The time was the 19th of May, 1780. The place was Hartford, Connecticut. The day has gone down in New England history as a terrible foretaste of Judgement Day. For at noon the skies turned from blue to grey and by mid-afternoon had blackened over so densely that, in that religious age, men fell on their knees and begged a final blessing before the end came. The Connecticut House of Representatives was in session. And, as some of the men fell down and others clamored for an immediate adjournment, the Speaker of the House, one Col. Davenport, came to his feet. He silenced them and said these words: "The day of judgment is either approaching or it is not. If it is not, there is no cause for adjournment. If it is, I choose to be found doing my duty. I wish therefore that candles may be brought." -- Alistair Cooke
Meanwhile in the United States Dr Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet was elected in 1815 to go to Europe to inquire into the methods of educating the deaf in vogue there. This was at a meeting held in the house of a physician named Cogswell, in Hartford, Connecticut, and was the result of the latter's discovery that eighty-four persons in the state besides his own little girl were deaf. Henry Winter Syle, himself deaf, tells how "four months were spent in learning that the doors of the British schools were 'barred with gold, and opened but to golden keys,'" and how, disappointed in England, Gallaudet met with a ready response to his inquiries in Paris. With Laurent Clerc, a deaf teacher, he returned to the United States in 1816, and the "Connecticut Asylum" was founded a year after with seven pupils. The name was changed to "The American Asylum" later, when it was enlarged. This was followed by the Pennsylvania, New York and Kentucky institutions, with the second of which the Peet family were connected. Dr Gallaudet married one of his deaf pupils, Sophia Fowler, and, after a very happy married life, Mrs Gallaudet accompanied her youngest son, Edward Miner Gallaudet, to the Columbia institution for the Deaf and Dumb, Washington, D.C., founded in 1857 by Congress and largely supported by Amos Kendall, and to the National Deaf Mute College, which was founded in 1864, was renamed the Gallaudet College, in honour of Dr T. H. Gallaudet, in 1893, and with the Kendall School (secondary), now forms the Columbia Institution. This college is supported by Congress. Entry: A
EDWARDS, JONATHAN (1703-1758), American theologian and philosopher, was born on the 5th of October 1703 at East (now South) Windsor, Connecticut. His earliest known ancestor was Richard Edwards, Welsh by birth, a London clergyman in Elizabeth's reign. His father Timothy Edwards (1669-1758), son of a prosperous merchant of Hartford, had graduated at Harvard, was minister at East Windsor, and eked out his salary by tutoring boys for college. His mother, a daughter of the Rev. Solomon Stoddard, of Northampton, Mass., seems to have been a woman of unusual mental gifts and independence of character. Jonathan, the only son, was the fifth of eleven children. The boy was trained for college by his father and by his elder sisters, who all received an excellent education. When ten years old he wrote a semi-humorous tract on the immateriality of the soul; he was interested in natural history, and at the age of twelve wrote a remarkable essay on the habits of the "flying spider." He entered Yale College in 1716, and in the following year became acquainted with Locke's _Essay_, which influenced him profoundly. During his college course he kept note books labelled "The Mind," "Natural Science" (containing a discussion of the atomic theory, &c.), "The Scriptures" and "Miscellanies," had a grand plan for a work on natural and mental philosophy, and drew up for himself rules for its composition. Even before his graduation in September 1720 as valedictorian and head of his class, he seems to have had a well formulated philosophy. The two years after his graduation he spent in New Haven studying theology. In 1722-1723 he was for eight months stated supply of a small Presbyterian church in New York city, which invited him to remain, but he declined the call, spent two months in study at home, and then in 1724-1726 was one of the two tutors at Yale, earning for himself the name of a "pillar tutor" by his steadfast loyalty to the college and its orthodox teaching at the time when Yale's rector (Cutler) and one of her tutors had gone over to the Episcopal Church. Entry: EDWARDS
