and apples, pears, peaches, and
watermelons, in their season. In addition, pitchers, bowls, mugs,
decanters, glasses, and corkscrews ; a few toilet articles, like wash
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STUDENT LIFE UNDER PRESIDENT DWIGHT 385
balls (or soap), pomatum, and black ball (for shoes) ; writing
materials, paper, quills, and wafers; and with this enumeration we
have probably nearly exhausted the butler's stock in trade.
The students' chambers were, it is safe to assert, sparsely fur-
nished, though I can quote no inventories in evidence. Hearth-
fires being universal required a large supply of wood, which was
in the earlier days sawed and split by the boys themselves, and
carried by them to their rooms; public sentiment seems to have
looked upon the hiring of servants for such purposes as an indication
of effeminacy, though later it became more usual.
A President's House had been built in 1722 near the College
plot, on the site of what has recently been known as College Street
Hail; but so dilapidated had this become that steps were now taken
for the provision of a satisfactory substitute on land purchased for
the purpose, adjoining the other College land to the northward, on
the (irescnt site of Famam Hall. Two or three inferior buildings,
the town almshouse, the county jail, a barber's shop, and the like,
lingered for a time on the newly acquired territory.
Dr. Dwight found in office but one Professor, Josiah Meigs, a
versatile young lawyer and editor, who had just been installed on an
annual appointment in the chair of Mathematics and Natural
Philosophy; and a Staff of three tutors, the most notable of whom
was James Gould, long the head of the well-known Litchfield Law
School. Professor Meigs had been a favorite of Dr. Stiles, and
was a man of solid attainments ; but he was unfortunately a rabid
and outs|»okcn anti-Federalist, and consequently a thorn in the
llesh to Dr. Dwight, who succeeded after a few years in securing his
transfer to another honorable position, the presidency of the new
L'niversity of Georgia. Dr. Dwight, it need hardly be explained,
was an ardent Federalist, in contrast to his renegade first cousin,
Aaron Burr; and the Yale undergraduates were with compar-
atively few exceptions strongly on the same side.
The presidency thus inaugurated continued for twenty-one and
one-half years, or until Dr. Dwight's death in January, 1817. In the
meantime the number of students in attendance had nearly doubled
(rising from about 150 to about 275), for whom six tutors had
bcciunc necessary, besides three young professors, a notable trio of
Dr. Dwight's own selection, Jeremiah Day, Benjamin Silliman, and
James I- King sley, who continued in active official relation to the
College for sixty-seven, fifty-four, and fifty years respectively. A
Professor of Law was also appointed (in 1802). who held office for a
few years; but his duties were limited to the delivery of a dozen
lectures to each Senior Class.
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386 STUDENT LIFE UNDER PRESIDENT DWIGHT
Meantime the College buildings were increased by the erection
of the Lyceum, which provided two stories of recitation-rooms,
an underground chemical laboratory, and on the third floor shelf-
room in artistically planned alcoves for the Library ; also Berkeley
Hall, a third dormitory, ultimately known as North Middle College;
a President's house; and a large building (originally designed as a
hotel) for the Medical School, which was established, with a staflf
of four professors, in 1813.
The last surviving graduate of that era died over a quarter of a
centur)' ago, hut occasional access to old diaries and letters and
account-books has made it possible to form some conclusions about
the spirit and details of the life under "Pope Dwight," as the
Democrats of his day irreverently called him.
It goes almost without saying that the relations between Faculty
and students were much more reserved and formal than in the
century since. President Dwight throughout his administration
filled the office of College preacher, and no one at Yale has exercised
a larger influence in that relation. Doubtless there were many
exceptions; but abundant testimony remains to the remarkable
attention with which he was followed by his volatile audience, and
the unparalleled extent to which he swayed their hearts and wills.
