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Litchfield Conn.

Henry Ward Beecher Delivers One Too Many Sermons on Morality

The Beecher family of Litchfield, Conn. – the children of Rev. Lyman Beecher and his two wives Roxanne and Harriet – each made their mark on history to lesser or greater degrees. The author Harriet Beecher Stowe was the best known of the 10 siblings, a brood of scholars, ministers, authors, and teachers. But in the 1800s, Henry Ward Beecher was probably more influential than his famous sister.

Henry was born in 1813 in Litchfield and at 14 moved with his family to Boston, where he developed a young boy’s fascination with the ships that visited the busy port. By adulthood, Henry had become a minister after attending Amherst College and, perhaps most impressively, he had beaten a stutter that vexed and embarrassed him as a child.

The Rev. Henry Beecher

With a fiery command of the pulpit, Henry became an ardent abolitionist and newspaper editor. As pastor of the Plymouth Congregational Church in Brooklyn, N.Y., the world came to hang on Henry Ward Beecher’s pronouncements. No one was more impressed than young Theodore Tilton, 22 years Henry’s junior.

Beecher first noticed his soon-to-be protégé when he saw him in the congregation taking notes to report on his sermon for his school newspaper. When Theodore left school, Beecher arranged got him a job as an assistant at his newspaper, The Independent. Henry also officiated at Theodore’s wedding to Elizabeth Richards, another of his congregants.

Henry Ward Beecher

Beecher was somewhat unconventional for his time. While his church had thousands of members, he did much of his preaching through the newspapers – both his and others. Many of his parishioners rarely physically came to his church. But his fame was outsized. His church was a major stop on the underground railroad, and he led a vigorous anti-slavery campaign.

Abraham Lincoln had sent Beecher to England to lobby to keep the British from siding with the South in the Civil War, and he had been invited to give a ceremonial sermon at Fort Sumter following the end of the war.

Theodore Tilton

When Beecher stepped down from his editor’s role, it seemed natural enough that Theodore Tilton should take over, and crowds began go queue up to listen to Theodore Tilton speak on the affairs of the day.

Theodore Tilton

Tilton, however, soon began refining his political beliefs in ways that didn’t align with Beecher. Tilton became an outspoken advocate of women’s suffrage, socialism and the free love movement. For a time, the two butted heads. Eventually, however, they rekindled their friendship in an agree-to-disagree mold.

The friendship was soon to implode. On Dec.26, 1870, Elizabeth Tilton wrote a letter to her husband, confirming what she had told him previously – she had had a long-running affair with Henry Ward Beecher. Theodore wrote a letter to Beecher demanding he step down from the pulpit at his church and leave Brooklyn.

Henry declined and the matter came to a standstill. But Beecher had made enemies who didn’t believe he was progressive enough in his views toward women. Beecher preached a “gospel of love.” He preached women were godlier than men and therefore closer to God, but their gentle natures made them more susceptible to victimization. They should be protected.

Victoria Woodhull, Freelover

Victoria Woodhull was an outspoken feminist and a supporter of the “free love” movement, which advocated that consensual sexual relationships should not be regulated by law.

She declared in a speech: “Yes, I am a freelover. I have an inalienable, constitutional and natural right to love whom I may, to love as long or as short a period as I can; to change that love every day if I please, and with that right neither you nor any law you can frame have any right to interfere.”

Victoria Woodhull

Woodhull was probably practicing a little free love with Theodore Tilton. Elizabeth had taken steps to prevent her from visiting their home, and Theodore had been seen kissing ‘Vicky’ and with his arms around her.

Henry opposed the free-love movement, in word if not deed. This struck Victoria Woodhull as just a little hypocritical. There were rumors for years about Henry’s affairs with women from his congregation, many of them true, but Elizabeth Tilton’s letter was the first firm accusation.

Woodhull published a newspaper with her sister, the Woodhull and Clafin Weekly, and in May of 1871 she fired a shot across Henry Ward Beecher’s bow in an article about hypocrisy of some free love opponents: “For example, I know of one man, a public teacher of eminence, who lives in concubinage with the wife of another public teacher of almost equal eminence.”