COOKE, ROSE TERRY (1827-1892), American writer, _née_ Terry, was born at West Hartford, Connecticut, on the 17th of February 1827. She published in 1860 a volume of _Poems_, but after her marriage in 1873 to Rollin H. Cooke she was best known for her fresh and humorous stories, though in 1888 she published more verse in her _Complete Poems_. The chief volumes of fiction dealing mainly with New England country life, produced by Rose Terry Cooke, were _Happy Dodd_ (1878), _Somebody's Neighbors_ (1881), _Root-bound_ (1885), _The Sphinx's Children_ (1886), _Steadfast_ (1889) and _Huckleberries_ (1891). She died at Pittsfield, Massachusetts, on the 18th of July 1892. Entry: COOKE
DANBURY, a city and one of the county-seats of Fairfield county, Connecticut, U.S.A., in Danbury township, in the south-west part of the state, on the Still river, a tributary of the Housatonic. Pop. (1890) 16,552; (1900) 16,537 (3702 foreign-born); (1910) 20,234. In 1900 the population of the township, including that of the city, was 19,474, and in 1910, 23,502. Danbury is served by three divisions of the New York, New Haven & Hartford railway; by the Danbury & Harlem electric railway, which connects at Goldens Bridge, New York, with the Harlem division of the New York Central; and by an electric line to Bethel, Connecticut. Lake Kenosia, about 2½ m. from the centre of the city, is a pleasure resort. A state normal school was opened in Danbury in 1904, and there is a home for destitute and homeless children under private (unsectarian) control. The city has good water-power, and the municipality owns the water works. The principal industry is the manufacture of felt hats, begun in 1780, and in 1905 engaging about thirty factories, with a product for the year valued at $5,798,107 (71.9% of the value of all the factory products of the city, and 15.8% of the value of all the felt hats produced in the United States). The city ranked first among the cities of the country in this industry in 1900 and second in 1905, and in 1905 no other city showed so high a degree of specialization in it. Silver-plated ware (mostly manufactured by Rogers Bros.) is another important product. At Danbury is held annually the well-known agricultural Danbury Fair. The township was settled in 1684 by emigrants from Norwalk, and received its present name in 1687. When the War of Independence opened, Enoch Crosby, believed to be the original of Harvey Birch, the hero of J. F. Cooper's _The Spy_, was a resident of Danbury. A depot of military supplies was established in the village of Danbury in 1776; in April 1777 Governor William Tryon, of New York, raided the place, destroying the military stores and considerable private property. During his retreat he was attacked (April 26th) at Ridgefield (about 9 m. south by east of Danbury) by the Americans under General David Wooster (1710-1777), who was fatally wounded in the conflict (being succeeded by General Benedict Arnold), and to whose memory a monument was erected in Danbury in 1854. Danbury was chartered as a borough in 1832 and as a city in 1880. In 1870 the _Danbury News_ was established by the consolidation of the _Jeffersonian_ and the _Times_, by James Montgomery Bailey (1841-1894), from 1865 to 1870 proprietor of the _Times_. He wrote for the _News_ humorous sketches, which made him and the paper famous, Bailey being known as the "Danbury News Man"; among his books are _Life in Danbury_ (1873), _The Danbury News Man's Almanac_ (1873), _They All Do It_ (1877), _England from a Back Window_ (1878), _Mr Philip's Goneness_ (1879), _The Danbury Boom_ (1880), and _History of Danbury_ (1896). Entry: DANBURY
CUMBERLAND, a township of Providence county, Rhode Island, U.S.A., in the N.E. part of the state, about 6 m. N. of Providence and having the Blackstone river for most of its W. boundary. Pop. (1890) 8090; (1900) 8925, of whom 3473 were foreign-born; (1910) 10,107; area, 27.5 sq. m. It is served by the New York, New Haven & Hartford railway. Within its borders are the villages of Cumberland Hill, Diamond Hill, Arnold Mills, Abbott Run, Berkeley, Robin Hollow, Happy Hollow, East Cumberland, and parts of Manville, Ashton, Lonsdale and Valley Falls. The surface of the township is generally hilly and rocky. In the N. part is a valuable granite quarry; and limestone, and some coal, iron and gold are also found. Cumberland has been called the "mineral pocket of New England." The Blackstone and its tributaries provide considerable water power; and there are various manufactures, including cotton goods, silk goods, and horse-shoes and other iron ware. The value of the township's factory product in 1905 was $3,171,318, an increase of 80.6% since 1900, this ratio of increase being greater than that shown by any other "municipality" in the state having a population in 1900 of 8000 or more. At Lonsdale, William Blackstone (c. 1595-1675), the first permanent white settler within the present limits of Rhode Island, built his residence, "Study Hall," about 1635. Cumberland was originally a part of Rehoboth, and then of Attleborough, Massachusetts, and for many years was called, like other sparse settlements, the Gore, or Attleborough Gore. In 1747, by the royal decree establishing the boundary between Massachusetts and Rhode Island, Attleborough Gore, with other territory formerly under the jurisdiction of Massachusetts, was annexed to Rhode Island, and the township of Cumberland was incorporated, the name being adopted in honour of William Augustus, duke of Cumberland. In 1867 a part of Cumberland was set off to form the township of Woonsocket. Entry: CUMBERLAND