In appreciation of this sphere of influence it is only fair to remem-
ber, moreover, under what a handicap every preacher of that date
labored, from the circumstance that no house of worship could be
warmed in winter- One is haunted by the uncouth picture drawn
by a Connecticut youth who listened to Dr. Dwight, of his
appearence in the pulpit, "wrapped in a heavy brown great-coat,
with three or four broad capes, and a stout belt closely buttoned
around his waist," and with his hands encased in woolen mittens.
Besides his power as a preacher. Dr. Dwight made a strong
impression on the Senior Class by his criticisms of their composi-
tions, or so-called "dissertations," and his arguments given as
decisions to sections (usually of eight persons) after their weddy
disputes before him, which were long regarded as among the most
essential and valuable parts of the College training. One of his
pupils afterwards published his stenographic report of some of
these decisions, which became a popular vade mecum for debaters
in subsequent College generations. The topics considered are by
no means even now out of date, nor have the most of Dr. Dwight's
reasonings lost their power. He also met the entire Senior Class
five days in the week throughout the year, for a recitation and
lecture of two hours in either Logic, Rhetoric, Moral Philosophy,
or Divinity; and his pupils were constantly impressed by his
marked literary and oratorical skill, his keen sense of natural
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l>r.\T DWICIIT 389
■ li;tpel hy representatives
!i -tudeiit \tndy, were sub-
■ii TiKKHis, Some option in
■ipper years; thus, in 1801,
■ ■ intriKitictitm of the study
■1 in I>1(>5 1I1C ciirrcspondiiig
■■■■iy Spherical tienmelry, but
:■ -litule it for Homer.
■iiiinon. State Thanksgivings
;ili Chain'l services as im Sun-
■.■ij up[«;r classes, who enjoyed
ihi[ii, were excused from all but
■i;i,t- Day. Similar latitude was
■A ;iiiiuial (Kcasion Ot ])opular fes-
. ..nuiais was lield in the Middle
>■!' oiuntry folk llocked into town
■iiicl ihe Imrilers of the Green. I
■ the Cmirt House of special interest
■ \.-ii-ed from recitations; ami in one
'.,;*■ ;ifteni(i(jn exercises were omitted
! iliat in Ur. I)wi(,'ht*s time, as in the
:■■■ laxity in enforcing the continuous
■ 1 various reasons, especially in con-
liii;; money, long absences were fre-
niiing from illnes-i and those rojuired
e on daily recitations, which was orig-
lying a iMJtty fine, seems also to have
■ i'xam|j]e, here is a partial record of
u-ar, from the iliarv i>f a member of
!l,i'. I'll aliout noon . . Prayers tliis cveninK,
'!i;t lii my Imsiness.
'•.: iii-n-ini; my furniture. I Hid not aUcnd the
-• ;iri<1 rcritalion in th« morniiiK. wtirn I rrcitcd
■I tiriu': rociteH tin- same at iionn liki-wtse. In
- !'> 3lU-ni| the jGencral] .-\««i'mhly. 1 umitttd
' .it I'Vl'llillR.
- rinil recitation in tlic mnrninK- Al'enileil tlie
!'■! omilicd a recitation in (ireek . . Evening
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388 STUDENT LIFE UNDER PRESIDENT DWIGHT
In estimating such an outburst, it is fair to remember that down
to 1829 each of the two alphabetical sections into which a class was
divided at the beginning of the Freshman year was placed under
a Tutor who conducted ail the recitations, declamations, composi-
tions and disputes of his section up to the close of the Junior year,
provided he continued in office for that period; and this arrange-
ment increased vastly his personal influence. We should also
remember, what we have doubtless all noticed who are familiar
with such literature, that many of the letters exchanged by college
youths of those days were of the nature of exercises in polite
composition, and not the simple expression of natural feeling. In a
similar fashion, most of the contributions to the literary periodicals
which began to flourish at Yale during Dr. Dwight's presidency
are not at all concerned with the occurrences of student life, and
add nothing to our knowledge of the real interests of the writers, but
merely serve as more or less elegant exercises in composition and
rhetoric.
