Alida Blake Hazard

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"Blakes of 77 Elm Street: A Family Sketch" - By Alida Blake Hazard

"You have always seemed interested, dear Pierre and Nancy, to know something of your mother's family, so I have here set down what I hope will be a picture of an interesting group, the central figure being my beloved grandfather, Eli Whitney Blake.

This is not a genealogy, neither does it make any claims to accuracy. Dates and names are all to be found in large volumes which trace the history of the family way back to England. So I shall not be disturbed if anyone calls my attention to such a slip as, for example, the order in age of our grandfather's brothers.

Of Elihu Blake, my great-grandfather, I have no personal recollection, but he was still in the memory of his grandchildren when I was young, and from the many stories told of him he must have been quite a remarkable, if very quaint, old gentleman. His wife was Elizabeth Whitney, sister of Eli Whitney, inventor of the cotton gin, for whom our grandfather was named. They had ten children, all of whom lived to grow up - seven sons and three daughters. The sons were Philos, Eli Whitney, Josiah, Elihu, John, George, and Edward. The three daughters were Elizabeth Whitney, Maria, and Frances. How our great-grandparents even brought up this large family, educated them and started them in life is a mystery. Besides the small farm on which they lived near Westboro, Massachusetts, the only other source of income appears to have been our great-grandfather's talent in mathematics. Today he would be called an expert accountant. in those, he was called a mathematician, and his services were in great demand through the country side and even in far away Boston. It was on one of these business trips, which he always made on horseback, that an adventure befell him which became a family byword. At a crossroads an Indian, in full war paint, suddenly leaped from the bushes and seized the bridle of his horse. pointing in one direction the Indian said, "Old Injun come dis way, 'quire me gone dat way, tell him me gone t'other way, would ye?" and disappeared, probably to the relief of the traveler. in the notice of the death of Elihu Blake in the church records he is described as a "Worthy, Pious and Very Learned Man". Wherever could he have acquired his learning? However, he saw to it that his sons had such advantages as were possible. our grand-father was sent to Yale by his uncle and namesake, Eli Whitney. Josiah went to Harvard. The other sons were content with graduating from the academics of Massachusetts. not only did our grandparents do well by their children, but they provided for their own old age.

Elizabeth Whitney died when her husband was nearly seventy. He soon married again and had some twenty years of quet life in a simple but comfortable home. His second wife was always known in the family as "the Widow Holbrook"; more than that about her I was never able to discover. I once asked my grandfather what her name was. He seemed surprised at the question and replied, "Sarah, or Susan, or something like that. I don't know which. Ask your Uncle John." Whatever her name; she seems to have had patience with her husband's hobbies. He turned his inventive faculties to odd uses. When a guest came to call he was taken into a summer-house. no sooner was he seated on a bench than the lid of a chest opposite flew open and a stuffed tiger jumped out at the startled visitor! To calm his nerves he was then taken to admire a view. As he sat on a chair to rest jets of water spouted on him from all directions to the amusement of his host. Rather a trying old gentleman! Nevertheless the children of Westboro adord him, and it was his habit to frequently invite all the school children to spend a happy afternoon being frightened by tigers, wet with water, and to enjoy a feast of cookies at the close.

After his death his son Josiah bought the house and place from the widow, but what became of the tiger and the other practical jokes I don't know. They were not in evidence when I saw the place many years later. Neither do I know what became of "the Widow Holbrook". She fades out of the family picture as nebulously as she came in.

Two of my grandfather's brothers went into business with him later under the firm name of Blake Brothers, manufacturing the Blake Stone-crusher, which was the invention of our grandfather. These two brothers were Philos and John.

Phios married Esther Babcock. He was a very tall, large man, well over six feet and she was very small. She was a very old lady as I first remember her but always very active. She wore a black silk dress the year around, a very ornate cap, and a black front, which probably concealed gray hair. She wore about her waist a silver chain, from which hung a bunch of keys. As soon as guests were seated these keys were used to pen a large sideboard and bring out the cake and wine which were always offered regardless of the house of the day at which the visit was paid. Children were treated to oranges and cake, so a visit to Aunt Esther was rather a popular proceeding. There were several children, none of whom are now living and only one of whom was survived by children and these have now passed away.

Uncle John married Sarah Hotchkiss. She was a nieve of Aunt Esther though not very far from her in age - a tall, blonde woman, who, we were told, had been a beauty in her day. They had four daughters and two sons, George the younger of the sons, was drowned while boating on Lake Saltonstall. John, the other son, was a very clever man, and my father always thought would have done much in scientific work had he been willing to work along recognized lines. He was very erratic, however, and his inventions nad discoveries all went to the advantage of other people. The sisters were all rather unfortunate in their marriages and their children are none of them living now, I believe.

Josiah Whitney Blake was for a time interested in the South American trade and had several vessels which sailed from Boston. He married Clarina Lord. Her sister married Michael H. Simpson, who was the owner of the great carpet mills at Saxonville, Massachusetts. In later life Uncle Josiah became treasurer of these mills, which position he held for over thirty years until his death. He had two daughters, one of whom died very young and the other, Mrs. Miner, so after his own death, leaving no children.

Uncle Elihu started as a sureon, but having the Blake talent for invention, became interested in inventing dental appliances, and finally took that up altogether. His practice, however, was in New York, where he lived until he was a very old gentleman, when he retired to his farm at Cherry Hill near New Haven. he was the father of William Phipps Blake and Theodore A. Blake. Cousin William was a very well-known geologist and was the father of Joseph A. Blake, the surgeon; Frank Blake; Theodore Whitney Blake and Constance, who was Mr.s Toomey, and who died very young. Uncle Elihu also had two daughters, Adele, who married George Panton of Jamaica, West Indies. She was a great beauty but died in her early twenties. The other daughter was Emma, who many of you should remember.

Uncle George was in the South American business and spent most of his time in the Argentine. He died there of yellow fever, leaving one daughter, Cousin Isabel. She lived very much at our grandfather's and we are all much attached to her, as I am glad to say she is still with us.

Uncle Edward lived in Pittsburgh all his life and seemed to have very little to do with the rest of the family. He came on once and made a visit in New Haven, but he was so erratic that I doubt if anyone regretted that the visit was never repeated. I think that all his family have now died out.

That completes the list of grandfather's brothers. Now for the sisters.

The oldest, Elizabeth Whitney, married Rev. John Barstow, D.D., minister for fifty years at the Congregational Church in Keene, New Hampshire. They had two sons, John Barstow, who went to California as a young man, lived and died there; and Dr. J. Whitney Barstow of New York. who was an authority on mental diseases and was much beloved by the whole family circle. He married Flora MacDonald of Flushing, Long Island, and three daughters still survive.

Maria married a Mr. Burgess, who was a New Hampshire man, but I know very little more about him. As far as I know, none of their descendants are living.

The younger sister, Frances, married Rev. William Orcutt, D.D., who was the executive secretary for years of the African Colonization Society. This was formed in the days before the Civil War to send freed slaves back to Africa, and was the foundation of the present Republic of Liberia. After Mr. Orcutt's death, Aunt Fanny made her home with our grandfather, to the joy of all of use for she was a very delightful old lady. They had one daughter who died as a child.

As I have said, his Uncle Eli Whitney sent our grandfather through Yale, where he graduated in the class of 1814. He taught in all his vacations, helping thus to meet his expenses. At that time there was a long vacation of ten weeks in mid-winter. During that period students taught in the country schools, which was all to the good of the children. Grandpa usesd to tell amusing stories of his scholars. In those days while men were discarding the pigtail and letting their hair grow naturally, the boys were still bound to the "que". One day my grandfather noticed a small boy sitting with his mouth wide open and a very distressed expression on his face. When Grandpa said, "Henry, shut your mouth", he replied, "I can't; my que's too tight." On another occasion a boy was sent from an adjoining school with high recommendation from the teacher. He failed to live up to this and was a full scholar, so grandfather questioned him as to his general deficiency when he had been called a bright boy. His answer was, "Can't help it, Mr. Blake. I ain't got the hang of the schoolhouse yet." There was always Bible reading at the opening of school and one day the teacher's gravity was sorely tested when a small boy read in sonorous tones, "These twelve sat upon thorns judging the twelve tribes of Israel." Grandpa used to say that the boy spoke more wisely than he knew for certainly any twelve who had to judge the twelve tribes of Israel would sit upon thorns, metaphorically at least!