FALL RIVER, a city of Bristol county, Massachusetts, U.S.A., situated on Mount Hope Bay, at the mouth of the Taunton river, 49 m. S. of Boston. Pop. (1890) 74,398; (1900) 104,863; (estimated, 1906) 105,942;[1] (1910 census) 119,295. It is the third city in size of the commonwealth. Of the population in 1900, 50,042, or 47.7%, were foreign-born, 90,244 were of foreign parentage (i.e. either one or both parents were foreign), and of these 81,721 had both foreign father and foreign mother. Of the foreign-born, 20,172 were French Canadians, 2329 were English Canadians, 12,268 were from England, 1045 were from Scotland, 7317 were from Ireland, 2805 were from Portugal, and 1095 were from Russia, various other countries being represented by smaller numbers. Fall River is served by the New York, New Haven & Hartford railway, and has good steamer connexions with Providence, Newport and New York, notably by the "Fall River Line," which is much used, in connexion with the N.Y., N.H. & H. railway, by travellers between New York and Boston. The harbour is large, deep and easy of access. The city lies on a plateau and on slopes that rise rather steeply from the river, and is irregularly laid out. Granite underlying the city furnishes excellent building material; among the principal buildings are the state armoury, the county court house, the B.M.C. Durfee high school, the custom house, Notre Dame College, the church of Notre Dame, the church of St Anne, the Central Congregational church and the public library. The commonwealth aids in maintaining a textile school (the Bradford Durfee textile school), opened in 1904. The city library contained in 1908 about 78,500 volumes. There is considerable commerce, but it is as a manufacturing centre that Fall River is best known. Above the city, on the plateau, about 2 m. from the bay, are the Watuppa Lakes, 7 m. long and on an average three-fourths of a mile wide, and from them runs the Fall (Quequechan) river, with a constant flow and descending near its mouth through 127 ft. in less than half a mile. The conjunction of water transportation and water power is thus remarkable, and accounts in great part for the city's rapid growth. The waters of the North Watuppa Lake (which is fed by springs and drains out a very small area) are also exceptionally pure and furnish an excellent water-supply. The Fall river runs directly through the city (passing beneath the city hall), and along its banks are long rows of cotton mills; formerly many of these were run by water power, and their wheels were placed directly in the stream bed, but steam power is now used almost exclusively. According to the special census of manufactures of 1905, the value of all factory products for the calendar year 1904 was $43,473,105, of which amount $35,442,581, or 81.5%, consisted of cotton goods and dyeing and finishing, making Fall River the largest producer of cotton goods among American cities.[2] A large hat manufactory (the Marshall Brothers' factory) furnishes the United States army with hats. Until forced by the competition of mills in the Southern states to direct attention to finer products, the cotton manufacturers of Fall River devoted themselves almost exclusively to the making of print cloth, in which respect the city was long distinguished from Lawrence and Lowell, whose products were more varied and of higher grade. The number of spindles increased from 265,328 in 1865 to 1,269,043 in 1875, 3,000,000 in 1900, and to about 3,500,000 in 1906. Excellent drainage and sewerage systems contribute to the city's health. The birth-rate was in 1900 the highest (38.75) of any city in the country of above 30,000 inhabitants (three of the four next highest being Massachusetts towns). The social conditions and labour problems of Fall River have long been exceptional. The mills supplement the public schools in the mingling of races and the work for Americanization, and labour disturbances, for which Fall River was once conspicuous, have become less frequent and less bitter, the great strike of 1904-1905--perhaps the greatest in the history of the textile industry in the United States--being marked by little or no violence. Fall River has become a "city of homes," and tenements are giving way