Henry Ward Beecher, one of the most famous and influential — but also controversial — preachers and orators of 19th-century America, was born in Litchfield, Connecticut, today in 1813. Henry was one of several literary giants of the extended Beecher family: his father Lyman was also a notable preacher; his sister Harriet found international…
Tag: civil war
June 10: The First Union Officer to Die Fighting in the American Civil War
Today in 1861, 32-year-old Major Theodore Woolsey Winthrop, a descendant of one of the most important figures in the founding of Connecticut, died in action at the Battle of Bethel in eastern Virginia, one of the first land battles of the American Civil War. Winthop was the first Union officer to die fighting in…
June 8: The Man Whose Songs the Soldiers Sang Dies in Hartford
Henry Clay Work, one of the most popular songwriters of the Civil War era, died today in 1884 at age 51, while in Hartford visiting his mother. Work, who composed such still-sung songs as “Marching Through Georgia” and “Kingdom Coming” (you know the tune), was born in Middletown in 1832 into an activist family…
May 9: The Rural Roots of the Controversial Abolitionist John Brown.
Today in 1800, the abolitionist John Brown was born in a humble saltbox house on a farm in Torrington, Connecticut. One of the most controversial figures in United States antebellum history, Brown was, and still is, a polarizing figure. Some see him as a social justice visionary, prepared to do whatever was needed to…
April 25: Oliver Winchester Aims for Success in The Rifle Industry.
In early 1857, businessman Oliver Winchester bought controlling interest in a struggling Connecticut firearms company from two inventors named Horace Smith and Daniel Wesson. With access to machine tools, raw materials, and a number of valuable patents — especially rights to the Henry Repeating Rifle, the world’s first multiple-round-firing longarm — Winchester formed…
April 16: Frederick Douglass & Social Media in Hartford, 1864
Carte-de-visite photographs were the hot social media of the mid-nineteenth century. These small portrait photographs, mounted on cards, were some of the first such images to be commercially reproduced, and they created a craze for collectible photographs. People collected carte-de-visite portraits of family, friends and celebrities and then mounted them in photograph albums….
April 15: The Middletown Man Who Built the First Transcontinental Railroad – But in Another Country.
Back when they taught such things in the classroom, many Connecticans learned this palindrome (a phrase that says the exact same thing read backwards or forwards) in geography class: ” A Man, A Plan, A Canal: Panama.” What we were not taught, though, is that men made plans to make transportation across Panama a…
March 17: A Forgotten Civil War Hero, Statesman, and Patriot.
A Civil War general who served in the First Battle of Bull Run, the Siege of Petersburg, and other notable campaigns, Connecticut’s Joseph R. Hawley was, during his lifetime, one of Connecticut’s most distinguished and celebrated citizens. A graduate of Hamilton College in New York, Hawley had a gift for both writing and public…
March 5: Abraham Lincoln “Wakes Up” Hartford
Today in 1860, sectional tensions over slavery and its expansion into the country’s newly formed states and territories was nearing the breaking point. It was a crucial election year, and members of the nation’s political parties were actively trying to decide who would be their standard bearers in the upcoming presidential campaign. For the…
March 3: The Connecticut Man Who Helped America Strut Her Stuff
The United States of America’s first century was marked by incredible growth in nearly every possible way, propelled by the forces of westward expansion, immigration, and the Industrial Revolution. As the 100th anniversary of the nation’s 1776 founding approached, a proposal came before Congress to celebrate America’s emergence as one of the world’s great…
February 19: Roger Sherman Baldwin: Governor, Senator, but Most of All, Abolitionist
Today in 1863, in the midst of a bloody Civil War that pitted Americans against each other over questions of slavery and freedom, scores of Connecticans mourned the passing of Roger Sherman Baldwin. One of Connecticut’s most accomplished politicians and perhaps its most ardent abolitionist lawyer, Baldwin had lived just long enough to witness…
February 10: The Civil War’s Biggest Wedding: “General Tom Thumb” & “The Queen of Beauty”
Born in 1838 in Bridgeport, Connecticut, legendary entertainer Charles Sherwood Stratton, a.k.a. “Tom Thumb,” began touring with internationally famous showman and fellow Connectican P. T. Barnum at the tender age of five. Stratton had first attracted Barnum’s attention because of his unusually small size; he had dwarfism and never grew taller than 42 inches…