Life and character of the Rev. Sylvester Judd

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CORNELE

UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

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Chapter I. Parentage And Childhood

WESTHAMPTON.

Sylvester Judd, the third of that name, was born in Westhampton, Mass., July 28, 1813. This is a small town in Hampshire County, about ten miles west of Connecticut River, and one of the four designated, according to the principal points of compass, by the name of Hampton. There is no part of it that can very well aspire to the appellation of village ; although its one church, one or two stores, and a few dwelling-houses, sparsely clustered around, form a point of general centralization. It is strictly an agricultural town, and its inhabitants are mostly farmers. The surface of its ground is very much broken, and diversified with abrupt, rocky hills, covered with a variety of forest-trees, thus forming much beautiful scenery of richly wooded hill and shady dell, varied here and there with green pastures and cultivated fields, in the midst of which stand the owner's residence and its appendages, expressive of neatness and taste, industry, good calculation, and thrift, or otherwise, as the case may he. The soil in general is poor, rather penuriously rewarding the toil of the husbandman. Many of the young men go abroad to seek their fortune ; and, in some instances, roads from one part of the town to another, once well travelled, are now closed, and whole farms given up to pasturage.

The inhabitants are, in general, industrious and frugal in their habits ; and many of them have, by prudence and economy, amassed what in such small country towns are considered very comfortable little fortunes. They are, in the main, moral in their characters, regular church-goers on the sabbath, and a good degree of religious feeling prevails among them.

Among the first settlers of the place, about the time of our National Revolution, were several heads of families, well educated and refined for those days, and, if not of the highest order of old-school gentility, certainly well nigh approaching it.

First and foremost among these, and, — in the good old-fashioned times when reverence for age and station had not become an obsolete virtue, — looked up to by all the young, as well as their seniors, with great deference, was the minister, the Rev. Enoch Hale, the first, and, in those more stable days, for half a century the only pastor of the church. His wife was a kind-hearted, motherly woman, lady-like in manners, and exercising a good deal of taste in personal appearance and household arrangements. The influence of the good parson and his lady on the society of the settlement; in its nascent state, was by no means small, and its favorable effects have been traceable ever since. All of their own large family of sons and daughters received a good degree of general culture. Two of the sons, Hon. Nathan Hale, long and well known as the able editor of the " Boston Daily Advertiser," and the late Dr. Enoch Hale, of Boston, a highly respectable physician, were educated for the liberal professions.

Dr. Hooker, son of the Rev. John Hooker, of Northampton, for many years the only physician of "Westhampton, and now sustaining a beautiful green old age of almost ninety years, must be mentioned as the head of another influential family.

Many other worthy names might be noticed, were this the place. The temptation is strong to linger a little upon this retired rural retreat, and its quiet, friendly people. But it must suffice to add, that, under the early impetus given to the general tone of things, the mass of the succeeding generations grew up with a very good appreciation of learning and intelligence, and, if not with high refinement, at least with an entire absence of vulgarity. Private schools of a high order have been sustained from time to time ; and, according to its population, the town has furnished our colleges with a large number of students, who in due time have held honorable places in the learned professions.

THE PATERNAL GRANDFATHER.

Holding a prominent place among the first settlers of "Westhampton, was Sylvester Judd, senior, the paternal grandfather of the subject of this history. He "was a son of the Rev. Jonathan Judd, of Southampton; the first clergyman of that place, and for sixty years pastor over the same people. Like all clergymen's sons of that day, he enjoyed better opportunities for education and general development than were usual. In due course of time, he began to clear and improve some wild land, purchased by his father in a part of the township near the borders of Southampton ; he erected a dwelling-house ) he married a wife having peculiarities which are often termed odd, and which left their impress in some degree on the son and grandson with whom this narrative has to do ; and, while yet a British subject, set up for himself. Bears were often heard in the cornfield near by ; and the young mother shuddered for fear in the absence of her husband, and took care to secure her children safely within doors.

