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FAIRFIELD, a township in Fairfield county, Connecticut, U.S.A., near Long Island Sound, adjoining Bridgeport on the E. and Westport on the W. Pop. (1890) 3868; (1900) 4489 (1041 being foreign-born); (1910) 6134. It is served by the New York, New Haven & Hartford railway. The principal villages of the township are Fairfield, Southport, Greenfield Hill and Stratfield. The beautiful scenery and fine sea air attract to the township a considerable number of summer visitors. The township has the well-equipped Pequot and Fairfield memorial libraries (the former in the village of Southport, the latter in the village of Fairfield), the Fairfield fresh air home (which cares for between one and two hundred poor children of New York during each summer season), and the Gould home for self-supporting women. The Fairfield Historical Society has a museum of antiquities and a collection of genealogical and historical works. Among Fairfield's manufactures are chemicals, wire and rubber goods. Truck-gardening is an important industry of the township. In the Pequot Swamp within the present Fairfield a force of Pequot Indians was badly defeated in 1637 by some whites, among whom was Roger Ludlow, who, attracted by the country, founded the settlement in 1639 and gave it its present name in 1645. Within its original limits were included what are now the townships of Redding (separated, 1767), Weston (1787) and Easton (formed from part of Weston in 1845), and parts of the present Westport and Bridgeport. During the colonial period Fairfield was a place of considerable importance, but subsequently it was greatly outstripped by Bridgeport, to which, in 1870, a portion of it was annexed. On the 8th of July 1779 Fairfield was burned by the British and Hessians under Governor William Tryon. Among the prominent men who have lived in Fairfield are Roger Sherman, the first President Dwight of Yale (who described Fairfield in his _Travels_ and in his poem _Greenfield Hill_), Chancellor James Kent, and Joseph Earle Sheffield. Entry: FAIRFIELD

Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 10, Slice 2 "Fairbanks, Erastus" to "Fens"     1910-1911

In the United States lawn-tennis was played at Nahant, near Boston, within a year of its invention in England, Dr James Dwight and the brothers F. R. and R. D. Sears being mainly instrumental in making it known to their countrymen. In 1881 at a meeting in New York of representatives of thirty-three clubs the United States National Lawn-Tennis Association was formed; and the adoption of the English rules put an end to the absence of uniformity in the size of the ball and height of the net which had hindered the progress of the game. The association decided to hold matches for championship of the United States at Newport, Rhode Island; and, by a curious coincidence, in the same year in which W. Renshaw first won the English championship, R. D. Sears won the first American championship by playing a volleying game at the net which entirely disconcerted his opponents, and he successfully defended his title for the next six years, winning the doubles throughout the same period in partnership with Dwight. In 1887, Sears being unable to play through ill-health, the championship went to H. W. Slocum. Other prominent players of the period were the brothers C. M. and J. S. Clark, who in 1883 came to England and were decisively beaten at Wimbledon by the two Renshaws. To a later generation belong the strongest single players, M. D. Whitman, Holcombe Ward, W. A. Larned and Karl Behr. Holcombe Ward and Dwight Davis, who have the credit of introducing the peculiar "American twist service," were an exceedingly strong pair in doubles; but after winning the American doubles championship for three years in succession, they were defeated in 1902 by the English brothers R. F. and H. L. Doherty. The championship singles in 1904 and 1905 was won by H. Ward and B. C. Wright, the latter being one of the finest players America has produced; and these two in partnership won the doubles for three years in succession, until they were displaced by F. B. Alexander and H. H. Hackett, who in their turn held the doubles championship for a like period. In 1909 two young Californians, Long and McLoughlin, unexpectedly came to the front, and, although beaten in the final round for the championship doubles, they represented the United States in the contest for the Davis cup (see below) in Australia in that year; McLoughlin having acquired a service of extraordinary power and a smashing stroke with a reverse spin which was sufficient by itself to place him in the highest rank of lawn-tennis players. Entry: 1888

Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 16, Slice 3 "Latin Language" to "Lefebvre, François-Joseph"     1910-1911

1: _Yi-Hsing-Yao_.[28]--This is the pottery, generally of unglazed fawn, red or brown stoneware, made at Yi-hsing-hsien in the province of Kiang-su. Articles of every kind are made in these fine-coloured clays, but the general forms are dainty and skilfully finished pieces, such as small teapots, cups, saucers, dishes, trays, water-bottles and wine cups. This ware was largely manufactured under the Ming dynasty (A.D. 1368-1643) and later.[29] It was imported into Europe by the Portuguese, who applied to it the name _boccaro_, formerly given only to a scented terra-cotta brought from Mexico and Peru.[30] This pottery and Chinese porcelain were wide asunder as the poles in nature as well as origin, but the potters of northern Europe regarded every kind of pottery coming from the Far East as a species of porcelain, and the manufacture of red teapots, mugs, bowls, cups, &c., in imitation of the Yi-Hsing-Yao was widespread during the late 17th and early 18th centuries under the name of red porcelain. Dwight, Elers and Böttger are notable names in this connexion. Entry: 1

Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 5, Slice 6 "Celtes, Konrad" to "Ceramics"     1910-1911

>DWIGHT, TIMOTHY (1752-1817), American divine, writer, and educationalist, was born at Northampton, Massachusetts, on the 14th of May 1752. His father, Timothy Dwight, a graduate of Yale College (1744), was a merchant, and his mother was the third daughter of Jonathan Edwards. He was remarkably precocious, and is said to have learned the alphabet at a single lesson, and to have been able to read the Bible before he was four years old. In 1769 he graduated at Yale College, and then for two years taught in a grammar school at New Haven. He was a tutor in Yale College from 1771 to 1777; and then, having been licensed to preach, was a chaplain for a year in a regiment of troops engaged in the War of Independence, inspiring the troops both by his sermons and by several stirring war songs, the most famous of which is "Columbia." From 1778 until 1783 he lived at Northampton, studying, farming, preaching, and dabbling in politics. From 1783 until 1795 he was pastor of the Congregational church at Greenfield Hill, Connecticut, where he opened an academy which at once acquired a high reputation and attracted pupils from all parts of the Union. From 1795 until his death at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on the 11th of January 1817, he was president of Yale College, and by his judicious management, by his remarkable ability as a teacher--he taught a variety of subjects, including theology, metaphysics, logic, literature and oratory,--and by his force of character and magnetic personality, won great popularity and influence, and restored that institution to the high place from which it had fallen before his appointment. President Dwight was also well known as an author. In verse he wrote an ambitious epic in eleven books, _The Conquest of Canaan_, finished in 1774, but not published until 1785; a somewhat ponderous and solemn satire, _The Triumph of Infidelity_ (1788), directed against Hume, Voltaire and others; _Greenfield Hill_ (1794), the suggestion for which seems to have been derived from John Denham's _Cooper's Hill_; and a number of minor poems and hymns, the best known of which is that beginning "I love thy kingdom, Lord." Many of his sermons were published posthumously under the titles _Theology Explained and Defended_ (5 vols., 1818-1819), to which a memoir of the author by his two sons, W.T. and Sereno E. Dwight, is prefixed, and _Sermons by Timothy Dwight_ (2 vols., 1828), which had a large circulation both in the United States and in England. Probably his most important work, however, is his _Travels in New England and New York_ (4 vols., 1821-1822), which contains much material of value concerning social and economic New England and New York during the period 1796-1817. Entry: DWIGHT

Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 8 "Dubner" to "Dyeing"     1910-1911