To recur to relations with the Faculty: — the custom which had
come down from an early period of giving valuable presents to
College officers when passing from under their instruction, still pre-
vailed. This finally proved in operation so burdensome, as well as
invidious, that it was broken up by a law of the Faculty about 1S40.
A specimen of the language thought suitable for such communica-
tions may be seen in this extract from a letter sent by a part of the
Oass of 1802 to Tutor Jeremiah Day when, at the age of twenty-
eight, he was obliged to leave College by serious ill health, though
he finally survived to the age of ninety-four.
It having pleased Providence to dissolve, a Httlc prematurely, the connection
which to our great advantage has long existed between us, the first division
of the Junior Qass embrace this opportunity of tendering to you the
tribute of their cordial respect and veneration. To those whose minds
are not impervious to the sentiments of tenderness and feeling, the moment
of separation from a beloved object is beyond expression distressful
Placed as we are in this situation, and about to take our leave of you, at
least for a considerable time, we are overwhelmed with a flood of emotions
which no language can express, . . .
Suffer us. Sir, on this occasion to request your acceptance of the enclosed
sum, as a testimony of our gratitude and affection.
The amount and character of required study at that day were to
our notions painfully inadequate. Pike's Arithmetic, introduced
under President Stiles, was still a textbook for 5oph<»nores
or Freshmen, and both Juniors and Sophomores exercised their
budding wits on Guthrie's Geography, the author of which died
as long before as i?70. There were three regular daily redta-
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STUDENT LIFE UNDER PRESIDENT DWIGHT 389
tions, but public declamations in the Oiapel by representatives
of each of the four classes before the full student body, were sub-
stituted on Saturday or Wednesday afternoons. Some option in
subjects of study was allowed in the upper years; thus, in 1801,
the Juniors decided by vote against the introduction of the study
of Xenophon for two hours a week, and in 1805 the corresponding
class voted down a proposition to study Spherical Geometry, hut
those who desired were allowed to substitute it for Homer.
Occasional holidays were not uncommon. State Thanksgivings
and Fasts were observed with two full Chapel services as on Sun-
days. Sometimes, but rarely, the two upper classes, who enjoyed
in general a good deal of extra freedom, were excused from all but
one recitation or lecture on Christmas Day. Similar latitude was
grante<l on Election Day, a special annual occasion of popular fes-
tivity, when the election of State officials was held in the Middle
Brick meetinghouse, and droves of country folk flocked into town
to patronize the booths which lined the borders of the Green. I
note also that to attend a trial at the Court House of special interest
an entire class was sometimes excused from recitations ; and in one
instance apparently all the College afternoon exercises were omitted
for a like reason.
It should also be mentioned that in Dr. Dwight's time, as in the
earlier days, there was extreme laxity in enforcing the continuous
residence of the students. For various reasons, especially in con-
nection with the need of earning money, long absences were fre-
quent in addition to those resulting from illness and those required
in the course of discipline.
The obligation of attendance on daily recitations, which was orig-
inally bj' law avoidable by paying a petty fine, seems also to have
been (akcn very lightly. For example, here is a partial record of
the first four days of Junior year, from the diary of a member of
the Clas,s of 1803:
Oct. 21. Arrived at N'. Haven about noon . . Prayers this evening,
but I did not attend on account of my business.
Oct. 22. Bcin^ employed in moving my furniture, I did not attend the
collcRe exercises, excqit prayers at evening.
Oct. 23. .\ttended prayers and recitation in the morning, when 1 recited
TuIIy de Oratore for the first time ; recited the same at noon likewise. In
the afternoon being anxious to attend the [General] Assembly, I omitted
recitation. .Attended prayers at evening.
Oct. 24. .Attended prayers and recitation in the morning. Attended the
Assembly in the forenoon and omitted a recitation in Greek . . Evening
attended prayers.
Again, Sunday,
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39° STUDENT LIFE UNDER PRESIDENT DWIGHT
Dec. 27. Absent from meeting with leave. Wrote a dispute and read
15 chapters in the bible.
