Guilford Portraits Memorial Epitaphs Alderbrook and Westside ■»» » » » » Please handle this volume with care. The University of Connecticut Libraries, Storrs hbl, stx F 104.G9R6 Guilford portraits; 3 ^153 00^33^45 5 **i o Q CT> Guilford Portraits Memorial Epitaphs of Alderbrook and Westside with Introductory Elegies and Essay BY HENRY PYNCHON ROBINSON Fifty-three Illustrations 1815-1907 THE PEASE-LEWIS CO. NEW HAVEN, CONN. I907 • THE TUTTLE, MOREHOUSE & TAYLOR PRESS. CONTENTS. PAGE Prefatory Essay on Epitaphs and Burials v// Introductory Elegy, Alderbrook. Part I. The Journey's End i Part II. The Burial Train n Part III. The Pathos of the Past 23 Part IV. Alderbrook 35 Guilford Portraits, Memorial Epitaphs of Alderbrook. v Part V. Baldwin — Dunn 46 Part VI. Dupraz— Hall 64 Part VII. Halleck— Munson 83 Part VIII. Norton— Woodruff 101 Introductory Elegy, Westside. Part III. Spirit Life and Lore 153 Part I. Riverside 117 Part II. The Hidden Mystery 133 Part IV. Westside Obsequies 173 Guilford Portraits, Memorial Epitaphs of Westside. Part V. Allen— Fisher 183 Part VI. Goldsmith — Johnson 196 Part VII. Leete — Robinson 211 Part VIII. Smith— Weld 228 LIST OF PORTRAIT ILLUSTRATIONS. PAGE Rev. A. C. Baldwin facing 183 Mrs. Ruth E. Baldwin " 48 Rev. L. T. Bennett, D.D " 50 Miss Caroline Bradley " 185 Miss Frances S. Burgis 53 Miss Clarissa Caldwell " 55 Dr. Joel Canfield " 186 Mrs. Eunice F. Chittenden 188 Henry W. Chittenden " 56 Mrs. Mary G. Chittenden " 58 Miss Mary Dutton " 65 Mrs. Catherine H. Elliott " 67 Charles Wyllys Elliott " 68 Lewis R. Elliott " 70 Col. Geo. A. Foote " 72 Henry Fowler 193 Rev. A. B. Goldsmith " 197 Mrs. M. C. Goldsmith " 197 Elliott W. Gregory " 75 Mrs. Charlotte S. Gregory " 75 Judge Nathaniel Griffing 199 Mrs. Sarah B. Griffing " 199 Rev. E. Edwin Hall " 80 Rev. Henry L. Hall " 82 Fitz Greene Halleck 84 Daniel Hand " 204 Amos S. Hotchkiss " 206 VI LIST OF PORTRAIT ILLUSTRATIONS. PAGE John Hotchkiss facing 206 Major Samuel C. Johnson " 209 Judge George Landon " 93 Mrs. Ruth H. Landon " 94 Judge Edward R. Landon 96 Mrs. Parnel C. Landon 98 Deacon Albert A. Leete 212 Deacon Edward L. Leete 215 William H. H. Murray " 219 Mrs. Mary C. Parker " 221 Deacon Eli Parmelee 102 Jonathan Parmelee 104 Capt. U. N. Parmelee " 222 Rev. Henry Robinson 224 Mrs. Mary C. Robinson 225 Major Samuel Robinson 226 Judge Ralph D. Smyth " 108 Richard E. Smyth " 1 1 1 Samuel Spencer 229 Mrs. Elizabeth T. Spencer 230 Mrs. Temperance T. Spencer 232 Miss Clara J. Stone 236 Miss Sarah Talcott 236 Dr. Alvan Talcott " 238 Mrs. Sarah R. Todd " 113 Mrs. Annie G. Vittum " 114 PREFATORY ESSAY ON EPITAPHS AND BURIALS. This little work, a harvest chiefly of memories of the past, has been in a special way spontaneous. When moved to express regrets on the recent loss of a friend, visions of others rose before me and I continued to write, passing from one to another. The subject dwelt with me and strangely engaged my attention; the vividness of memories revived was like a revelation and the experience of dwelling from month to month in reverie over those who have passed away has been peculiar and absorbing. These portraits or memorials, with few exceptions, are drawn from personal impressions, in some cases verified, and in some enlarged, by the more intimate recollections of others ; in no case purely imaginary, they are yet mere shadows of the living originals. Not all memories of the past are vivid, and I regret in too many instances the scant tracing of character and the faint revival of personality presented. It is hardly necessary to say that they have been prepared under great limitations. Lives, like suns and moons, present phases that vary with their own periods. Personal traits and humors, and our knowledge of them, are to some extent inconstant. One can- not hope to be always fortunate in dealing with such vicissitudes. Of these, some appear in early maturity, some in meridian fulness, and others in the past prime of their decadence. In taking subjects for memorial I have chosen, amid the accidents of opportunity, such as seemed to lend themselves to the conditions ; in a few cases grappling with Vlll PREFATORY ESSAY the contrary, though mindful of the forbidding adage, "if you do not know of me do not speak of me." If such sketches, from their required exactness, are thought to be ill suited to metrical treatment, certainly verse, employed to convey with a little more grace, vignettes of life and character, need not be expected to do more than that. Such verse, a mere "homespun thread of rhymes," outside the sphere of the imagination, has little of poetry but its measured form, and aims to be simply narrative and descrip- tive or quaintly plaintive and bewailing. A writer of authority declares "that whatever subject matter can be penetrated with strong human feeling is fit for verse ; then the rhythm and form become spontaneous." This has been my experience here, and while the use of verse has been exceptional, as con- trary to my habit of writing, its trammels and exactions serving both as irritant and stimulus, the discipline has led to compacter expression and even to better results in pith and point of the matter expressed. To extend the scope and possible value of the whole, I have added parts introductory on related topics ; not assuming to have news along lines almost as old as the race itself, where by special division and later extension I have striven to give tokens of design to what was earlier written without design. If there, I depart from the local limit, set to my general purpose, yet what is lost in unity will be found in diversity and nowhere is the true tenor of the subject abandoned. The literature of epitaphs and of mortuary memorials, obscure and rare, would yet fill a storehouse with lamentations and 'compleynts.' Puttenham, in the "Art of English Poesie" [1584-88], quaintly sets forth this species of writing: "An epitaph is an inscription, such as a man may commodiously write or engrave upon a table, in few verses pithie, quicke and sententious, for the passer-by to peruse and judge upon EPITAPHS AND BURIALS IX without any long tauriance." They were orginally sung at burials and were then engraven upon the tomb. Philologists say that all old words for writing mean cutting, since all writ- ing was originally graving upon a stone as the most durable substance. In Greek epitaphs the thought is turned backward to the life that is past and seldom to the life that is supposed to come, and the seriousness of the tomb is not incompatible with a note of cheerfulness. The Lacedemonians forbid them save for those who had died for their country. The historian Merivale has translated many of Greek origin as written in elegiac verse by Theocritus, Aeschylus, Sappho and other Grecians. The following on the poet Sophocles is by Simmias of Thebes : Wind, gentle evergreen, to form a shade About the tomb where Sophocles is laid : Sweet ivy, wind thy boughs and intertwine With blushing roses and the clustering vine : Thus shall thy lasting leaves with beauties hung Prove grateful emblems of the lays he sung. We find colloquies carried on in stately courtesy between the tenants of sepulchres and passers-by. Not only human beings but sometimes favorite animals had their burials and epitaphs. Orators of the first class, as Pericles and Demosthenes, made addresses at public funerals. How natural, as if spoken by an orator of our day, sounds this, taken from the funeral oration of Pericles over Greeks, the first fallen in the Pelo- ponnesian war: 'Tor the whole earth is the sepulchre of famous men : not only are they commemorated by columns and inscriptions in their own country, but in foreign lands there dwells also an unwritten memorial of them, graven not X PREFATORY ESSAY on stone but in the hearts of men." (Thucydides II. 43 ; Jowett.) Among the Romans, Julius Caesar, at the age of eighteen, delivered the eulogy over his aunt Julia, the widow of Marius. Grand burials were made along the great public roads, as at Rome, chiefly on the Appian and Flaminian ways, leading south and north from the city. A coin was provided to pay Charon's ferriage over the Styx ; this toll has been found, as placed between the teeth. The ceremonies among the upper classes were imposing. At the grand funeral of Junia, the wife of Cassius and sister of Brutus, the images of Cassius and Brutus were conspicuous by their absence, they being still under attainder for their parts in the death of Coesar. Outside, near the Colline Gate, erring vestal virgins were buried alive. These animate burials, described by Pliny and Plutarch, were rare ; some twelve are known. The senior vestal, Cornelia, is an instance in the reign of Domitian, A. D. 91. Cicero's sister-in-law, his wife Terentia's sister Fabia, a vestal, barely escaped this fate. Cremation, practiced in remote antiquity, was revived in the time of Sylla, near 100 B. C. : who, from fear of enemies, offered himself for example and was then urned among the old kings of Rome, on the banks of the Tiber. In the second century, the older practice of burial was more fashionable. Cremation was dis- continued early in the fifth century, owing chiefly to the Christian belief in the resurrection of the body. Burial in the Catacombs was given up about 410, the year of the storming of Rome by Alaric the Visigoth, when the geese of Juno failed to warn the city. ' A common sentiment on Roman monuments is the passage from Tacitus : Terra tibi levis sit ! "Let earth lie light above thee !" Pope, in his epigram on Vanbrugh, the architect of Marlborough Mansion, gives a sharp turn to the thought : EPITAPHS AND BURIALS XI Lie heavy on him earth, for he Laid many a heavy load on thee. Lucian satirized the tomb of King Mausolus of Caria, erected 352 B. C., as a crushing weight of stones to lay upon a man. Some few broken remnants of this, the original mausoleum, one of the wonders of the world, are preserved in the British Museum. As described by Pliny and Martial, it was built, based like a pyramid, extending broad and deep underground, but of marbles so bright that above it seemed to hang in the air. In addition to their common oracles, the Romans had places where the dead were called up to hold communion with the living; this very much in the faked fashion of our day. We are told that the ancient Etruscans [whose rule as a people lasted about twelve centuries preceding the Romans], in order to bring themselves nearer to the dead and to com- municate with their spirits, would come to the sepulchres at nightfall and sometimes sleep beside the urns of their friends, wives and children, brothers and lovers, and receive visions from their souls that always hovered around. More than three thousand mortuary inscriptions have been found in the Etruscan tombs, in central and southern Italy, Perugia, a capital city. They now contain little but names. English epitaphs have been written largely in vernacular verse and Latin prose. At one period jocular men of letters came together with their pockets crammed with epitaphs, which they read for amusement. The company of wits, to which Goldsmith belonged, took a fancy to write playful epitaphs upon him as "the late Dr. Goldsmith." This was written by Garrick : Here lies poet Goldsmith : for shortness, called Noll ; Who wrote like an angel, but talked like poor Poll. Xll PREFATORY ESSAY Goldsmith retaliated : Here lies David Garrick, describe him who can; An abridgment of all that was pleasant in man; As an actor, confessed without rival to shine ; As a wit, if not first, in the very first line. Doctor Johnson made a review of Pope's epitaphs, as did also the poet Wordsworth, who spoke sharply of them. The lofti- est writers from Spenser to Pope thought it no condescension to pen an epitaph. Milton made one on Hobson, the Cam- bridge carrier to London, the original of 'Hobson's choice.' Mary, Queen of Scots, amused herself in writing them. Ben Jonson wrote these lines on Mary, the sister of Sir Philip Sidney: Underneath this sable hearse Lies the subject of all verse: Sidney's sister, Pembroke's mother. Death, ere thou hast slain another, Learned and fair and good as she, Time shall throw a dart at thee. 