She followed up with an article later that named Henry Ward Beecher and accused of being unfit to be a minister. Woodhull was in many ways remarkable. In addition to publishing and speaking, she was a stockbroker and a presidential candidate. Unfortunately, she spent election day in 1872 in jail. Beecher and his powerful supporters had Woodhull arrested for slandering him.

Damage Control

For a wide-open scandal, it remained well contained for several years. Francis D. Moulton, a New York businessman and a friend of Tilton’s, became a mediator of sorts. He held the various documents – charges and denials – in his possession and for four years he brokered a peace. Beecher would pay Tilton roughly $7,000 to establish a newspaper and Tilton would keep his allegations to himself and withdraw the demand that Beecher resign.

But Tilton wouldn’t keep quiet. Privately, he told of Beecher’s extramarital adventures to anyone who would listen. Many women who were friendly with Beecher got tarred by rumors, deserved or not. Beecher’s defense was essentially that Elizabeth had fallen in love with him, but that nothing physical ever happened. Elizabeth had both accused Beecher and recanted numerous times.

In 1874, Tilton sued Beecher, seeking $100,000 for alienation of affection. Beecher fired back that Tilton was simply a blackmailer. That charge prompted Moulton to threaten to horsewhip Beecher.

This story was updated in 2021.

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Bridgeport Mystery: The Bizarre Death of George Colvocoresses

The strange death of Civil War hero George Colvocoresses on a busy street in Bridgeport, Conn., reads like a Sherlock Holmes mystery – without a solution.

He was a retired U.S. Navy captain on a business trip to New York City from his home in Litchfield, Conn. He had acted strangely the previous week, and some of his actions couldn’t be explained. Just as his ferry was about to leave from a Bridgeport dock, witnesses heard a pistol shot and a policeman found Colvocoresses dying in the street.

There were so many strange aspects to his death that some thought he committed suicide. Others said it was impossible for a man of Colvocoresses’ state of mind and character to take his own life.

Capt. George Colvocoresses

George Colvocoresses

He was born Oct. 22, 1816 in Chios, Greece. During the Greek War of Independence, the Turks massacred the Chios islanders and sold six-year-old George Colvocoresses into slavery. His father ransomed him and sent him to the United States for an education. He was one of about 40 Greek orphans sent for adoption to the United States after the war.

Alden Partridge, who founded Norwich University in Vermont, adopted the boy. Colvocoresses graduated from the military school and earned an appointment as a midshipman after a year at the naval school at Norfolk.

USS Vincennes in Disappointment Bay, Antarctica, during the Wilkes Expedition.

He served on the Wilkes Expedition, a four-year exploration of the Pacific Ocean. Colvocoresses wrote a book about the expedition, a milestone in American science. He called it Four Years in a Government Exploring Expedition. Colvos Passage, a tidal strait in Puget Sound, was named in his honor.

Colvos Passage

As commander of the USS Supply during the Civil War, he captured a blockade runner bringing arms and munitions for the Confederates.

He also raided Georgia, once capturing 26 soldiers and destroying a bridge to cut off the Confederate cavalry. At the close of the war he served as a commander in the Pacific. When a Spanish fleet menaced Valparaiso, Chile, Colvocoresses took action to protect American citizens and their property.

His son, George Partridge Colvocoresse, served with him during the Civil War. He wrote,

One who knew him well never heard him complain. His modesty and reserve never led him to seek personal advancement. He was simple in his habits, just and most honorable in his dealings with all men and affectionate in his family relations.

Strange Murder?

Colvocoresses retired with the rank of captain in 1867 and moved to Litchfield with his second wife. On June 3, 1872, the 60-year-old veteran took a train to Bridgeport, where he planned to take an 11:00 p.m. steamer to New York and meet with his insurance agent.

Bridgeport waterfront, 1913. Courtesy Library of Congress.

He had an umbrella, $8,000 in cash inside a carpet bag and a cane with a sword in it. In addition, he may have had securities worth $80,000. He went to a hotel hoping to eat dinner, but the kitchen had closed and he went to a restaurant instead. Then he went back to the hotel to return a key he had mistakenly taken the previous week, stopped at a drug store to buy paper and envelopes and then headed toward the dock.

He never made it. He was found dying on busy Clinton Street.