Dec, 28. Absent from recitations and prayers in the morning on accotmt
o£ writing a letter. .
Another diarist gives a detailed statement of a few days in
his Senior year, 1806, in substance as follows :
Sunday, March 30. Rose at 5.45. Walked till prayers. Breakfast at ft
Read Bible, 8.30 to 10.3a. Chapel service, 10.30 to 12. Walked tOl dinner,
at 12.30. Walked till 1.30. Read Job to 2. Chapel, 2 to 4. Read Speech
by Randolph to 5.20. Prayers. Tea. Walked till 7. Read chapter in Job.
Visits & visitors to g. Read, g to g.30. Wrote diary. Retired.
Monday, March 31, Rose at 5.30. Walked till prayers. Walked again.
Read Greek Testament, 7 to 8 [instead of recitation?] Breakfast 8 to 8.3O.
Read, 8.30 to 9. Disputes, 9 to 10. Read New Testament, 10 to 11. Disputa
11-12.30. Walked. Dinner. Read in Horace's Satires, 2JW to + Walked
and read Greek grammar, 4 to 4.45. Prayers. Supper. Cut capers till 9.
Read in Job, g to 10. Retired.
Tuesday, April i. Rose at 6. Dressed, shaved, walked, breakfast, &c.,
to 8.30, Read. 8.30 to 9. Lecture on meteors, 9 to 10. Read, 10 to 11.
Recited Locke, walked. & dined, till 1.3a Read in Testament & Horace, ftc,
to 4.30. Prayers, Supper. Read Horace, 7.20 to 745- Visitors till lajo,
Wednesday, April 2. Rose before 6. Walked, prayers, &c., to 7. Read
Testament, 7 to 8. Breakfast. Read Testament, 8.30 to 9. Disputes, 9 to
10. Read Horace, 10 to 11. Disputes, 11 to 12.30. Did nothing till dinner.
Read Horace, T.40 to 3. Barber, errands. &c, 3 to 4.3a Prayers. Supper.
Post Office, Read Job, 730 to 8.30. Walked, 8.30 to 9.25.
Thursday, April 3, Rose at 6. Prayers, Walked. Breakfast Poat
Office. Read Locke, 8.30 to 9. Lecture on Philosophy, g to to. Read Lock^
10 to II. Recitation. Errands. Dinner. Making accounts & reading, 1.30
to 4. Walked. Prayers. Tea. Visiting & visitors to 9. Read Psahni, 9
to 10.
This extract may suffice, though the diarist continues his record
for an entire week, his object being to see how much time he spends
in study; and he concludes that his average is three and three-
quarters hours a day.
Another bit of testimony, given a few months later by Samuel
F. B. Morse, then a Freshman, in a letter to his parents, was
intended to prove that his time was entirely taken up with study.
He says:
In the morning I must rise at five o'clock to attend prayers, and (immedi-
ately after) recitation; then I must breakfast, and begin to study from eight
o'clock till eleven ; then recite my forenoon's lesson, which takes me an hour.
At twelve I must study French till one, which is dinner-time. Directly
after dinner I must recite French (of course an extra study) to Monsieur
Value till two o'clock, then begin to study my afternoon's lesson and recite
it at five. Immediately after recitation I must study another French lesson
to recite at seven in the evening; come home at nine o'clock and study my
morning's lesson until ten, eleven, and sometimes twelve o'clock, and by that
time I am prepared to sleep.
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STUDENT LIPB UNDER PXESIDEKT DWICHT 39I
In accordance with the spirit of the age. as well as from his own
controlling purpose, there was under Dr, Dwight a decided broaden-
ing of ihe range of studies. This was evident most notably in the
addition under Professor SilHman of chemistry, geology, and min-
eraloti>', and also in greater attention to mathematics and natural
philosophy (or physics), and in the gradual introduction of system-
atic training in metaphysics, political science, rhetoric, and modem
languages.
