History of Hebron, (Tolland County) Connecticut United States of America

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Biographies:

Lorenzo Dow, pioneer Methodist, was born in Coventry, Conn., Oct. 16, 1777; son of Humphrey B. and Tabitha Dow. His education was limited to the instruction received at a district school. His early religious convictions led him to embrace the doctrines of the Methodists, although be was opposed by his parents in this as well as in his determination to become a preacher. In 1796 he applied for admission to the Connecticut conference, but was refused. The conference, however, received him in 1798, and in 1799 he was sent to Cambridge, N.Y., and after a few months was transferred to Pittsfield, Mass., and from there to Essex, Vt., all within one year. His conviction of a divine call to preach to the Roman Catholics in Ireland impelled him to visit that country and he sailed late in 1799. On his appearance in Ireland his eccentricities in dress and speech led hundreds to hear him and he was jeered and in many ways severely persecuted. He returned the next year to America, preaching in New York, Alabama and at Louisville, Ky., but in 1805 revisited both England and Ireland, where he instituted the camp-meeting. This custom was such an innovation that it led to controversy, resulting in the organization of the Primitive Methodists in England. After he left the first time for Ireland be severed his official connection both the ministry of the Methodist church, but continued to promulgate the prominent doctrines of Methodism throughout his life. His crusade against Roman Catholicism was especially directed against the Jesuits, whom he denounced as enemies to pure religion and to republican government. The prevalent opinion that he was of unsound mind detracted from the effect of his eloquence, and he was familiarly known as "Crazy Dow." He was, nevertheless, a powerful orator, speaking to men unaccustomed to listen to ordinary preaching and reaching out to the utmost borders of civilization in the south and west, where he awakened much controversy and serious thought. His wife, Peggy, to whom he was married in 1804, was his constant travelling companion. She died at Hebron, Conn., Jan. 6, 1820. In the same year he married Lucy Dolbeare. He was a voluminous writer and among his published books are: Polemical Works (1814); A Stranger in Charleston, or The Trial and Confession of Lorenzo Dow (1822); A Short Account of a Long Travel, With Beauties of Wesley (1823); Journal and Miscellaneous Writings, edited by John Dowling (1836); and History of a Cosmopolite, or Writings of the Rev. Lorenzo Dow, Containing His Experience and Travels in Europe and America up to Near His Fiftieth Year, also His Polemic Writings (1851), with numerous new editions. He died in Georgetown, D.C., Feb. 2, 1834.

From: Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary of Notable Americans, Johnson, Rossiter, editor

Samuel Ingham, representative, was born in Hebron, Conn., Sept. 5, 1793. He attended school in Vermont, was admitted to the bar in Connecticut in 1815, and opened an office in Saybrook in 1817. He was a representative in the state legislature; served as speaker through three sessions; was state's attorney for Middlesex county, 1827-35, and again in 1843-44; probate judge, 1829-33; state agent to prosecute claims against the United States, 1837; representative in the 24th and 25th congresses, 1835-39; judge of the county court, 1849-53; unsuccessful candidate before the state legislature for U.S. senator in 1854, and was commissioner of customs, 1857-61. He died in Essex, Conn., Nov. 10, 1881.

From: Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary of Notable Americans, Johnson, Rossiter, editor