The first settlement on the site of Hartford was made by the Dutch from New Amsterdam, who in 1633 established on the bank of the Connecticut river, at the mouth of the Park river, a fort which they held until 1654. The township of Hartford was one of the first three original townships of Connecticut. The first English settlement was made in 1635 by sixty immigrants, mostly from New Town (now Cambridge), Massachusetts; but the main immigration was in 1636, when practically all the New Town congregation led by Thomas Hooker and Samuel Stone joined those who had preceded them. Their settlement was called Newtown until 1637, when the present name was adopted from Hertford, England, the birthplace of Stone. In 1636 Hartford was the meeting-place of the first general court of the Connecticut colony; the Fundamental Orders, the first written constitution, were adopted at Hartford in 1639; and after the union of the colonies of New Haven and Connecticut, accomplished by the charter of 1662, Hartford became the sole capital: but from 1701 until 1873 that honour was shared with New Haven. At Hartford occurred in 1687 the meeting of Edmund Andros and the Connecticut officials (see CONNECTICUT). Hartford was first chartered in 1784, was rechartered in 1856 (the charter of that date has been subsequently revised), and in 1881 was made coterminous with the township of Hartford. The city was the literary centre of Federalist ideas in the latter part of the 18th century, being the home of Lemuel Hopkins, John Trumbull, Joel Barlow and David Humphreys, the leading members of a group of authors known as the "Hartford Wits"; and in 1814-1815 the city was the meeting-place of the famous Hartford Convention, an event of great importance in the history of the Federalist party. The War of 1812, with the Embargo Acts (1807-1813), which were so destructive of New England's commerce, thoroughly aroused the Federalist leaders in this part of the country against the National government as administered by the Democrats, and in 1814, when the British were not only threatening a general invasion of their territory but had actually occupied a part of the Maine coast, and the National government promised no protection, the legislature of Massachusetts invited the other New England states to join with her in sending delegates to a convention which should meet at Hartford to consider their grievances, means of preserving their resources, measures of protection against the British, and the advisability of taking measures to bring about a convention of delegates from all the United States for the purpose of revising the Federal constitution. The legislatures of Connecticut and Rhode Island, and town meetings in Cheshire and Grafton counties (New Hampshire) and in Windham county (Vermont) accepted the invitation, and the convention, composed of 12 delegates from Massachusetts, 7 from Connecticut, 4 from Rhode Island, 2 from New Hampshire and 1 from Vermont, all Federalists, met on the 15th of December 1814, chose George Cabot of Massachusetts president and Theodore Dwight of Connecticut secretary, and remained in secret session until the 5th of January 1815, when it adjourned _sine die_. At the conclusion of its work it recommended greater military control for each of the several states and that the Federal constitution be so amended that representatives and direct taxes should be apportioned among the several states "according to their respective numbers of free persons," that no new state should be admitted to the Union without the concurrence of two-thirds of both Houses of Congress, that Congress should not have the power to lay an embargo for more than sixty days, that the concurrence of two-thirds of the members of both Houses of Congress should be necessary to pass an act "to interdict the commercial intercourse between the United States and any foreign nation or the dependencies thereof" or to declare war against any foreign nation except in case of actual invasion, that "no person who shall hereafter be naturalized shall be eligible as a member of the Senate or House of Representatives of the United States, nor capable of holding any civil office under the authority of the United States," and that "the same person shall not be elected president of the United States a second time; nor shall the president be elected from the same state two terms in succession." After making these recommendations concerning amendments the Convention resolved: "That if the application of these states to the government of the United States, recommended in a foregoing resolution, should be unsuccessful, and peace should not be concluded, and the defence of these states should be neglected, as it has been since the commencement of the war, it will, in the opinion of this convention, be expedient for the legislatures of the several states to appoint delegates to another convention, to meet at Boston in the state of Massachusetts on the third Thursday of June next, with such powers and instructions as the exigency of a crisis so momentous may require." The legislatures of Massachusetts and Connecticut approved of these proposed amendments and sent commissioners to Washington to urge their adoption, but before their arrival the war had closed, and not only did the amendments fail to receive the approval of any other state, but the legislatures of nine states expressed their disapproval of the Hartford Convention itself, some charging it with sowing "seeds of dissension and disunion." The cessation of the war brought increased popularity to the Democratic administration, and the Hartford Convention was vigorously attacked throughout the country. Entry: HARTFORD

Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 13, Slice 1 "Harmony" to "Heanor"     1910-1911

