Read Ebook: The New England Magazine Volume 1 No. 5 Bay State Monthly Volume 4 No. 5 May 1886 by Various

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TO OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. ON HIS DEPARTURE FOR EUROPE. BY EDWARD P. GUILD.

A ROMANCE OF KING PHILIP'S WAR. BY FANNY BULLOCK WORKMAN.

THE PICTURE. BY MARY D. BRINE.

HENRY BARNARD--THE AMERICAN EDUCATOR. BY THE LATE HON. JOHN D. PHILBRICK.

A DAUGHTER OF THE PURITANS. BY ANNA B. BENSEL.

JUDICIAL FALSIFICATIONS OF HISTORY. BY CHARLES COWLEY, LL.D.

DORRIS'S HERO. A ROMANCE OF THE OLDEN TIME. BY MARJORIE DAW.

EDITOR'S TABLE.

HISTORICAL RECORD.

NECROLOGY.

LITERATURE.

INDEX TO MAGAZINE LITERATURE.

THE

NEW ENGLAND MAGAZINE

AND

BAY STATE MONTHLY.

#TRINITY COLLEGE, HARTFORD.#

BY SAMUEL HART, D.D., PROFESSOR OF LATIN.

The plan for the establishment of a second college in Connecticut was not carried into effect until after the time of the political and religious revolution which secured the adoption of a State Constitution in 1818. Probably no such plan was seriously entertained till after the close of the war of Independence. The Episcopal church in Connecticut had, one may almost say, been born in the library of Yale College; and though Episcopalians, with other dissenters from the "standing order," had been excluded from taking any part in the government or the instruction of the institution, they did not forget how much they owed to it as the place where so many of their clergy had received their education. In fact, when judged by the standards of that day, it would appear that they had at first little cause to complain of illiberal treatment, while on the other hand they did their best to assist the college in the important work which it had in hand. But Yale College, under the presidency of Dr. Clap, assumed a more decidedly theological character than before, and set itself decidedly in opposition to those who dissented from the Westminster Confession of Faith and the Saybrook Platform of Discipline. Besides, King's College, which had been lately founded in New York, drew away some Episcopal students from Connecticut and made others dissatisfied; and had not the war with the mother country rudely put a stop to the growth of Episcopacy in the colony, it would seem that steps might have been soon taken for the establishment of some institution of learning, at least a school of theology, under the care of the clergy of the Church of England.

At any rate no sooner was it known that the war was ended than the churchmen of Connecticut sent the Rev. Dr. Seabury across the ocean to seek consecration as a bishop; and it was not long after his return that the diocese, now fully organized, set on foot a plan for the establishment of an institution of sound learning, and in 1795 the Episcopal Academy of Connecticut was founded at Cheshire. It was sometimes called Seabury College, and, under its learned principals, it fitted many young men for entrance upon their theological studies, and gave them part at least of their professional training. But its charter, which was granted by the General Assembly of the State in 1801, did not give it the power of conferring degrees, and the frequent petitions for an extension of charter rights, so as to make of the academy a collegiate institution, were refused. For a time, owing to determined opposition in the State, to the vacancy in the episcopate, and to other causes, the project was postponed. But a combination of events, social, political, and religious, led at length to the great revolution in Connecticut, in which all dissenters from the standing order united in opposition to it, and secured in 1818, though it was by a small majority, the adoption of a State Constitution containing a clause which admitted of "secession" from any ecclesiastical society and secured perfect religious equality before the law.