After his graduation our grandfather attended the law school of Judge Gould in Litchfield, Connecticut. He was admitted to the Bar but never practices, though he always conducted his own cases for infringement of patent both for his uncle and the cotton gin, and for his own stone-crusher. He was regarded as such a successful patent lawyer that he was frequently consulted in other patent cases.

Deceiving not to make a career of the law, he travelled in the south for his Uncle Eli Whitney in the interest of the cotton gin. The south in those days was rather a troublous part of the country and our grandfather's travels were not without adventures. One one trip he was in a stage-coach in which were two young ladies traveling alone. They were insulted by a young man and were very frightened. Grandfather intervened and after some altercation the persecutor left the stage threatening that my grandfather should "hear more of this" As it turned out that the man was James Watson Webb, a well-known fire-eater in the South and afterward a truculent editor in New York. Grandpa was not at all surprised to receive a visit, a day or two later, from a man who presented himself as Second for Mr. Webb and challenged Grandpa to a duel. As the challenged party, grandfather had the choice of weapons, and when, with the usual formalities, he was asked what they would be, he replied, his fists! Greatly shocked the Second demurred and suggested pistols or swords. Grandfather said he disapproved entirely of duels, but if attacked he should certainly defend himself with the weapons that nature had given him. The would-be duelist looked the tall, vigorous Yankee up and down and evidently did not like the prospect. Perhaps also James Watson Webb thought the better of it, for grandfather never heard of it again.

It was during these travels that our grandfather acquired his horror of cards, which he never lost. Gambling was very prevalent in the south, and seeing the misery that it entailed Grandpa could not forgive even the innocent medium. Liberal as he was, for his day, letting his children dance, go to the theater, and even have plays at home, cards were and remained anathema.

Soon after our grandfather's return from the South he was made superintendent of his uncle's works at Whitneyville, and not long after that was married to Eliza Maria O'Brien.

To understand our grandmother and to fully appreciate all that she meant to her husband some account must be fiven of her family and especially of that extraordinarily dominant personality, our great-grandmother.

The Pierrepont family had been among the first settlers in the New Haven colony, and the old maps and deeds describe them as "Gentlemen", whatever that meant - probably a tribute to their Stuart descent and kinship to the then Duke of Kingston. At all events they fully appreciated their social standing, and none more than great-grandmother. From the time when as "Pretty Polly Pierrepont" she had been the "toast" of the day, and made a runaway marriage with a French-Irist, or Irish-French stranger, to her later days as the discreet and severe wife of that most respectable (if somewhat dull) citizen, Edward Foster, she ruled not only her own family but all who came within her orbit.

Her first marriage turned out better than might have been expected. Edward O'Brien was a descendant of an Irish gentleman, who, remaining loyal to James II, followed him to France and was attached to the forlorn little court at St. Germain. There he married a French lady and became the grandfather of our maternal great-grandfather. This grandson, Edward O'Brien was quite French, speaking but little English when he first reached New England. He came out to Maine (then a province of France), and from there drifted down to New Haven, where he became a publisher and assisted Noah Webster with the famous dictionary. He also published a pocket-dictionary of his own, the first ever published in America. It is now extremely rate and copies bring enormous prices.

This marriage only lasted about five years. There were two children, our grandmother Eliza Maria, and a son, Henry. Edward O'Brien was sent by the Federal Government on a mission to the French West Indies. There he died of yellow fever. The son, Henry, lived to grow up and took to the sea. He made several oyages and was finally lost somewhere off the South American coast.

Great-grandma did not remain long disconsolate. She had suitors by the score. but this time she picked out a worthy man, much older than herself, and one who would appreciate her right to rule. That being established they lived in harmony for a number of years. They had three sons, Pierrepont, Eleazer K. and Edward Foster; also four daughter: Harriet, Mary Ann, Jane, and Caroline. These ladies (our grandmother's half-sisters), as "aunties' played quite a part in our family life. Although they were middle aged women at the time of their mother's death, they were quire submerged as long as she lived. After that they made a happy and useful household. Aunt Harriet devoted herself to what would now be called social service. She was the founder and for many years president, of the New Haven Orphan Asylum, which is still a flourishing institution. Aunt Mary Ann took the society end, made the formal visits which etiquette demanded in those days, received callers and generally upheld the tradition of social prestige. Aunt Jane was the housekeeper, and a wonderful little housekeeper she was too. Aunt caroline was the gardener and her plants even in winter. were a wonder to see.

Pierrepont Foster, irreverently, known to the younger members of the family as "Uncle Pip", married three times, but beyond the fact that their names were Bishop and that he had one son, Will Law Foster, I know little of the family. Uncle Eleazer was a very distinguished jurist in Connecticut and is quoted with much respect in so important a book as Bryce's, American Commonwealth. He married Mary Codrington, daughter of Governor Codrington of Jamaica, West Indies. He had three sons, Eleazer who married a Miss Sanford and founded Sanford in Florida; William who married Miss Betts and was for many years editor of the Buffalo Express and Courier; and Dr. John P.C. Foster, well-known even to your generation as "Cousin John". He married, as you well know, his second-cousin, Josephine Bicknell, whose mother, cousin Teresa Pierrepont, was the granddaughter of Uncle Hezekiah, our great-grandfather's brother. Uncle Eleazer was a most delightful person. He was very out-spoken even as a child. The story is told of him that he was taken to see some religious wax-works. The other children were all much impressed, but Uncle Eleazer, pointing at a figure representing David and his harp, demanded to know loudly, "who's the old devil playing on a fiddle?" Though his sisters, the aunties, were in a chronic state of being shocked at Eleazer, they all missed him sadly enough when he passed on, as indeed did we all.

Edward, the youngest son, lived always in Potsdam, New York. He was married and had one daughter, Mary, but I do not know the maiden-name of his wife.

One other member of great-grandma's household must be included in this brief account, as his wanderings and adventures thrilled two generations of nephews and nieces. This was Uncle John Pierrepont, a brother of great-grandmother's, but whether older or younger, I don't know. His history, for us, began in India. he had gone out as supercargo on a ship, but left to engage in some business for himself. This enterprise was apparently successful as after some years he sailed for home, this time as a passenger, bringing his treasure with him. Unfortunately the captain of the ship was a villain, and finding out about the treasure, concocted a scheme to get a hold of it. So one fine day he sailed into a port on one of the Malay Islands. There he persuaded Uncle John to land with a mate and some sailors, saying the vessel would stay some time. Very soon, however, the men slipped away, returned to the ship, and off they sailed, leaving Uncle John marooned. The ship finally arrived in England and reported that the passenger, John Pierrepont, had been lost at sea, and so the news came to his family in this country. The captain got nothing by his treachery, as all the time Uncle John had his "treasure" on his person and not in his sea-chest where the captain counted on finding it. For nearly twenty years, Uncle John lived on that island and many and marvelous were his adventures according to his own account at least. One day great-grandma was told a gentleman wished to see her. On entering the room she was greeted most affectionately by an apparent stranger. When she demanded to know what he meant and who he was, the man cried, "Good God, Polly, don't you know your own brother!", at the same time holding up his left hand. This convinced Great-grandma as her brother was born with no little finger on his left hand. How glad she was to see him after the melodramatic return, I don't know, but she took him in and he made her house his headquarters for years. Toward the end he became a victim of gout and excessively irritable, so perhaps the poor lady may have regretted that the Malays did not keep him altogether.

When our grandparents were married they went first into a small stone house in Whitneyville, just opposite the Whitney Works, of which grandpa was superintendent. This house was still standing when I was young and we children took great interest in it as "the house Aunt Mary was born in". My impression is that the two eldest children were born there, but I am not sure. The house was also small for a growing family. Grandpa also was working on his invention of the stone-crusher, and with Uncle Philos and Uncle John had formed the firm of Blake Brothers, with a foundry at Westville. A house had recently been built next door to great-grandma's and had not come into the market. Grandpa bought the house, which, as 77 Elm Street, was to be not only his home, but the heart of the family as long as he lived. No one was ever turned away from its door, and always its foof any of the clan knew they had always a kindly refuge.