'Rare Ben' made tender little epitaphs on children. The following upon a child is by Robert Herrick : Here she lies, a pretty bud Lately made of flesh and blood ; Who as soone fell fast asleep As her little eyes did peep. Give her strewings but not stir The earth that lightly covers her. In early days, inscriptions were prohibited save to those high in rank and honor. Few, of any kind, are known before the eleventh century; these are chiefly of kings, EPITAPHS AND BURIALS xiii princes and prelates of the church, and are in the Latin tongue. French epitaphs appear in England belonging to the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. A very singular one of twenty-eight lines, old French, on Edward the Black Prince, is found in Canterbury Cathedral. Edward died in 1376. Verses were sometimes inscribed in golden letters, as at Rouen over Richard Coeur de Lion. The style of actual inscriptions, often playful and peculiar, became after a time degraded and vulgarized. Indeed, like the graffiti, or scribblings, seen on old Roman and Pompeiian walls to-day, such inscriptions do not belong to lawful litera- ture. Various collections of them are recommended as curious, quaint and amusing and are put forward as "light writings on grave subjects." At Saint Paul's, London, "obiit 1633 Reverend John Donne." The day after his burial, these lines were found, written with a coal on the wall above his grave : they are believed to be by Isaac Walton: Reader, I am to let thee know Donne's body only lies below ; For, could the grave his soul comprise, Earth would be richer than the skies. Oxford scholars of the last century doted on epitaphs like this on an infant from Eglingham churchyard : When the archangel's trump doth blow And souls to bodies join, Thousands will wish their life below Had been as brief as mine. Fuller, in his "Worthies," does not disdain the subject, as in the lines on a 'painful' preacher, one Ward of Haverhill : XIV PREFATORY ESSAY Grant some of knowledge, greater store, More learned some in teaching ; Yet few in life did lighten more, None thundered more in preaching. Fuller's epitaph upon himself was "Here lies Fuller's earth." Now and then a choice humor, quaintly put, seems half pardonable, and at this distance of time and space we shall half forgive this sly turn from Ashburton Church, England, 1779, on Elizabeth Ireland : Here I lie at the chancel door; Here I lie, because I'm poor. The farther in, the more you pay; Here lie I as warm as they. At Edinburgh this is found : Remember man, as thou goes* by, As thou art now, so once was I ; As I am now so shalt thou be : Remember man that thou must die. Such sentiment, always tersely expressed, is common to the catacombs and ossuaries of Europe and is of great antiquity. Scaliger, who in a sleepless fit of the gout could make two hundred verses in a night, would have but five plain words upon his tomb. Acute writers have treated sepulchres and memorials. Sir Thomas Brown in "Urn Burial'' declares "that grave stones tell truth scarce forty years; generations pass while some trees stand and old families last not three oaks." Sir Thomas sets out in quaint terms his truly erudite and hermit studies. * Northern dialect. EPITAPHS AND BURIALS XV Erasmus makes a merry colloquy on "The Funeral" and again on "The Scholastick Funeral," in which solemn topics are drolled upon in his peculiar humor. Alcidamus left a treatise in praise of death, enumerating the evils of life. Cicero calls it, not philosophical, but eloquent in diction. Cicero, to console himself for the loss of his daughter Tullia who died in giving birth to a son Lentulus, wrote a book, called "The Consolatio," which is lost. Goethe wrote in caricature "The Skeleton's Dance." Dryden represents the dead at the resurrection as "fumbling for their bones." Coleridge composed his own epitaph in four maundering lines. The poet Horace declares that "the Gauls never feared funerals." The Druids believed death was but the middle of a long life. Bishop Taylor, with droll humor, writes in "Holy Dying:" "Take away but the pomps of death, the disguises and solemn bugbears and the actings by candlelight and proper and phantastick ceremonies ; the minstrels and the noisemakers, the women and the weepers, the nurses and the physicians, the dark room and the ministers, the kindred and the watchers, and then to die is easy and quitted from its troublesome circumstances. It is the same harmless thing that a poor shepherd suffered yesterday or a maid-servant to-day." When Edmund Spenser, the poet-laureate, was buried in Westminster Abbey near Chaucer, mournful elegies and poems with the pens that wrote them were thrown into the grave. These by Shakespeare, Ben Jonson and mighty Marlowe. The days of Shakespeare are termed "the epitaph-making period." The present monument to Chaucer was erected over one hundred and fifty years after his decease. The only memorial to him. for many years was a leaden plate, hanging nearby on a pillar with an epitaph made by a poet-laureate. There lie the cross-legged effigies of the Crusaders, in attitude, upturned and appealing. Many of the Abbey monuments XVI PREFATORY ESSAY now appear indecorous and rude. Canon Farrar is frank in condemnation of the "kicking gracefulness" of certain statues and sighs over "the lumpy monuments, the hideous and vulgar tombs." Hundreds of epitaphs are found in the Abbey; some of these are called 'heathenish' and even 'bloodthirsty', some are designed 'to puzzle posterity.' Mr. Loftie also speaks of 'odious little busts' as of Grote, Longfellow, and Macaulay, and 'the funny little white busts' as of Kingsley and Maurice. He refers to a so-called 'pancake monument' and finds others 'ugly and vulgar.' Mr. J. Gwin in 1749 declared in substance that some of the statuesque representa- tions were no more suitable than the lions of Van Amburgh would be, if placed there in marble. Dr. Wiseman, writing of Saint Paul's Cathedral, London, marks the incongruity of drum, trumpet, boarding-pike and cannon, displayed there. These grim tokens of Death's weapons, having passed from armories to cathedrals, have come into rural cemeteries, where sometimes cannon are set up, those engines of war being curiously turned in times of peace into emblems of consolation. This too, however drama- tic, has more of the nature of crude irony and jest. Tomb- stones of the eighteenth century even now appear grotesque with hour-glass, scythe, cherubs' heads, vertebrae, skull and bones, sculptured upon them. When Sir Christopher Wren directed the building of the present Saint Paul's Cathedral there were seen under the graves of the later times the burial- places of the Saxon days; the graves lined with chalkstones. Below these were British graves where were found ivory and wooden pins that had fastened the stout woolen wraps in which their simple conveyances were made. In the same row and at the depth of eighteen feet were Roman urns inter- mixed. These were of the times when British and Romans lived and died together, EPITAPHS AND BURIALS XV11 Celtic, Roman and Saxon remains have been unearthed, much intermingled within the same mounds. Pepin the short, the father of Charlemagne, was buried face downward (A. D. 768.) Hugh Capet, the ancestor of all the throned Kings of France, was, in like manner, put to rest under the spout of Saint Denis' Cathedral, so that his sins might be washed out by the falling rains (A. D. 996). This face-down fashion was termed adens burial: (ad dentes, upon the teeth). The practice of burying the head and other parts separate from the body is traced to the Egyptians, whose sepulchres chiseled into the mountain rock along the Nile, are among the most impressive memorials of antiquity. Indeed, the sepulchral valley of the Nile has been termed, "a long funeral path." In Egypt, layers of papyrus pasted together inclosed the body for ordinary interment. It was a fancy of the Scandinavians that the soul remained conscious in the tomb : Now children, lay us in two lofty graves Down by the sea-shore, near the deep blue waves ; Their sounds shall, to our souls, be music sweet, Singing our dirge as on the strand they beat ; When, round the hills the pale moonlight is thrown And midnight dews fall on the Bauta stone, We'll sit, O Thorsten, in our rounded graves, And speak together o'er the gentle waves. The passing bell to announce the dying can be retraced to Anglo-Saxon days. It was tolled in churches as early as 640 : its first use being to drive away evil spirits, then to spread the tidings that a soul was about passing away. The custom was common in the fifteenth century of keeping the obit or anniversary of a person's decease, noticed with prayers and alms or other observance. Funds were devoted in wills 1* XV111 PREFATORY ESSAY for this purpose. Four obits a year were kept for William Wykeham, Bishop of Winchester : whose eyes in life, we are told, always filled with tears when he sang the Requiem for the dead. The last ceremonies of the common people, as was custom- ary also among the Romans, took place by torchlight at night. The lych gate served for a short stay and lych stones likewise provided rests on the way to the burial. The English planted the long lived yew and the stately cypress in their sacred grounds, as at Canterbury and Stoke Pogis. Of the yew, Tom Hood speaks thus tenderly : How wide the yew tree spreads its solemn gloom And o'er the dead, lets fall its dew ; As if in tears, it wept for them. The many human families that sleep around its stem. Data of American memorials are now collected. This by the Rev. Mr. Woodbridge on the Reverend and 'much desired' minister John Cotton, deceased 1652, is one of the best examples of the old style : A living, breathing bible, tables where Both covenants at large engraven were. Gospel and law in heart had each its column; His head, an index to the sacred volume. His very name, a title page; and next His life, a commentary on the text. Oh! what a monument of glorious worth When, in a new edition, he comes forth Without errata : we may think he'll be In leaves and covers of eternity. Mrs. Earle, in a chapter on "Burial Customs in old New England," describes the gruesome ways of Colonial times when laudatory lines and verses were fastened to the bier and EPITAPHS AND BURIALS XIX the funeral elegy was in vogue. At burials the bell was tolled four strokes to the minute : two sets of bearers were usual : addresses were common at the grave and funeral feasts followed. The magistrate walked with the mourning widow : rings and gloves were given out and finally tombstones were fetched over seas from the old flinty mother country to rock- bound New England. A legend of Brittany, to which allusion is elsewhere made, tells of an imaginary town called Is, that was swallowed up by the sea at some time unknown. The tips of its towers and spires appear in the troughs of the ocean when the waves sink low, and when the tides are spent the sound of tolling bells is fancied or faintly heard above the quiet waters. We too have a scarce fanciful past of vanished village world with its peculiar phases and peoples that have fallen beneath Time's flood. Guilford Green itself illustrates this rise and fall of com- munity life, where "Hidden from all mortal eyes Deep the sunken city lies." Burials on Guilford Green were discontinued in 1818. These covered the central lower part, full from east to west over about one third of the entire Common. Owing to the low grade or tight texture of the land, water would some- times rise in new-made graves. Close along the roadway running across on a diagonal west and east, the stubbed stones dark brown rose up and inclined like mourners upon each side. These "pious marbles," native sandstones, were removed, some to the new grounds, a few were put for stepping-stones in dooryards, while still fewer broken ones strayed into stone walls. It is estimated* from records dating from 1646 that near fifteen hundred former inhabitants are there sepulchred. The * Not verified. XX PREFATORY ESSAY approximate location of family lots, if now lost, is to some extent traditional in families. The burial-place of the Revd. Joseph Eliot for example, once marked by a tall wooden monu- ment, is referred to the high ground on the Common before the town house. Our village community, unable to find a single place of burial convenient to all, then (1818) opened two, Alderbrook and Westside. The memorials in the present volume, none of them actual inscriptions, relate, with a few exceptions, to these two cemeteries. Exceptions refer chiefly to Nut Plains, Moose Hill and Leete Island. Among those memorialized are some fifty officers of State and Church, including representatives, justices, judges, lawyers, clergymen, wardens, deacons, doctors, authors, teachers, colonels and captains of our citizen soldiery. Of the whole number, some twelve lived nearly a full century; one only, Mistress Elsie Reeve Chittenden, entered upon her second century. Through the kindness of friends I present a limited number of excellent portraits that best illustrate the quite remarkable company which they represent. Few distinct epitaphs are found in our two main cemeteries and none appear footworn as in church pavements abroad ; but in our northern village, quaint verses of old-time manner are known, combining the plaint and the pathos of consolation. While studying the ancient regime in France, Taine