In the following year, while the enthusiasm of the victory was still felt, the vacant episcopate was filled by the election of the Rev. Dr. Thomas Church Brownell, who had been for ten years tutor and professor in Union College, a man of learning, profoundly interested in education, and qualified for the varied duties which lay upon him as Bishop of Connecticut. He soon availed himself of this favorable opportunity for renewing the plans for the establishment of a college. There was much strong opposition to be encountered, and the student of the pamphlet literature of the day finds much to excite his interest and his wonder in the attacks upon the proposed "Second College in Connecticut"--"Seabury College," as it was sometimes called. The whole matter was curiously complicated with discussions as to political and financial matters, the many questions between the recently disestablished order and its opponents not having been fully settled as yet. At last, on the 13th day of May, 1823, a petition for a college charter was presented to the General Assembly, and the act of incorporation of Washington College passed the lower house three days later, and soon received the assent of the senate and the approval of the governor. The name selected for the institution was not that which its friends would have preferred; but the honored name of Washington was adopted partly, as it would appear, because others than Episcopalians united in the establishment of the college, and partly that there could be no ground of opposition to it on account of its name. Among the corporators associated with Bishop Brownell were some of the prominent clergy and laity of the diocese, such as the Rev. Drs. Harry Croswell and N. S. Wheaton, Gov. John S. Peters, the Hon. Nathan Smith, the Hon. Elijah Boardman, the Hon. Asa Chapman, Com. McDonough, and Mr. Charles Sigourney; and there were added to them representatives of the other opponents of the old establishment, among them the Rev. Samuel Merwin and the Rev. Elisha Cushman. It was expressly provided in the charter that no religious test whatever should be required of any president, professor, or other officer, and that the religious tenets of no person should be made a condition of admission to any privilege in the college. Even before the charter containing this clause was granted, it produced a most important effect; for, on the 12th day of May, 1823,--it was believed, as a last effort of opposition,--the corporation of Yale College met in Hartford, and repealed the test act which required of all its officers, even of professors in the medical school, a subscription to the Saybrook Platform.

In 1826 there were fifty undergraduates. A library had been obtained which, in connection with Dr. Jarvis's, was called second in magnitude and first in value of all in the country. The professor of mineralogy had collected a good cabinet. There was a greenhouse and an arboretum; and, besides gifts from friends at home, the Rev. Dr. Wheaton had been successful in securing books and apparatus in England for the use of the college.

A doctor's degree was conferred in 1826 upon Bishop Jolly , of Scotland, but the first commencement was held in 1827, when ten young men were graduated. Of these, three died in early life, and but one, the Rev. Oliver Hopson, survives. To a member of this class, the Hon. Isaac E. Crary, the first president of the alumni, is due no small share of the credit of organizing the educational system of Michigan, which he represented both as a territory and as a State in the Federal Congress. The Athenaeum Literary Society was organized in 1825, and the Parthenon, the first president of which was the poet Park Benjamin, in 1827. The Missionary Society, still in successful operation, was founded in 1831, its first president being George Benton, afterwards missionary to Greece and Crete, and from it, primarily through the efforts of Augustus F. Lyde, of the class of 1830, came the establishment of the foreign missions of the Episcopal Church of this country.

When Bishop Brownell retired from the presidency of the college in 1831, in order to devote all his time to the work of the diocese, he was succeeded by the Rev. Dr. N. S. Wheaton, an early, steadfast, and liberal friend of the institution. He secured the endowment of two professorships, and among the many good things which he planned and did for the college should not be forgotten the taste with which he laid out and beautified its grounds. To him succeeded, in 1837, the Rev. Dr. Silas Totten, professor of mathematics. During his presidency of eleven years, additions were made to the scholarship fund, and the foundation of a library fund was laid; and in 1845 a third building, Brownell Hall, was built, corresponding in appearance to Jarvis Hall, and, like it, designed for occupation by students. In the same year, on the petition of the corporation, who acted in the matter at the desire of the alumni, the General Assembly of the State changed the name of the college to TRINITY COLLEGE. The change was intended in part to prevent the confusion which arose from the use of a name which the college had in common with other institutions, in part to attest the faith of those who had founded and who maintained the college, and in part to secure a name which had been long associated with sound learning. At the same time the alumni were organized into a convocation as a constituent part of the academic body.