It may seem odd that the young couple should have chosen to settle down so near the autocratic mother-in-law. it seems grandpa's brothers and their families were not without misgivings on that subject. However it worked out very well. Great-grandma had a high regard and evidently a sincere respect for her quiet, dignified son-in-law, always addressing him as Mr. Blake. he, on his side, treated her with the courtesy he always paid women, and spoke of her and to her as "Madame". Years after her death I had a chance to ask grandpa about her. We had been talking over old times, and, finding him to be in a confidential modd, I asked him what sort of person great-granma really was, so many stories had gown up about her memory. He paused for a little to consider and then replied judicially and deliberately, "She had a fine character, and she carried her burdens bravely.". I have often thought that is as good an epitaph as one need to have. There you have the fundamentals, the peculiarities were extraneous after all.

Now what sort of a place was New Haven in the days when our grandparents started their home at 77 Elm Street? It makes it easier for us to imagine it all, as the two houses, great-grandmother's and grandfather's, are still standing and, outwardly, not much changed. The Pierrepont house, built in 1767, is owned by Yale and is used as a Faculty Club for the ladies as well as the men, while 77, also owned by the University, is the Graduate Club.

In those early days Elm Street was really a country road, the Green opposite assured a southern outlook and the beautiful elms must have been in their prime. The houses stand quite near the street, the gardens being in the back. As I remember all that came out of that graden I marvel. A straight path led down to the end where there was a square of grass (not big enough to be called a lawn) and a summer-house. On either rside of the path ran a bed of flowers, always gay and sweet. Back of these came vegetables, and such vegetables! I have yet to see lima beans to equal those. Along the side fences grew currant and raspberry bushes. In one corner was our Grandmother's herb garden, for, like most gentlewomen of her day, she was learned in the use of herbs and simples and her remedies had a great reputation. All this was cared for by one man of all-work and, when they had the time, by members of the family. Both grandpa and grandma loved gardening, and they certainly had what is known as a "growing hand."

Across the street the Green was a very different place from the Green of these days. Uncle Henry Blake has written a delightful book on the "History of the Green", so I will only say here that even in our generation it was a lovely, shady place. You will recall that Connecticut used to have two Capitals, New Haven and Hartford. The State House stood almost opposite grandpa's in the Green and some little distance back from the street. We children regarded it with admiration, and thought it very impressive, though, as I think of it now, it must have been already dilapidated. It had a portico and columns and was supposed to be Grecian, but it really looked more like a magnified tomb than anything else! Some years after Hartford was finally made the sole Capital the structure was pulled down. We youngsters mourned its going as a cannon was always fired from its doorsteps at sunrise on the Fourth of July. The job of this somewhat rackety performance was greatly enhanced by the fact that one the evening before a policeman in resplendent uniform always called at the house with a caution as to leaving all the windows open so that the glass might not be broken by the concussion! Probably the elders in the family were quite reconciled to the passing of this custom.

The College campus faced on the Green, and in those day seemed to be almost a part of it. Even as I remember it the campus was beautiful, with very simply colonial buildings, grass and trees, instead of being the overbuilt, over ornate piece of ground it is now.

The three churches in the Green held a more important place in the life of New Haven of those days than is now the case. Centre Church held the supremacy for years. Then, as the town grew, some of its members felt they were not accorded sufficient recognition and they set up for themselves in a new church called the North Church. Trinity represented the comparatively few Episcopalians. Our grandparents belonged by inheritance and conviction to Centre Church. Great-grandmother's second husband, Edward Foster, seceded to North Church, and two of his daughters with him. Uncle Eleazer Foster became an Episcopalian, as did his sister, Aunt Mary Ann. So the family was represented in all three churches, with was rather unusual.

It is easier to imagine the material New Haven of the early 1800s than it is to picture the social life. Of course Yale College played an important part in the little community. The College was small, not as large as several of the fashionable preparatory schools of our day, the faculty was limited in numbers but composed mainly of men well qualified to influence, not only the young lives entrusted to their care, but the whole town in which they lived. They were poorly paid, few had any private means and they and their families set an example of high thinking and plain living which survived (as a tradition at all events) down even to my generation. The old families were closely bound together, often by kinship and often by generation sof faithful friendship. It is a temptation here to name a few of the families whose steadfast friendship still survives, but this is only a family sketch and all tat must be for another time. As one reads the letters of those days the impression one gets is of an atmosphere of friendliness. The pioneer days, when all the settlers were dependent on each other, had passed, but the tradition of helpfulness remained. There were no rich people (as riches are measured now) and there were no suffering poor. That generation knew nothing of organized charities, but each well-to-do family had, as a matter of course, a group of pensioners. These might be worthy or they might be unworthy, but in any case they were cared for. These dependents played quite a part in family life. Some of them were real characters, as for example, one of grandmother's protogees, Sylvester Potter. He was a very unworthy person, who lived on a small farm at the edge of the town, his chief claim to celebrity was the fact that he drove a cart to which was harnessed a pair of trotting bulls. This was considered a great curiosity and he was pointed out to visitors as one of the local sights. Unfortunately he was often withdrawn from public life by sojourns in jail owing to his addiction to New England rum. This weakness lost him many friends, but grandma persisted in believing the never-failing protestations of his reform. My uncles used to tell with glee of one interview between Grandma and "Vet" as he was called, Potter. He had emerged from jail and was assuring his listener of his conversation, "Yes, Mrs. Blake, I sure am reformed this time. When I was in jail I felt so terrible to think how I had disappointed all my friends that I made up my mind to kill myself. I was just getting ready to do it when I hern a voice from the ceiling, and the voice says, "Vet", it says, and I say, "yes, Lord, and the Lord says Don't do it, Vet, don't do it, good men is skase"

Another character was Mrs. Bemis. She was a very pious person and was so addicted to religious observances of the camp-meeting type that her husband left home and disappeared. Two of her bon-mots were especially cherished in the family. She was telling grandmother of a visit of condolence she paid to a friend. "Yes, Mrs. Blake, I says to Betsy, I says, now Betsy I know you feel bad to lose your husband, but you got a lot to be thankful for. You know where Truman is and I never know when Bemis might turn up in any minute." Her daughter Maria had been ill and Uncle Geordge went to take her for a drive with grandma's gentle pony. Maria hesitated about going, but Mrs. Bemis decided the matter by saying, "Now Maria, you'd better go with Mr. George; like as not enough the next ride you get will be in your hearse."

Mention must be made of Lois Thompson, whose great claim to distinction was that she was the last slave to be sold in Connecticut. Three or four men, our grandfather among them, bought her in and gave her her freedom. She seemed to feel that this gave her some special hold on them. They had made her free, now it was up to them to look out for her, and that attidude she maintained quite successfully throughout a long life. She was a strange looking old negress and could have posed as a Voodoo priestess. She made great claims to medical knowledge and her remedies were strange enough. On one of her visits she found one of our aunts suffering with a severe headache. She stood looking at the victim until Aunt Eliza, vexed at the scrutiny, said, "Well Lois, can't you do something for this pain in my head?" "No, Miss Eliza, no I can't, and no one else can; dare's only one cure for such headaches and dat's graveyard mold." To another patient in the family, she earnestly prescribed, "black cat's blood in cream, be sure and take it on the full of the moon." She had so many so-called husbands, and was, I fear, quite an unworthy old person. indeed worthiness seems to have had little to do with these cases. There was no idea of charity on either side. The group were like household pets, sometimes amusing, frequently annoying, but always to be cared for.

Of course the small size of the industrial plants at that time made it possible for the owners to be in much closer tought with their work-people than they could be now. Grandpa and his brothers took a great interest in the men working in their Westville foundry. They cared for them and their families, and often plated the part of surgeon in the injuries the men received at their work. Doctors were few, widely scattered, and not to be had in a hurry. Employers were often called upon for "first aid", though that term was not then invented. So successful was grandfather in his treatment of burns that he was twice invited to address the State Medical Association on that subject. The men had great confidence in his skill and expected him to cure their children as well as themselves. One day a wokman brought a small boy in to grandfather's office. The poor child had stuch a stone into its ear which resisted all efforts to take it out. The stone could be seen but the forceps the doctor had used in trying to extricate it had only inflamed the ear and the poor little thing was suffering terribly. Grandfather had them apply hot water until the swelling had somewhat subsided. He then painted the exposed surface of the stone with some very strong glue. Taking one of the small, round lamp wicks of the day, he unraveled the end and put the unraveld surface on the glue covering the stone. Leaving this for several hours to be sure it was fast, grandpa then applied warm grease all about the stone and very gently pulled on the lamp wick until little by little the stone came away. this was deemed such a clever method of meeting an emergency by simple means that the stone and lamp wick were preserved for a long time by the New Haven Medical Society and may be there yet for all I know.