writes of those, whose memorials he was reviewing, "more than once at the Archives in tracing their handwriting on the yellow paper, I was tempted to speak to them aloud !" In raising this reminder of a few of the dwelling dead, who repose in our midst, the reverence of my youth for their hoary heads has returned to me and I have held with them a communion in which they have seemed to bear responsive parts, so real has their presence been. EPITAPHS AND BURIALS XXI To these portrayals, I may apply what the wigmaker of Paris said of his wigs as he gave out a sample of his art with a humble sense of its imperfections: "Your wig is made, sir, but not finished" ; then regarding it critically and giving a twirl, " it is finished but is not complete'' ; finally bestowing a last shaping turn," it is complete but not perfect," — and yielded it up with an honest sigh. Such a work as this at best can only be superficial and fragmentary, a portfolio of faded recollections, a book of "lamentations and compleynts." I offer it not without regrets as a faulty but faithful effort in an unusual direction to recover some tokens of the past, and in a few instances to bring again before us in outline the forms and the characters of those who for a period may live again as among the living and then have none to remember them. H. P. R. Westside, Guilford, Conn., September 20, 1906. XX11 INTRODUCTORY ELEGY WORD INDEX : Part I. Life compassed full: Endowed with longings: Keep hope alive : Pain the sentry : Learned anxieties : Personified fear : This fancy feint : Life's brittle thread : Wisdom's warning : Egyptians to their feasts : Amid the banquet cheer : Roman conquerors : Gladiators saluted : Christians upborne : An endless trance : The view-point : All things diverse : The hazard hour : Germain's tolled tocsin : The idlest motive : Lives to give away : Plato's republic : Stradella : Through aisles and arches : An anthem from the skies : The raging wind : Philosophers : Vestals : Stoics. THE JOURNEY'S END INTRODUCTORY ELEGY: PART I. The Journey's End: I. Life opens compassed full, equipped complete, As on some pilgrimage with vagrant feet, Whose winding way unknown seems not to end, But still to some hid. further point intend; Till, from the feigned and fruitless, weary quest, It hastens speeding into wakeless rest. Thus spake in imagery the Saxon Thane; Life enters like a bird from storm and rain, In lighted hall, winged messenger of peace, It broods awhile until it seeks release; Then into darkness forth it flies some day And fleeting past, life chases life away. Endowed with longings in this hazard state, Engirt by Fortune's and. misfortune's fate, With tiresome toil and happy hunger blest, In search of that too certain sequel, rest; From darkness ceaseless turning into light Within alternate, rounding day and night, Some destined doom, unfolding with surprise, Take heed, beware, defend, resounding cries; Needy, naught knowing, helpless and forlorn, A cradled care, a wailing waif, but born, So launched reluctant, upon earth and air, We have, despite ourself, our life affair. What fortune here, in innocence of harm, To come in peace and go without alarm ! To keep courageous cheer, unawed by fears, And hope alive through the enshrouding years! INTRODUCTORY ELEGY Is pain the only sentry to defend And is there clear foreknowing of the end? We early view with cold and careless gaze All sad phenomena without amaze. The thoughtful reason, slow perceiving, grows Into the mortal meaning sorrow knows. Alas ! but then, too conscious of the end, So much our learned anxieties portend. Concerning it, we chiefly have our views From the dark days of the unhappy Jews ; Who more observed life's finish than its start And studied anxious how they should depart Across that tide of time, whose far extension Alarmed so sore their frightened apprehension. Man's early thought personified his fears, Deemed death an enemy who stole his years And turned him vacant to his voyage adrift. This fancy feint takes many an artful shift In human heart and gives a fund of lore, Too copious quite for research to explore ; Yet throws illusion on the ways of speech And makes a language rather over-reach, When words put meaning into empty naught Of phantom shapes and forms by fancy wrought. Thus Mors was genius of the Roman dead, Fate came to Greek to cut life's brittle thread, With Thanatos, the son of Night and Sleep, Death's brother-twin who closes eyes that weep. When should mere mortals take their woful share Of news that wants firm fortitude to bear? Life's essence, strong in minds so slowly dawning, They scarce would ponder it as wisdom's warning. Yet wise is wholesome fear and just alarm THE JOURNEY'S END 3 To make one shield the life from hostile harm. Cool care may kindly keep one out of danger, On guard against some quite too roguish ranger. Egyptians, to their feasts, invited Death, Who came, in gaunt array and out of breath, And grimly gazed amid the banquet cheer To warrant them, they were but pilgrims here. When Roman conquerors made triumphs grand, The slave stood by, enjoined with this command; To whisper, "Thou art mortal," to the ear And quell the too proud triumph with the fear. When Gauls besieging climbed her hilly dome, The geese of Juno, cackling, once saved Rome. But still the hour, most fit to deal with Death, Is when he comes to take away the breath ; Then, checked by his so rare unused attention, We quite forget all apt diverting mention And rused remark that any other day, We might retort; for then we must away. Goethe's mother, when conscious she was dying, Sent brave regrets to a party, relying On her presence; he, finding Death's valley Dark, called for light to radiate the way. Heine, prone on mattress-grave, lived for years And entertained 'the Terror' without fears. One,* of another, heard 'the passing bell,' Ran, met Death and gave dying life a spell. Gladiators grim by full applause upheld, Saluted all, then one another felled. Death, to the Romans, almost ere they knew, A wearisome pastime and pleasure grew. * A clergyman ran to see the passing away of a friend, who recovered and outlived him. INTRODUCTORY ELEGY Early Christians were rended, mangled, torn, Still by their passionate fierce faith upborne. Such fancied terrors oft have followed death, The bravest spirit feared to lose his breath ; Who neither dared to stay, nor willed to go, Here was the real and there the fancied foe. II. One turns reluctant to an endless trance, When quite resolved to risk a life's romance; When called untimely at some busy hour, While flushed with all the exercise of power. One, ardent plans anew some enterprise And knows of naught to harm him anywise; But prospects planned and invitations, all, The swift eventful hour may rude recall. Now youth, in blushing beauty light and gay, Is seized, disarmed of charms and forced away : Now high endowment, disciplined and trained With years of toil, but Fate has not refrained. Grief, ever and anon, entwined with life. So mixed with pleasure pure and sweetest strife, Gives miserere o'er its last hushed hour All thought profound of mournful, moving power. And still the view-point, proper, just and fair, Seems when at end of life and with our share Of all that comes by kind or unkind fate, We best sum up and not anticipate. All things diverse it brings : to these, release From suffering, it gives the end in peace ; To those, it bears an anguish of regret To leave scenes where they have warm welcome met; THE JOURNEY'S END Where the brightness and the gayety of earth Have mingled with their portion joy and mirth. They who fall ripe and ready to the ground Crowns, garlands, honors earned and rest have found. When vital forces, unrelieved are spent And low in last bewailing weakness bent; When full outworn and ripened to decay, Life then resigns with ease and least dismay; When ears, to hearing stopped, are sealed almost, And eyes are shut to sight and thin as ghost, A prisoner, within his own stronghold, The end may come as grateful to the old; Ease throbbing sense, ennui and cooling vein, The palsied plight, ear-trumpet and the cane. We know the incoherent, hazard hour, When quietly the life gives up its dower; In murmurs low, as in our tranquil dreams, The soul departs and sense no longer gleams. One day we ran to see the dying die; We rather died who raised the mourner's cry, When viewing vanished life's relentless sleep, We turned aside in grief alone to weep. But dread attendants, both in war and peace, Seek earth to give to mortals this release. Yet spare recital of these ways and means That innocence itself so rarely screens: As when the cruel 'blow of mercy' fell In tortures too inhuman, full to tell ; As when barred Newgate's victims met their doom Saint Sepulchre sent forth its ringing boom. As when Germain's tolled tocsin sounded dread, From all the towers of Paris, overhead, INTRODUCTORY ELEGY Strokes quickened rang mad chiming of the hour, That signaled Catherine's crazed wilful power. In all the royal race that madly ran, She, the crudest furied form of man. Such terror to fair France then came to view To blast the dawn of Saint Bartholomew ;* When myriad torches there drove back the day And threw o'er darkest deed their lurid ray. Death beat the drum and led the cavalcade To the far darkened realms of deepest shade. Such service staunch, to rid the earth of man, His ill pent passions offer as they can. The idlest motive thought and impulse here, Quite oft with fateful life will interfere. In fatal seasons, gossamer gives warning With some veiled vanity of dared adorning. The belle beloved, more careful of her pride, Too soon along the way there prone will ride. The charms of life, a thousand passions master. They love speed more, who rush into disaster. Blind habit, use and wont, in endless ways, Drive heedless mortals to their farewell days. He, strong and stalwart in his manhood's pride, Through fire and smoke, to daring Death will ride ; In desperation, plays the martyr's role, Pleases the mob nor gains of fire control. And where more noble thoughts and feelings thrive, There too, life's boat upon the rocks may drive. Patriots, stirred by love of country's sway, Have wished like Hale for lives to give away ; Reckless, when noble motives move the mind. The life may end yet honor all mankind. * August 24, 1572. THE JOURNEY'S END 7 III. Magic marvels of music have been told From modern to more ancient days of old. The cordial charm of chanting to the ear Conceals the dismal dirge, so fraught with fear. So pure its pathos, in dark sorrow's hour, Plato's Republic* feared this pulsing power. So much of dread of sounding bell, partook, One of the Rheim's Cathedral pillars shook. In many a toned, cacophanous dull round, Poor mortals have found Hegel's hell of sound. Hunted from town to town and followed long, Stradella saved, then lost his life with song, His soulful music soothed the savage breast Till two more savage ruffians did the rest. The meLody, tuneful, true and tender rang, When Mozart dying his own requiem sang : Then borne through snow and hail, his body thrown Careless, to be forgot and left unknown. To lull the waters' rage, his poems ring, When gondoliers of Venice Tasso sing, Till far and near the echoes proud proclaim The modern magic of an early name. An organ sent its solemn passion, pealing Through aisles and arches no source revealing, And mighty minster's viewless waves impelling, Impulsive surging and full boundless swelling Spoke things scarce utterable to the ear, In deeper thoughts than would in words appear. A wanderer entered, to this 'storm of sound,' * Plato's "Republic" would not forbid music, as is said, but restrain it. In his later work, "The Laws," its study for three years was compulsory. INTRODUCTORY ELEGY Then stood in rapture tranced, in sweet spell, bound. Her thought, to that unknown expanse she gave, Till borne beneath its deep full troubled wave, Her soul expired upon the thrilling air And left sweet life itself, a forfeit there. What strange, mysterious, weird, unworded thing Could, unto living soul, such rapture bring? And when, from lofty mountains, voices born Of wanton winds, rush down to greet the morn And drowsy mortals wake with glad surprise, To listen to an anthem from the skies, Then quick, their wonderment to terror turns, When swift the raging wind with anger burns And, sweeping madly forth without restraint, Brings desolation, waste and wailed complaint. Philosophers commend with sanest thought, With all due care, and cordial courage fraught, To journey on life's short or longer way, The hour's discourse, sufficient for the day; To find in each brief moment, as it flies, The full advantage that an age supplies; Nor see, as in half covert darkness dread, The goblin terrors of a griffin's