book:237.nathan_perkins
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====== 237. Nathan Perkins Seymour ====== | ====== 237. Nathan Perkins Seymour ====== | ||
- | //This page is a placeholder added on 28 Sep 2014. It will be filled in later when the relevant page(s) are scanned. | + | 237. NATHAN PERKINS< |
+ | (// | ||
+ | // | ||
+ | // | ||
+ | born at Hartford, Conn., 24 Dec. 1813, died at New Haven, Conn., | ||
+ | married at Hartford, 7 Sept. 1841, ELIZABETH DAY, born at Hartford, 16 Feb. | ||
+ | 1816, died at New Haven, 7 Sept. 1900, daughter of Hon. Thomas and Sarah (Coit), | ||
+ | and niece of Jeremiah Day, President of Yale College. | ||
- | **If you have an interest in this person, //please// [[: | + | His early home was in Dorr Street, but while he was a small child the family |
+ | moved to the large house in Pratt Street which was the family home for a third | ||
+ | of a century. He attended the Hopkins Grammar School, entering Yale College in | ||
+ | 1830 and graduating in 1834 with the appointment of Salutatory Oration. | ||
+ | |||
+ | After serving for two years as Rector of the Hopkins Grammar School of Hartford, | ||
+ | he returned to New Plaven in 1836 as tutor in Yale College. In 1840 he was | ||
+ | called to the chair of Latin and Greek in Western Reserve College at Hudson, | ||
+ | Ohio, which had been founded a few years before. In 1867 he received the | ||
+ | honorary degree of LL.D. from Kenyon College. Pie served as Professor of Latin | ||
+ | and Greek until 1870, when he was made Professor Emeritus, and soon was | ||
+ | appointed lecturer on English Literature. | ||
+ | |||
+ | From then until within a few months of his death, he delivered courses of | ||
+ | lectures not only in the College with which he had been so long connected, but | ||
+ | also before the students of the Lake Erie Seminary at Painesville and at schools | ||
+ | in Cleveland and other places. In 1885 he delivered a course of lectures in | ||
+ | English literature at Yale College. In the spring of each year from 1879 until | ||
+ | 1891 he lectured at Miss Porter' | ||
+ | |||
+ | In April 1891 Professor and Mrs. Seymour left the large square brick house in | ||
+ | Hudson which he had built, their family home for nearly half a century, and went | ||
+ | to New Haven to make their home with their son, Professor Thomas Day Seymour and | ||
+ | his wife, at 34 Hillhouse Avenue. His death followed an attack of the prevailing | ||
+ | influenza, and was hastened by a fall. He was buried in the Grove Street | ||
+ | Cemetery. | ||
+ | |||
+ | Professor Seymour was the first, so far as known, to begin a study of the | ||
+ | Seymour genealogy, which his niece Miss Talcott continued. | ||
+ | |||
+ | His life was that of a scholar, loving knowledge, shunning excitement, shrinking | ||
+ | from notoriety. His mind was clear, strong, and accurate. In all things he was | ||
+ | straightforward and sincere. £te was incapable of pursuing his ends by | ||
+ | indirection. He loathed that which was selfish and mean. No man had a kinder | ||
+ | heart. He was sensitive and refined; somewhat intolerant of whatever failed to | ||
+ | conform to his aesthetic canons; witty rather than humorous; a born teacher, | ||
+ | delighting in imparting knowledge; a sincere Christian, though not always | ||
+ | willing to accept denominational formulae of belief. | ||
+ | |||
+ | His granddaughter, | ||
+ | latter years: | ||
+ | |||
+ | < | ||
+ | He always wore black broadcloth, with long tails, and a high black stock, a high | ||
+ | silk hat except in hot summer weather, when he had a tan colored straw--// | ||
+ | a sailor. He was never bald, but his hair was thin and long, white, in separate | ||
+ | tufts, as it floated about, on top and on the sides, very soft. He always moved | ||
+ | with great energy and purpose, used his hands and fingers for gesticulating | ||
+ | freely--never his arms or shoulders--and would talk earnestly, his head slightly | ||
+ | on one side, his keen light eyes shining, watching; I think of him as having no | ||
+ | self-consciousness. | ||
+ | be a more stimulating and delightful companion. He loved all fine poetry, lived | ||
+ | with it, so his grandchildren were familiar with his little jokes from | ||
+ | Shakespear: "You shall not be excused, Sir John; excuses shall not serve, Sir | ||
+ | John"; or sonorous quotations from the Bible-- "There was a man in the land of | ||
+ | Uz." He must have been a splendid teacher, a thrilling one. Music too was dear | ||
+ | to him, especially Beethoven. He knew something about Harmony, theoretically, | ||
+ | but could not play more than chords. He was much of an autocrat in his own | ||
+ | family, with little restraint of a quick temper, but an equally quick reaction | ||
+ | to tenderness. His first words on entering his home in Hudson were | ||