It was into this extremely simply, democratic but at the same time highly intellectual community that the twelve children of our grand-parents were born. Ten of them lived to grow up, and a happier household never existed. They were very individual but also very congenial; they often agreed to disagree in the most cheerful manner and one of the favorite family amusements was a "Blake argument", which was conducted with a vigor which gave outsiders the impression that a violent quarrel was waging but which meant nothing at all.

These children were Mary Elizabeth, Henrietta Whitney, Charles Thompson, Henry Taylor, Frances Louise, George Augustus, Eli Whitney, Jr., Edward Foster, James Pierrepont, and Eliza Maria. The two children who died young were Robert and another Eliza.

Mary Elizabeth (whom you knew as your Grandmother Bushnell) was a second mother to the younger children. My father often spoke with gratitude of her care and affection. She was a clever woman and in some way managed to carry on her studies after she had left school and was taking her full share in the burdens of such a large family. Grandmother sent Mary and Henrietta to a famous boarding school of the day for two years though it must have been a sacrifice to her to part from her two eldest daughters just as they were becoming really helpful. Grandmother was ahead of her age in many ways and one was in a desire to have her children acquire foreign languages. When Charles and Henry came to school age they were sent to a French gentleman who had opened a school for boys at Litchfield. All the lessons were conducted in French and so thorough was the teaching that the two men preserved a perfect command of the language all through their lives. Uncle Henry told me, when he was well over ninety, that he often caught himself thinking in French. the French school did not receive the patronage it deserved and was given up. So the younger sons were sent to the New Englad academies, mostly to Leicester Academy in Massachusetts. By the time the two younger girls came along there were good schools in New Haven and they were not sent from hom.

All of the six brothers went to Tale and all graduated with honors except dear Uncle George. He was always delicate and after a severe breakdown in his Sophomore year, it was decided he had better not go on with his college course. The Senior Socieities were not in existence while Uncle Charles and Henry were in college, bu my father Eli Whitney Blake, Jr., and his brother Jim were both in Bones. Uncle Ned and some of his classmates founded Scroll and Key.

When not being educated the young people seem to have found plenty of amusement. As I have said before our grandparents were very liberal in their views, and that generation was allowed many pleasures from which their more strictly brought up friends were bebarred. While grandfather was a great believer in temperance in all things, he was much opposed to prohibition (I don't know what he would have said in these days) he believed that young people should learn to control themselves, and that anything to which they were accustomed in everyday life would offer less temptation when they went out into the world than if it were a novelty. So there was always beer, or ale, or wine on the table at dinner and never (as far as ever I heard) was its use in any way abused either then or in later life.

The New England Sunday, which was such a bugbear in many strict households, was rather a pleasant day at 77 Elm Street. There was but one rigid rule in regard to its observance and that was that nothing should be done which entailed work on other people. The girls and boys might go for walks, but there must be no driving, as that meant taking out the horses and work for some servant. Sleighing and skating in winter; rowing, sailing, and picnics in summer were the chief out-of-door diversions.

From what old friends have told me from time to time I infer that the adventures and misadventures of the Blake boys provided friends and neighbors with plenty of material for conversation. Praise of their mother, her patience and courage was always included in the remarks which usually ended with dire predictions of the ultimate fate of these "harum scarum youngsters". Predictions which fortunately were not fulfilled, though truth compels us to admit that they came within a narrow margin of fulfillment more than once. The first recorded excitement was caused by Mary (your Grandmother Bushnell) at the age of three. By some means or another she got hold of a whole nutmeg, and managed to eat it. When it was found what she had done old Doctor Ives was sent for in hot haste. When he came he said the fanger was from the narcotic attributes of the nutmeg and that on no account must the child be allowed to go to sleep. Strong coffee was rewed and fed to her. it was summer and nearly all night she was kept out of doors and in motion. After dawn, the doctor decided it would be safe to let her sleep. What modern physicians would say to this treatment, I don't know. Edward (Uncle Ned) was reported as drowned and was only resuscitated by a miracle.

Eli Whitney, Jr. (my father), in experimenting with gunpowder, blew himself up so seriously that he lost the ends of two fingers and for some days it was not known if his eyes could be saved. This happened on the day that grandfather was giving a man's supper party to some magnates of the American Association of Science, which was holding a conference in New Haven. Poor dear grandma, how did she ever put it all through! With all her cares and anxieties, and down-right hard work, for things were not made easy for the housewife in those days, she was determined that franpa should not be submerged by his family or his work. It was really owning to her courage that grandfather kept up his scientific interests and friendships. Such a tiny little lady too, slight and graceful. Still pretty as I remember her in her sixties, with very brilliant dark blue eyes. She did not talk much, but when she did speak all listened. Grandma was asked by Harriet Beecher Stowe to continute to a symposium on the best way to bring up children to be conducted by well-known women with large families. Grandmother wrote that her experience with ten taught her that there was no general rule. Each child was a case by itself. Answering a request for a "guiding maxim" she replied, "It might be summed up into 'What Not to See" Needless to say, all that was far too unorthodox to be published in those days.

Clever as she was and well-educated for her generation, grandmother had a strong vein of superstition which came to her probably through her Irish ancestry. For example, the warning of the O'Brien Banshee in the form of a bird was a very real thing to her, and, as I shall have occasion to show further on, she was not without striking examples to prove her contention.

Grandmother was devoted to poetry, and having a wonderful memory, she could repeat pages of Milton and long passages of Shakespeare. Wordsworth, among the moders, held the first place in her esteem, and I well remember her endeavor to teach me his "Od to Immortality". Alas in vain!

To Mary (your Grandmother Bushnell) fell the lot of not only being the eldest daughter in a large family, but of being the eldest child. That meant she was her mother's chief assistant from very early years. This may account in part for her serious nature. She was serene and she was ever cheerful (as you will remember) but she lacked the buoyancy which was a marked characteristic of the three other sisters. A sad early love affair may have helped to give her a different outlook on life. She was engaged to Mr. Robert Rumsey of Buffalo. He came of excellent family and seems to have had a charming personality. All our family liked him very much and nother could have been more hopeful than the prospects of the two young people. Unfortunately Mr. Rumsey was taken ill with what was then called "consumption". There was but one remedy then known which was a change to a mild climate. So he sailded to spend a winter in the Wst Indies. His letters to Mary were cheerful and he seemed to be steadily improving. One day in late spring a letter came saying he should sail for hom by the next vessel. Mary sat in the wide hal, which ran through the house, reading this letter, the doors at either end were open and through one of them flew a bird. Grandmother, much upset, begged that the bird be put out very carefully, but the bird did not go. It circled around Mary and finally fell at her feet quite dead. When it was picked up it proved to be of unknown species. Taken up to the College it was identified as a West India bird, only one other specimen ever having been seen in New England. When the sailing vessel came in, on which Mr. Rumsey was expected, it brought the news of his death which had taken place suddenly on the very day the bird came. Of course grandmother was convinced that it was the warning Banshee. At all events the bird was stuffed at the College and placed in their collection, where, as a child, I saw myself, "Aunt Mary's Bird."

Your dear Grandmother Bushnell had a very close friend Eliza Skinner, in whose love affair she took a great interest. Eliza was engaged to a young clergyman, the Rev. George Bushnell. She died very suddenly after a brief illness, and the two bereaved young people agreed to console each other. Your mother means to write her own reminiscences some day and the history of her parents will come in there, so I will only say that after two very successful pastorates in New England, Dr. Bushnell took a church in Beloit, Wisconsin, then really the West. While the family were, for those days, far off, they never lost touch with the old home to which they returned to live after our grandfather's death. Of course you know the children but I put them in as a matter of record; Colonel George E. Bushnell, Medical Department US Army and an authority on tuberculosis; Eliza S (Aunt Lila), who married George S. Merrill; Mary (your Mother) who married Rowland G. Hazard, 2nd, and Dotha, who never married.