In 1848 the Rev. Dr. John Williams, a graduate in the class of 1835, who, though he was less than thirty-one years of age, had given ample promise of extraordinary abilities, was chosen president, and he held the office until 1854, when the duties of assistant bishop, to which he had been consecrated in 1851, forced him to resign. He did much to increase the library funds and to develop the course of academic instruction. He also began instruction in theology, and an informal theological department grew up, which was organized in 1854 as the Berkeley Divinity School and located in Middletown. He was succeeded by the Rev. Dr. D. R. Goodwin. In 1860 Prof. Samuel Eliot was chosen president, and in 1864, the Rev. Dr. J. B. Kerfoot, who was called in 1866 to the bishopric of Pittsburgh. Under the care of these scholarly men the college maintained and strengthened its position as a seat of learning , additions were made to the funds, and a new professorship was founded. Among those whom the college gave to the war were Generals G. A. Stedman and Strong Vincent, and the "battle-laureate of America," Henry H. Brownell.

In 1883 the Rev. Dr. George Williamson Smith was elected to the presidency, and was welcomed to his duties with much enthusiasm. In the following year considerable changes were made in the course of instruction, including arrangements for four distinct schemes of study, introducing elective studies into the work of the junior and senior years, and providing for practical work in the applied sciences. An observatory has been built, for which a telescope and other apparatus have been presented; and the funds have been secured for the erection of an ample gymnasium, with a theatre or lecture-hall.

Of the nearly nine hundred men who have received the bachelor's degree from Trinity College no small number have attained eminence in their respective walks in life. The class of 1829 gave a governor to Michigan and a judge to Illinois; the class of 1830, a member of Congress to Tennessee, a judge to Louisiana, and two prominent divines to Ohio; the class of 1831, a bishop to Kansas; the class of 1832, three members of Congress, one to North Carolina, one to Missouri , and one to New York, a distinguished clergyman to Connecticut, and a chaplain to West Point; the class of 1835, an archbishop to the Roman Catholic Church, and a chairman to the house of bishops of the American Episcopal Church; the class of 1840, a president to St. Stephen's College and a supreme-court judge to Connecticut; the class of 1846, a member of Congress to New York, another to Minnesota, and a president to Norwich University; the class of 1848, a bishop to Massachusetts, a lecturer, a tutor, and three trustees to the college; and this list seems as a sample of what the college has done and is doing, in the spirit of her motto, for the Church and the country. The bishops of Connecticut, Kansas, Georgia, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Washington Territory, and Indiana are among her alumni; with them some three hundred others have entered the ministry of the Christian Church; and representatives of the college are found holding honored positions in the State, in institutions of learning, in the professions of law and medicine, and in the business of life. Her course of instruction unites the conservatism of experience with adaptation to the needs of modern scholarship, all under the acknowledged influence of religious nurture; her well-stocked library and ample museum, with her unrivalled accommodations for students, furnish her for her work, so that she is, in reality as well as in name, in the affections of her members as well as in her profession, a home of sound learning. And as her needs are supplied by the generosity of alumni and friends, she will be still better qualified for her work and will draw still closer to herself those who are entrusted to her care.