+ | " | ||
+ | illustrates much; a four year old grand-daughter patted his arm in the midst of | ||
+ | his harangue, saying, "That will do, Grandpapa" | ||
+ | </ | ||
+ | |||
+ | Another granddaughter writes that when displeased with a sermon he would turn | ||
+ | round in the pew until he almost had his back to the minister, | ||
+ | embarrassment of his family. | ||
+ | |||
+ | The following contributed sketch throws additional light on the characteristics | ||
+ | of Professor Seymour: | ||
+ | |||
+ | < | ||
+ | The Seymour home in Hudson for half a century was a large square brick house | ||
+ | which he built in 1843, not long after his marriage. It stood on high ground | ||
+ | near the old "Brick Row" of the colleges facing a great field which was intended | ||
+ | to be a college park. The entrance door with its side-lights was flanked by | ||
+ | columns of the Greek Doric order, finely proportioned and executed in wood. The | ||
+ | house with its four acre grounds is now (1936) much as it was when occupied by | ||
+ | the Seymour family except that the wooden wing in the rear has been rebuilt of | ||
+ | brick. Formerly the house was heated from seven fireplaces, in some of which | ||
+ | wood-burning stoves of the " | ||
+ | attention on wintry days. Professor Seymour usually attended to the fires | ||
+ | himself, bringing in armfulls of hickory sticks (he used only hickory). He kept | ||
+ | physically fit by splitting hickory logs and by walking once or twice daily to | ||
+ | the village stores and post office, half a mile distant. He was of more than | ||
+ | average height, of medium build and through his long life of robust health. | ||
+ | Near-sighted, | ||
+ | forehead while he was reading. In dress, he adhered to fashions of the sixties | ||
+ | wearing invariably a long frock coat of black broadcloth, a black satin " | ||
+ | a silk hat and high topped boots. | ||
+ | |||
+ | His study, its walls lined with books, floor to ceiling, occupied the southwest | ||
+ | corner of the second story. From its windows he enjoyed a view of the Richfield | ||
+ | hills some ten miles westward reminding him of Connecticut. To this room his | ||
+ | grandchildren were always received with welcome; he delighted in telling us | ||
+ | stories of his boyhood and as we grew older pointing out the real meaning and | ||
+ | beauty of literature, of art and of music, illustrating each in such a way as to | ||
+ | make clear to us the abstract truths and principles of life. He was a reader of | ||
+ | daily and weekly papers, with special | ||
+ | particularly his reading aloud from the Cleveland //Leader// the messages to | ||
+ | Congress of President Cleveland, whose peculiar phraseology aroused his | ||
+ | interest. | ||
+ | |||
+ | In dress and manners a gentleman of the old school, he was critically receptive | ||
+ | of advanced ideas in social problems and discoveries in science and medicine. Of | ||
+ | Christian Science he remarked that it was " | ||
+ | of Woman Suffrage, that it would surely come whether we favored it or not. | ||
+ | |||
+ | Our Grandmother set a bountiful table, and he relished good food, saying that | ||
+ | bad cooking caused more harm in this world than whiskey. He liked his tea but | ||
+ | abstained from wine and liquor. | ||
+ | |||
+ | Of his parents he said that his Mother, a minister' | ||
+ | men studying for the ministry, preferred to marry a business man! | ||
+ | |||
+ | Throughout his life he derived great enjoyment from music. He was especially | ||
+ | devoted to the sonatas and symphonies of Beethoven. He would like to hear a | ||
+ | piece repeated many times on the piano, studying the themes and their | ||
+ | development and the relation of one part to another so as to interpret the real | ||
+ | meaning of the composer. He had a keen ear for quality of voice and for tone of | ||
+ | instrument, once remarking that the real test of a great violinist was not in | ||
+ | rapid and apparently difficult music, but in the quality of slow and sustained | ||
+ | tones. His voice was rich and deep. He enjoyed singing hymns and parts of | ||
+ | oratorio with his grandchildren, | ||
+ | |||
+ | After the college removed to Cleveland, he made weekly trips to deliver courses | ||
+ | of lectures at the college and before groups of intellectual people there and in | ||
+ | other cities. He invariably walked to the station, even in deep snow and zero | ||
+ | weather, taking the early Monday " | ||
+ | |||
+ | //W. E. P.// | ||
+ | </ | ||
+ | |||
+ | Pictures of Professor Seymour and of the Seymour homestead in Hudson, Ohio, are | ||
+ | included herein. | ||
+ | |||
+ | ^ Children, born at Hudson, Ohio: ^^^^^ | ||
+ | | | i. | CHARLES< | ||
