2013 inductee
Jasper Gunn
was an early Milford settler and its first doctor among other pursuits
Jasper Gunn was born ca. 1606 and was baptized on the 9th of August 1607, at Great Burstead, England. He was of Scottish descent. He was the fifth of six children, the only son of Henry and wife Sarah Gunne.
Jasper Gunn arrived in Boston, Massachusets on October 8, 1635 having sailed aboard the ship "Defense" from London on July 14, 1635 when just 29 years old. He came with his wife Christian Mary, nee Baldwin, though the ship records indicate an "Anne Gunn, age 25." Several Gunn genealogists have speculated that the ship clerk just heard Ann when she said Christian. This seems likely as no further mention of this "Anne" Gunn occurs in colonial records. They settled in Roxbury, Massachusets and on 25 May 1636 he was made a freeman of that town. They had their first child, Samuel, there in 1635 so she must have been expecting during the voyage over. Two more children followed: Jobamah Gunn, born 1637 and Daniel Gunn, 1639, both born in Roxbury. Also in 1639, (reputedly the same year he arrived in Milford) he was alloted 5 1/2 acres at Roxbury indicating the esteem hs fellow residents had for him at the time. He soon left Massachusets nonetheless.
In 1638 Peter Prudden arrived from England with the Hertfordshire party in the Boston area. The Reverends Prudden and Davenport traveled to many colonial communities sermonizing and seeking followers for their dream of creating a new Jerusalem in the new world. Gunn apparently found the charismatic Prudden inspiring enough to give up his home and join the party in Milford. There being no record of him in New Haven until 1661, he may have come to Milford directly or via Hartford, it is unknown which. In any event, when he and his wife Mary were admitted to the church in Milford 25 Apr 1641 it was noted that they "having been dismissed by the church at Hertford." On the same page of the Milford church records are recorded the baptisms of their children, Mehetable ('Mable') and Abel on 2 May 1641 and 19 Jun 1643, both in Milford. Gunn does not appear in the list of "after-planters" (1646-1660) but does appear on the 1646 list of "Original" (1639) planters (This does not guarantee his presence in 1639 though as, for instance, John Smith's, who arrived ca. 1643, appears on both lists).
Jasper Gunn was given Lot #24 (1646 map) from the initial property purchased from the Indians (now the area around One New Haven Avenue and S.B.C. down to the Simon Lake Submarine site). In 1643 Jasper Gunn was appointed with others as judges on a court to divide the land and admit inhabitants ("After-Planters) into the Milford "plantation." He received additional parcels in The town in 1646, 1649, 1659, 1660.
The 1646, and 1649 parcels may have been an inducement to stay in Milford but he relocated to Hartford about 1647. Ancient records reflect that ca. 1659 "Item: Jasper Gunn's land that was given to him by the town formerly being given upon this condition if he settle with us, he desiring that now the expression might be so to read. The town considering that he was come to us and had been with us some space of time and he also expressing himself that he had no thoughts to remove, did grant his desire" [sic]. This record apparently confirming the 1639, 1646, 1649 and/or the additional Milford lands in 1659 and 1660 to him upon his return from Hartford ca.1657 to live in Milford permanently.
There is no uncertainty that he had relocated to Hartford for about a decade after 1647. In 1648 he lost a damage suit in at the Hartford court. He obtained and operated a mill there, a service so important to the community that on 13 Sep 1649, Jasper Gunn of Hartford was excused from "the watch" during the time he attends to the service of the mill. "Watching for Indians" that is, a part of military service required of most freemen of the time. After the General Court at Hartford on 21 May 1657 licensed him to practice medicine he was again relieved of such military duty "during his practise of phissicke." Reputedly, he returned to Milford in 1657 (or 1659?). This is likely so as his rights to the Hartford mill operation was formally taken from him on March 14, 1659 (March 3, 1658 O.S.), as a result of an action brought by the "Committee for the Affairs of the Hartford Mill."