to dwellings for one or two families. The lists of the city's corporation stockholders show more than 10,000 names. The municipal police is controlled (as nowhere else in the state save in Boston) by a state board; this arrangement is generally regarded as having worked for better order. Lowell was about three times as large as Fall River in 1850, and Lawrence was larger until after 1870. Fall River was originally a part of Freetown; it was incorporated as a township in 1803 (being known as "Troy" in 1804-1834), and was chartered as a city in 1854. In 1861 it was increased by certain territory secured from Rhode Island, the city having spread across the state boundary and become subject to a divided jurisdiction. In 1902 the city received a new charter. Its manufactures amounted to little before the War of 1812. A disastrous fire occurred in 1843 (loss above $500,000). In 1904 Fall River became the see of the Roman Catholic diocese of that name. Entry: FALL
After the outbreak of the war a somewhat indefinite, heterogeneous provisional government was in power till a constitution was adopted in 1780, when John Hancock became the first governor. Governor James Bowdoin in 1786-1787 put down with clemency an almost bloodless insurrection in the western counties (there was strong disaffection, however, as far east as Middlesex), known as the Shays Rebellion, significant of the rife ideas of popular power, the economic distress, and the unsettled political conditions of the years of the Confederation. Daniel Shays (1747-1825), the leader, was a brave Revolutionary captain of no special personal importance. The state debt was large, taxation was heavy, and industry was unsettled; worthless paper money was in circulation, yet some men demanded more; debtors were made desperate by prosecution; the state government seemed weak, the Federal government contemptibly so; the local courts would not, or from intimidation feared to, punish the turbulent, and demagogues encouraged ideas of popular power. A convention of delegates representing the malcontents of numerous towns in Worcester county met at Worcester on the 15th of August 1786 to consider grievances, and a week later a similar convention assembled at Hatfield, Hampshire county. Encouraged by these and other conventions in order to obstruct the collection of debts and taxes, a mob prevented a session of the Court of Common Pleas and General Sessions of the Peace at Northampton on the 29th of August, and in September other mobs prevented the same court from sitting in Worcester, Middlesex and Berkshire counties. About 1000 insurgents under Shays assembled at Springfield on the 26th of September to prevent the sitting there of the Supreme Court, from which they feared indictments. To protect the court and the national arsenal at Springfield, for which the Federal government was powerless to provide a guard, Major-General William Shepard (1737-1817) ordered out the militia, called for volunteers, and supplied them with arms from the arsenal, and the court sat for three days. The Federal government now attempted to enlist recruits, ostensibly to protect the western frontier from the Indians, but actually for the suppression of the insurrection; but the plan failed from lack of funds, and the insurgents continued to interrupt the procedure of the courts. In January 1787, however, Governor Bowdoin raised an army of 4400 men and placed it under the command of Major-General Benjamin Lincoln (1733-1810). While Lincoln was at Worcester Shays planned to capture the arsenal at Springfield, but on the 25th of January Shepard's men fired upon Shays's followers, killing four and putting the rest to flight. Lincoln pursued them to Petersham, Worcester county, where on the 4th of February he routed them and took 150 prisoners. Subsequently the insurgents gathered in small bands in Berkshire county; but here, a league having been formed to assist the government, 84 insurgents were captured at West Stockbridge, and the insurrection practically terminated in an action at Sheffield on the 27th of February, in which the insurgents lost 2 killed and 30 wounded and the militia 2 killed and 1 wounded. Two of the insurgent leaders, Daniel Shays and Eli Parsons, escaped to Vermont soon after the rout at Petersham. Fourteen other insurgents who were tried by the Supreme Court in the spring of 1787 were found guilty of treason and sentenced to death. They were, however, held rather as hostages for the good behaviour of worse offenders who had escaped, and were pardoned in September. In February 1788 Shays and Parsons petitioned for pardon, and this was granted by the legislature in the following June. The outcome of the uprising was an encouraging test of loyalty to the commonwealth; and the insurrection is