This pioneer in a then new country sympathized fully in the interests of the Revolution, but did not engage in active service farther than in buying and forwarding provisions for the army, or something of that sort. He was one of the members of the first Convention for framing a Constitution for Massachusetts in 1779.

Though large and stately in person, he was a man of very little physical strength, and never applied his own hands much to labor. He was the careful overseer of his business and hired men, and engaged pretty largely in buying and selling cattle, sheep, swine, and so forth, for market. Success attended his efforts ; and in a short time we find him, in partnership -with Dr. Hooker before mentioned, the joint proprietor of a store in the centre of Westhampton, and afterwards of one also in the adjoining town of Norwich. He possessed a good deal of shrewdness in turning a shilling to a pound, a trait for which the immediate inheritors of his name were not particularly distinguished. A little extra capital soon enabled him to put up an addition to his house, making it a square, hip-roofed mansion, commodious, and, in those days, rather imposing. Large trees stood in the ample yard around ; and the whole place had a pleasant, inviting aspect, suggestive of circumstances quite above board.

He was the first Justice of the Peace of the town, and, in those days when titles were less common and more distinguishing than now, was always known as 'Squire Judd. For many years he represented "Westhampton in the General Court at Boston, and served often on committees for laying out roads, and in other like capacities. He was a man of firm integrity and deep religious principle. A good deal of the old-school gentleman, he was deferential to the minister, courteous to woman, and, as known in his later years, a merry-hearted old man, good company for the young as well as the old.

As his children, one after another, established households of their own, the old family mansion was the favorite place of resort and re-union. Thanksgiving was the great holiday festival of the year. On this day, all the children with husbands and wives, and grandchildren great and small, gathered around the paternal board. Great indeed was the

l* good cheer. Every thing which the farm or the store afforded was laid under contribution. The festivity was prefaced with a rich mug of flip, and genuine New England cider formed the beverage of the meal. It seemed to be almost a conscientious principle with some to make on this day a thankoffering upon the festal board of every article of food with which the God of harvests had blessed their store.

"When the long-continued repast was over, the large old family Bible was brought forward. Its leaves

and then, in sonorous voice,

"The saint, the father, and the husband prays."

If more space than seems appropriate is given to these delineations, the apology must be found partly in the desire to perpetuate a knowledge of the good old New England character, habits, and homes , which is so fast being lost in the impermanence and railroad whirl of the present day, and partly in the reflection from the mind and writings of the younger Sylvester Judd of that love of nature and primitive simplicity which were in a measure induced by these very scenes.

THE PARENTS.

Sylvester Judd, the second, at the age of thirteen, and having enjoyed only such means of education as the common school then furnished, was placed as a clerk in his father's store. After remaining in that employment about two years, weary of its confinement, and with true boyish restlessness and desire to see something of the world, for about six months he took up his abode in Boston. A part of this time he served as clerk in a store. Fortunately, at his boarding place, he fell in with some persons of intelligence, whose influence was to stimulate his own mind to an appreciation of knowledge and a determination for its attainment. At length, satisfied with his experiment, he was quite willing to return to his former station in "Westhampton.

But a new life was begun. The great objecl! now was mental progress. "Whatever spare money he could get was invested in books, and all the leisure moments intervening between the calls of customers were devoted to their perusal. Yet these ill sufficed to gratify the thirst for knowledge that had now sprung up in his mind. There was no other way but to encroach upon the hours due to sleep ; and for many successive years it was a common thing for the young man to sit up until twelve, one, and two o'clock, poring over his books. For about six weeks only, he received some aid in his studies from the Rev. Mr. Hale, who at that time was in the habit of taking young men into his family, and fitting them for college, or otherwise attending to their education. But with this slight assistance, and under all the hindrances he had to encounter, he mastered the Latin language sufficiently to read Virgil, progressed far enough in Greek to understand the New Testament in the original, obtained a very thorough knowledge of French as a written language, and gained some considerable acquaintance with Spanish. He went through a full course of the higher mathematics, penetrated deeply into history and political economy, and made himself quite extensively acquainted with polite literature, — a noble example of the practicability and value of self-teaching.

