Litchfield enquirer., 1869-02-04

the following interesting Personal Recol lections" by Henry Reed in tue Cincinnati ] GazeNe
 MY NATIVE TOWN. l The great man of my native town which, by tho way was Sharon, in the . county of Litchfeld and State of Con necticut-was John Cotton Smith. He was, for many years-for that was before the Democratic principal of rotation in of fee was invented-Governor of the State; and perhaps my first notions of his emf hence arose from hearing hls name associ ated with that, to child, most important eyent-the day Of annual Thanksgiving. l The proclamations, which used to set forth, with pious elaboration, the multitude of causes which We had for feelings of grati- tude, and the corresponding obligations We were under to square the account, read, for more years than can remember-but long enough to fix upon my infant mind the impression that the persons named were permanent fxtur, in their respec- 1 tive places" John Cotton Smith, Gov ernor of Connecticut; by his Excellency s command, Thomas Day, Secretary
 John Cotton Smith was the only son of Cotton Mather Smith, the first Congrega- l tional minister of the town of whom tra- { dition, in my youth, retained any record. Cotton Mather Smith was represented to be man of great kindness of disposition, 1 and considerable originality of character; and his style of sermonizing paltook, not | a little, of the quaintness of the old, and especially of the Puritan divines Many amusing anecdotes were treasured up and l related by the old people of the familiar ways, shap sayings, and sly pulpit jokes of as Le was affectionately called-Parson Smith.
 John Cotton Smith was born in the year l765, and died in 1845, at the age of eighty years. He received his scholastic educa- tlon at Yale College, and continued through out his life warm friend and an active lpatron of that institution. He was popu- larly believed to have taste for scholarly Ipursuits; and, although not an inactive man of the world, to devote his hours of leisure to self-cultivation. At any rate, he bore high reputation for learning and kept up wide acquaintance with the cul- tivated men of New England. Governor Smith was bred to the law, but being born to an independent inheritance, did not long pursue the profession, which, in all probability, he entered only as an avenue to that public life to which he aspired. In his political ideas. he was a Federalist, and, 1 as such, was chosen member of the first Congress which sat in Washington, but was not reelected. He became Governor of Connecticut in 1872, at the beginning of the last war with Great Britain; and the act of his official life, for which he was most censured by some and applauded by others, was his refusal to-comply with the policy of MT. Madison's administration, kl.1
 be taken ont of the State and placed un- der the command of Federal oficers-not, as was said, to repel invasion, but to make coast at home undefended. He was the last of the Federalist Governors of Con- necticut, and his final retirement from the Executive office, and from political life, was probably owing to the party changes ! which took place after the adoption of the State Constitution of 1816 by which the old property and ecclesiastical qualifca tions for suffrage were abolished. .. Governor Smith was ore of the most el- egant men of his time, and that distinc. tion which he but limitedly acquired in the political; was fully accorded him in the social province. Although his name, both patronymically and baptismally savored of the plebian, he was, in person, in tastes and in character, every inch patrician. Tall, finely formed and active, he possess | ed a natural grace of movement, the effect of which he never diminished by any un- 1 fitness of costume or department He was an aristocrat-not in any offensive sense a born gentleman, who did not so much assume the place of dignity as to find it ] accorded to him by common consent. It used to be 8 question between their re- spective admirers, which was the most thoroughbred man in New England, John Cotton Smith or Benjamin Silliman, the well-known Professor Silliman of New Ha- ven; the award being usually against the latter, who was greatly inferior to his com petitor in physical endowment.
 Governor Smith enjoyed the reputation of being the most accomplished presiding | officer of his day, in the United States. It was this qualification which, together with the purity of his character, caused him to be called to fill in turn, the presidential chairs of all or nearly all of the great be- nevolent associations of the country-the Bible, Tract, Foreign Mission, and Nation al Temperance Societies. As a presiding officer, he supplied the model which all New England followed; and to go into any large assembly, thirty years since, was to go where somebody was enacting good or bad imitation of John Cotton Smith.
 The large landed possessions of Govern or Smith were principally devoted to the feeding of sheep; and to the improvement of his focks the proprietor paid great at tention, purchasing at prices then consid- cred enormous, animals of Merino, and afterward of Saxon blood for the purpose
 and doing much to encourage the importa. tion of such animals. In this respect he performed @ service of no slight value tc jthe vicinity; and, perhaps, in no commu nity was there ever q man who was born and had lived all his life in familiar associ
 tion with the same people, who was, by that people, more universally respected. l Governor Smith was one of the last, il not the very last, of the shareholders o , Connecticut. Less progressive, perhaps, l than the men of the latter half of ths
 nineteenth century, he had not that tender consideration for the rights of man whicl
 he might have had if he had lived a few
 decades later or longer. Poor old Jack
 who, through his extreme age--one misfor tune added to another-hnd escaped tn,
 effect of the State emancipation laws. con tinued to be one of the down -trodden un til the day of his death-which occurred Q
 the ripe age of three or four years a aboye
 csntnry-was almost as we'll known in tn !yicipity, as his master. It is remarkabl fact which may be useful to those phi l1anthropists who shall hereafter deyot