Aaron Hutchinson, educator, was born in Hebron, Conn., in March, 1722. He was graduated at Yale, A.B., 1747, A.M., 1750; studied theology and was pastor of the Congregational church, Grafton, Mass., 1750-73. He was mar-tied in 1749 to Marjory Carter, of Hebron, and their ten children were all born in Grafton, Mass. In April, 1774, he visited the valley of the upper Connecticut, and the towns of Hartford, Pom-fret and Woodstock, Vt., engaged his services for a term of five years as the pastor for the three towns, and on July 4, 1776, He removed his family to a farm in Pomfret, which afforded him during his life the chief support of his family. While carrying on his farm labors he taught a class of young men preparing for the ministry, the students following him in the fields while he was ploughing or mowing. He taught them Latin and Greek without the aid of text-books, depending entirely on his memory, as he usually did also in conducting the church services, he having committed to memory the entire New Testament by chapter and verso and the hymns in general use. He was given the honorary degree of A.M. by Harvard in 1750, by Dartmouth in 1780 and by the College of New Jersey in 1794. His sermon before the Windsor convention, July 2, 1777, entitled "A Well Tempered Self Love a Rule of Conduct towards Others," was delivered extempore and afterward written out by him and published. It was read before the convention assembled at Bennington in September, 1777. See Biographical Sketch by Rash C. Hawkins (1888); Memoir by Henry Swan Dana (Woodstock Standard, Aug. 17, 24, 31, 1871). His sermon at Windsor was reprinted in Collections of the Vermont Historical society, vol. I. pp. 67-101. He is also the author of: Valor for the Truth (1767); Coming of Christ (1773); Meat out of the Eater, or Samson's Riddle Unriddled (1784). He died in Pomfret, Vt., Sept. 27, 1800.

From: Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary of Notable Americans, Johnson, Rossiter, editor

Samuel Morey, inventor of a steamboat, was born in Hebron, Conn., Oct. 23, 1762; son of Gen. Israel Mercy, an officer in the Revolutionary war, who served on the frontier. He removed to Orford, N. H., with his parents in 1766, and as he grew to manhood turned his attention to mechanics and chemistry. From 1780 to 1830 he devoted himself to practical experiments upon steam, heat and light, and to propelling boats by steam. Between 1790-93 he took out several patents for steam machinery, some of the models of which are in the possession of the New Hampshire Antiquarian society, and his prophecy of a boat propelled by steam was ridiculed by his neighbors. He constructed a boat and fitted it with a steam engine of his own manufacture, and on one Sunday in 1792, with a young companion, John Mann, he made his first trip from Orford several miles up the Connecticut river to Fairlee, Vt., and return. The boat was propelled by a paddle wheel in the prow, and made about four miles an hour. Encouraged by Prof. Benjamin Silliman, with whom he corresponded, he went to New York to exhibit his model. He had several interviews with Robert R. Livingston, who had visited him at Orford and tried his boat, and Morey afterward visited Livingston at Clermont at the expense of the chancellor, and at his request Mercy spent three successive summers in New York city, building and experimenting with a new boat. He was told by Livingston that if he would perfect an arrangement for placing the paddle wheel in the stern of the boat he would purchase his invention for a considerable sum, understood by Morey to he $100,000, and if he would give the use of the boat to run between New York and Amboy, N. J., he would give him $7,000, which latter offer Morey refused, leaving his boat at Hartford, Conn. The next summer he improved the engine, and after study and experiment applied the wheel to the stern, being aided in the mechanical work by his brother Israel. The boat attained a speed of five miles an hour, and Livingston and others accompanied him on a trip from the battery to Greenwich village and back. A patent was issued to Samuel Mercy on March 25, 1795, for a steam engine, the power to he applied by crank motion, to navigate boats of any size; patents were issued to him on March 27, 1799, and on Nov. 17, 1800, for the application of steam, and one for a steam engine in 1803. He continued to experiment with the steamboat, and in 1797 constructed a boat on the Delaware at Bordentown, N.J., placing a paddle wheel on each side, which increased the rate of speed and proved more effectual in every way. The boat was openly exhibited at Philadelphia, Pa., and arrangements were made with certain capitalists for the construction and practical operation of large steamboats, but financial distress overtook those interested before they could execute their plans. He received a patent for a revolving steam engine July 14, 1815, and invented one of the first stoves in the United States. He inherited large tracts of land in New Hampshire and Vermont, where he was engaged in lumbering for many years. He built chutes on West mountains to slide the logs from the steep sides to Fairlee pond, and planned and built the locks at Bellows Falls, which opened up navigation between Windsor, Conn., and Lebanon, N.H. He contributed to Silliman's Journal of Science. He resided at Fairlee, Vt., from 1836 until his death, April 17, 1843.

From: Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary of Notable Americans, Johnson, Rossiter, editor