Back at Milford, he was given additional land in Milford in 1659 and 1660. In those days land was granted for important service to the community. What were those services? It seems Jasper Gunn was the renaissance man of his day. In addition to being Milford's first doctor (and only one at the time). He set up Milford's first school in 1642 and operated it as its first teacher and headmaster; something that few people know. He served as an envoy on a mission to New Amsterdam on behalf of the colony to sort out issues with the Dutch (prior to its capture by the British in 1664, now New York).
He was adept at keeping metes and measures so was entrusted as official "sealer of weights and measures" by his community. He was the mender of copper and brass metal objects like kettles and such, earning him an extra stream of Income. In 1661 he acted as a lawyer representing Mrs. Joanna Prudden in the matter of cow which she allegedly retrieved without proper authority.
He served as representative to the Court at New Haven in 1663. The "Court" was not merely a judicial court like today, but included legislative, judicial, probate, even ecclesiastical issues that might come before the body. The men who so served, served God and Man. As a deputy to the court in New Haven he mostly oversaw matters of property and estates. He was a Deacon of the Church and a most prominent member of the community.
What people do remember of Jasper Gunn, even to this day, is his legendary services as Milford's first doctor. It was said that none of his patient's died on his watch. If only Jasper had lived longer, those people could be alive today! Of course, his legend exceeds his skills as the "medicine" of the time was very primitive. His cure for "Rhume" (the common cold), was to place a roasted egg on the nape of the neck while still hot. Try it, since there is no "other cold cure" even today! (Don't tell the FDA I suggested it!).
In the library of Trinity College, Hartford, is his an almanac for the year 1652, in which Jasper Gunn kept some patients' and customers' accounts and a lot of medical notes, much of the last in shorthand, no doubt, to protect the secrets of his trade. Most are, regrettably, indecipherable. All references in this small book are to patients in Hartford, not Milford.
Jasper Gunn's progeny are wide spread throughout the country. His children married into other prominent Milford families, lending blood lines to the Camp, Bristol, Smith, Fenn and of course Gunn descendants. Jasper Gunn died January 23, 1671 (Jan 12,1670 O.S.) leaving the then tidy estate of some 288 pounds. He is Buried in Milford Cemetery. He and Mary are memorialized on a stone on the Memorial Bridge crossing the Wepawaug River at New Haven Avenue. Gunn Street is named for him and his family.
Captain Jehiel Bryan
A Revolutionary War era defender of Milford’s shoreline
Milford took an active part in the struggle for independence in contributing men, money, and supplies. The town did not escape the occasional raids from Long Island organized by Tories, Britishers, and renegades who traded with the enemy.
Captain Jehiel Bryan and Captain Orlando Beach commanded the guard on the shore and they were so efficient that the British considered their capture imperative. Legend has it that the British Marines (one officer and two men) rowed across the Sound to the Milford harbor at dusk with the intention of capturing Captain Bryan. He had been warned of the attack, however, and had a large posse of Patriots hidden in the south parlor of the house. With sword drawn, the raider approached the house and entered, but upon meeting the doughty Captain Bryan in the hall, he was so thoroughly trounced and shaken that he fled with his men, leaving the sword behind. Later, retaliatory fire was directed on some of the Bryan property near the shore, but the British missed their target by a wide margin. The sword remains one of the most valued relics of the Revolutionary War and was in the possession of one of Captain Bryan's descendants, Mrs. B.T.D. Merriman. She later sold it and its whereabouts is unknown.
Jehiel Bryan was born in Stamford, CT on June 15th 1728. He married Ester Buckingham, great granddaughter of Thomas Buckingham, original settler of Milford, in June 1753. Ester was born on April 19th, 1730 and died on March 16th, 1823.