Henriette Whitney (Aunt Hettie), the second daughter and next in age to her sister Mary, was quite a contrast to her. Mary was one of the fair Blakes, Henrietta belonged to the dark branch. Cark brown hair, dark eyes, a tall lithe figure, all helped to make her an attractive young woman. She was very clever too. The most intellectual of all the four sisters, but not perhaps the most intelligent. She had a quick mind and a passion for absorbing learning, the more abstruse the better. She was an excellent Greek and a fair Hebrew schoar. Had she lived in this generation she would probably have utilized her gifts as a professor in some woman's college, but no such fields were open in her day. So she lived at home and took her share in the work of a busy household, helping in the care of the younger children, if not always as expertly as her siter Mary, at ll events always cheerfully and kindly. It must not be supposed that her erudite studies made her either solemn or pedantic. On the contrary she had the family sense of humor in a highly developed form, and was a great favorite socially. She had many friends and correspondents among learned men. One of our University lights once amazed me by saying, "I thought at one time I was going to marry your Aunt Hettie but unfortunately in a Greek ode which I wrote to her she found two misplaced accents, and so she turned me down." I don't know if this was meant for a joke or not, but at all events it typified her love affairs.

None of this generation, it is safe to say, ever heard of the Yale "Gallinipper" much less ever saw one of the four copies it published in its brief but brilliant career. Nevertheless it achieved a success at the time, a tradition which lasted for years, which has never been attained by any other college publication. It appeared mysteriously, it poked fun at all indiscriminately. Neither the callow undergraduates nor the reverend college magnates escaped its sting. At first it was ignored by the powers that be, then, much irritated an investigation was begun which ended nowhere. Had the authorities only known that only the female mosquito, the gallinipper, had a sting they might have had the clue. But alas, Sherlock Holmes was still to be born! A group of clever young women were responsibly for all this excitement, and chief editoress was Henrietta! It was never easy to get Aunt Hettie to talk of her share in the enterprise, but two of her special friends, Lizzie Baldwin (Mrs. William Whitney) and Louisa Torrey (Mrs. Alphonzo Taft, mother of ex-President Taft), were much less reticent and gave most entertaining accounts of it all. They both declared that Henrietta planned it and wrote much of the material. The girls were helped, at the business end, by four young men, all seniors. They were suspected and finally brought before the Faculty. Among these was Leonard W. Bacon, the grandfather of your cousin Leonard Bacon. Your Uncle Nat used to relate with great glee how the four were questioned and how they "lied like gentlemen" denying any knowledge of the guilty screed. Then came the fiat, "Very well, we believe of course what you say is true, but we only remark that it would be most unfortunate for you if other copies should appear as in that case you would all be expelled." Needless to say another copy did not appear.

As so often happens when a girl has many admirers, Henrietta made a strange choice indeed when she married. Alexander McWhorter was the only son of a well-to-do widow of Baltimore. He was brought up to believe he was above the need of work, and apparently only took Orders in the Episcopal church because it looked better to have a profession. How he came to drift to New Haven I don't know, or how so clever a woman as Aunt Hettie ever was taken in by him I can't imagine. The only especial sympathy between them that I can think of was their love for unusual and useless learning. Our grandparents were not pleased with the match, but there was no interference, and so they were married. In a few years they were back at 77 Elm Street. Two positions in Episcopal theological seminaries which Mr. McWhorter had held he had lost by his incorrigible disinclination to work. His property, inherited from his mother, had slipped through his hands through sheer inefficiency. Of course they were taken in, ostensibly, for a brief visit, and there they stayed for over twenty years. My grandfather, with all his kind heart was too sincere to profess a cordiality he did not feel, and a more sensitive man than Mr. McWhorter might have felt the situation intolerable. However, he had very comfortable quarters; the brothers and sisters, for Aunt Hettie's sake, made things as smooth as might be and a casual visitor would never suspect that there was anything amiss. The only thing we ever heard of his ever attempting to do in all those years was to act as one of the consultants in the new version of the Bible, and it was suspected that in that case his wife had done most of the work.

A most incongruous member of the household was the Rev. Alexander McWhorter and quite impossible one in any family less truly tolerant and for-bearing. At last he was taken from this world after a mercifully brief illness. Aunt Hettie had been a loyal wife and she was a truly grieving widow. She lived on with grandfather and managed everything for him until his death. In those years, he reaped the reward of his long patience After her father's death, Henrietta went out to California to her brother Charles. Though they were lovely to her she was not contented; California did not appeal to her. So she went abroad. There in Siena, Italy, she joined forces with a cousin of your's but not of her's, Anna Vernon. The two elderly ladies lived together for some years, and then Aunt Hettie passed away, far indeed from New England. She is bured in the English cemetery in Siena.

The oldest son and third child was Charles Thompson, so named for an uncle of great-grandmother's, Elizabeth Whitney. This Charles Thompson was an important person in his day as Signer of the Declaration of Independence, Secretary to the first Congress, selected to notify George Washington of his election as first president. Should anyone be lucky enough to find in the family archives a package of his letters it would be a treasure trove indeed. Next to Button Gwinnette the autographs of Charles Thompson bring the largest prize of any of the signers. Uncle Charles belonged to the fair Blakes and was the one stout member of the family. He was always kind hearted and enterprising and was adored by his younger brothers and sisters.

As has been already said he had two or three years at a French school in Litchfield, then went to the Hopkins Grammar School until he entered Tale. He had many friends, but his special chum was Charles Palmer of Stonington. They were in school together, classmates in college, and as soon as they graduated were off to California together. These were "The days of old, the days of gold and the days of '49" It is impossible here to even hint at the wonderful stories of these days, Uncle Charles used to tell so delightfully. It is certainly up to his sons, Anson or Edwin, to write down the history of their father's early days in California and Idaho.

It was nearly twenty years before Uncle Charles came back to New Haven and then he came on a visit with his bride, who, strangely enough, had been almost a daughter of the house at our grandfather's all through her school life. Harriet Stiles was related to many old family friends and was beside a devoted friend of the youngest daughter, Eliza. So when her parents went out to San Francisco and she was left to finish her education, what more natural than that 77 Elm Street should become her second home. When at last she left to rejoin her family by the steamer she was on was captured by the Confederate raider, the "Alabama", and Aunt Hattie used to tell us interesting tales of the adventures. She had not been long in San Francisco when Uncle Charles went to call on the young girl who had so recently left his relatives. Small wonder that a romance grew out of that first meeting and that before very long they were married. Uncle Charles was much older than Aunt Hattie, eighteen years if I remember rightly, but this disparity made no difference in a singularly happy marriage. Uncle Charles had a youthful spirit and an active mind which rose superior to mere physical age.

They lived for many years in San Francisco at 4 Vernon Place. When that part of town was utterly spoiled by the cutting down of hills and putting streets through, they moved across the Bay to Berkeley. Their house, wherever it was, was a second 77 Elm Street in its hospitality to all visiting relatives.

Their surviving children are Anson Stiles, who married Anita Symmes; Eliza S. who married Sherman D. Thatcher; Edwin Tyler who married Harriet Corson; and Robert Pierrepont, who married Nadja Lezinsky, a charming little Russian lady. All of these you know but I put them in for record.

Henry Taylor, the second son and the fourth child in age, was named for our grandfather's classmate and beloved friend, Judge Taylor. Uncle Henry was a curious contrast in appearance to his brother Charles. Uncle Charles, fair and stout; Uncle Henry, dark and always very thin - one of "Pharaoh's lean kine" he often called himself. He was tall, over six feet, but had a "scholar's stoop", that, with an abstracted expression sometimes deceived those who did not know him. Uncle Henry was fond of telling his adventures with confidence men. On one occasion a man came up to him in the Grand Central Station in New York and extending his hand, cordially exclaimed, "How are you, Mr. Clarke?" Uncle Henry gave the stranger one of his piercing glances and replied, "How are you, Mr. Bunco" He used to add that the man disappeared as suddenly as if the earth had swallowed him.

At one time in his life it looked as if Uncle Henry was to carry on the line of inventors in the family. In his senior year in college he perfected a machine for fastening hooks and eyes on cards. Just as it was finished the foreman at the Westville foundry, who had helped him with the working model, died very suddenly. At the same time a change in fashion substituted buttons for the before almost universal hook and eye. These two things coming together so discouraged Uncle Henry that he gave up the project altogether, left off inventing and devoted himself to the law.