His unbuttoned shirt was on fire where the bullet had entered his abdomen. And yet his coat and vest had no bullet hole. He had apparently fought off his attacker, for his cane lay in pieces and the sword had bent.

Police took his body to the station. They found his empty valise on a wharf, cut open. A horse pistol was found across the street, and the next day a bullet, powder horn and percussion caps were found 60 feet from his body. The bullet was wrapped in a handkerchief.

The Boston Globe reported on his strange behavior the week before. He had come to Bridgeport, wandered around the dock and, during dinner at a hotel, zealously protected a satchel that a clerk said was empty. Though he had an appointment in New York the next day, he hung around Bridgeport instead.

Suicide Theory

Some said he killed himself.

He had taken out eight life insurance policies worth $195,000 before his death. His insurance premiums would have cost him about $20,000 per year, and he was worth only about $40,000 or $50,000. And why else would his shirt be unbuttoned?

Others pointed out he had a good relationship with his family. He had a sterling character and would never commit suicide. How could he have thrown his gun across the street after he shot himself?

The suicide theory, though, did allow insurance companies to avoid paying out his policy.

Police incompetence didn’t help. Someone stole Colvocoresses’ pants when his body lay at the police station.

The murder of George Colvocoresses was never solved. A Danish sailor did claim on his deathbed he had murdered the captain in an attempted robbery gone bad.

The insurance companies eventually paid out 50 cents on the dollar.

His son and great-grandson graduated from Norwich and followed distinguished military careers. Colvocoresses’ great-grandson pioneered satellite mapping techniques. His great-great granddaughter also graduated from Norwich in 2005 and received a commission as a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army.

This story was updated in 2022.

Images: Colvos Passage By Memley6 – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=45557119. With thanks to Harold Colvocoresses, “Captain George Musalas Colvocoresses, U. S. N.” The Washington Historical Quarterly 25, no. 3 (1934): 163–70.

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William Franklin, Ben’s Son, Spent the Revolutionary War in a Connecticut Jail

The American Revolution created rifts in many families with both patriots and loyalists among their members, none more disruptive than the divide between William Franklin and his famous patriot father Benjamin.

Benjamin Franklin (Joseph Siffred Duplessis) and William Franklin (by Mather Brown)

Benjamin’s son William Franklin was most likely born around 1730 out of an illegitimate relationship that later became a common-law marriage. But Benjamin Franklin did not ignore his son. Though the boy was largely raised by his caustic mother, Deborah, Franklin nonetheless looked out for him.

The two were companions and friends, and Franklin helped his son obtain an education and his early jobs.

Franklin ensured that his son had a military position in the French and Indian Wars. The two worked together publishing Poor Richard’s Almanack. And Benjamin lobbied in London for William Franklin’s appointment to royal governor of New Jersey in 1762.

Gov. William Franklin

In the early days of the American Revolution, Franklin wanted even greater things for his son, then a leading political figure in America.

His father urged William Franklin to resign as governor and join the patriot cause. William refused, outlasting all other colonial governors well into 1775, because of his and his father’s good name.

George Washington, 1776

In August, Benjamin visited his son in New Jersey to give him the full picture of the war’s developments. The British were collecting an army of Hessians and the Americans were coalescing around George Washington.

Benjamin assured the young man the patriots would welcome him with open arms. He said William could get a generalship in Washington’s army because of his earlier military service and his prominence.

William Franklin stubbornly refused his father’s advice. He had twin arguments for his position. One, he remained loyal to the king; and two, he did not believe most Americans would support the Revolution.

King George III

William would lead one last quixotic attempt to lead the colonies in a reconciliation with the king. But the effort failed. His actions formally put him at odds with Benjamin, a reluctant but vigorous patriot leader.

William Franklin might have thought reconciliation between England and the colonies would give him greater political power in America. But as the war with Great Britain gained momentum, so did the fight between father and son.

Just Shoot Me

In June of 1776, rebels in New Jersey exiled Gov. William Franklin to Connecticut, where Gov. Jonathan Trumbull sided with the patriots.

The patriots placed him under guard at Wallingford and then Middletown. However, the stubborn governor-in-exile refused to submit to his captors. He continued gathering intelligence for loyalists and helping protect Connecticut Tories’ property by issuing them royal pardons.