Jehiel was a carpenter by trade and by the time he moved into the Buckingham homestead on North Street with Ester, the old house was in sad shape. He renovated the house inside and out where much of his handiwork can still be seen today, in particular a carved cupboard in the corner of the dining room and the dental carving on the dining room mantle. The Buckingham House (61 North Street) was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1977, It is still standing on the Southeast corner of North Street and Governor's Avenue.
Another legend says that the French General and good friend of the Patriots, General Lafayette, came to visit Captain Bryan at the Buckingham homestead on numerous occasions and that he was quite a favorite of the ladies.
Captain Bryan must have been a man of wealth. He had several journeymen working for him and also owned several slaves. After the Revolution, Jehiel and his son, also named Jehiel (who married Mary Treat) became one of the largest landowners and prominent citizens of Milford. They raised many crops and had a large herd of cattle which they exported to the East and West Indies, thereby setting Milford up as a thriving seaport town.
Captain Bryan died on Sept. 9, 1807 at the age of 78.
Edward Rodolphus Lambert
Passion for history led to pen a lasting book on New Haven Colony
Edward Rodolphus Lambert is best remembered for writing the landmark “History of the Colony of New Haven Before and After the Union with Connecticut,” published in 1838. This work not only contained this history of his native Milford but also that of New Haven, Guilford, Branford, Stamford and Southold, Long Island, which was originally part of New Haven Colony. He also made two maps of Milford, one in 1835, the other in 1855.
Lambert was born March 20, 1808, the oldest child of Edward Allyn Lambert and his wife, Ann Bull. He was only 26 when he petitioned the town fathers to work with old records toward publishing “History of the Colony…”. As Morris W. Abbott noted in an article on his life “he must have developed early an interest in local history and antiquities, and this interest continued throughout his lifetime.” Lambert copied deeds and other documents many of which are stilled stored in Yale University and the Connecticut State Library. Not included among these, and assumed lost, is the deed recording the February 12, 1639 purchase from Ansantawae and local Indians for “6 coats, 10 blankets, 1 kettle, 12 hatchets, 12 hoes, 2 dozen knives and a dozen small glasses” (mirrors). Also the actual list of original settlers or planters and after planters is no longer available, and all that can be relied on has come to be known as “Lambert’s List.” Lambert never sought nor received any compensation for the work as he said in his preface: “The labor in collecting materials has been very great, and anything like fair remuneration is not expected. The stimulus is solely con amore, a desire to have the facts in convenient form for reference.”
A journal that has survived through the years chronicles his trip to England in 1838, running from August 4 through November 5. He wrote down what he did each day, including visits to many historic places in and around London, riding on a railroad train and also traveling across the English Channel to visit Calais. He expressed a strong desire to see Paris but never did so. A high point of the trip was seeing Westminster Abbey which he describes as “the burial place of Poets, statesmen, Heroes, Patriots and Kings. Here the great and renowned are congregated to moulder and decay in splendor and magnificence; here are numerous likenesses sculptured in marble, with many wax figures of kings and others dressed in their true robes of state.” But he never mentioned why he made the journey other than to say it was for an unidentified attorney sending him to do some legal research.
On January 1, 1833 he married Eliza Boothe, daughter of John and Dencie Boothe of Wallingford in Trinity Church, New Haven. They had 10 children but just three survived to adulthood. It could be for this reason he held a low opinion of physicians of his day. In his 1835 map of Milford, he identifies one as “M.D. = Mercurial Doctor.” He also called them “Calomel Doctors.” In a footnote in Lambert genealogy at the end of “History,” he makes note of the short life of his daughter, Eliza Boothe (1836-1838), “In April 1837, this child had a dangerous fit of sickness, but her life was saved by the skill and indefatigable attention of Dr. Edwin Woodruff and the virtues of Thomasonian remedies.” But Dr. Woodruff failed to save her life the following year.
The 1850 census has him living in Bridgeport where he worked as a surveyor and architect. In 1864, with George Beckwith, he made the original survey of Bridgeport’s Seaside Park.