Outwardly Uncle Henry's long life seems very uneventful. He became Clark of the Court for Fairfield County and held that position for many years, commuting to Bridgeport from New Haven daily. He took much interest in politics, and as a young man he had several opportunities to enter public life, but his was too independent character to brook party dictation. It is told of him that he greatly puzzled some party leaders who wished him to express his adherence to certain policies. When he declined to do so one of them exclaimed, "You're a queer Republican. What are you anyway?" To which Uncle Henry replied, "Oh, I am a Radical Conservative." Which, if they did not know it, was a pretty good definition.

He wrote much. While in his early thirties, he published a book called, "The Rise of the Fall". It's thesis was that work was not a curse pronounced on man, but the greatest of blessings, without which there could be no development. Very unorthodox then, almost a commonplace now. He was an authority on Colonial history, especially of Connecticut and the New Haven colony. His comments on our Puritan ancestors were often more caustic than laudatory, but always entertaining and informing. Read his book, "The History of the New Haven Green". After he retired from active law practice he became head of the Park Board in New Haven and did much valuable and interesting work for the City.

He married Elizabeth Kingsley, a daughter of James Kingsley, and they lived in a brick house on the corner of Grove and Temple Streets belonging to his wife. The bricks in the house were brought from England, and they must have brought English traditions with them as the house inside and out was a perfect example of late Georgian or very Victorian ideals. It was so perfect that it seems a pity it could not have been kept as an example of that era. Aunt Lily (as she was called) was very English in her ways and views and very loyal to her English antecedents. She was quite nearly related to the English novelist, Charles Kingsley. Her English relatives always came to her, when they visited this country, as a matter of course, and very interesting many of them they were.

Uncle Henry and Aunt Lily had three sons. Edward F., who died as a young man; Henry W., who married Ida Jewett; and James Kingsley, who married Helen Putnam. He died before his father. Henry W. survived his father, and he and his wife were devoted in their efforts to make Uncle Henry's last days happy. Aunt Lily passed away some ten years before her husband, who lived to be ninety three.

In any large family, there is always one who is regarded as the ultimate arbiter in all differences or perplexities, and that position was filled by Uncle Henry. His time, his thought, were ever at the disposal of his kith and kin, and neither his heart or purse wre ever closed when there seemed need of aid.

The next in the family, in order of age, was the third sister Frances Louise (Aunt Fanny). She was named for grandfather's sister, Aunt Fanny Orcutt. She was the dramatic member of the family. As quite a young firl she wrote plays to be acted by her friends, and after her marriage she wrote another, which, though never printed, survived as an acting play for two generations. In this she satirized her own propensity to magnify the small troubles of life in the character of "Mrs. Worry". It is long since I saw a copy of the play but I recall it as being very entertaining.

In one of Bernard Shaw's plays he says of a character, "She is such a born wife and mother that she is hardly human." This description comes into my mind when I think of dear Aunt Fanny. She was too devoted and too unselfish for the good of those around her. Her husband, Arthur D. Osborne, came of a well-known Fairfield County family. His father, Judge Thomas B. Osborne, was a prominent man in Connecticut's political life. It was rather a curious coincidence that Uncle Arthur Osborne and Uncle Henry Blake were born on the same day. They were classmates at Yale. Uncle Arthur married Uncle Henry's sister. Uncle Henry became Clerk of the Court in Fairfield County, from which County Uncle Arthur came; and Uncle Arthur became Clerk of the Court of New Haven County, where Uncle Henry belonged. They were life-long friends as well as brothers-in-law and both lived way on into the nineties.

Uncle Arthur was an able man, rather conventional perhaps, but friendly and hospitable. He was really devoted to his wife, but his was rather an exacting nature and the more he asked the more she gave. The house and their lives revolved entirely about his pleasure and convenience. There were two boys; Thomas B., named for his grandfather and Arthur, named for his father. Both parents were devoted to these boys though not always in the wisest way. From what I had said it must not be inferred that there was foolish overindulgence in the training of the children. They were very intelligent, biddable boys, always doing well in school and taking honors at Yale, where both made Bones. Their home bringing up was sensible and, in the view of today, strict. It was when the supreme sacrifice came, the sacrifice all parents are called upon to make, the willingness to let the young go out into the world for themselves, to stand on their own feet, to make or mar their own lives, that Aunt Fanny and Uncle Arthur failed. With ample means they seemed to feel that there was no occasion for the boys to leave home and were quite willing to make it worth their while to stay here. For Tom I doubt it this made much difference. He was such a steadfast character, so fine and so dependable and, even as a very young man, so wrapt up in his scientific work that environment played but a small part in his life. With Arthur, or "Ard" as he was called, it was very different. A delightful young fellow, and a great favorite socially, he had neither the strength of character or the ambition of his brother. He realized that himself and knew that his one chance lay in having to work. He was anxious to go west with his friend and classmate, Sherman D. Thacher (who much later married our cousin Eliza S. Blake), but his parents would not hear of it. He made an attempt at practicing law, drifted into idle ways and into not the best class of friends and deeply to the regret of us all frittered away a wasted life.

But you will say this is not about Aunt Fanny, it is about her family. In defense, I again quote Bernard Shaw. Her life was in her family and for them she lived and breathed. She was a delightful conversationalist and was much sought after socially. She died comparatively young after a brief illness of pneumonia. Uncle Arthur woud have been entirely at a loss had not Tom and his devoted wife, Elizabeth Johnson, given up most of their lives to his care. He lived to be way over ninety. Tom, whose work in biological chemistry won him many honors abroad as well as in his own country, died much younger than he should. We have always felt that the strain of his unselfish life added to the strain of his scientific research was more than anyone should have been called upon to bear.

The sixth child and third son was George Augustus (Uncle George). The story of the way he came by his name is rather amusing. He was to be named for grandfather's brother, George. That seemed simple enough and quite natural. When, however, grandmother realized that the whole name was George Washington she decidedly objected. Not that she did not revere the Father of our Country, but the name was not only hackneyed, it had been adopted so frequently by the colored populations as to seem to belong to them. Apparently in those days a boy must have a middle name, so various substitutes were suggested but not accepted. Finally, just as the baby was to be taken to church to be baptized, it was realized that the name-question was still unsettled. Grandfather then took the matter in hand, "Bring a college catalogue." he commanded. That being produced, he announced, "The first middle name after George is the name the baby shall have." That name turned out to be Augustus, and so Fate wished on our dear Uncle a name he especially disliked and never used!

Uncle George was the least vigorous of a very sturdy family. He was delicate as a boy and his frequent enforced absences from school handicapped him very much. He entered college, but in his Sophomore year had a very serious breakdown. He was slow in rallying, and it was decided, to his great disappointment, that it was better for him not to return. He had much artistic ability and his architectural drawings were beautiful. He was also a really learned botanist and was passionately fond of flowers and all growing things. With these gifts it seems hard that his always constant ill health prevented his making a career for himself. He lived on at 77 Elm Street, and never was there such a delightful invalid. It was hard to believe, when with him, that there was anything amiss. He not only never complained, but always seemed to be in the best of spirits. It was Uncle George who was always ready to help in any family emergency. If there was a tiresome guest it was Uncle George who took the entertaining of them on his hands. Were any of the children ill it was Uncle George who read to them or told them stories. He it was who visited the sick and afflicted, especially in the dependent class, and always left them cheered and consoled. With all his sweetness of disposition he had a keen insight into human nature and his shrewd comments always hit the mark when needed. We had in the family connection a really great beauty whose ability to keep a number of devoted suitors on the string was a never-failing topic of family gossip. Someone said, "She weighs all of the advantages of her admirers so carefully." Uncle George replied, "Well Louise has a queer set of weights. She may have ounces and grams too, but she certainly has no scruples!"

We are often told in modern teaching that it far more important to be than to do. If that is so, no one ever achieved more than Uncle George. His Being was a blessing and its remembrance an inspiration.

Eli Whitney Blake, Jr. (my father) was, of course, named for his father, and it is interesting that he should have inherited his father's strong scientific bent as well as his name.