head. To hopeful effort turns fair wisdom's trend, Nor fearsome with affright forbodes the end. Thrasea,* when he grew too good to live, Showed what fortitude character could give To life's last hours ; the vestals' living tombs. Rarest, saddest and dreadest of all dooms ; For vestals, veiled and down the ladder driven, On service scant, then starved alone, unshriven. * Stoic philosopher, deceased A.D. 66. THE JOURNEY'S END When Pherecydes* W 3 WESTSIDE 197 REVEREND ALVAH BRADLEY GOLDSMITH. December 2, 1792 — June 12, 1863. Precise we see him, as precise he wore His daily dignity and careful before Him picked his way along ; but all the while He sought another path with wary guile. Such thought was much the fashion of the day; Folk grounded here planned how to get away. Bookish, he learn-ed letters, bought and sold ; And in the freedom of his thought, he told The positive conclusion he had found In unbelief; but quick it turned unsound. He would not, with the truth, be left alone. So finding few in the unbelievers' zone, He turned him to the faithful for repair, Yet still continued unbeliever there. So bent and bound to shift his veering views, As often as he learned some later news. He led a few, as warm surrendered souls, Away to their own chosen goodly goals. And, in a kind of "Oxford movement" rare, This legion, to the school-house, did repair; Taking for doctrine, not intending theft, Portions of what the Oxford men had left. The butt'nut suit, he wore, his cool repose, Fur hat and spectacles that bridged his nose, The simple virtue that becalmed his humor And made him far too shrewd to credit rumor, We saw to days of usefulness increase, For he was later, justice of the peace. I98 MEMORIAL EPITAPHS MRS. MARY CRUTTENDEN GOLDSMITH. December 22, 1790 — February 4, 1861. - She stands in vista of the past to view, A dim and flitting figure, known to few ; But busy housewives know what she's about, As round the house she bustles in and out. And little recks of Alvah's devious ways ; When slowly he emerges from some haze Of clouded thought to say at table grace, She shows, serene before the Father's face, The humble eye, the awed and stilled suspense, That full betoken her deep reverence. She runs to see the jockey gypsies pass And trembles at the bolt that shakes the glass ; Enlivens with a draught the thirsty flower And civil with a neighbor, chats an hour, Then feeds her hungry household ; such was life, A calling to this faithful, willing wife. Her full compacted form and gentle gaze Are warrants of well spent, devoted days. With hope and cheer and spicy humor blest, These make her many merits manifest. JUDGE NATHANIEL GRIFFING. January 26, 1767 — September 17, 1845. He lies with all his honor in this bed, Who long life, strenuous and useful, led; So welding common suffrage in himself That he was never laid upon the shelf. At home, alas ! scarce suffered to reside, Sent off so constant to the council side. Of large and liberal mind, he was trained To all our civil functions and ordained. o I— I fa fa ps o o ffl Pi < PS o fc i— i fa fa HH PS u w I— I "A < H < fa C Q D •-> WESTSIDE 199 His call, unanimous did Nature give And he, a son of Yale, for all did live In higher ministry of the civil state, Whereunto all these other things relate; As home, school, church that are protected safe, But under taxes and some strictures, chafe. He studied how commercially to thrive And soon to large possessions did arrive To-day they tell, when the Esquire drove round, The children near all courtesied to the ground. About his two-caped cloak, they love to twine The fonder memories of auld lang syne. MRS. SARAH BROWN GRIFFING. June 3, 1767— June i, 1865. Beside the hearth with her, we silent sat In reverent mood and listened to her chat. The voice seemed plaintive, in its mellow tone, As clear sustained and full, she talked alone. The capped head, moving to enforce the word, We listened while the rocker barely stirred. Scarce wrinkle had then graved the matron's face, The collar broad gave full its gentle grace. Upon the brow, the nut-brown parted hair Held its own color, fadeless full and fair : The temper calm and well composed the mind And if the eyes, with sightless sense, were blind, The thought so clear, and sensible and kind, Made her far-seeing and not strictly blind. True fairer picture of the Pilgrim mother, We should not find here in any other. When finally, she stirred our parting tears, She lacked but two of full one hundred years. May love and reverence shield her hidden dust That should remain, a known and sacred trust. 200 MEMORIAL EPITAPHS FREDERICK REDFIELD GRIFFING.* November 5, 1798 — October 13, 1852. He laid his hand on large affairs indeed, And builded up the ways that quicken speed, To foster full exchange, from mart to mart, To make the world all center at one heart. He sent forth ships upon the trading wind, That blows soft gales to shores of Western Ind. ; Then sacked the coal-black bowels of the earth, Made Gotham shine by night to show his worth. Who could, sagacious, lofty labors plan And among leaders walk a leading man ; Who knew to counsel youth and wisdom give, The while, must acclimate himself to live: Who still remained affectionate to please And sought to put his neighbors at their ease. Upon the Sabbath day, the parson knew He would be punctual to the corner pew. Decades have passed, yet well his memory lives In his own deeds and fond affection gives Warm welcome to his name ; while still survive The fruitful seeds he planted when alive. AUGUSTUS PRATT HALL. June ii, 1822 — February 24, 1889. He lived his life just, open and sincere And long and well will be remembered here ; Impulsive sure, outspoken in his speech, But fair and frank to all within his reach. He helped preserve that busy elder day, * A builder of the Shore Line, New Haven to New London, and parts of other early Eastern and Western railroads. An associate of John I. Blair of New Jersey. WESTSIDE 201 When Guilford fashioned shoes and sent away. Whatever rugged brambled paths, we trod, He strove to keep us always stoutly shod. Of large and varied gifts, this family For vocal hymn, for tuneful psalm and glee: With flutes and viols, Sabbath song, they raised When here, with harmony, the Lord was praised. And when the village rung with tuneful art, To beat the reveille was long his part; More thorough make the bass and mark the time And give the theme and note, emphatic chime. As deep, in Alpine dell, the drummer, lost His dying strokes did soldiers' ears accost, So still, these notes their echoed sounds prolong That here were beat before our village throng. SHERMAN BRADLEY HALL. October 29, 1842 — July 3, 1897. An eager-eyed, fair, sanguine-tempered youth With dark and raven hair and gentle sooth. He had a quick, divining eye for numbers And while his mate, on an example, slumbers, Sherman has solved his puzzle like a book. Such once, were early notes of him we took. For mutual upbuilding then soon he sought The city and commercial, sold and bought. He prospered, in a word, and lived his life, Immersed in mercantile and honest strife, Then grew in form more handsome and robust, A certain manly grace, display, he must. With stores of sense, bright, active and awake. He clearly saw and crisp his comments spake. Then well it pleased and could but charm the neighbors To see fond Sherman, from his busy labors 202 MEMORIAL EPITAPHS Take time and spend it at the mother's side, Till each was justly termed the other's pride. Then time with wafting wings flew on, and he Sailed forth alone, upon the unknown sea! MISS HARRIET ELIZABETH HALL. March i, 1810 — March 15, 1881. She rises, well enfolded, full and fair, As comely, tall and womanly in air; With Roman nose and far perceiving eye And salutation sure in passing by. So resolute and willful, on occasion, She wears the look of humorous evasion And arch disinclination to collide With others, as willful and full of pride. Her sphere for decades was the sacred choir, When drawing curtains clicked along the wire. The viol loud blew in the bass ; the flute Its tenor threw ; then she, no longer mute, Poured forth her soul in praise and led the host That worshipped where they felt the spirit most. And now her counter tone runs, high and clear, And chases fast the fleeting fugue so near. Then those sonorous notes, so pure, so brave, That we had learned to listen for and crave, No longer tuned, from harmony released, This sweet-toned spirit, pure of song, deceased. ALFRED HINCKLEY. November 24, 1821 — April 18, 1900. His life was silent, cloistered, hid from view. His function was to clothe a man anew, To fashion form and give some fitting grace, WESTSIDE 203 That should reflect its comfort in the face. His face was mobile, where his features played, Smiled or looked troubled, anxious and dismayed If the garment, promised one in November, Was not quite fit by Christmas in December. Himself was stalwart, tall and brawny made; There sometimes, in the soil, he pushed the spade And eased the earth and trained the vaulting vine, The orchard reared and changed the grape to wine. To humor and amuse, he turned to art And with sweet harmony he played his part. And then, full martial as the grenadier, He marched and countermarched, in quickstep here. Conscience, he had in super-eminent degree And was the very pattern of sincerity; Those, fashioned, cut and tailored to his plan, All had a larger liking for the man. WILLIAM HENRY HUBBARD. May 17, 1841 — September 16, 1863. He was our daily school and running mate. We dreamed of present, past and future state And sent our vain, beloved selves to glory, When up rose war and quickly changed the story. He went to glory last, but first to war; Love of country and courage were his law. And when away to war he proudly went, He took the valor for a regiment; At least, as much as any man, who gave Himself to prospects of a soldier's grave. He chose and turned him strong, stern and severe Away from caring for these acres here, Away from happy school-boy life and play, 204 MEMORIAL EPITAPHS In early manhood's brightest, dearest day ; Aglow with fire, but peaceful as the dawn Athletic, daring, brave, with breasted brawn, And fleet of foot to chase our ball away Upon the Green, our centre guard in play ; War's fever laid him waste on Southern soil And took him from his hearty life and toil. DANIEL HAND.* July 16, 1801 — December 17, 1891. Recalling all the mighty, whom we can, None had more of the majesty of man. Electric, tense and tall, he stood erect Compactly formed, upright and circumspect. His might and personality were strong. To him too, charms and graces did belong; A manner frank, engaging and polite, Confident, animated, earnest quite. Responding now with arch, appealing glance, He holds the willing listener in a trance. With many likings, some dislikes he had. His energies were, of a tangent, glad To run and vent themselves ; so strong, his will He could, at leisure, but be active still ; Would obstacles deride and Fate defy, All means employ, but on himself, rely. He loved the world, but would not pay it court, Nor e'er with fairy pleasure quite disport. * Burial in Hammonassett cemetery. His bequest for the education of freedmen was one million of dollars. DANIEL HAND. WESTSIDE 205 In long decline of years, he viewed us o'er, Coursing the winding ways, as oft before; Across the lawns, now glancing at the fields, Admires the toil and what the harvest yields. His ken was large and statesmanlike his view. From southern lands, where first his fortune grew, Fortune with honor full, he saw returned ; Then gave for freedmen what his honor earned. In pure philanthropy, he holds high place As friend and factor of that lowly race. AMOS SAMUEL HOTCHKISS. September 9, 1810 — June 26, 1893. Beneath the shrouding soil, he loved and spaded, And set these spreading elms his form have shaded He sleeps ; around him prone, I silent pace And think how kindly beamed his hidden face. How oft the light that from his window shone, Allured me in to chat with him alone ! The gray, worn visage, the hawked Roman nose And all the features, rugged in repose, With pleasure gleamed, while far into the past, All our eager, studious thought was cast. Now as I come alone and pensive walk, 'Uncle Amos' seems as of old to talk About the prophets and the ancient Jew ; Isaiah and King David, whom he knew ; Isaac, Jacob and others of the race He reverenced ; he spoke with grudging grace Almost, of his own early days; his life Made strenuous with barter, toil and strife. 