Lambert died June 19, 1867 at age 60 in Bridgeport and was buried the next day in Milford Cemetery. His obituary in the June 18 edition of “The Bridgeport Evening Standard” mentioned some notable characteristics:
“Mr. Lambert was a man of scholarly bent and possessed more than ordinary intelligence. He was retiring in his habit, rarely or never mingling with society, unless called into it by business. Few therefore knew the extent of his information, and with those who did, he was interesting company. His coveted pursuit was the collection of historic records, and he was probably the most accomplished antiquarian in Fairfield County.”
“About thirty years ago he published in New Haven, which, if we rightly remember, was called The Chronicle. During the time of his residence in this city (about thirteen years) he has practiced surveying, with the exception of the last two or three years, when a chronic lameness in his leg prevented him from pursuing it.”
Herbert Israel Mathewson
Led Milford Schools into the Future
“One looks back with appreciation to the brilliant teachers, but with gratitude to those who touched our human feelings…” Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung.
The year of 1883 ushered in momentous accomplishments that would have lasting effects on local communities as well as the nation. It was in 1883, for example, that New Yorkers witnessed the opening of the Brooklyn Bridge that would forever have a major impact on the way people traveled between Brooklyn and Manhattan for work or play.
That was the year, too, that would forever change the way Milford’s children would be educated. With less fanfare and fewer newspaper headlines than The Bridge, our local education system, that only years earlier saw the consolidation of separate and individual school districts into one with one administration, introduced a fearless and innovative leader who would prepare for and bring schools into the 20th century and beyond.
Few, if any educators, left their footprints on this community more than previous Hall of Fame inductee Joseph Foran and an earlier superintendent, one Herbert Mathewson. The native of Jewett City, Connecticut, was appointed principal of the former Milford High School in 1883, succeeding A.M. Drummond who had held the post for seven years. He later was named superintendent of schools and held that post until his death in 1927. His salary was an “enormous” $800 a year. Herbert Mathewson was and continues to be considered one of the leading proponents for public schools and is credited with developing what is now the modern and highly regarded school system that this community enjoys and for which is it well known.
Years after his appointment as Milford High principal he wrote in the school’s literary magazine that the high school had made great progress since he first assumed his duties. He noted, for example, “that in 1883 the high school course was a two-year program, that all students were grouped in one room and that the eighth grade pupils sat with high school pupils.”
By the early 1900s, under Mathewson’s leadership, however, Milford saw the beginning of its modernization. Devon School was completed in 1907. “The rapid development of that section of town made this new two-room school imperative,” he said. The following year, a 21-room school building was erected on West River Street opposite the town hall. It would be used as an elementary school and as a high school, moving students from the west wing of the "old" town hall. Because of limited school room space, Milford and other area communities had transported some youngsters to schools in New Haven. In 1909 the New Haven Board of Education notified these communities that they no longer would accept students from out-of-town. Under Herbert Mathewson, therefore, the local school board met the Elm City’s challenge by voting for and finding the resources to extend the local high school from two to four years and include college preparatory, business and science curricula. This was a progressive innovation for a small community at that time. The first graduation took place in 1910. As the then small town’s population grew, so did the need for additional classroom space so by 1913 it was necessary to construct a new brick school building.
As is frequently the case with budget-conscious city administrators and taxpayers, there were complaints at the time that the new schoolhouses were much too large for the needs of the town. Soon after construction of the new school was completed, however, Mathewson’s prophecy became a reality and every desk was occupied. A four-room school to serve Walnut Beach followed in 1916 and nine rooms and a kindergarten were added in 1923, four years before Mathewson’s death, to accommodate the growing population of the western part of town.