As has already been shown, the time was not wholly devoted to
study (or "reading," so called); and prominent among other
agencies for training in the development of power in composition
and debate were the weekly meetings of the two open societies,
Linonia and the Brothers in Unity, between which the whole body
of students was divided. Smaller groups found their special affini-
ties in the Phi Beta Kappa, restricted to the best scholars, and a
continually shifting number of other fraternities, social, htcrary,
musical, and religious.
There were daily amusements, also, of all sorts, lawful and unlaw-
ful. Dancing, card-playing, wine-drinking, and attendance at or
participation in dramatic performances were forbidden by the
college laws; but none the less, whether by exceptional allowance
or at risk of discipline, a good deal of such indulgence went on.
The great social event of the year was the Commencement Ball,
and next to that a Ball in connection with the Junior Exhibition, for
both of which events engraved cards of invitation were formally
sent out, an otherwise undreamed of bit of extravagance.
Dramatic pieces, under the modest name of "Colloquies," which
T- still retained, tike the contemporary name of "Disputes," as a
distinctive title on the College Scheme of Hcwiors, were recited at
the c|uarterly exhibitions of the upper classes, and more fullblown
plays were also regularly given at the occasional semi-public cele-
brations held by the various societies, where fleeting reputations by
amateur actors were enjoyed then as now. Our friends the diarists
make it evident that cards and backgammon absorbed a good deal
of lime; and we may be surprised to find how much wine-drinking
H ent on in College rooms. Here is a fair example, taken from the
journal kept by Benjamin Silliman, one of the most decorous of
youths, in N'ovember of his Senior year:
In tlie beginning of the evening I went with a member of my class
to bok at the planet Jupiter through the large telescope from the Museum,
which with his four moons is very easily discovered. I returned from the
Mutcuiu, and had a call to go to Bacon's room, to help despatch some
wine ; which I very readily obeyed, and I presume acted my part faithfully. I
then returned to my own room, where I found Lynde; and soon after Bisht^
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39* STUDENT LIFE UNDER PRESIDENT DWIGHT
came in, and soon after him Strong. We drank a few glasses of wine,
and had some sprightly conversation, &c. They all returned about nine.
With this compare also a letter quoted in the recent life of Morse,
the inventor of the telegraph, addressed by him to his parents in
the first term of Freshman year, when he was about fourteen and
one-half years old, asking for a special sum of money to equip his
room properly with brandy, wine, and cigars ; naturally the Rev,
Dr. Morse objected decidedly to this item in his son's expenses.
But nothing of the sort need surprise us in the days when a Faculty
punch bowl was part of the regular furniture of the President's
office, and when such a souvenir of undergraduate life is still extant
as a portly bottle of rum, with the legend "Class of 1802" molten
into the glass on one side.
The subject of college expenses is illustrated by the account-books
of various students. The main items, fixed by law and paid into
the College Treasury, covered tuition ; rent, and sweeping in donni-
tories and recitation-rooms ; board in commons, with the steward's
salary ; and from time to time what were called "contingencies,"
including, for instance, such charges as assessments for cleaning
up the College yard in the Spring, or for printing catalogues and
monitors' bills, or for the employment of what we should call a
detective, under the more definite name of "thief-catcher," or for
the equipment of an "asylum" or infirmary.
The regular charges were about doubled under the D wight
administration, — tuition rising from sixteen to thirty-three dollars
a year, and room rent from $3.33 a quarter in the Old College, or
$5.33 in the New, to a uniform rate of $7-32, In comparison with
the modern scale of prices such figures seem modest enough; and
one further example may suffice. Daniel Mulford entered as a
Junior after the year had opened in 1804, and secured a room with
one of the class, who had intended to live alone, but took him in,
and charged him, as Mulford's Diary records, twelve and one-half
cents a week.
There were also voluntary contributions collected by subscription
for such purposes as fireworks and extra music at Commencement
(in one early instance amounting to over £$0), for curtains for
shading the Chapel windows, and for various class objects. At the
same time there was a continual and honest effort on the part of the
authorities to keep down extravagant expenditure at Commence-
ment, as on all other public or semi-public occasions.