In May of 1777, armed guards took William Franklin to Litchfield. They placed him in solitary confinement in the cell reserved for prisoners condemned to death. His filthy room contained a straw mat on the floor and nothing else – no bed, no seat, no toilet facility.

Jonathan Trumbull

In September, he wrote to Gov. Jonathan Trumbull: “I suffer so much in being thus buried alive, having no one to speak to day or night, and for the want of air and exercise, that I should deem it a favor to be immediately taken out and shot.”

William Franklin sent a plea to George Washington, asking to visit his ailing wife. Washington replied he could not countermand the Continental Congress, which had confined him. He did, however, ask the Congress to grant a furlough for Franklin so he might visit his wife in New York. Congress refused, and Franklin’s wife died while he was imprisoned.

Release

Finally, in December of 1777, the governor removed him from the Litchfield jail and allowed him to be imprisoned in a house at East Windsor. By now, the conditions of the jail had taken their toll. William Franklin had lost his teeth and hair and was desperately ill.

In 1778 he was exchanged for other prisoners and allowed to go to New York. He would soon travel to England.

Benjamin Franklin made no efforts after 1775 to assist his son in the predicament he chose. The two men would reconcile somewhat in 1784, but never became the close companions they had been earlier in life.

Benjamin Franklin would leave his son very little of his property and virtually excised him from his autobiography.

This story about William Franklin was updated in 2022.

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The Puritanical Controversy Over the Meetinghouse Stove

Perhaps nothing revealed the puritanical contempt for comfort so much as the absence of a meetinghouse stove. The Puritans believed their religious zeal could warm them in unheated buildings, even in freezing New England winters.

The Old Ship Church in Hingham, Mass., didn’t have a stove until 1822. Photo courtesy Library of Congress.

And it did get cold. Samuel Sewall on Jan. 24, 1686, reported in his diary, “The communion bread was frozen pretty hard and rattled sadly into the plates.”

No matter how cold it got, no matter how much coughing in the meetinghouse, the Puritans brought babies were in on the Sunday after their birth to be baptized – with cold water.

Alice Morse Earle wrote in 1891 that people still alive remembered a universal and ‘noisy turning up of great-coat collars, the swinging of arms, and knocking together of the heavy-booted feet of the listeners towards the end of a long winter sermon.’

Some Puritan churches like the Old South Meeting House allowed foot stoves. But they recognized the danger of fire. In December 1771 the sexton of Old South had instructions to search the meetinghouse for any foot stoves left behind and to take them home. The owner then had to retrieve them and “make reasonable satisfaction” to the sexton for his trouble.

Other congregations were more puritanical – or at least more fearful of fire. The First Church of Roxbury banned foot stoves in its rebuilt meetinghouse after it burned down in 1747. Congregants warmed their feet instead with hot stones in baskets, or fur bags or even the family dog.

Enter the Meetinghouse Stove

The meetinghouse stove at the Society of Friends, Sabbathday Lake, Maine. Photo courtesy Library of Congress.

The Puritan congregations gradually relaxed and began to accept the meetinghouse stove. The comfort-loving libertines of Hadley, Mass., bought an iron stove for their meetinghouse in 1734.

Warmth did not come to the Puritan meetinghouse without controversy.

In 1819, the Puritans of Brimfield, Mass., finally acquiesced and decided to buy a meetinghouse stove, but one old parishioner refused to contribute. He said good preaching kept him hot enough without a stove. Members of the Old Ship Church in Hingham, Mass., held fast against warmth until 1822, nearly 150 years after the building went up in 1681.

Henry Ward Beecher

The Puritans of Litchfield, Conn., provided an entertaining drama over the introduction of the meetinghouse stove. The same thing may have happened in other towns. The Rev. Henry Ward Beecher told the story.

The meeting started on a warm Sunday after the installation of the meetinghouse stove, but no one lit a fire. A deacon’s wife, unalterably opposed to the stove, thought it was lit. The imaginary fire so overheated her she fainted and got carried out of the church. A man who favored the meetinghouse stove then approached it, warming his hands and making sure his coat didn’t get scorched.