My dear father had a troubulous childhood. When about 4 years old he had scarlet fever. He was making a good recovery when, through the carelessness of a nurse, he had some exposure, which resulted in a lameness which lasted all his life. He was always experimenting with dangerous things, and on one occasion (as has already been mentioned) blew himself up with gun powder. The result of that adventure was the loss of the tips of two of his fingers. He bemoaned this chiefly because it obliged him to give up his violin playing, to which he was devoted.

My father went to the Academy in Leicester, Massachusetts. He always spoke well of the teaching he had there, and gratefully of the pleasant holidays at his sister Mary's (your grandmother Bushnell), then living in Worcester, where Dr. Bushnell had a large church.

Though Eli Whitney, Jr. had already decided on a scientific career and Yale offered little in that line, he never the less took a high stand in his class. His Societies were D.K.E. and Bones. When he graduated it became a question where he could go in this country to pursue the studies he was so anxious to continue. Even then he had decided to specialize in acoustics and electricity, the last named subject being almost in its infancy. While he was looking about for an opening he went into mechanics from the high mathematical angle and from the practical side as demonstrated in his father's foundry. These studies were afterwards of great use to him when Professor of Mechanics at Cornell and Brown.

His marriage to my mother, Helen Mary Rood, was a turning point in his life in many ways. Helen Mary Rood was a sister of your Grandmother Hazard. Now you see how if come to be such a near cousin, and able to tell you about all sides of your family. Your Grandmother Bushnell and my father were brother and sister, which makes your mother and me first cousins. Add to that the fact that I married your father's cousin Barclay Hazard, and it is not wonder that I have to keep in touch with all sides.

My mother was a comparative stranger in New Haven. Her Aunt Mary Odgen came there, bringing with her my mother and her brother Ogden N. Rood, that the latter might go to Yale. Uncle Ogden was a brilliant man but always very temperamental. In his Sophomore year he distinguished himself by shooting an arrow into the face of the College clock, thereby stopping the hands to the great disturbance of academic routine. Perhaps I should explain here that the face of the clock in primitive days was of wood as were also the large and ponderous hands. Of course no one had seen the arrow fired and no one knew anything about it. Unfortunately when the arrow was retrieved it bore the initials of its owner who was promptly "rusticated" as it was called in those days, suspended as we should say now. This so infuriated our hot-tempered uncle that he declined to return and was sent to Princeton to finish his college course. He spent the greater part of his life as Professor at Columbia and it might be throught that recollection of his own early escapades might have made him tolerant of others, but he was always known as the most severe disciplinarian on the faculty. While disappointed that her nephew did not return to Yale, Aunt Mary Ogden, who had settled down and built a house, decided to stay where she was. My mother (your Aunt Helen Blake) soon found her way into the inner circles of New Haven and became great friends with our Blake aunts. She was a very intellectual woman and took the deepest interest in her husband's studies.

Soon after their marriage her Aunt Mary Ogden died and then the young couple decided to go abroad to give my father the opportunities for scientific training that he could not have in this country. I was a small baby when they made the move. The Civil War was just beginning. My father's lameness prevented his going to the Front, as did his best beloved brother Ned, the colleges were almost deserted for the four years of the War, so it seemed that the best thing for them to do was to stay abroad until the war was over and in the meantime for my father to acquire as much learning as possible along his own line, which he foresaw even then would be of value to the country in its development. He studied at Hiedelberg, Marburg, Leipzig, Berline, Munich. Not only did he learn much in those years but he made many scientific connections and friendships which lasted as long as he lived.

On his return to this country he held a position in Burlington, Vermont, and for one year substituted for Uncle Ogden Rood at Columbia. It was during that year that his son Eli Whitney Blake, 3rd., was born. About this time Ezra Cornell was founding the university which was to bear his name. The staff was composed mostly of young Yale men, and my father joined the group. He was greatly interested in the work and most enthusiastic, but unfortunately my mother, always delicate, could not stand the cold climate and rather primitive conditions. She was taken to her sister's house in Providence *your Grandmother Hazard's), and there she died. My father returned to Cornell for a year and then went to Brown to fill the Chair of Physics just founded by your great-grandfather R. G. Hazard. There he remained for twenty five years. This is not place to record his scientific work. All that is on record elsewhere. I must, however, mention his labor on the telephone in its early days. In the "Precious Heritage" your Aunt Caroline has told of the early experiments with the telephone at Peace Dale. That same year, while at 77 Elm Street, my father, Professor Brush and Professor Wright rigged up a wire from the parlor of the house, down the long garden to the summer house at the end. Our grandfather took the greatest interest in these experiments and was most helpful in his suggestions. An outgrowth of the telephone was my father's success in photographing sound waves. The first time it was ever done.

After my marriage to your cousin Barclay, in 1881, my father married for a second time, his wife being a cousin of yours, Elizabeth Ellery Vernon, a sister of the Miss Vernon with whom Aunt Hettie McWhorter lived in her last years.

My father always felt that his talent lay along the lines of research work and deplored the fate that he was born too early to profit by the wonderful laboratories of the great electrical companies. He found teaching exhausting and always looked forward to days when he should be free to do his own work. He resigned at the end of twenty-five years, but alas too late. He died that autumn.

Interested and absorbed as he was in his scientific studies he was intensely human and sympathetic. Old and young, rich and poor, clever and stupid, all alike found in him a true friend and very often a wise advisor.

Of my immediate family it is very difficult for me to write and the little account I gave of my dear brother, Eli Whitney Blake, 3rd, was greeted with protest from those who saw the sketch. There was an unanimous demand that I should give a fuller account of what all joined in calling a unique and brilliant personality. Eli Whitney Blake, 3rd., was never physically very strong. He was tall, over six feet, but very slight and his active brain was always too much for his body. He graduated at Brown with honor and during his college course was one of the editors of the Brunonian and very active in all dramatic affairs of the College. On graduating from Brown he had three years in the Harvard Law School. While there he was one of the editors of the Harvard Lampoon. Although he took a high stand in the Law School he decided not to practice law. On looking back I can see that it would have been better if he had taken a position as an instructor in a law school as he always said that he thoroughly enjoyed the theory of law but the practice did not appeal to him. He went to Hampton for a year where he had charge of the Indian boys, in whom he was much interested. He was also the first executive secretary of the Charity Organization Society in Providence. He was in Syracuse in the Solvay works there for a time and then in New York. He was still young when he passed on and it is very hard to give an idea of his charm, which not only made friends but kept them. It is very touching to me to find how generally and lovingly he is remembered by all his contemporaries. I am constantly meeting someone who says "You know, there never was anyone just like your brother Whitney." I feel this but how can I make you all understand it!

Edward Foster (Uncle Ned) named after Grandfather's stepfather, was next in age to my father and was his very best beloved brother. So, though I have no personal recollection of Uncle Ned, killed in the War while he was still a baby, he has always been to me a very vivid individuality.

Until he was nearly four years old his parents were greatly worried lest he should be dumb, "tongue tied" they called it then. He evidently heard, so he was not deaf, evidently understood what was said to him so his brain was all right, but talk he would not. The first Harrison presidential campaign was on with much shouting for "Tippecanoe and Tyler too", log cabins, hard cider, and all the rest of it. Undoubtedly the older boys echoed the excitement and at least even Uncle Ned was moved to cry, "Hoorah for Harrison"! After which he talked perfectly with no intermediate stage of baby talk.

He stood high in his class in Yale and was one of the founders of Scroll and Key. After he graduated he studied law and had just been admitted to the Bar when - came the War!

We who have lived through the World War think we know what War means, but the scene of that was far away. the Civil War was in our own front yard, so to speak. Just as no quarrel is as bitter as a family quarrel so no war is so bitter, so relentless, as that waged between two sections of the same country.

I am well aware of the rule which does not admit as evidence a statement alleged to have been made by a person now deceased unless corroborated by written testimony. Nevertheless I must try to give you an idea of the state of our dear grandfather's mind when confronted with this terrible menace. I feel the more assurance in doing this as in a talk I had with Uncle Henry, not very long before his own death, his memory of his father's sentiments agreed exactly with what I remembered grandfather saying to me.