Mathewson Transformed the Local School System
For a period of 44 years Herbert Mathewson guided the local school system and directed and was responsible for its growth. When he arrived in Milford, for instance, there was a two-year high school that shared space with town offices. Between 1900 and 1925, the school system under Mathewson was transformed. In addition to the Walnut Beach, Central Grammar/Milford High and Devon schools, other schools were constructed as well in order to serve virtually every part of the then growing Milford community. These included construction of a new two-room school in Woodmont (1918) successive additions to the Devon Grammar that added 12 new classrooms and construction of a new four-room school to serve families living in Fort Trumbull (1919 to 1927). The West Main Street School fronting on the Boston Post Road was completed in 1931, four years after Mathewson’s death.
By 1939 Milford’s school system whose development began under Herbert Mathewson had 3,197 pupils in grammar schools and the high school. The town employed 69 grade school teachers and 26 high school teachers and had an annual operating budget of $250,000. Much of the town’s attraction to young families with children was its educational system.
When one considers the growth of the school system it appears to be a phenomenon considering that the central school system here was created not too many years earlier than Mathewson’s arrival in Milford. Until 1863, the town consisted of 12 individual and separate school districts. An act by the State Legislature in Hartford that year consolidated them into the one central district under one administration. In 1874 Milford’s Board of Education was created with 12 members, one each from the previous 12 districts. It would take a strong administrator to bring cohesiveness. That individual would be Herbert Mathewson.
When Milford voted in 1959 to construct three new elementary schools, Orchard Hills, Live Oaks, and a third. It beStowd on one of its strongest, most insightful and dedicated school administrators permanent recognition when it named the Herbert Mathewson School. It truly may be said, according to one historian, that “the seeds for the future education of local children were put down by Mr. Mathewson who built the foundation upon which the future of local education might grow.
“It is a greater work to educate a child in the true sense of the word, than to rule a nation…” William Ellery Channing.
Fannie Elizabeth Beach
A half century of teaching
Fannie Elizabeth Beach impacted Woodmont in a special way because she taught school there for fifty years, retiring in 1934. At first, all eight grades were in a one-room schoolhouse, later six grades, and later still the upper grades in a two-room brick school (built in 1917) of which she was also the principal. The family always said, "Aunt Fannie taught for fifty years." In fact, it as important to her to each that last year to make it 50. But the town records do not list her as teacher until 1891, which would make it 43 years. It is possible that Fannie, who graduated from Milford High School in 1883, began teaching that same fall. That was not uncommon back then, especially in country schools. It may have then taken her seven years to earn her certification explaining the delay in having her name appearing on the teachers' list for the town.
She did not go away to college, but did take teaching courses, always read widely, and, of course, would have accepted advice from more experienced teachers. She not only taught "reading, writing, an 'rithmatic," but on some Saturdays took the school children on nature walks through woods and fields, and taught the names of trees, wild flowers and birds. Her niece, Ruth Beach (Sykes), always very good at identifying wildlife, said she had learned most of that from "Aunt Fannie."
Fannie was always interested in the way the lives of her former pupils developed. Some of them came back to see her, and kept in touch over the years. One of them, Granville P. Lindley, was a member of the Byrd Antarctic Expedition II. He wrote two letters to her while on the expedition (in 1933 and 1934), that she kept all her life.
When Fannie was born, a couple of years after the conclusion of the Civil War, Woodmont was a sparsely populated rural farmland and woods. In the early 1870s a few people began to build summer cottages on the shore of Long Island Sound, about a mile from the Beach farm. In 1898 a trolley line going right through was built between New Haven and Milford Center and on to Bridgeport. By 1906 with this "easy access," the summer population of Woodmont 'exploded' to about 2000. Many cottages and hotels were built near the water to accommodate the seasonal influx. After Labor Day, the "summer people" went back to their homes elsewhere, and Woodmont was returned to its relatively few permanent inhabitants who lived mostly farmed and operated a few small businesses.