Soon after he had attained the age of twenty-one, the senior partners retired. A new firm was estab-' lished by their sons, whose places of business were respectively Northampton, Norwich, and Westhampton ; the younger Mr. Judd remaining at the latter place.

About this time, he was married to Miss Apphia Hall, daughter of Aaron Hall, of Norwich, a young lady of much native sensibility and refinement, and of high appreciation of general culture.

THE MATERNAL GRANDFATHER.

Her father, at the time the Revolutionary War began, was in his Freshman year at Harvard College. But the college was broken up, its members scattered, and this young student was forced to exchange the quiet halls of Cambridge for a life in camps. He was in the service, the greater part of the time acting as officer's clerk, until the close of the war. And in after-days, in a good old age, it was his delight to repeat again and again stories of those times that tried men's souls to the listening ears of wondering grandchildren. His early pursuits left a fondness for information, and till his latest days he was much given to general reading. From the great depreciation of the paper currency with which the soldiers of the Revolution were paid, he realized nothing of consequence for his long services and the disappointment of his early hopes and prospects. After following the profession of a schoolmaster for many years, he finally, with limited means, entered upon a farmer's life in the town of Norwich, then in its early settlement. His small, poor farm never afforded him any thing more than a bare living. He was a man highly respected and influential in the town. As Justice of the Peace, he always bore the appellation of 'Squire Hall, and for years served as representative of the town in the General Court. He was a man of hightoned honesty, of great conscientiousness, and of strongly developed sense of justice.

HOME AND CHILDHOOD OF THE BOY.

In a few years after his marriage, the young country trader built for himself a commodious house, opposite his little store, and near the meeting-house. He planted an orchard^ and took pains to engraft fine fruit ; and, a thing never done in the town before, set out in the yard around his house shade-trees, and sent to a distance for shrubbery, flowering plants, and vines.

Though born in a house a few rods distant, here the third Sylvester Judd, whose life and character it is the particular aim of these pages to delineate, had his home during his child-life. Here was a portion of the face of nature with which he first became familiar ; and here did he receive his first impressions of the mystery called death, by the removal from the household of a little brother. Here he conned his first book-lessons at the common school ; here took his first religious impressions, and received Calvinistic instructions at the sabbath school. In mature years he writes of these teachings : " I cannot forget those days. I well remember the benevolent countenances of my teachers, and the solemnity with which they told their young pupils that we were sinners, and must be born again, or we could not go to heaven. I recollect, too, the mingled look of still unsatisfied curiosity, and unanalyzed yet real disappointment, which came over the more thoughtful of my class, whose minds were just beginning to unfold themselves to the intense impressions of religious things." Here he learned the Assembly's Catechism; and, at the close of the afternoon sermon, took part in the public catechizing, the children being " arranged in the broad aisle, the boys on one side, and the girls on the other, with the minister in the pulpit at the head, and the elderly people occupying the neighboring pews."* Here was the "Noon House, — a small building near the school-house, where several elderly men and women went (on sabbath noons), and ate their dinner, and had a prayer." His father's house was also open on sabbath noons for as many as it would contain of the people living too remote from church to go to their homes in the interval of service. Here the venerable old grandfather and grandmother, in an old-fashioned chaise, followed by a young aunt and

* " Margaret."

PAKENTAGE AND CHILDHOOD. 11

other members of the family in a small wagon, were seen driving up in early hour for church service, as regularly as the sabbath came, from his farm two or three miles distant. And in the father's parlor at noon were gathered the grandparents and particular friends and relatives of the family, where they partook of a cold collation of <c nutcakes and cheese," and other articles of food that could be prepared beforehand ; for there, in those times, as little was done on the sabbath between sun and sun as possible, — " snuffed snuff; " smoked pipes ; " talked of the weather, births, deaths, health, sickness," and so forth.