206 MEMORIAL EPITAPHS He dwelt beside the out and inning tides, Where rising waters meet when storm presides ; He battled for his bread there, day by day, Plucked fom earth, air and water and salt hay. Through all his battled life, he comfort took And "cordial" in its day; nor faith forsook. His table, lecturn-like the Bible held. He, of the now, in past and future dwelled ; Amos loved every line of sacred lore And we loved Amos till he was no more. JOHN HOTCHKISS. March 9, 1791 — April 19, 1873. Upon the forest verge, where shadows dwell, And leaves of vines of purple vintage tell, Where arbutus first prinks May's beauty out And laurel brightens June, he lived devout, And plenty plucked from stern and flinty soil, Reward of prickly smart and timely toil. A man to muse and love the tranquil day Nor lose his head by leaving out his hay. The form was never bent, the hair grew white And threw a happy halo round his height. When peals of Sabbath bells rung out, he rose And dignified his outward mien and chose The way to church ; with cane, high hat, erect He passed slow onward, thoughtful, circumspect. Then stirred by choral lay, inspired by priest, He homeward turned with happy hope increased. There youth made revelry and oft by night, Dance, song and voice in minstrelsy unite. What wanted more? in daughters three and son He saw descending, how his race would run. > o X o H O SB C/2 o W o H O X in WESTSIDE 207 ROBERT HUNT. July 24, 1795— April 4, 1870. Where gentle breezes flush the summer glow, He settled in our town, a model mile below The village, valed and bluffed around with hills. There, came strange flying folk looking for thrills From ocean's dashing spray that cools the wave Of air, too timely hot, the solstice gave. Here Tritons blow to raise or hush the storm, Sweet sirens peaceful come, in luring form ; Gulls lightly soar above, then ride the waves, When seas are tranquil over seamen's graves. Friends walk and talk by moon or Falcon light And drink the outdoor raptures of the night, Then read and cooler fan the air; at eve The breeze fans them till ready to receive Old friends and new fair fresh delights, rehearse Poem or parlor-song and hours converse. Such pleasures held the host and here divers Many shared his sweet retreat and thrivers In busy marts, rested their worn out reason And loved this host of the sweet summer season. Then old he grew and for himself sought rest And wished release from heavy care's behest And canvassing to find, where all friends meet, He came to Riverside for last retreat. Old guests from far with slow, reluctant feet Gathered in sacred house, where Christians meet; Their dirges sang, their words of sorrow read, Then down the aisle bore him with muffled tread. 2o8 MEMORIAL EPITAPHS SAMUEL JOHNSON, JR. March io, 1757 — June 20, 1836. A ripe old man with shoulders round and eyes That peering, pierce and hidden stars surprise. A teacher and yet lover of our rising race, We cannot slight him here with any grace. Indeed, he is recalled by not a few To whom he had imparted all they knew, Or would have, had Fortune to him brought them. And in other ways this teacher taught them ; A lexicon, for instance, once he made This rare remembered present passing shade. He reared and disciplined into their letters, That generation past, so much our betters, Our very sires ; and watched their scanty speech And taught them, not the words, to overreach. He ruled and copy wrote and 'corder' used,* Then fulled the cloth no gentleman refused. To mill he strides in cloak and double cape ; All this, his life and form, to toil must shape. But now, his lexicon is rare as he. Sail Stanton's, kept at Yale, is sad to see ; The cover boards have lost their paste through fraud, For Sally was a bookworm, there she gnawed. He stocked the town with Eden's apples fair, The Bristol and the Pippin, pledged to bear. Those lustrous eyes, that form remembered yet, Prove him a man, not easy to forget. These choice Colonials in Johnson meet, Eaton, Theophilus and Jones and Leete. * To measure wood — four stakes, set up. MAJOR S. C. JOHNSON. WESTSIDE 209 MAJOR SAMUEL COLLINS JOHNSON. October 24, 1792 — November ii, 1872. This man, in frame and mould, majestic grew, In outward form, the rarest man we knew. Inward serene, composed and ever cool, Mayhap betokened power, reserved to rule. Some governors to like dignity might rise ; Some generals, when decked in warlike guise. He was a man. with wit and humor blest, And quick to turn a sentiment and jest. His humor led him into craft of state, Merchantry to leave and learn to legislate And govern and firm call down disorder, When politics should on rebellion border. Allied with Ruggles name, to Hulda thanks, Where we have traced her in the Johnson ranks And praise her now for sending down the line, The form, the wondrous eyes, so dark divine. Ah ! would that still again our eyes could greet This man, we knew and spoke upon the street. Friend of our kinsman, both here in retreat, Yet how, where, when two majors more complete! MRS. OLIVE SPENCER JOHNSON. February 27, 1810 — May 19, 1891. The corner house and store adjoining stood, Where turn we gave to State street if we would. The "tipping block" of stone lay anchored nigh, For man or woman who came riding by. We ran with cordial step unto the door And met her in those golden days of yore. Molded fair and well, she was — eyes like day And hair to match in color, doubtless grey. 2IO MEMORIAL EPITAPHS While, in the clear, frank aspect of her face, All gentle goodness shone with stintless grace. Kindness, that in her heart prolific grew, Was spread abroad on sufferers, she knew. A large and noble nature, rare to see, Herself plucked off the full ancestral tree, That much has furnished hearths and chimney sides With manly men and gentle blooming brides. Sweet life, she gave to breathe the native air To son and daughter, radiant spirits fair. For heart humane, she was beloved around And there are those who worship here the ground. GUILFORD PORTRAITS, MEMORIAL EPITAPHS OF WESTSIDE. Part VII: Leete — Robinson. io* 212 MEMORIAL EPITAPHS DEACON ALBERT AUGUSTUS LEETE. October ii, 1805 — May 17, 1888. This hardy, manly, faithful saintly soul Had, in the nearing eighties, neared his goal. The form, of ripe and full pathetic beauty, Then touched the heart with proofs of closing duty. Far back, we well remember and recall When ranked he with our foremost men of all. A primate to the old "foundation church," He gave his pithy speech with shrewd research. His lofty thought dwelt not in sordid zone. Feeling with pathos mingled in the tone. His earnest nature gave life small relent ; His head, in mood of contemplation bent, He pondered o'er the ways of man on earth And spent no time in idle joys and mirth. His deep strong nature, bound to narrow heath, To all that's best like pillar stood beneath. When under years he bowed and age began, Fond guidance waited on the rare old man. To-day, how gladly give him watch and ward, Who here lies slumbering beneath the sward ! MRS. BETSEY ANN LEETE. December 23, 1805 — October 14, 1881. The household's mother, guardian, guide and wife, Within the flesh, she led the spirit-life; While in and yet not of the world, a part She nurtured well her excellence of heart; Patience through pain, magnanimous survey Of life's plans thwarted and sweet hope's delay. She seemed a saintly character on her way, Lengthening out with us an earthly stay. DEACON ALBERT A. LEETE. WESTSIDE 213 Who was indeed a true and human creature, With liquid eyes, radiant and fair of feature, In youth's full rounded form with soulful look, Whom neither grace nor chastened cheer forsook. Words still resound to us from echoing hall, Exchange of hail and hope with friendly call. All centered here, she sons and daughters reared, Sweet influence sent out and was revered ; Gained love of all and gave it forth around And was a joyful presence homeward bound. Her shining spirit graced this wayside rest, Whom now we love to think among the blest. SIDNEY WARD LEETE. April 7, 1833 — August 9, 1901. He sat him down at eve with pain opprest, Beneath his vine and tree and fell at rest. And now has come to reap life's last reward Under this same green, turfed and tender sward. A staunch and rugged soul, sincere and true; Too prudent far to tell us all he knew ; Though mirthful eyes would warn of merry thought That smiles and tears with joyous laughter brought. His mental gifts were vigorous and rare, His constitution, sturdy, tall and spare. He cared for friends, but little cared for pelf And storm and sunshine through, remained himself. More than his footsteps stamped the ways he walked; The man, the life, the things of which he talked. His soul, set much on earth, yet hoped for heaven; This hope insured his life and gave it leaven. He strove with faith along the narrow way And reverenced the words of ancient day. 214 MEMORIAL EPITAPHS His merits high, his stature would not tell. He saw far shorter men above him dwell ; Upon them all for years he must look down But never coveted their earned renown. Nature's flowers and children he could love And smile upon their innocence from above. Dwelling side by side never caused us pain. We met to-day and hoped to meet again. Neighbors in life, our dust will neighbors be, When Riverside shall hold both him and me. DEACON CALVIN MINER LEETE.* October 18, 1816 — February 17, 1900. Where waters pour and pave the pebbled strand, His home a light-house stood to sea and land. It looked inviting, shining red around, And was a station on "the underground." For there his justice and his mercy shone To guard and guide some wanderer alone. Governor William then would shine through him As in the olden days, fast growing dim. No old-time soldier, fresh from Bunker Hill, Showed more of fire with scant military drill. A man of trained intelligence of mind And thought, nor easy to deceive and blind ; Could give the reason always to his deed, Nor rashly strove to make the right succeed. With wit and humor, social to address, We loved the man for his rare manliness. He was the leader, nor quite easy led, His spirit so impetuous forward sped. * Burial at Leete Island. DEACON EDWARD L. LEETE. WESTSIDE 215 He sat in councils of the Church and State And left a name for us to venerate; Commanding in his form and marked in mien, When ripe with age, his dignity was seen, A man to turn and view upon the street If, as a stranger somewhere, you should meet. He lived the while he lived and wore his crown, Known far and wide, a father of the town. Of history choice, unwritten in our day, Himself made much and carried much away. DEACON EDWARD LORENZO LEETE * June 28, 1810 — May 3, 1884. Of all men, least could he be soon forgot, Who lived his long life out and now is not. His manly majesty with calm repose And quiet dignity before us rose, Beloved to view and showed in human guise Virtues we love to covet, seek and prize. Nature endowed him well to be elect; For counsel formed, discreet and circumspect. He early taught nor ever ceased to teach ; So well his inner life did outward reach. Where stands fair, fruitful learning's laureled tree, He came as pruning patron and trustee. To priestly rank as faithful, he belonged And close around him frequent listeners thronged. His utterance came slow to Christian folk, For he was still a-thinking as he spoke. But when he rose to moderate town-meetings, He seemed full fit to have the township's greetings. * Burial at Leete Island. 