After Fannie's parents died - in 1911 and 1914 respectively, she continued to live on in her apartment on the second floor of the Beach family farmhouse. The large house was built by Fannie's father, Theodore Elliott Beach, sometime in the 1880s or '90s. The records that would have shown the precise year were destroyed by fire when the Town Hall burned in 1915. It had 17 rooms on three floors and stood on the same spot where the "old house" had stood
According to the Commemorative Biographical Record of New Haven County, Connecticut, (1902): Theodore Elliott Beach has always resided at his present homestead, and since taking charge of the place has made a specialty of seed growing. The place contains fifty acres (later it increased to 150 acres), with new buildings and modern improvements, and his new residence is one of the best in the vicinity of Woodmont.
Fannie's brother, Frank J. Beach, who always worked with his father on the farm and, owned and operated the farm after the older man died in 1911. Fannie boarded with hm and his family in the homestead. Frank had married Eda Maude Rhodes in 1898, and they raised their family there. Fannie taught their children in school (the Beach children called her "Aunt Fannie" at home and "Miss Beach" at school). Frank and Eda had one boy - Ralph - five girls - Emily, Ada, Ruth, Ethel and Edith. Ruth always thought "Aunt Fannie" was a wonderful aunt, an excellent teacher, and an outstanding person. When Frank died in 1932 his son, Ralph continued to work the farm as owner and operator.
The whole family was very active in the Mary Taylor Memorial Methodist Church in Milford. That church had been born in a Christian Revival in Milford in 1836. Fannie's mother's parents, Elizabeth Ann Platt and Eliakim Fenn, were one of the founding families of the Methodist Church in Milford.
Fannie lived frugally, but was generous to others. This Author's mother Ruth (Fannie's Niece) told me that when she went to Virginia to do Christian mission work, Aunt Fannie gave her $25.00 to put into the bank (a generous sum back then); so "you will always be able to come home." Aunt Fannie also paid for the material for Mother's wedding dress.
When Aunt Fannie knew that I would like to have a china clock that had been a wedding gift to my Beach grandparents, she had it repaired for me. I have a letter from her about this written in 1958.
Since none of the women in the Beach family at that time drove automobiles, Fannie most often walked to school, went by trolley, occasionally Ralph would take her by car, to New Haven and Milford, less regularly she visited Bridgeport - getting there the same way. Frequently she and her sister, Ida (who lived with her during their retired years) took in a movie in one of the cities. When they went to New Haven, normally once a week, they visited their bank and did some shopping. Fannie and Ida, her sister and companion, traveled by ship to Europe in the summers of 1924 and 1928 visiting France, Italy, Switzerland, Belgium, England, and Scotland.
When we were children, my cousin, Peggy Beach, and I loved to play table games with Aunt Fannie. She taught us to play Chinese checkers, dominoes, checkers and Parcheesi. She delighted in children, and we sensed that.
Aunt Fannie was nearly 89 when Ida died at almost 87 in January 1956. After an initial depression, Aunt Fannie told me that their minister helped her overcome it. She decided to take Spanish (or it might have been French) lessons she thought it would be good for her mind. She was quite a lady!
I do not remember hearing anyone in the family say anything negative of Aunt Fannie - and she lived there in the same house with them and ate her meals with them. She was a very loving, easy-to-live-with person. She was kind, thoughtful of others, "sweet," nurturing, a "peace-maker" and "motherly." The family all loved, admired and respected her.
Aunt Fannie was always provided with a tea pot of hot water and a cup and saucer with her meals. She never, or rarely, drank tea or coffee - only hot water. I know this was not for religious reasons. Maybe it was simply what she liked it, or might have thought it was a healthy thing to do. I have recently learned that many people back then thought drinking hot water was good for the bowels. Perhaps it was. She died three months short of her one hundredth birthday.
The last couple of years of her life, Fannie suffered from dementia and was confined to a nursing home in Milford. In 1966 the Milford school board decided to honor the memory of Annie E. Beach by renaming the Woodmont Elementary School, the Fannie E. Beach School. Although she did not live quite long enough to be present for this event in 1970, she knew it was "in the works" which pleased her.