The sabbath was at this time observed, in this quiet country town, very much after the manner of the Puritan sabbath, so graphically described by Miss Sedgwick in " Hope Leslie." At these sabbathnoon gatherings, every face wore a serious aspect; and if, as often happened, the muscles of the elders were relaxed by the outbreaking wit, or rather drollery, of an old aunt, and her antagonist a gentleman of about the same age, it would be accompanied by " a half- deprecating, half- laughing " expression, which seemed to say, " She is so droll, that a body must laugh, though it be sabbath-day."

The young Sylvester was the second child and son of the family ; and then followed three brothers and a sister, all born at the "new house," as it was called in distinction from the one where the two eldest first saw the light. As a child, he was quick to learn, and careful to learn correctly. He joined in plays and active sports, but was always distanced in these pastimes by Lis older and next younger brother. He manifested an amiable disposition, was gentle in manners, and evinced a tendency for getting into sympathy with others. He was distinguished for conscientiousness ; and the impression of those then about him is, that he was never known to utter an untruth. Whether, at this early -age, there was discernible in him any marked susceptibility to nature's influences, is not known; neither^were there remarked striking characteristics of any kind.

The following expressions from his own pen, in after-years, may serve as a hint of his own remembered impressions : " The child has sometimes aspirations that tower high, thoughts that reach far, fears that sink low. We can all remember such moments in our history. How much of eternity has come over that boy's mind, who has cast his fishing-line into the waters of our silently flowing Connecticut ! I do not say his reflections may not be dissipated by the first dip of his float ; but an impression has planted itself in his heart, which will influence him for ever." And again : " I had from my earliest days thought much of God, and very often did I retire to pour out my soul in secret to him."

For a few years after marriage, the father prospered very well in his pecuniary affairs ; but, after the coming on of the war with England in 1812, his small business was very much embarrassed, and at length well nigh closed. After a time, he partially resumed his operations ; but no good degree of prosperity attended his exertions. He was not naturally fitted for mercantile transactions, and never entered into them with any great degree of enthusiasm. As time passed on, his love of study quite overbalanced his 'willingness to submit to the drudgery of exchanging pins, tape, and snuff, for a few eggs and paper-rags ; of measuring off calico and ribbons for their value in butter and cheese ; or drawing molasses, rum, or brandy, for waiting customers. For 'in those days, the country store was an omnium gatherum of all sorts of merchandise, " a motley array of dry and fancy goods, crockery, hardware, groceries, drugs, and medicines."

REMOVAL TO NORTHAMPTON.

A younger brother of his, Hophni Judd, Esq., had been educated for the profession of law, and had established himself in Northampton. Here, in connection with the Hon. Isaac C. Bates, he had become a proprietor and editor of the " Hampshire Gazette," an old respectable newspaper, the first, and then the only one, in the county. But, unhappily for sorrowing friends, this promising young man, with bright professional prospects, and on the eve of consummating his fond visions of domestic bliss, two or three years previous to the time above referred to, had fallen a prey to slowly-consuming pulmonary disease.

It was now determined, in 1822, that the Westhampton brother should quit his ill-remunerating and distasteful occupation there, remove to Northampton, and become sole proprietor and editor of the paper with which the deceased brother had been connected. It was not, indeed, without some degree of painful feeling that he decided to leave the house which he had built, with its flourishing young shade-trees, shrubs, and flowers, and the promise of fruit from the orchard, which he had taken pains to plant, and the ground around, that had received the footprints of one of his little boys that had passed away from sight. His children were, of course, too young to share in these feelings. To them, change, and the prospect of being where there was more chance for amusements, was very pleasant. Of this period of his life, before the change of residence to Northampton, the younger Sylvester wrote, at a later time, that the memory of it was merely as " a pleasing dream."