2l6 MEMORIAL EPITAPHS To chambers of the State, he sometimes went And brought his aid to wiser government. He was so grand a model of a man, To love and honor and copy if we can. In his own time and day, among the few, We should select and now hold up to view. As when, upon the wall, the constant eye Of portrait follows us, when passing by We turn to treasure and prolong its phase, So he upon us bends his earnest gaze. MORRIS ATWELL LEETE. November io, 1795 — December 23, 1864. A sturdy man he was nor measured right, As gauged alone by what first seemed to sight, In short, for he was not tall but reverse. His hidden merits let us here rehearse. He welded life and fortune at the forge, Building his fire beside the chimney's gorge ; Then, on the anvil, smiting as he stands, The art most useful, skillful he commands. He blows the fulgent fire, then holds at rest And dares to grapple danger to his breast; Then seized the hoof and shod it iron-bound And pierced it through with slender nails around. We saw him long reliant in many things. He had the reputation late life brings ; For judgment, in a word, had just renown, Was so called forth as counsel to the town. He disciplined and trained to fill his place Sons still mightier, of his very race, In days when discipline employed the rod. He joined respect for man with fear for God. WESTSIDE 217 MRS. CLARINDA GRAVES LEETE. August 27, 1799 — May 23, 1863. The vision rises of her form, inclining Her aspect mild and ever kind designing. The voice, then heard in pleasant mellow flow, The love that acts of friendly kindness show, These dwell with us, a present potent force Of happy recollection through life's course. Her gliding days, not few, nor swift, nor strong, She did improve and happily prolong. Many a son and daughter, borne and reared, And friends afar, to whom she was endeared, To-day pronounce her name with tender thrill With fond affection true, increasing still. Her life the best ambitions did proclaim, To surpass herself, in virtues, was her aim ; That chief ambition nobly she pursued And with high impulse her beloved endued. Christian conscience here served her living guide And while on earth, she held her heaven aside. Her life, in others, now goes pulsing on And prompts the memory we look upon. CHARLES WILSON MILLER. October 6, 1819 — October i, 1875. Decades have passed since, master of the mart, He practiced merchantry with magic art. As patient as the sun and sunlike beaming, Holding spiced flavored stores for our redeeming. A man of gracious and benignant port, As fair to please and general favor court; To bear the brunt of traffic, shrewd and sharp, 218 MEMORIAL EPITAPHS When traders, pert and chaffering, would carp And quote some down-town merchant's cheaper prices ; Then ask for credit over coming crises. He, scorning payment, would his stores disburse And turn the threatened panic in the purse ; Then, in a stylish gig, would drive away This merchant to perfection in his day. He held a House of Commons after dark Open to those who could and would remark; Who, benched in line before the outer door, Offered laughter, part payment at the store. And where bright mirth and joy and glee entrance, He moved, a social leader of the dance. Then trod the sacred aisle at church to seat, Silk hat, held out in hand, so very neat ; Befriended there the parson, in earth's trouble, Trusting; heaven would sure reward them double. 'to Heaven sent him many blessings to enjoy But mixed with Fortune's favor Fate's alloy. Alas ! his excellence too soon we mourn Who saw his genial presence from us borne. BEVERLY MONROE. August 18, 1824 — January 26, 1906. These weary words are all that now remain To idly tell the sorrow, we sustain, As vain we turn for solace and relief To give expression to and ease our grief. We crossed the threshold of each other's door, Exchanging interest in each other's lore, And heard the fairy fancies of his pen WILLIAM H. H. MURRAY WESTSIDE 219 When his imagination wandered ; then Mingled mirth and story at the social board, When California golden treasures poured. He had old Zeno's fancy for the real, Manly, ardent, aspiring in ideal ; But simple in his tastes, in busy strife. More man than merchant to the end of life. He had fared far and looked on other lands, On Europe's, Afric's, and our western strands; Nor. in annual journeying, far or near, Had he, in wandering, lost interest here. But faithful, fair and friendly in his day, Served noble needy causes in his way; Of shrewd and wary judgment to advise, Nor apt, twixt right and wrong, to temporize. True Scotia's sconce led him through 'active life, As though in Aberdeen, Melrose and Fife. Eight busy decades, strenuous unrolled, Nor dimmed his eager eye nor made him old. One day we met and arms entwined around, Our last farewell, for he was outward bound ! WILLIAM H. H. MURRAY.* April 26, 1840 — March 3, 1904. So comely and commanding, fair and large, How shall remembrance friendly now discharge, Since he is gone, its final dues to him? The flashing eye, the manly form and limb, The cheering tone, persuasive spell and more, The hearty grasp, the laughter, all restore? * Burial on the Homestead. II 220 MEMORIAL EPITAPHS In life's first eager prime and upward aim, We saw his faithful, happy toil proclaim His high ambition and devotion true To reach an eminence, attained by few. Park Street and Adirondack give the name To his more early and some later fame; While pulpit, desk and platform, year by year, Drew eager, waiting multitudes to hear. Then tales of forest life and Nature, rude, Where health and joy and freedom better brood, Soon brought an impulse to these tasking times And added new attractions to our climes. But vigor strong and aspiration high, With all that earnest ardor can imply, Could not. prevail to bar reverses sore That handicapped his later years and more. Then, to these loved ancestral glebes retired, He plied the toilsome crafts, his skill acquired And threw upon the homestead all the care, He had preserved in life for life's repair; By Nature, formed on large and lofty plan, E'en chequered life gives lustre to the man. WILLIAM NORTON. November 7, 1801 — May 24, 1885. His stalwart form, erect and armed for tillage, He so employed and much surprised the village; That knew him well as bound to a career, Then saw him, ploughing his rough acres here; MRS. MARY C. PARKER. WESTSIDE 221 With all the odds of Greek and Latin lores Against him sore, with logarithms and stores Of lessons that would set him often pondering And turn his mind from daily duties, wandering. The contradiction, waste and loss of force In taking upward first, then downward course Were so unmasked to all the region round, He was called 'scholar' here where seen or found. We viewed him often thus, with close discerning, But never saw him once display his learning; For while he played the stubborn farmer's role, He kept the scholar under schooled control. Will resolute was stamped upon him strong And what he willed, would warrant after long. Not Andrew Jackson's self had firmer face. He carried, now a scholar's, now a farmer's grace; Proving faithful in both of these careers And took M.A. just after forty years. For then the love of learning did revive And later still, he last of all, did wive. Life, handicapped in common estimation, He lived despite, but reached his destination. The furrow, last and deepest of all he made, Here shows the saddest uses of the spade. MRS. MARY CLARISSA PARKER. February 7, 1836 — December i, 1895. Attractive, fair and tall, she filled the space That Nature gave with winning ways and grace. She would the parson fearless entertain, When annual he came and would remain, 222 MEMORIAL EPITAPHS Past duty and intention, bound to see Just how this lady matched in repartee ; For she brimmed over joyously with gladness And had no close alliances with sadness. And yet, a pensive undertone did flow Still sweetly through her nature and did show An excellence far richer than this art. That there shone forth, reflected from her heart. And gave then full the sympathetic power, The gentlest gift in all fair woman's dower. Many a year, she imparted gifted graces Of lettered learning that brighten youthful faces With apt instruction from the teacher's chair. Life's sands ran happy out and while still fair. Her strength and days declined and ere we knew, To deep regret, here brought her journey through. CAPTAIN URIAH NELSON PARMELEE.* August 24, 1841 — April i, 1865. He sat upon a wall seat in the rear, His coat close buttoned down in front and queer : And promenading up and down the aisle And walking, as in dreamland, stirred the smile. We loved him for the earnest way he trod, Although it was unique as Dick and odd. For oh ! so happy then was he a-learning, As scarce of aught thing else to be discerning. In faculty, shrewd, active and acute, He was more known for being resolute ; His humor, pleasing and his laughter, bright, In spirit, brave, and character, upright, * A member of the Class of 1863, Yale College, until the beginning of the Junior Year. Burial at Five Forks, Va. CAPTAIN U. N. PARMELEE. WESTSIDE 223 Then war came on and stirred his ardor strong And off he went, hot-foot to right the wrong, Flung down his books and scholar's satchel then And faced about before disunion men. His duty was to bear through tire and smoke The orders swift that answering fire awoke; To lead a charge, to rally broken lines, To dare rush in, where hazard most inclines. Then Fate upon him turned and ambuscade Of shell and cannon, his charmed life, waylaid. Such was Uriah, when we knew him well, Who followed his ideals, till he fell. His noble brow and thoughtful, happy face, The compact form, he bore with careless grace, His staunch devotion and ambition, high, With loves and memories, now buried lie. DOCTOR GIDEON PERRY REYNOLDS. February 6, 1829 — December 10, 1897. Faithful, his life and ease he did devote, O'er us to watch and our ill symptoms note ; Stood skilled and brave twixt us and death impending And by his magic ways deferred life's ending. We felt secure in his strong arm and will And confided in his diagnosing skill To read the wayward signs of storm and stress That give the life disease and weariness. & j Now, rising sleepless from his short repose, He, forth into the stilly darkness goes ; Through blasts of wind and searching storm afar, 224 MEMORIAL EPITAPHS He speeds to where the silent watchers are ; There cheers and brightens some life's feeble ray And brings hope back with dawning of the day. A man of taste and skill and much refined Intelligence with will and sense combined And -devotion to the weak; whom he would oft Bid rise, go forth and bear themselves aloft. So freely, spending life for us, he passed His days ; nor spared his ageing strength at last But gave it in a moment at the call And hastened, far too faithful, to his fall. Till there, in yonder house, he prostrate lies Whom death himself has taken by surprise. His form, so tall in might and power abounding, Guards us no more, when danger comes surrounding, And we, for whom he often saved the day, Could not save him from faring first away. REVEREND HENRY ROBINSON. December 20, 1788 — September 14, 1878. Here rests, once pupil of the elder Dwight, Thinking the master knew all mortal might; In youth, sang counter to the village choir, In college, led and tuned the sacred lyre. To four old high and stone-walled parish towns He preached and prayed and walked their windy downs. Pure clerical cravat, white not austere, Carried his flag of truce then far and near. As parson plain, he kept his humor hid, But social stories told, when others did; Loved wisdom well, had much historic sense, REV. HENRY ROBINSON. MRS. MARY C. ROBINSON. WESTSIDE 22 5 With some misgivings, trusted Providence. And full of local lore of olden times, CKaucer describes him in his ancient rhymes. His errand was the human soul to save. How heathendom to win spare thought he gave; But when the British came, in frockcoats red, He met them with a gun at Sachem's Head. The homeless sometimes dined within his door And glad they stretched upon the furnished floor. To grief's asylum, he would faithful turn, When Fate had finished some leased life's sojourn, And strive to soften sorrow's bitter blows With pathos, such as sympathy bestows. Taking his cue in life from the divine, He sought to measure right on human line; Commending to God's mercy and sweet peace, In which his labors brought their due increase. MRS. MARY CUSHING ROBINSON. May 12, 1801 — April 18, 1885. Dearest remembrance gathers round this space That holds so much to us of worth and grace; Of merit measureless and rare repose, Of love, the fondest that life ever knows. The tall and comely form, enfolding fair, That held her pleasing presence in repair, The voice for song and converse ready too, With all the knitting skill her fingers knew — Alas ! no heir to all that art and ken Who knew to put the nib upon a pen — Cowper, minor poets and Hannah More With psalms of David, her literary store. 