The amount ordinarily expended by an undergraduate who prac-
ticed economy was very moderate.
In 1803 Professor SiUiman writes to an inquirer that:
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STtniENT LIFE UNDER PRESIDENT DWIGHT 393
The necessary expenses, exclusive of clothing, traveling expenses in
vacation, and pocket-money do not exceed $200 per annum. A New-England
youth oftens lives within $250, including all his expenses, and few of them
exceed $joo; but I am disposed to think none of the Southern young gentle-
men spend less than $400. and some of them much more. The Southern
youlh ought not to spend more than $400. This is sufficient for every
purpose of ease, utility, or dignity; they will necessarily spend somewhat
more than the Northern youth as being insulated from their friends
8r remote from Iheir Country.
.•\t his entrance upon office Dr. Dwi^t urgently favored a more
democratic organization of the College community than had been
the custom. In particular, he proposed that the duty of Freshmen
to go on errands for upper classmen, and the prerogative of Seniors
to inspect and regulate the manners and morals of Freshmen, be
abrogated. An earnest protest against such a sweeping subversion
of ancient privilege, signed by the Professor and Tutors, is still
extant, which advocates the retention of the rule of subordination,
since "Freshmen being a great part of them rude, from rude towns
and families, and set at once free from parental restraint, ever will
assume a haughtiness and importance, and leam vices, which the
few instructors of a college can never properly moderate and sup-
press." The President prevailed to the extent that the right of
sending Freshmen on errands was taken away from Sophomores,
and that Seniors lost the right of supervising and disciplining Fresh-
men. ,\t the same time was swept away the time-honored regula-
tion that no Freshman might wear a hat on college grounds within
ten rods of the President, within eight rods of a Professor, or within
six rods of a Tutor,
The old exactions of petty fines for absence (two cents) and for
tardiness (one cent) at Chapel services and at recitations were left
on the t>ooks, though perhaps not thoroughly enforced; as also the
like ])enalty for the absence of a student from his room during study
hours, recreation being confined to half an hour after breakfast, an
hour and a half after dinner, and from prayers to 9 o'clock in the
evening.
Of similar strictness were the provisions for Sunday observance
by the students, which included not only morning and evening
prayers and forenoon and afternoon worship (an order which
remained in full force until 1859), but also a prohibition of their
profaning the day, among other things, by walking abroad, or by
unnecessary absence from their rooms on Sundays, or on Saturday
evenings, when the Sabbath began, or by admitting to their rooms
other students or strangers, — provisions which were certainly not
obsolete, though with equal certainty constantly violated; as was
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394 STUDENT LIFE UNDER PRESIDENT DWIGHT
also the prohibition of walking or driving more than two miles from
the College, even on a week-day, without leave of one of the officers.
Remembering the large part that outdoor sports play in the life
of the modern collegian, it is surprising that the echoes of the past
bring so little that bears distinctly on the corresponding activities
of the students of those distant generations. A print of Yale
College in 1807, the work of a well-known New Haven engraver,
Amos Doolittle, shows in the foreground a game of football on the
Public Green played by students wearing tall hats, swallow-tail
coats, and knee-breeches, with President Dwight himself occupyinjf
the sidewalk, in the full majesty of broad-brimmed beaver and aca-
demic gown.
In Dr. Stiles's day the use of caps and gowns by undergraduates
had been encouraged; but as from economical motives the gowns
seem to have been made of calico, they can hardly have been effec-
tive in detail or at close range. Besides football there are also
traces of wicket, a popular outdoor game in Connecticut, as a
favorite student recreation; while sailing on the harbor and swim-
ming from the nearby shores are shown to have been common by
monitory provisions in the College statutes.