Even the Puritans thought that was funny.

This story last updated in 2022.

Image: Interior of the Old Ship Church By Michael Carter – https://www.flickr.com/photos/michaelcarter/269096379/, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6286653.

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William Hull Tries To Save Nathan Hale, Then Himself

As a young man, William Hull redeemed his friend Nathan Hale’s image. As an old man, Hull desperately tried to repair his own.

William Hull

He was born June 24, 1753, in Derby, Conn., to a wealthy landowner Joseph Hull III and Eliza Clark Hull, a descendant of the Mayflower’s mate.

William Hull graduated from Yale College in 1772, where he befriended Nathan Hale.

William Hull and Nathan Hale

After graduation, they parted ways, both to teach school for a year. Hull studied law in Litchfield, Conn., with Tapping Reeve. His legal career was cut short when the American Revolution broke out and he was elected captain of a company from Derby. During the war, Hull revived his friendship with Hale, also a captain. They marched together from New London, Conn., to the Siege of Boston, and then to New York City.

There, Hale volunteered to spy on the British positions for George Washington.

Hull tried to talk him out of it. He asked Hale, Who respects the character of a spy? “Should you undertake the enterprise, your short, bright career, would close with an ignonimous death,” Hull said.

Hale, of course, was discovered with drawings and maps of key British fortifications (by Robert Rogers, no less). The British questioned him and hanged him the next morning.

He went to his death with dignity and composure. Before he was hanged, he said,

I am so satisfied with the cause in which I have engaged that my only regret is that I have not more lives than one to offer in its service.

Or he said,

I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.

A British engineer named John Montresor witnessed Hale’s execution. Later that day he carried a message under a white flag to Washington’s headquarters. Montresor told Hull about Hale’s impressive behavior and quoted his words on the gallows as: “I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.”

Making a Hero

William Hull publicized those words and transformed Nathan Hale into a national hero rather than an obscure 21-year-old schoolteacher who failed in a disgraceful mission.

William Hull then rose to lieutenant colonel, having fought in eight key battles during the war, including White Plains, Saratoga and Stony Point.

He married a wealthy woman, Sarah Fuller, and moved to Newton, Mass. Hull raised a family, including a nephew, Isaac Hull, who he adopted as a son. He had a distinguished legal career as judge, lawmaker and member of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company of Massachusetts.

Michigan Governor

In 1805, President Thomas Jefferson appointed William Hull governor of the new territory of Michigan. Seven years later, with the War of 1812 looming, President James Madison wanted to appoint him brigadier general of the newly created Army of the Northwest to defend the territory from British and Indian attacks. Hull was nearly 60 years old and declined. Another man accepted the post, but he fell ill and Hull reluctantly took his place.

Hull’s army was undisciplined and communication was poor. He made an early blunder because he didn’t know war had been declared. He sent a schooner full of supplies and plans for an attack up the river to Detroit, where the British, who did know war was declared, captured it.

Believing his Army vastly outnumbered, Hull then committed a near-fatal blunder. He surrendered Fort Detroit, fearing an Indian massacre of women and children. He took the blame for the ignominious retreat.

The surrender at Detroit

Hull’s grandson, theologian James Freeman Clarke, described what happened:

He probably foresaw that he must face a terrible ordeal. The whole country appeared to be roused against him, and Hull at once became the best-hated man in America. A court-martial was appointed.

William Hull, Vindicated?

Hull, found guilty of cowardice and neglect of duty, was ordered shot. Madison, however, pardoned him because of his Revolutionary service. He lived the rest of his life in Newton, Mass., trying to restore his good name.

He wrote two memoirs explaining his side of the story, which helped sway public opinion to his side. His supporters held a dinner in his honor in Boston in May 1825, shortly before he died. In June, the Marquis de Lafayette, touring the United States, visited Hull. He told him,

We both have suffered contumely and reproach; but our characters are vindicated; let us forgive our enemies and die in Christian love and peace with all mankind.

Some historians have argued Hull was unfairly made a scapegoat for the humiliating loss of Detroit.

William Hull died Nov. 29, 1825.

This story last updated in 2022.