226 MEMORIAL EPITAPHS And when, upon the knees, she hid her face In prayer, beseeching at the throne of grace, Then raptures, o'er her from above, came stealing, As there she pled, for blessings on us, kneeling. The dower of gifts, fitted for life's wear, Sacrifice to make, joys and griefs to bear; The livelong patience of the gentle sway That bore, nor murmured of it, day by day; The faith, learned early in the village manse, Whose shepherd sire could teach no trust in chance- These still give precious presence to the name That, lost from life, life cannot be the same. A thousand mellow memories survive And keep thy gentle guidance still alive; We would not part from thee, yet say farewell ! Who dost secure in our affections dwell. MAJOR SAMUEL ROBINSON. September 16, 1795 — April 7, 1866. He came unto this many chambered inn From life's long varied busy discipline; A man of rarest social gifts and humor, Still mentioned over in our village rumor ; Of form and feature, manly, fair and tall, As early Viking or the Jews' king Saul ; Whene'er he danced at 'ordination ball' With fair Sophia, none fairer graced the hall. He loved to lead the dance to violin, Where cheer without made harmony within ; Himself and flute, two instruments of song, That did through life their symphonies prolong. MAJOR SAMUEL ROBINSON. WESTSIDE 227 He was an early, loyal son of Yale And bore her club,* borne by the strong and hale. The ways of war, he strove to cultivate, The ways of peace, he went to legislate. Then youth, brave, bold or gently formed and fair, Guidance and discipline he rendered there, With years of drill, in scholar's work and play; To church on Sunday led and taught to pray. From near and far then, foreign youth and Spanish, He trained till blindfold ignorance did vanish. Now far they come and spend an hour and tarry ; The westside house and wall, away would carry. Homing from distant shores, men old and grey Come back to view the scene and place, they say 'The Major* once life's law and lesson gave; These memories give pathos to his grave. * The famous "bully club," carried by the athletic man of the class. GUILFORD PORTRAITS, MEMORIAL EPITAPHS OF WESTSIDE. Part VIII : Smith — Weld. £«*& t#fc > SAMUEL SPENCER. WESTSIDE 229 MISS MARY CAROLINE SMITH. June 22, 1817 — April 18, 1903. As some sweet, rippling, purling, gentle stream, Between its grassy banks, will flow and gleam And softly murmur to the passer by, Reflecting features, he will not deny, So peacefully through happy life, she sped And as the years fast fleeting, onward led, Life's full bright cheer, responsive in her gleamed And ever fair and fresh nor faded seemed ; When forth she held her hand to gentle grasp Well veined and slight, that hand did Halleck clasp. So close she linked us to the vanished past And its rare radiance upon us cast. Much woven intricate romance she caught In real life and in romance she sought And read : to all romantic schools, she clung Exclusively and lived entranced among. Thus, real with unreal world did blend ; Which she preferred, to say would not pretend. One eve she closed her book and sought repose; That moment short, life's page itself did close. SAMUEL SPENCER* June 10, 1775 — March 16, 1871. It is a rare and ripe sweet sylvan view And strikes the eye indeed as something new, When from the westside Spencer home lookout, We stand surveying carefully about And down the river, winding seaward, look To see their way the vessels warp and crook, The warning light, the steamers passing hulk, White swelling waves, the farther shores that bulk. * State senator, 1844. 230 MEMORIAL EPITAPHS Blazing the way, as parent pioneer, Came Samuel and settling, founded here His family, that long has flourished well And where still full as flourishing they dwell. We saw him in his honored hale manhood In large and lofty vigor, as he stood Amidst the fruits and spoils of toilsome strife, That gathered round his closing century life. Yet fairer fruits and gains than those in store, Gathered in yearly burdened barn, he bore ; Fruits of his own ancestral living tree, Forms, manly brave, forms womanly and free; Till there, in many another family, Joined branching, in some full new tenant tree, They have in turn brought fair increase In humanity and happiness and peace. The sycamores, grown grey high overhead, Beloved of those, o'er whom their branches spread, Have seen the generations growing old Which their protecting mighty arms enfold. MRS. ELIZABETH TUTHILL SPENCER. January 13, 1781 — October 17, 1873. Her life, once young, alert with gifted strength To cope with care and love the long day's length Here spent its busy morn and peaceful eve, Whose shadows lengthening of care relieve ; Four generations at that eve adorning Its radiant fair and past propitious morning. MRS. ELIZABETH T. SPENCER. WESTSIDE 231 Two years she spent in "throwing off the yoke" ; Colonial old English then, alone she spoke, Like George the Third, who cried "What, what!" and "zounds !" Her thrift that too ran off in pence and pounds. Her mind and clear opinion were her own ; Nor were to some new fancy quickly thrown. She would not worship fashion, but for change Preferred the gospels with their wider range. From all weak follies, with ease refraining, To spend the hours, her sons and daughters, training. These jewels dear, she like Cornelia showed And to them faithful, richer worth bestowed. Choice hours daily with Temperance spending; Temperance, with peace and long life, blending. Thus conspired to run two centuries through As together, they near made out to do. So passed her happy days, supremely blest, And found a foretaste here of heavenly rest. Erect and throned, she sits in straight-backed chair, In folding cape, clasped hands and queenly air. Victory and peace are pictured in her face ; A grand old lady with life's crowning grace. MRS. TEMPERANCE TUTHILL SPENCER. April 13, 1787 — February 25, 1885. None more alive can seem than she now gone, Whom here again, we shall not look upon. A noble soul, beyond her day and time, A dame to be remarked, in any clime. The long life's happiness is in her look, For a vigorous hold of life, she took. 232 MEMORIAL EPITAPHS Her form, majestic, rilled an ample space With woman's dignity and strength and grace ; Of spirit full, the dark eye, kindling kind, For joy, and cheer and love dwelt in her mind With humorous mirth, for she loved the joke. When from the ample, fiery hearth, the smoke Flew up the chimney to regain the sky, She gave the blaze a brightness from her eye. And yet her thoughts and hopes looked far away Through visions, mindful of eternal day ; For in the Bible she was most expert, O'er its loved pages, she did hours divert. And the parson had better well prepare Nor absent-minded be, when calling there. She would catch him short on — where was Babel? Or ask was Vashti's unknown story fable? Nor was she lost in depths of ancient mystery, But lived herself in very modern history; Close watched the movement of affairs of State And their just progress would accelerate. Such was "Aunt Tempe," known here far around, And treasured still in our affections, bound. HENRY REEVE SPENCER. September 22, 1820 — June 19, 1898. He was a man to welcome on the street With air of fine civility to greet In turn : this drew us to him for his cheer And then his manliness did more appear. Nature endowed his form, in high degree, And full as generous within was she. MRS. TEMPERANCE T. SPEXCER. "V WESTSIDE 233 He was all prudent, circumspect and sound, His judgment, counseling looked well around, To him we ran for wisdom and behoof, 'Gainst fickle Fortune's turning to be proof. He ranked in worth among our better men, Whose skill the common weal craves, now and then, When public things, so precious to us all, For wise direction and discretion, call. He served us in our year of jubilee* To serve the Church of Christ, he was as free. And when at last, he came unto his end Men far and wide lamented him as friend, Here we are left, upon our western side, Poorer, in joy and manhood, to abide. WILLIAM STANTON. July 30, 1800 — August 23, 1874. On lilied margin of the pond, his throne; His suite of rooms was one, he lived alone, In body stubbed, like the stumpy tree, Which, of its branches, all blown off, is free. His figure made the landscape picturesque, A landscape, brambly odd, almost grotesque. His life was long, but shadow short and- dress, Like address rough, hung on with fittingness. And further too, his character was bluff; But in his boots of cowhide, he looked tough. Such was his work outdoors ; for laying walls, His forte was nothing if not tough ; some calls And wireless message came from farmers round, 1889. 234 MEMORIAL EPITAPHS With whom he toiled in mellowing the ground. And once, — this was the labor of his life, — He 'stooped to conquer' and took himself a wife. His hut amidst the briars and burly brambles, One sees no more, in all his wayside rambles ; Departed are the chimney and the hall, But stones in walls, his memory recall. LEVERETT CAMP STONE. June 4, 1819 — June 12, 1892. Where shades of a governor, falling near Have left some ancient memorials here And other lines ancestral full unite And cluster round with dignity this site, Clear, to our modern view, he brought the type And showed us in himself those virtues ripe. Which we refer to that now vanished day When worshipful forerunners held their sway. In spirit firm and upright as his form. All incorruptible, through calm and storm Of life, he held the tenor of his way And as a force reliant served his day. His counsel, from experience drawn, was wise. He stood for what was right without disguise ; Fearless and brave, assertive of his thought, The ends of life with diligence he wrought. Though many years have hid him from our sight, Since last we saw his friendly guiding light, His coming steps yet seem to near us meeting, The kindly voice seems still to speak a greeting. WESTSIDE 235 MEDAD STONE. May 12, 1754 — February 17, 181 5. The very picture of romance, it stands And looking from its leafy seat, commands The wide expansive vale, where shadows glide From clouds and woods and where the speeding tide, As constant as the sun, foretells the time of day. The village spires and houses, there away In distance, gleaming ; and the still blind brook Darts down and bubbles, murmuring from its nook, And through bird-meadows banked its tribute pours In silence ; but in flood, aloud it roars. Here Medad reigned, in this his lordly mansion, And to much enterprise he gave expansion And swelled the Revolution, to which he sped As minute-man : at Boston prompt reported At the first alarm : here was wayside inn A hiding-place from life's too noisy din. A comfort to the traveler, all day jolted, Who then from further staging glad revolted And rested there upon a few plucked feathers That gave him safety in electric weathers And pinions to his dreams : with swift relay, Medad triweekly coursed the king's highway And carried Guilford and commercial ends To all the world of news, where trade contends. Then, on the public square, his station kept As public post; till here he came and slept Beneath this monumental tablet that asserts His early grandeur and his late deserts. 11* 236 MEMORIAL EPITAPHS MRS. MARY GRIFFING STONE. April 20, 1758 — December 31, 1826. A Griffing and, with reason, she was proud, Who with this marble tablet was endowed And low, ambitious lies ; nor is forgot, Though many generations know her not. And though here, we describe not a feature, Doubt not she was a beautiful, rare creature. Rare faculties executive sure she had : Nor without them, had been wife to Medad — To grapple daily with the stage and four, To care for strangers, she should see no more. Her presence then, commanding fair and tall, Gave air distinguished to this manor-hall. On the verandah, forth one morn, she walked And viewed the landscape and with children talked ; Who now recall her living presence, when She was so promenading, there and then. One widowed decade, Medad she survived : To fill his presence, naught on earth contrived. Forth fared she then and laid her glory down And added the last pathos to her crown. MIS£ CLARISSA JENNETTE STONE. June 30, 1815 — March 25, 1880. This silence ill fits her, who charmed the hour With magic memories, past common power; Scarce less than the Britannica, she knew And taught that precious scarceness to a few. Was asked to meet the Dean and talk awhile, Stanley the ward of London's minster pile; For she was friend of Cyrus Field and wife And had been, quite from very early life. She wandered thoughtful in the past and few CO in n r > x > H O M > > > r o o H WESTSIDE 237 Like her could past recall with ready clue ; When, in the course of conversation, she Would lecture on old English history. She loved the past that piqued her by its mystery And knew rare recipes for canning history. Long hunted kins and names and traced relations Among all sorts of folk and divers nations ; Traced missing Nat. and John and Ebenezer And left some scripture, leading back to Caesar. Her eyes like sibyl's shone with spirit bright Alas ! she has stepped out into the night. . MISS SARAH TALCOTT. October 2. 