The elaborate plans for the new buildings, prepared by the eminent English architect the late Mr. Burgess, were such as to provide for all the present and prospective needs of the college. As finally arranged they included a large quadrangle six hundred feet by three hundred, at either end of which should be a quadrangle three hundred feet square. It was not expected that all of the great pile could be built at once, and, in fact, all that has been erected as yet is the west side of the great "quad." This includes, as has been said above, two long blocks of buildings connected by a large tower some seventy feet square. The style of architecture is that known as French secular Gothic; the buildings are of brown Portland stone, liberally trimmed with white sandstone from Ohio. Jarvis Hall contains forty-four suites of rooms for the students and the junior professors, unsurpassed for beauty and convenience by students' quarters elsewhere; they are so arranged that each suite of rooms runs through the buildings, and that there is plenty of sunlight and air in every study and bedroom. The Northam tower is also fitted for students' apartments. In Seabury Hall, the plan of which was modified under Mr. Kimball, the American architect, are the spacious lecture-rooms, finished, as is all the rest of the buildings, in ash and with massive Ohio stone mantel-pieces; and also the other public rooms. The chapel is arranged choir-wise, after the English custom, and will accommodate about two hundred people; the wood-work here is particularly handsome. It is provided with a fine organ, the gift of a recent graduate. The museum contains a full set of Ward's casts of famous fossils, including the huge megatherium, a large collection of mounted skeletons, and cases filled with minerals and shells; while the galleries afford room for other collections. The library extends through three stories, and is overrunning with its twenty-six thousand books and thirteen thousand pamphlets; large and valuable additions have been made to its shelves within a few years. The erection of a separate library building, probably at the south end of the great quadrangle, will be a necessity before many years. The laboratories for practical work in physics and chemistry are at present in Seabury Hall; but there is a demand for larger accommodations. The St. John observatory is a small, but well-furnished building on the south campus. The present gymnasium is a plain structure on the north campus, between the dormitories and the president's house; but the funds have already been obtained for a handsome and spacious gymnasium, and the generous gift of Mr. J. S. Morgan, of London, has provided for the erection of an "annex," under cover of which base-ball and other games may be practised in the winter. As new buildings rise from time to time, the spacious grounds will doubtless be laid out and beautified to correspond with the lawn in front of the present buildings. Mention should also be made of the halls of the college fraternities, three of which are already erected.

Thus the college, though it needs an increase in its funds for various purposes, is well fitted for its work. In its courses of instruction it provides for those who wish to secure degrees in arts and in science, and also for special students. The prizes offered in the several departments and the honors which may be attained by excellence in the work of the curriculum serve as incentives to scholarship. Nor is it least among the attractions of Trinity College that it stands in the city of Hartford.

THE WEBSTER FAMILY.

BY HON. STEPHEN M. ALLEN.

The feeling between the settlers and the Indians, as narrated by Dr. Moore Russell Fletcher, became so bitter that the Indians determined on the total annihilation of the villagers, and with that intent seventy-five or eighty Indians left their tribe in the vicinity of Canada, and came down the head waters of the Pemigewassett as far as Livermore Falls, and there camped for the night. All were soon sound in sleep except one Indian, who was friendly to the settlers. He made his way to Plymouth, aroused the villagers, and informed them of their dangerous situation. The settlers, in dismay, asked each other, "What can be done?" The Indian heard their inquiries, saw their alarm, and in his Indian way, said, "Harkee me, Indian,--you no run away, no fight so many Indians. Go up river a mile, quick, make um up fires by camp-ground , cut um sticks, like Indian roast him meat on, lay um ends in fires, put fires out. When Indians see and count um sticks he shake his head,--no fight so many pale-faces; they go back home to camp-grounds." Next morning the villagers waited in great excitement, fear, and hope. No Indians appeared, and there was little trouble from them afterwards. Comparative peace reigned, although the Indians at times passed through the quiet town of Plymouth on their way to their old camping-grounds. The villagers buried their animosity, having been told of the ill-treatment of the Indians by the State, and, instead of driving them from their houses, they fed and kept them over night when they signified a desire to stop and rest.

After many years other settlers went there; passable roads and bridges were made, and the settlement was extended up along Baker's River almost to Rumney, and down the river nearly to Bridgewater, now called Lower Intervale. They brought in from the lower towns oxen, cows, horses, pigs, geese, and turkeys. Their furs and moose and bear-skins found ready sale in the lower towns, and afforded them the means of the most common luxuries and groceries, which could not be provided in their incomplete rural settlement.

A Mr. Brown, of that part of the settlement known as the Lower Intervale, was one night returning from a neighbor's house. In the darkness he lost the footpath, and dropped upon his hands and knees to feel for it. Instantly he felt the hair of some animal touch his face. A quick thought told him that his companion was none other than an immense bear. Mr. Brown's presence of mind did not desert him. He knew that all domestic animals like to be rubbed or scratched, so he began rubbing up and down his companion's breast and neck, continuing as far as the throat, while with his other hand he drew out his long hunting-knife and plunged it in to the handle, at the same instant jumping backwards with all his might. As soon as he could he made his way back to his neighbor's house; his neighbor and another man, armed with gun, axe, long hay-fork and lantern, returned to the place of encounter, where they found Bruin already dead. Bear-steak was served all around the next morning.