But the now aged grandfather, left solitary in his farm-mansion by the transition to the spirit-world of his life-partner, and seven out of his eleven children, and the marriage of the remainder, had, the year previous, given up his old home, and come to reside with this, his only son. A widowed daughter now came to administer to the wants of the declining parent, so that the house was not left desolate ; neither did it go into the hands of strangers, but for many years afterwards was the fond place of gathering on Thanksgiving and other times for children and grandchildren.

Chapter II. Boyhood And Youth

NORTHAMPTON.

The spring of 1822, then, finds the boy Sylvester, in the ninth year of his age, transferred from his native place to the adjoining town of Northampton. The village ■which bears this name, and in which his father now came to reside, is justly celebrated as one of the most beautiful spots in all New England. Its streets are embowered with wide-spreading, venerable elms ; it has an abundance of shrubbery, many well-kept gardens and tastefully laid out grounds ; in its environs are inviting foot-rambles and pleasant rides ; here is Round Hill, with its wood-crowned summit and green-nested residences, looking out afar upon a beautiful panorama of green fields and rich meadows, of neat little villages with their church spires and public buildings ; and stretching off in the distance, with the irregular peaks of Holyoke and Tom in the foreground, is the far extending perspective of mountains, with dark cloudshadows and bright sunlight upon their sides, now reposing in dignity, and anon chasing each other with flying footsteps ; here, too, is the well-shaded venerable old burial-ground, where sleep the forefathers of the village. All these elements conspire to render the place most lovely and attractive.

EARLY RELIGIOUS EMOTIONS.

Amid these charming scenes, Sylvester passed the period of hoyhood. A deep impression was made by them upon his mind and heart. A sensibility to the beautiful was developed. Deep religious emotions also often stirred his young spirit. The account given by himself of some of the religious experiences of his boyhood is as follows : —

"Religion, which as a subject of thought often engaged my attention, and as a subject of feeling deeply interested my heart, was a mystery to me. It was a fundamental article of my belief, that I could not become religious until I was made so by an extraneous and special operation. Still I earnestly longed for the ' one thing needful.' I can but allude to the irrepressible desire, the cravings of my heart, for a full participation in the religious feeling. But the influences of my creed came over my spirit like an autumnal frost, and sealed up the fountains of emotion. Abused Nature did not always remain silent under her injuries. She poured her complaints into my ear with a voice that I should not have disregarded. But the prejudice of education rendered these monitions powerless upon my reason and convictions. I supposed myself totally depraved; and thus was my earlier youth passed without being permitted to indulge in its proper sensibilities.

"The works of God were all perverted to me. They were dispossessed of their highest, their religious "beauty. "When I fished by the river-side, when I rambled in the woods, when my fancy led me to a favorite hill-top that overhangs as lovely a landscape as our continent embraces, I thought this world was beautiful; I thought it beneficent in its uses ; I felt that there was a unison between the scene around me and my own heart. But then I knew that my own nature was cursed, and that the earth had been cursed ; and I supposed that this harmony was depraved, or at least that there was nothing desirable about it; and I did not allow myself to cherish it as much as I wished, nor with that delight which it has since afforded me. I used to repine almost, that I had not lived with Adam in Paradise, when the earth was really beautiful, and man's nature could properly sympathize with its charms. I used to hope that I might live to see the millennium, when this double curse would be removed, and men would be restored to the true enjoyment of nature. I looked up to the stars at night : I supposed that they had not been cursed. "While my imagination would be revelling in the idea of their number and distances, my heart would throw itself abroad, and mingle somewhat in spirituality with the infinite God who made them ; I felt something of humility, something of adoration, something of love ; but I had not been converted. Of course my feelings were not religion. There could be no right harmony between my heart and the unsullied glories of God's handywork, which thronged the firmament."

2*

HIS BOYHOOD-SCHOOLS.