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A Rhode Islander in England, 1828, Is Shocked By English Drinking Habits

America’s drinking habits were changing for the better as the new country passed its 50^th anniversary, at least according to a Rhode Island mill owner.

Beer Street Gin Alley by William Hogarth

Zachariah Allen, a Rhode Island businessman, had many talents as an inventor, writer, merchant and philanthropist. He built a fire-safe mill, patented the first steam cutoff valve and invented the first home hot-air furnace.

Zachariah Allen’s Allendale Mill in North Providence today

In 1828, he traveled to the workshops of England and wrote about what he saw in his book, The Practical Tourist. He visited iron mines, silk mills, a pin factory and a limestone quarry. He also reviewed new marvels, like the train, the telegraph, the steamboat – not unknown in America then, but still rare.

English Drinking Habits

He also visited English taverns, and he didn’t like what he saw. “A deluge of beer, beer, is now spread over the land, to increase the evil of drunkenness,” he wrote.

Allen compared the secret tippling of the American worker with the public beer-drinking marathons of the Englishman.

English emigrants are heard to exclaim, after being a short time in the United States, that their fellow-workmen, the Americans, do not take any pleasure.

By that, explained Allen, they meant “that the American mechanics do not hold festive meetings, or participate in the carousals at public houses, which these foreigners have been accustomed to indulge in before they left the Old Country.”

The United States, then 52 years old, had optimism and prosperity, Allen wrote. And that, he concluded, explained why Americans had much better drinking habits.

Better Drinking Habits

Zachariah Allen

By 1828, temperance began to take hold in America. It began in 1784 with a treatise by Benjamin Rush on the ill effects of alcohol. In 1789, the first temperance society formed in America. That year, 200 farmers from Litchfield, Conn., got together to ‘discourage the use of spirituous liquors in doing their farm work.’

Temperance societies spread, and 40 years later Allen noted approvingly that 800,000 people subscribed to them in the United States. He wrote that the temperance movement halved the consumption of spirituous liquor in just a few years.

Temperance took root in England, too, but it took a different form than in America. English authorities tried to wean people from gin – the bad beverage – and steer them toward the good beverage – beer. In 1751, artist William Hogarth published a print called ‘Beer Street and Gin Alley.’ It depicted happy, productive beer drinkers vs. slatternly ginners.

In 1830, England repealed the beer tax — a mistake, Allen thought. The deluge of beer spread over England, he wrote, increased “the evil of drunkenness.”

It is in vain to asset that strong beer and porter, as consumed by the mechanics and laboring classes in England, form a beverage healthful and necessary to brace their sinews for toil.

Slinking Into A Dram Shop

Unlike the English, who openly spent hours in taverns, American workmen felt shame about their drinking, Allen claimed. The American toper, he wrote, “swallows a hasty draught” after “slinking into a dram shop.”

[B]ehind a screen, or in an obscure corner, usually prepared for secrecy and expedition, he takes his glass as privately as possible. This done, he carefully wipes his mouth, perhaps with his sleeve, and sallies forth, emboldened to court observation in the broad daylight. The beer-drinker, on the contrary, usually requires half a day to get drunk upon his more diluted potation, and then his shameless condition is veiled by the approaching darkness.

Allen then concluded that the American workman has more hope of advancement than the Englishman. “He knows that the path to wealth in the broad field of adventure is open before him,” he wrote. With talent, industry and enterprise, the American laborer could attain even the country’s highest honors, he wrote. That happened with Ben Franklin, noted Allen, and many other distinguished Americans.

The English Laborer

Allen observed that the English laborer, “whilst he smokes his pipe and drinks his beer at the ale-house in company with his wife or associates,” appears perfectly contented. He liked his situation and his state of “blissful enjoyment,” wrote Allen. However, he didn’t look forward to greater happiness or distinction in society.

From their extremely limited education, they seem aware that advancement to a higher station, than that which they fill, can with the utmost difficulty be attained, surrounded as they are by competitors struggling for their daily bread.

The American laborer, on the other hand, had a “buoyancy of feeling,” wrote Allen. He attributed “the peculiarly free institutions of the American republic,” as well as free public education.

That buoyant feeling “sustains him, amid his severest privations and efforts, with cheering prospects of success in his calling.”

This story was updated in 2022.

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