1841 — March ii, 1866. A pure, transparent soul, without finesse, Who much increased our village cheerfulness, She came to visit earth, prepared to live With every dower that birth and fortune give ; Her virtues fairly beaming in the face, Showing mind, merit and a gentle grace. Such was her worth and wondrous pleasing power, Who sped away in life's fair morning hour. She knew the muses all and tuned the lyre And artful touched the notes that led the choir; With zeal pursued the Greek and Roman lores And added Euclid's learning to her stores. Her ardent eyes with swift, clairvoyant gaze Seemed to divine and pierce the darkest maze, Her presence fair, the eager look refined, That much so clearly saw and more divined, We full lament, in all its youthful charm, With all the gifts that Death must early harm, Who drew his shaft and pierced this shining mark And left her friends and kindred in the dark. 238 MEMORIAL EPITAPHS DOCTOR ALVAN TALCOTT. August 17, 1804 — January 17, 1891. Childless, alone, the old man walks the street And quickly walks nor loiters, but to greet A friend: then passes to his journey's end, Where, as lost patient, he himself must send. Of body slight, there wants but little space To hold this figure that has run its race In arts of healing, learning and research, When quite undoctorlike he went to church And the Bible studied : his chief delight Was in the past to grope with candle light. His life-long, dear, devoted daily work, For which all sundry other things might shirk, Was known to be a mammoth folio book; Wherein, were written fine, the names he took Of Guilford folk for many leagues around, Old Guilford stock above and under ground. He was a student apt in ancient lore Of Greek and Latin tongues; and there would pore And, when he pleased to, scan his Homer; then Run with therapeutics and a drug, when Some ailing body called for dose, or lance, And throw the customary, healing glance; Fling his powders and his opiates around, Or tap a chest to see which lung was sound. Sprightly, alert and youthful were his ways. Decrepitude filled not his closing days; For Fate the anchor with all ease uplifted And out of life, his bark then calmly drifted. DR. AI.VAN TALCOTT. WESTSIDE 239 MRS. OLIVE NORTON TALCOTT. April 21, 1807 — December 8, 1882. She had arch wit to charm and to divine, It was a gift; indeed she did incline To pierce things, hid from sun and evening stars. Yet naught, to us unkind, her memory mars. For she could quiz a youth to grief and wonder, Who answered her too quickly with a blunder, Wherever fast the chatting converse led, While she stopped only to bite off a thread. He might pursue, but find himself no match, Conclusions back and forth to throw and catch. This woman, full of wonders beyond mention, Did good a little out of all convention And gave the poor her independent lance, And taught them how some comforts to enhance. The stature short, the gaze of sibyl eye To charm was not seen often passing by. She spoke the wizard warnings of her day Until responses with her passed away. She had these marks of mortal here above Like fostered friend, whose very lisp we love. JUDGE JOEL TUTTLE. May 8, 1792— May i, 1855. This thriving merchant had a turn for thrift And occupied with zeal his precious rift Of time in life with profit and per cents. Prudence, method, care thus his life presents. Far seeing, he was forced to be or fail ; Wary of fickle fortune or bewail His luckless trust and over-faith in chances, For profit without loss all care enhances. 240 MEMORIAL EPITAPHS He made, to serve his ends, time, tact and skill And with these instruments, he plied his will. He grew in public active in those days And showed the course to steer through danger's ways ; In town, then every trust at him was thrown; As clerk, judge, senator for years was known. In church his form rose, rev'rent, straight and spare And closing eyes stood through the longer prayer. Time sweeping drives all memories away ; These let us save unto a later day. No heritage more precious is received Than character like this, so well achieved. MRS. LUCY EVELINE TUTTLE. January 6, 1814 — July 29, 1883. Generations, long, full and of the best, Had entered into her and made her blest On earth and later, "sainted in the grave." So sage, in name and nature, wisdom gave Wide worth to life, increased its morning power And lent sweet dignity to evening hour. Her form had majesty full and dower Of gentleness, calm and sure, as in our Hard and stormy bounds of life still endure. And spirits chastened, noble, fine and pure, To our glad wonderment and love appear, Though hardly can we tell how came they here. For long years, first the widowed mother left, Then more chastened, all childless and bereft, Herself and graces only spared alone, In deeds of kinder helpfulness were shown. So wafted down the gliding years, on arm Of sister love to rest, and then her charm Of worth and sympathy she bore away And fared her forth like the declining day. WESTSIDE 241 WILLIAM SAGE TUTTLE. December 28, 1854 — July 27, 1867. He came to us with high resolve to live And of his life the best account to give. Within the boy, the man did early gleam And promised what his coming life should seem. His pleasure sought sweet duty to obey, With guides to noble ends to find his way. He trained his youthful tongue to Roman speech And sought the richest lore the classics teach. Along the ways he plucked and pressed the flowers, From Nature learned and added to his powers. And when grave men of country's peril spoke, He listened till the love of country woke. Into the future far, life's role did plan And here unfolding it, eagerly he ran. Now we may mourn for him nor think him lost, Nor idly talk of failure, waste and cost; For see ! where Olivet's* bright lights now burn, His impulse leads a hundred youth to learn, Who multiply for him the self same thought To whose unfolding once, he nobly wrought. ALBERT BOARDMAN WILDMAN. June 2, 1810 — May 2, 1878. He stood uprightly tall and manly fair, And wore on his smooth face the higher air Of honor and proved probity, unswerving. It seemed quite natural nor needed nerving From sermon or from motive practical ; The gift, its own reward, more actual. He was a merchant, of an older time, * A memorial of $15,000 for Olivet College Librae, by Mrs. Tuttle. 242 MEMORIAL EPITAPHS When six pence passed by candlelight for dime. Tuttle he knew and loved and linked the name With his ; merchants of good report and fame, Successful through their dealing days and lives. Not such as bold and meritless connives To seize and turn the common weal to woe, But sought by willing suffrage he did go And added Guilford to the common sense ; Then through the war he served by son and pence. His manner frank and fair and mild and genial, As fellow man, well would treat a menial. A father of the town, he walked our ways And then from life retreated, full of praise . CAPTAIN FREDERICK WELD. February i, 1820 — January 12, 1893. Of order, clear-eyed, stalwart, manly, rare, He looked defiant to all dangers, where A timely boldness, skill and prudent sway Might o'ermatch nature standing in the way. Of all our wanderers, on earth afar, He sailed full nearest to the Northern star. Then, neighbor to the seal and polar bear, Mid frozen, icy, Arctic regions, where Franklin had left sad tokens of defeat, He lived awhile as at his country seat. Among the Esquimaux and their high life, Surveyed their huts and desperate, cold strife. Where Peary, Greeley, Kane and others went, He, bravely steering, sailed on errands, bent ; Pursuing chief those monsters of the deep That with their mighty powers, raging sweep WESTSIDE 243 Man and boat off from earth, air and water, Or try to sweep and oft succeed; such slaughter Nantucket knew : but on it throve and so Did he and through his early years did go Through Ochotsk and the north, connecting seas; Such life adventure did his spirit please, And bounding twice from waves to waves along Around the world his sails did twice prolong; Then here, he came to rest upon his oars Or sail on seas, in memory's pictured stores. Such heroism, valorous, bold and brave, Reposes, anchored in this quiet grave. 12 INDEX OF NAMES. PAGE Eden Phillips Allen (West.) 183 Reverend Ab'ram Chittenden Baldwin (Bowdoin Coll. 1827), (West.) 183 Reverend David Baldwin (Aid.) 47 Mrs. Ruth Elliott Baldwin (Aid.) 48 William Ward Baldwin (Aid.) 49 Captain George Bartlett (Aid.) 53 Reverend Lorenzo Thompson Bennett, D.D. (Yale Univ. 1825), (Aid.) 50 Mrs. Marina Bishop Bennett (Aid.) 51 Miner Bradley (West.) 184 Misses Caroline and Harriet Bradley (West.) 185 Doctor Samuel William Biown (Yale Univ. Med. 1823), (Aid.) 52 Mrs. Hannah Humphrey Brown (Aid.) 53 Colonel John Burgis (Aid.) 54 Miss Frances Stone Burgis (Aid.) 55 Miss Clarissa Caldwell (Aid.) 55 Doctor Joel Canfield (Yale Univ. hon. Med. 1847), (West.) 186 Mrs. Lucretia Marilla Canfield (West.) 187 Mrs. Elsie Reeve Chittenden (West.) 188 Mrs. Eunice Fowler Chittenden (West.) 187 Henry Ward Chittenden (Aid.) 56 Mrs. Mary Griffing Chittenden (Aid.) 58 Mrs. Lydia Elizabeth Coan (Aid.) 59 Frederick Cruttenden (West.) 189 Mrs. Mary Griswold Cruttenden (West.) 189 Deacon Julius Albert Dowd (West.) 190 George Dudley (Aid.) 59 246 MEMORIAL EPITAPHS PAGE Joel Dudley (Aid.) 60 James Ambrose Dudley (Aid.) 61 John Dunn (Aid.) 61 Miss Henriette Dupraz (Aid.) 65 Reverend Aaron Dutton (Yale Univ. 1803), (Aid.) 66 Miss Mary Dutton (Aid.) 67 Mrs. Catherine Hill .Elliott (Aid.) 67 Charles Wyllys Elliott (Aid.) 68 Lewis Rossiter Elliott (Aid.) 69 Wyllys Elliott (Aid.) 69 Mrs. Lucy Camp Elliott-Hale (Aid.) 70 Mrs. Nancy Judson Fisher (West.) 195 Edwin Flook (West.) 191 Andrew Ward Foote (Aid.) 72 Colonel George Augustus Foote (Aid.) 71 Abraham Scott Fowler (West.) 191 Miss Annette Barker Fowler (West.) 192 George Augustus Fowler (West.) 193 Henry Fowler (West.) 193 Miner Fowler (Aid.) 72 Mrs. Charity Ives Fowler (Aid.) 73 Captain Richard Fowler (Aid.) 74 William Ward Fowler (Aid.) 74 Russell Frisbie (West.) 194 Reverend Alva Bradley Goldsmith (West.) 197 Mrs. Mary Cruttenden Goldsmith (West.) 198 Elliott Wyllys Gregory (Aid.) 75 Mrs. Charlotte Selleck Gregory (Aid.) 76 Judge Nathaniel Griffing (Yale Univ. 1786), (West.) 198 Mrs. Sarah Brown Griffing (West.) 199 Frederick Redfield Griffing (West.) 200 George Cleveland Griswold (Aid.) 76 Mrs. Julia Chapman Griswold (Aid.) 77 Joel Griswold (Aid.) 79 INDEX OF NAMES 247 PAGE Lewis Griswold (Aid.) 78 Mrs. Lucretia Linsley Griswold (Aid.) 78 Augustus Pratt Hall (West.) 200 Sherman Bradley Hall (West.) 201 Miss Harriet Elizabeth Hall (West.) 202 Reverend Eli Edwin Hall (Aid.) . 80 Reverend Henry Lewis Hall (Yale Univ.- 1860), (Aid.).. 81 Fitz Greene Halleck (Aid.) 84 Miss Maria Halleck (Aid.) 85 Daniel Hand (West.) 204 Miss Ruth Hart (Aid.) 87 Colonel William Hart (Aid.) 86 George Hill (Yale Univ. 1816). (Aid.) 88 Alfred Hinckley (West.) 202 Mrs. Rebecca Ruggles Hopkins (Aid.) 89 Miss Ruth Frazer Hopkins (Aid.) 90 Amos Samuel Hotchkiss (West.) 205 John Hotchkiss (West.) 206 William Henry Hubbard (West.) 203 Deacon Alfred Gustavus Hull (Aid.) 91 Mrs. Mary Parmelee Hull (Aid.) 91 Robert Hunt (West.) 207 Horatio Nelson Johnson (Aid.) 92 Samuel Johnson, Jr. (West.) 208 Major Samuel Collins Johnson (West.) 209 Mrs. Olive Spencer Johnson (West.) 209 George Chapman Kimberly (Aid.) 93 Judge Edward Ruggles Landon (Yale Univ. 1833), (Aid.) 95 Mrs. Parnel Clarissa Landon (Aid.) 96 Judge George Landon (Aid.) 93 Mrs. Ruth Hart Landon (Aid.) 94 Thomas Hart Landon (Aid.) 95 Miss Eunice Elizabeth Lay (Aid.) 97 Deacon Albert Augustus Leete (West.) 212 24S MEMORIAL EPITAPHS PAGE Mrs. Betsey Ann Leete (West.) 212 Sidney Ward Leete (West.) 213 Deacon Calvin Miner Leete (West.) 214 Deacon Edward Lorenzo Leete (West.) 215 Morris Atwell Leete (West.) 216 Mrs. Clarinda Graves Leete (West.) 217 Henry Loper (Aid. ) 98 Mrs. Anna Fowler Loper (Aid.) 98 Charles Wilson Miller (West.) 217 Beverly Monroe (West.) 218 Erastus Munson (Aid.) 99 Mrs. Ann Elizabeth Munson (Aid.) 100 William H. H. Murray (Yale Univ. 1862), (West.) 219 Wallace Norton (Aid.) 102 William Norton (Yale Univ. 1829), (West.) 220 Mrs. Mary Clarissa Parker (West.) 221 Deacon Eli Parmelee (Aid.) 102 Mrs. Betsey Ann Parmelee (Aid.) 103 Jonathan Parmelee (Aid.) 104 Captain Uriah Nelson Parmelee (West.) 222 Franklin Collins Phelps (Aid.) 104 Doctor Gideon Perry Reynolds (West.) 223 Reverend Henry Robinson (Yale Univ. 1811), (West.) . . . 224 Mrs. Mary dishing Robinson (West.) 225 Major Samuel Robinson (Yale Univ. 1817), (West.) .... 226 Amos Seward (Aid.) 106 Mrs. Sarah Hubbard Seward (Aid.) 107 George Morse Seward (Aid.) 105 Miss Mary Caroline Smith (West.) 229 Judge Ralph Dunning Smyth (Yale Univ. 1827), (Aid.) . . 108 Mrs. Rachel Stone Smyth (Aid.) 109 Walter Hebert Smyth (Yale Univ. 1863), (Aid.) no Richard Edward Smyth (Yale Univ. 1866), (Aid.) in Samuel Spencer (West.) 229 INDEX OF NAMES 249 PAGE Mrs. Elizabeth Tuthill Spencer (West.) 230 Henry Reeve Spencer (West.) 232 Mrs. Temperance Tuthill Spencer (West.) 231 William Stanton (West.) 233 Deacon Comfort Starr (Aid.) Ill Mrs. Lydia Lay Starr (Aid.) 112 Miss Clarissa Jennette Stone (West.) 236 Leverett Camp Stone (West.) 234 Medad Stone (West.) 235 Mrs. Mary Griffing Stone (West.) 236 Doctor Alvan Talcott (Yale Univ. 1824), (West.) 238 Mrs. Olive Norton Talcott (West.) 239 Miss Sarah Talcott (West.) 237 Mrs. Sarah Redfield Todd (Aid.) 113 Judge Joel Tuttle (West.) 239 Mrs. Lucy Eveline Tuttle (West.) 240 William Sage Tuttle (Wes*.) 241 Mrs. Annie Griswold Vittum (Aid.) 114 Captain Frederick Weld (West. ) 242 Albert Boardman Wildman (West.) 241 Alfred Nelson Willcox (Aid.) 114 Eleazer Woodruff (Aid.) 115 Mrs. Harriet Atwood Woodruff (Aid.) 116 University of Connecticut Libraries