On coming to Northampton, Sylvester at first attended a private school taught by a lady. Here he distinguished himself for quickness of perception, and facility in acquiring knowledge. He then went awhile to the old Hawley Grammar School of the place. Nothing is known of his doings here, save what may be inferred from a passage in a Lyceum Lecture, which, after attaining manhood, he delivered in Northampton. He says : " Many of us were taught our rudiments in the old Grammar School-house, whose square roof and low walls, with its broken windows and loosened clapboards, still survive to kindle our recollections. There was little study, but an iron discipline. Instead of instruction for the mind were the ferule and switch for the hand and the back. There were school-hating and truantloving. For philosophical experiments, the combined skill of the school was employed in constructing a fire of green logs, and keeping it active during the day. Perhaps there were better things than these. But these things were. I wish, indeed, I could allude to that old building, with a better tribute to its memory."

In 1824 he was allowed to accompany some young ladies, relatives of his, to Westfield Academy, then under the care of the Rev. Emerson Davis. He was a member of this celebrated institution for only one or two terms, but long enough to attract the notice and win the approbation of the principal, little boy as he then was, in the midst of young men fitting for college. The kind, good preceptor is remembered to have said, that there was great pleasure in giving young Judd instruction or correcting any mistake in his recitations, because he never had to repeat it a second time — it was always remembered. While here, he commenced the study of Latin, and made his first attempts at elocution and composition-writing. His first written production was submitted to the examination of one of the young ladies under whose care he was, before being handed to his teacher. It was quite creditably written, but very short. On her asking why he did not write more, he very naively replied, "because he was afraid he should not have any thing left to say in the next one." He did so well in elocution, always recollecting to observe suggestions previously made, that, at the annual public exhibition, he had one or two parts assigned to him. He was at that time a bright, pleasant-looking boy, gentle in his manners, and very obliging in his disposition. He became quite a pet with the young ladies of the school, much older than himself, who used to gather around, and make him the subject of their caresses.

On returning to Northampton, he attended a private school taught by Mr. Charles "Walker, from whom he received a copy of the " Lights and Shadows of Scottish Life," inscribed as "a reward for attention to study and correct deportment."

In the summer of 1825, we find him at a private school under the care of Mr. Robert A. Coffin, who presented him a like testimonial of good scholarship and deportment. He continued at this school for two or three years ; and the efforts at composition, at this period, are the earliest productions of his pen which he preserved. They are very respectable for a boy of his age, but exhibit no particular saliency of thought or fertility of imagination. They contain many indications of moral and religious sensibility. One is entitled, " The Advantages of Early Piety."

A REVIVAL, AND HIS CONVERSION.

In 1826, there occurred in Northampton what is termed a revival of religion, under the ministrations of the Rev. Mark Tucker, accompanied with its usual powerful appeals, and multiplied religious meetings. The mind of the boy being naturally susceptible to religious impressions, and even before this time having been exercised with solicitude about his own spiritual welfare, he very naturally threw himself into the current of strong feeling which was abroad. "Without much inward conflict or mental distress, as it is believed, he soon found peace in the hope that his eternal salvation was made secure. Of this experience he writes : " At length a revival came, that long wished-for occurrence. Into its scenes of stirring interest and solemn devotion I entered, with that enthusiasm which the subject was adapted to enlist, and which my own nature prompted. I found that which I sought. I was happy in the free exercise of a new heart, and was satisfied in my election being secured." Zealous in imparting to others the great benefits which he felt he had attained, this young disciple immediately entered upon the ministerial office, so far as laboring and praying for the conversion of his companions was concerned. He, with others, often held meetings in a barn, where, mounted on a barrel's head, he would put forth earnest appeals to his playmates to forsake sin, and enter the pathway of eternal life. There was in his prayers an unction which moved the hearts of those even of maturer age. He did not at this time unite with the church, though the Rev. Mr. Tucker regarded him as his spiritual child.