regarded as having been very potent in preparing public opinion throughout the country for the adoption of a stronger national government. The Federal Constitution was ratified by Massachusetts by only a small majority on the 6th of February 1788, after its rejection had been at one time imminent; but Massachusetts became a strong Federalist state. Indeed, the general interest of her history in the quarter-century after the adoption of the Constitution lies mainly in her connexion with the fortunes of that great political party. Her leading politicians were out of sympathy with the conduct of national affairs (in the conduct of foreign relations, the distribution of political patronage, naval policy, the question of public debt) from 1804--when Jefferson's party showed its complete supremacy--onward; and particularly after the passage of the Embargo Act of 1807, which caused great losses to Massachusetts commerce, and, so far from being accepted by her leaders as a proper diplomatic weapon, seemed to them designed in the interests of the Democratic party. The Federalist preference for England over France was strong in Massachusetts, and her sentiment was against the war with England of 1812-15. New England's discontent culminated in the Hartford Convention (Dec. 1814), in which Massachusetts men predominated. The state, however, bore her full part in the war, and much of its naval success was due to her sailors. Entry: A
DEANE, SILAS (1737-1789), American diplomat, was born in Groton, Connecticut, on the 24th of December 1737. He graduated at Yale in 1758 and in 1761 was admitted to the bar, but instead of practising became a merchant at Wethersfield, Conn. He took an active part in the movements in Connecticut preceding the War of Independence, and from 1774 to 1776 was a delegate from Connecticut to the Continental Congress. Early in 1776 he was sent to France by Congress, in a semi-official capacity, as a secret agent to induce the French government to lend its financial aid to the colonies. Subsequently he became, with Benjamin Franklin and Arthur Lee, one of the regularly accredited commissioners to France from Congress. On arriving in Paris, Deane at once opened negotiations with Vergennes and Beaumarchais, securing through the latter the shipment of many vessel loads of arms and munitions of war to America. He also enlisted the services of a number of Continental soldiers of fortune, among whom were Lafayette, Baron Johann De Kalb and Thomas Conway. His carelessness in keeping account of his receipts and expenditures, and the differences between himself and Arthur Lee regarding the contracts with Beaumarchais, eventually led, in November 1777, to his recall to face charges, of which Lee's complaints formed the basis. Before returning to America, however, he signed on the 6th of February 1778 the treaties of amity and commerce and of alliance which he and the other commissioners had successfully negotiated. In America he was defended by John Jay and John Adams, and after stating his case to Congress was allowed to return to Paris (1781) to settle his affairs. Differences with various French officials led to his retirement to Holland, where he remained until after the treaty of peace had been signed, when he settled in England. The publication of some "intercepted" letters in Rivington's _Royal Gazette_ in New York (1781), in which Deane declared his belief that the struggle for independence was hopeless and counselled a return to British allegiance, aroused such animosity against him in America that for some years he remained in England. He died on shipboard in Deal harbour, England, on the 23rd of September 1789 after having embarked for America on a Boston packet. No evidence of his dishonesty was ever discovered, and Congress recognized the validity of his claims by voting $37,000 to his heirs in 1842. He published his defence in _An Address to the Free and Independent Citizens of the United States of North America_ (Hartford, Conn., and London, 1784). Entry: DEANE
EAST PROVIDENCE, a township of Providence county, Rhode Island, U.S.A., on the E. side of Providence river, opposite Providence. Pop. (1890) 8422; (1900) 12,138, of whom 2067 were foreign-born; (1910 census) 15,808. Area, 12½ sq. m. It is served by the New York, New Haven & Hartford railway. It has a rolling surface and contains several villages, one of which, known as Rumford, has important manufactories of chemicals and electrical supplies. South of this village, along the river bank, are several attractive summer resorts, Hunt's Mills, Silver Spring, Riverside, Vanity Fair, Kettle Point and Bullock's Point being prominent among them. In 1905 the factory products of the township were valued at $5,035,288. The oyster trade is important. It was within the present limits of this township that Roger Williams established himself in the spring of 1636, until he learned that the place was within the jurisdiction of the Plymouth Colony. About 1644 it was settled by a company from Weymouth as a part of a town of Rehoboth. In 1812 Rehoboth was divided, and the west part was made the township of Seekonk. Finally, in 1861, it was decided that the west part of Seekonk belonged to Rhode Island, and in the following year that part was incorporated as the township of East Providence. Entry: EAST