BROOK FARM, the name applied to a tract of land in West Roxbury, Massachusetts, on which in 1841-1847 a communistic experiment was unsuccessfully tried. The experiment was one of the practical manifestations of the spirit of "Transcendentalism," in New England, though many of the more prominent transcendentalists took no direct part in it. The project was originated by George Ripley, who also virtually directed it throughout. In his words it was intended "to insure a more natural union between intellectual and manual labour than now exists; to combine the thinker and the worker, as far as possible, in the same individual; to guarantee the highest mental freedom by providing all with labour adapted to their tastes and talents, and securing to them the fruits of their industry; to do away with the necessity of menial services by opening the benefits of education and the profits of labour to all; and thus to prepare a society of liberal, intelligent and cultivated persons whose relations with each other would permit a more simple and wholesome life than can be led amidst the pressure of our competitive institutions." In short, its aim was to bring about the best conditions for an ideal civilization, reducing to a minimum the labour necessary for mere existence, and by this and by the simplicity of its social machinery saving the maximum of time for mental and spiritual education and development. At a time when Ralph Waldo Emerson could write to Thomas Carlyle, "We are all a little wild here with numberless projects of social reform; not a reading man but has a draft of a new community in his waistcoat pocket,"--the Brook Farm project certainly did not appear as impossible a scheme as many others that were in the air. At all events it enlisted the co-operation of men whose subsequent careers show them to have been something more than visionaries. The association bought a tract of land about 10 m. from Boston, and in the summer of 1841 began its enterprise with about twenty members. In September the "Brook Farm Institute of Agriculture and Education" was formally organized, the members [v.04 p.0646] signing the Articles of Association and forming an unincorporated joint-stock company. The farm was assiduously, if not very skilfully, cultivated, and other industries were established--most of the members paying by labour for their board--but nearly all of the income, and sometimes all of it, was derived from the school, which deservedly took high rank and attracted many pupils. Among these were included George William Curtis and his brother James Burrill Curtis, Father Isaac Thomas Hecker (1819-1888), General Francis C. Barlow (1834-1896), who as attorney-general of New York in 1871-1873 took a leading part in the prosecution of the "Tweed Ring." For three years the undertaking went on quietly and simply, subject to few outward troubles other than financial, the number of associates increasing to seventy or eighty. It was during this period that Nathaniel Hawthorne had his short experience of Brook Farm, of which so many suggestions appear in the _Blithedale Romance_, though his preface to later editions effectually disposed of the idea--which gave him great pain--that he had either drawn his characters from persons there, or had meant to give any actual description of the colony. Emerson refused, in a kind and characteristic letter, to join the undertaking, and though he afterwards wrote of Brook Farm with not uncharitable humour as "a perpetual picnic, a French Revolution in small, an age of reason in a patty-pan," among its founders were many of his near friends. In 1844 the growing need of a more scientific organization, and the influence which F.M.C. Fourier's doctrines, as modified by Albert Brisbane (1809-1890), had gained in the minds of Ripley and many of his associates, combined to change the whole plan of the community. It was transformed, with the strong approval of all its chief members and the consent of the rest, into a Fourierist "phalanx" in 1845. There was an accession of new members, a momentary increase of prosperity, a brilliant new undertaking in the publication of a weekly journal, the _Harbinger_, in which Ripley, Charles A. Dana, Francis G. Shaw and John S. Dwight were the chief writers, and to which James Russell Lowell, J.G. Whittier, George William Curtis, Parke Godwin, T.W. Higginson, Horace Greeley and many more now and then contributed. But the individuality of the old Brook Farm was gone. The association was not rescued even from financial troubles by the change. With increasing difficulty it kept on till the spring of 1846, when a fire which destroyed its nearly completed "phalanstery" brought losses which caused, or certainly gave the final ostensible reason for, its dissolution. The experiment was abandoned in the autumn of 1847. Besides Ripley and Hawthorne, the principal members of the community were Charles A. Dana, John S. Dwight, Minot Pratt (c. 1805-1878), the head farmer, who, like George Partridge Bradford (1808-1890), left in 1845, and Warren Burton (1810-1866) a preacher and, later, a writer on educational subjects. Indirectly connected with the experiment, also, as visitors for longer or shorter periods but never as regular members, were Emerson, Amos Bronson Alcott, Orestes A. Brownson, Theodore Parker and William Henry Channing, Margaret Fuller and Elizabeth Palmer Peabody. The estate itself, after passing through various hands, came in 1870 into the possession of the "Association of the Evangelical Lutheran Church for Works of Mercy," which established here an orphanage, known as the "Martin Luther Orphan Home." Entry: BROOK

Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 "Brescia" to "Bulgaria"     1910-1911

>DWIGHT, JOHN (d. 1703), the first distinguished English potter. One can only surmise as to his parentage, and the date of his birth has been variously given from 1637 to 1640. Apparently he was educated at Oxford, and in 1661 was appointed registrar and scribe to the diocese of Chester, and the same year he proceeded to the degree of B.C.L. of Christ Church, Oxford. He resided at Chester for some time and acted as secretary to four successive bishops. One of these, Bishop Hall, also held the rectory of Wigan, Lancashire, and Dwight seems to have resided in that town, for three of his children were baptized there between 1667 and 1671. In 1671, while he still apparently resided in Wigan, he was granted his first patent for "the mistery of transparent earthenware, commonly known by the names of porcelain or china, and of stoneware, vulgarly called Cologne ware." It is not believed that much, if any, work was executed at Wigan, and he probably removed to Fulham in 1672 or 1673, as his name first appears on the rate books of Fulham, where he was rated for a house in Bear Street, in 1674. He died in 1703, and his business was carried on by his descendants for some time, but with gradually diminishing success. It has been claimed that Dwight made the first porcelain in England, but there is no proof of this, though magnificent specimens of stoneware from his hands are in existence. The British Museum contains a number of the best of Dwight's pieces, of which the finest is the bust of Prince Rupert. Other specimens are in the Victoria and Albert Museum, and they are sufficient to establish Dwight's fame as a potter of the first rank. (See CERAMICS.) Entry: DWIGHT

Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 8 "Dubner" to "Dyeing"     1910-1911