At intervals the formation of companies for military drill and
naval practice among the students was a favorite pastime ; but how-
ever natural the expressions of patriotic sentiment, the practice was
not without risk of abuse. Witness, for instance, the celebration
on July 4, 1801, when a barrel of wine was mounted on a table at
dinner in the Hail, and no one was expected to leave until the barrel
had been emptied.
My object is attained, if I leave my story here, with this fleeting
glimpse at the conditions of life in a typical New England College,
of the generation which furnished the educated men who still
lingered on the stage when the oldest of us were young.
This particular group of Yale students was not hi^ly distin-
guished, either in capacities or achievements. The names of Ben-
jamin Silliman, Lyman Beecher, John C. Calhoun, Fenimore Cooper,
S. F. B. Morse, and James G. Percival, are perhaps as well-known
to-day as any half-dozen of the number; but viewing them comprfr>
hensively the record of President Dwight's eleven or twelve hun-
dred pupils for wide and honorable if not brilliant usefulness is one
with which any master of men might justly be content.
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Andrew, Rev. Samuel, 8t, 253
Rev. Samuel R., 302
Atwater, Jonathan, 326
Bacon, Rev. Leonard, 358
Battell, Joseph, agi
Beach, Rev. John, 338
Berkeley, Dean George, 287
Bishop, Abraham, 257, 354. 362
Blount. Archibald, 2Q5
Branford, Conn., 67
Brewer, Fisk P., 317
Brewster, Wm., 103, 228, 281
Bronson, Henry, 295, 3n
Browne, Francis, 318
Brownell, Rt Rev. T. C, 352. 354
Buckingham, Rev. Thomas, the elder,
80, 24g. 252
the younger, 369, 378
Bulkley, Gershom, 03
Cambridge Univ., graduates in N.
England. 102
Social distinctions at, 203
Camp, Abiathar, 341
Caner. Rev. Henry, 345
Chandler. Joshua, 342
Chapin, Lebeus C, 317
Chauncy, Rev. Israel, 73, 80
Chittenden, S. B., 291
Clap, Pres. Thomas, 65, 75, 270; life
and writings of, 179
Clark, Sheldon. 289
Cleaveland. Fben'r. and John, 166
Connecticut, early libraries in, 277,
282
educated pioneers in, 110
loyalists in, 335
names of towns in, 133
population of. 160
in 1700, 65
Connecticut Hall, student life in. 266
Cooke, Rev. Samuel, 324, 369, 37i
Coventry, England, 31
Croswell, Rev. Harry, and diary of,
349
Daggett, Pres. Naphtali, 218, 344
Dana, James D., 313
Davenport, Abraham, 337
Christopher, 32, 45
Rev. John, 16, 18, 59, 224; paper
on, 31
John, Jr., 324
Day, Pres. Jeremiah, 297, 358, 388
E>eFore3t, David C, 289
Degradation, punishment by, 210
Dixwell, John, 22, 28, 30
Dummer. Jeremy, 94
Durfee, B. U. C, 292
Dutton, Henry, 310
Dwight, Pres, Timothy, the elder, 38*
Estst India Company, 82
Eaton, Rev. Samuel, 223, 276
Theophilus, 37, 51, 84, 233-4
Edwards, Rev. Jonathan, 180, 185,
375 ; manuscripts of, 235
Eldridae, Rev. Joseph, 300
Eliot, John, 64
Ellsworth, H. L., 291
English. J. E., 302
Episcopalian loyalists, 338
Evance, John, 223
Famam, Henry, 293
Fayerweather, D. B., 293
Fisher, Rev. Geo. P., 315
Fitch, Rev. E. T., 308, 358^)
James, 71
Thomas, 336
Gabriel, George, 295
Gale, Benj., 189, 337
Georgia, population of, 176
Gibbs, Josiah W., 307
Gilbert, Rev. E. R., 301
Oilman, Daniel C, 316
Gofle, Stephen, 10, 14, 33, 46
Wm., 10
Hadley, James, 314
Hadley, Mass., regicides in, 2
HaU, Elihn, 336
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