ELLSWORTH, OLIVER (1745-1807), American statesman and jurist, was born at Windsor, Connecticut, on the 29th of April 1745. He studied at Yale and Princeton, graduating from the latter in 1766, studied theology for a year, then law, and began to practise at Hartford in 1771. He was state's attorney for Hartford county from 1777 to 1785, and achieved extraordinary success at the bar, amassing what was for his day a large fortune. From 1773 to 1775 he represented the town of Windsor in the general assembly of Connecticut, and in the latter year became a member of the important commission known as the "Pay Table," which supervised the colony's expenditures for military purposes during the War of Independence. In 1779 he again sat in the assembly, this time representing Hartford. From 1777 to 1783 he was a member of the Continental Congress, and in this body he served on three important committees, the marine committee, the board of treasury, and the committee of appeals, the predecessors respectively of the navy and treasury departments and the Supreme Court under the Federal Constitution. From 1780 to 1785 he was a member of the governor's council of Connecticut, which, with the lower house before 1784 and alone from 1784 to 1807, constituted a supreme court of errors; and from 1785 to 1789 he was a judge of the state superior court. In 1787, with Roger Sherman and William Samuel Johnson (1727-1819), he was one of Connecticut's delegates to the constitutional convention at Philadelphia, in which his services were numerous and important. In particular, when disagreement seemed inevitable on the question of representation, he, with Roger Sherman, proposed what is known as the "Connecticut Compromise," by which the Federal legislature was made to consist of two houses, the upper having equal representation from each state, the lower being chosen on the basis of population. Ellsworth also made a determined stand against a national paper currency. Being compelled to leave the convention before its adjournment, he did not sign the instrument, but used his influence to secure its ratification by his native state. From 1789 to 1796 he was one of the first senators from Connecticut under the new Constitution. In the senate he was looked upon as President Washington's personal spokesman and as the leader of the Administration party. His most important service to his country was without a doubt in connexion with the establishment of the Federal judiciary. As chairman of the committee having the matter in charge, he drafted the bill by the enactment of which the system of Federal courts, almost as it is to-day, was established. He also took a leading part in the senate in securing the passage of laws for funding the national debt, assuming the state debts and establishing a United States bank. It was Ellsworth who suggested to Washington the sending of John Jay to England to negotiate a new treaty with Great Britain, and he probably did more than any other man to induce the senate, despite widespread and violent opposition, to ratify that treaty when negotiated. By President Washington's appointment he became chief justice of the Supreme Court of the United States in March 1796, and in 1799 President John Adams sent him, with William Vans Murray (1762-1803) and William R. Davie (1756-1820), to negotiate a new treaty with France. It was largely through the influence of Ellsworth, who took the principal part in the negotiations, that Napoleon consented to a convention, of the 30th of September 1800, which secured for citizens of the United States their ships captured by France but not yet condemned as prizes, provided for freedom of commerce between the two nations, stipulated that "free ships shall give a freedom to goods," and contained provisions favourable to neutral commerce. While he was abroad, failing health compelled him (1800) to resign the chief-justiceship, and after some months in England he returned to America in 1801. In 1803 he was again elected to the governor's council, and in 1807, on the reorganization of the Connecticut judiciary, was appointed chief justice of the new Supreme Court. He never took office, however, but died at his home in Windsor on the 27th of November 1807. Entry: ELLSWORTH