Ebenezer Webster, the father of Daniel, settled at Salisbury about the time that Stephen went to Plymouth, and the hardships they underwent were very similar.

Daniel was born ten years after the Revolutionary War, and had to pass through many of the privations of the first settlers.

The clearing of the land was a tedious process, in which all boys had to participate. The forest trees were felled generally when in full foliage, about the first of June, and laid thus until the next March, when the "lopping of the limbs," as it was called, went on, in which boys, with their small hatchets, took part.

About the middle of May, when perfectly dry, they were set on fire, and the small limbs, with the leaves, were burned. In the midst of the tree-trunks, as they lay, corn was planted in the burnt ground, and usually yielded some sixty bushels, shelled, to the acre.

In the early autumn, when the corn was in milk, bears, hedgehogs, and coons were very troublesome, for they trampled down a great deal more than they ate. Later in the autumn the chopping was infested by squirrels. All practicable means were used for killing these visitors. Bears were caught in log traps, hedgehogs were hunted with clubs, and coons were caught in steel traps. Squirrels generally visited the chopping in the daytime, and were killed with bows and arrows, and sometimes caught in box traps. All of these animals were considered good food.

Just before the frost came the corn was gathered and shucked, and afterwards husked and put into the granary. During the winter the felled trees were sometimes cut for firewood, and those remaining in the spring were "junked," as it was called, and rolled into immense piles and burned, after which a crop of rye or wheat was sown, and hacked in with hoes, the roots of the trees preventing the movement of the harrow. The process of "junking" was a tedious one, as the burnt logs soon covered the axe-handle with smut, drying up the skin of the hands so they would often crack and bleed.

It is said that young Daniel disliked this toil very much, and was among the earliest to devise "niggering," as it was called. In this process a stick of wood was laid across the log and lighted with fire, so it would burn down through the larger log, when fanned by the breeze, cutting it in two.

In the early spring great preparation was made for tapping the maple-trees and boiling the sap down to sugar, which was always an agreeable employment for young Daniel. Another occupation of the boy on the farm was in weeding, pulling, and spreading flax, which boys generally dislike very much.

After sheep were introduced in this locality there was a general washing of them in the brook about the first of May, after which sheep-shearing came on.

Planting, hoeing, and haying was very hard work for the boys, and very few liked it. After the harvest something was done in lumbering, and the Websters, having a small saw-mill on their farm, made shingles and boards; although for many years shingles and clapboards were mostly split by hand. Daniel was peculiarly fond of hunting and fishing, a passion which lasted his whole lifetime. Minks, musk-rats, and now and then a fox, were caught in traps, though the latter was oftener shot. Small game, such as partridges and squirrels, were very plenty in the woods, and the skins of gray squirrels were most always used for winter caps for the boys. Larger game, like moose, deer, bears, wolves, and sometimes panthers, were taken.

The schooling of boys was often among these scenes, where at home the evenings were spent in studying by the light of a pitch-pine knot.

Itinerant ministers, in those days, mostly supplied the rustic pulpit, and visited their scattered flocks through many miles of travel.

The boys were expected to be very decorous not only to the visiting ministers but to all older than themselves. Reverence was natural to Daniel Webster, and was not with him a mere matter of cultivation.

TO OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.

ON HIS DEPARTURE FOR EUROPE.

Good Doctor, what has put it in your head To sail away across the ocean blue? Have you got tired of Boston? or, instead, Do you mistrust that we are tired of you?

We hope that you will have a joyful time, Meet hosts of friends, and sit at many a feast; And when, with all your wit and all your rhyme, You once are back in this your native clime, Don't ask to sail again off to the East For--well, for five times fifty years at least.

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