In the first place grandfather felt no sympathy with the extremists of either side of the controversy. He had served, some years earlier, on a federal commission whose object was to find some rational way out of the slavery issue. That commission recommended the buying of all slaves by the Government and their very gradual emancipation, much the plan which was later adopted by Brazil. This plan, my grandfather always felt, would have had a good chance of going through had it not been for the Abolitionists who raised a great cry of "compromising with evil". Of course the opponents of the measure at the South caught at that to justify themselves and it all came to nothing. Then our grandfather had been much at the South, knew the people and realized how deadly in earnest they must be to take such a desperate step as war. Never for a moment was he deluded by the Northern cry of early war days. "A Ninety Day War." He foresaw only too clearly what was before the country. When, however, the step was taken and the die cast he realized there was nothing to do but put it through. He showed his patriotism in the most practical way; he cancelled profitable business orders to do Government work at the foundry at the lowest possible price. Even this price, by the way, he could not collect in full until twenty years after the way. So while profiteers were making fortunes our dear grandfather, if not ruined, was very seriously crippled financially by his endeavors to help an ungrateful Government. But that was as nothing to the sacrifice he was valled upon to make when Uncle Ned decided to enlist. Grandmother could not be reconciled. She told me herself how, when Uncle Ned told her was going and she was begging him to reconsider, a bird came and tapped on the window. A littler later when he came to her with his Commission as Major the bird again appeared and, "Then," said poor little Grandmother, "Then I knew he would be kills", and so he was, in the second Battle of Cedar Mountain. He had been at home for three days leave and had been gone only forty-eight hours. Grandmother went into his bedroom to get something and there, perched on the headboard of the bed, was an owl. She came out and meeting one of her daughters said, "Ned is dead." "Oh no, mother" was the answer, "he was to go to Washington," Even as they talked came the telegram with the news. He had been sent directly to the front instead of stopping in Washington as first ordered.

Forty years or so after Uncle Ned's death we heard some particulars of the end. This came about through a remarkable series of coincidences. Uncle Henry was at the south and, falling in one day with a Confederate veteran, they talked over the war. The Confederate officer mentioned the fact that he had been in the battle of Cedar Mountain and Uncle Henry said that he had lost a brother in that battle. The veteran was at once interested and said that he remembered they were opposed by Connecticut troops and then told of finding a Connecticut officer, a major he thought, dying and giving him water and what comfort he could. More questions made Uncle Henry quite confident that this officer was Uncle Ned, but he sent North for photographs of Connecticut officers in those regiments. From these, over twenty in number, the Confederate unhesitatingly picked out the picture of Uncle Ned. So there was no doubt of the identity.

Of course his parents were both dead, but your Grandmother Bushnell was still living and was much overcome by the opening of the old wound. To us who had not known him it was a comfort to think that kindly (even if enemy) hands had ministered to him in those last moments, but to dear Aunt Mary it was as if her darling younger brother had died over again and she begged us not to speak to her about it.

"Those whom the Gods love die young." That is true in many ways and not least in the halo of the memories they leave. It is easy for us to discount the personality of a young man of twenty-four and ascribe part at least of its charm to his early and tragic death, but there must have been a real foundation for the love which he inspired, not only in his devoted family but in a large circle of friends who never seemed to forget him.

James Pierrepont (Uncle Jim), the youngest of the six brothers, and next in the family to Uncle Ned, was one of those bright sunny natures that seem born to attract friends. The only black mark against his childhood was an incurable propensity to run away. The first time he indulged in this wanderlust he was only a little over three years old. The whole family were thrown into a panic when he was found to be missing and the town was ransacked. An hour or two later, he was discovered a mile or more from home, down on Meadow Street, absorbedly watching a blacksmith at work, a half peck basket gracefully draped on his head in place of a hat. Finally the family became used to his vagary and neighbors and friends often brought back Jimmy who had turned up in the most unlikely places.

He was a great favorite in college and when he graduated was voted the handsomest and most popular man in the class. Bones, of course.

The war was over and the young men just graduating were thinking how best they could help in binding up the wounds of the terrible conflict. Uncle Jim had taken much interest in the colored race and their past and present status. So he offered his services to the Freedman's Bureau, organized to help and protect the negro on their new path. With his friend, Daniel H. Chamberlain, Uncle Jim as put in charge of the work at Charleston. He had been there for some six months and the charm of his personality was breaking down the hostility and prejudice of the Charleston people to the Northern Bureau and its object, when he was drown in Charleston Harbor. Uncle Jim was an excellent oarsman, had been a member of one of the college crews. One evening he, with another young man and two girls, went for a row in the Harbor. In some way the boat upset. Uncle Jim, a fine swimmer, could have easily saved himself but he went to the rescue of one of the girls, she, terrified clutched him about the throat in such a way that they both sank.

So ended a life which had not much more than begun but which left only happy memories behind.

The youngest of this family of ten was our dear Aunt Eliza, named, of course, Eliza Maria for her mother. Coming as she did after the older brothers and sister were practically grown up, she was naturally a great pet, not only to her parents but to them all. It was a wonder she was not completely spoiled, but she had a very unselfish disposition which kept her sweet and unexacting.

She was extremely pretty. Slight, small, graceful, dark hair, dark eyes, and a brilliant complexion. So much coloring in fact that its naturalness was sometimes questioned by the envious. She married, quite young, Frank Seeley. He came of the Connecticut family of Seeleys who had moved west. The young couple went out to Des Moines, Iowa, where Mr. Seeley expected to practice law. Des Moines was in those days a frontier community and the bride found herself in a very different atmosphere from staid New England. The Civil War was raging, and the outlying western communities were in constant danger of attack by guerrilla bands. However, her stay there was of short duration. Soon after the birth of her son (Edward B. Seeley, now of Berkeley California) Mr. Seeley died after an illness of typhoid fever. So she returned to her father's house, a young widow with a baby. Of course she was made more than welcome and all that love could do was done to console her.

Such an attractive widow could not remain without suitors and Aunt Eliza's were numerous. However, she seemed so determined never to marry again that it came as a surprise to everyone when after some twelve years she married Mr. John Rice of an old Massachusetts family. They had two children; Elizabeth, who lives in Northhampton, and Professor John P. Rice (who married Ethel Poole) of Buffalo University. They should write of their mother's later life - how they lived for some years in Santa Barbara and then went abroad - how after Mr. Rice lost most of his property Aunt Eliza bravely put her shoulder to the wheel - how after his death she returned to this country and became House-mother of Albright House at Smith. Her years there were happy and useful and the women who as girls came under her influence never ceased to love her. She had two major operations and years of suffering but was always her cheery, amusing self. The last time I saw her she said, "If you don't see me again, dear, I want you all to remember that I had a very happy life." Braver words were never spoken.

Our grandfather had always said that he should retire from active business at seventy and give the rest of his life to his scientific studies. This plan he virtually carried out, though he was a few years beyond the seventy mark when he felt entirely free. At eighty-six he published a treatise on Aerodynamics, which attracted much attention in the scientific world on both sides of the ocean. Lord Kelvin (then Sir William Thompson) wrote my father, thinking from the name that he was the author, that is was a "remarkable performance". "It takes a young man like yourself to have the courage to make such a new path." My father wrote at once to say that it was written by his father at eighty-six! Sir William Thompson could hardly believe it was possible but the British Association of Science gave grandfather a gold medal for his brilliant work. Only the other day I saw it quoted in some scientific article on flying problems. He had full twenty years of the study he loved and these were happy years, though he missed our grandmother sadly. They celebrated their golden wedding and in 1876 she passed on. At first we feared grandfather would break under the blow, but with his usual courage he rallied and never allowed his own sorrow to cloud the lives of those around him.

So the life at 77 Elm Street went one. Aunt Hettie took beautiful care of grandfather, the children who lived in New Haven came almost everyday to see him and there were long visits from the families who lived away. It was a beautiful old age, the sort you read about but rarely see in real life. When the end came it was no long illness, only two or three days and then release. At over ninety we ought to have been reconciled to have him taken but we were not. We knew only too well that never could the family life be the same again.

How I hope, dear Pierre and Nancy and all you other young people, how I hope I have succeeded in giving you some idea of what this side of your family was like - have made you feel how loveable and how human they were. They are all gone now, but who lived such lives of the spirit, who cared so little for the material things, can never really die. They had great sorrows, great losses, great cares, but through their indomitable courage they rose above them, and through their buoyancy and cheer they helped countless others on the road."