+ | | | ii. | SARAH DAY, b. 30 Nov. 1845; d. at New Hartford, Conn., 15 Aug. 1934; m. 31 Dec. 1868, WILLIAM CHENEY PARSONS, b. at Brimfield, Ohio, 19 Feb. 1841, d. at Hartford, 5 Feb. 1925, s. of Edward and Clementina (Janes) Parsons. He was graduated from Western Reserve College, 1863; was tutor there, 1865-7; served in the Civil War, Battery E, Ohio Artillery. He settled at Akron, Ohio, where he was a manufacturer; | ||
+ | | | | I. | Katharine Seymour< | ||
+ | | | | II. | William Edward, b. 19 June 1872; m. 21 Aug. 1911, Myra Louise Matthews, dau. of Franklin and Mary (Crosby), cousin and ward of Clara Louise Kellogg. See below. | ||
+ | | | | | (1) | Louise Kellogg< | ||
+ | | | | | (2) | Seymour, b. 5 July 1916; student at Yale, Class of 1938. | | ||
+ | | | | III. | Harriet Day, b. 17 July 1876. || | ||
+ | | | | IV. | Sarah Day, b. 27 Aug. 1880; d. in infancy. || | ||
+ | | | | V. | Charles Seymour, b. 4 Feb. 1882; d. 18 May 1909, unm.; B.A. (Yale, 1903). || | ||
+ | | | | VI. | Robert Day, b. 21 Aug. 1885; d. 5 Nov. 1930; m. 23 Oct. 1915, Dorothy Gait, dau. of Hugh Allen and Annie (Alexander). He was graduated from Carnegie Tech., 1908; in 1918 was commissioned Lieut, (junior grade), U. S. Naval Reserve Flying Corps; was later in business at Zanesville, Ohio; buried in Akron, Ohio. Children: || | ||
+ | | | | | (1) | Hugh Gait< | ||
+ | | | | | (2) | Robert Day, b. 10 Jan. 1919. | | ||
+ | | 302. | iii. | [[302.thomas_day|THOMAS DAY]], b. 1 Apr. 1848. ||| | ||
+ | | | iv. | HARRIET, b. 27 Mar. 1856; d. young. ||| | ||
+ | |||
+ | **CHARLES< | ||
+ | youthful surroundings aroused in him contradictory impulses: admiration for the | ||
+ | intellectual culture and stern virtues of the New England atmosphere of the | ||
+ | Western Reserve and an impatience with what he regarded as its self-satisfied | ||
+ | provincialism. At an early age he felt the temptations of adventure and the | ||
+ | desire for the contacts of a larger world. Nevertheless he stayed in Hudson to | ||
+ | complete his college course, from which he graduated in 1864. He was a fine | ||
+ | scholar, distinguished for his excellent bass voice, and a member of Alpha Delta | ||
+ | Phi. After graduation he set forth at once to build a career in a new section, | ||
+ | going to Knoxville, Tenn., then a small town on the edge of a frontier. There be | ||
+ | set bimself up in a law office and within a few years disposed of the largest | ||
+ | practice in the region relating to real estate developments and large land | ||
+ | holdings. | ||
+ | |||
+ | Seymour perceived early the wealth of the Tennessee mountains in forests and | ||
+ | water power and was one of the first to organize companies for their | ||
+ | development. | ||
+ | being English, and most of them outside of tin state. He was thus brought into | ||
+ | personal | ||
+ | visited generally twice a year. He was urged to run for political office and on | ||
+ | two occasions was offered a position on the State Bench, but always refused. In | ||
+ | Knoxville, where he kept his office until his death, he was regarded as the | ||
+ | Nestor of the community and exercised almost unlimited personal influence. | ||
+ | |||
+ | His personality was vivid. He had uncompromising views on politics, morality, | ||
+ | and manners, and never hesitated to express them. He had the purity of intent of | ||
+ | Colonel Newcome and the regard for worldly conventions of Major Pendennis. His | ||
+ | criticism was sharp and he was chary of praise. He evoked fear from those who | ||
+ | did not know him well, but the deepest affection from those close to him. He was | ||
+ | a "man of the world," | ||
+ | meet new persons, despised physical or moral cowardice. His generosity, covered | ||
+ | often by extreme brusqueness of manner, was unbounded. | ||
+ | |||
+ | In 1889 he was in a disastrous train wreck in Tennessee, was badly smashed up, | ||
+ | and lamed for life. He rose against the handicap, learned to play golf and | ||
+ | continued his active mode of living. For a decade he was subject to heart | ||
+ | attacks which he concealed from all his friends; and he died in 1913 after a | ||
+ | short illness. | ||
+ | |||
+ | **SARAH DAY< | ||
+ | remarkable intellectual endowment, and we are indebted to a daughter for the | ||
+ | following sketch. | ||
+ | |||
+ | In recalling the early days in the Hudson home, my mother wrote: " | ||
+ | Perkins Seymour] would stand us three children in front of him and sing with us, | ||
+ | 'To receive power,--and riches, | ||
+ | blessing' | ||
+ | Handel chorus." | ||
+ | of my earliest memories of him.) Because of his great love of music, my | ||
+ | grandfather bought a piano and imported | ||
+ | seven-year-old Sarah practicing three mortal hours a day; but not contented with | ||
+ | the " | ||
+ | pedals cut off if used, and as soon as possible the child was introduced to | ||
+ | Haydn and Beethoven. This bore fruit later on, when she played her children to | ||
+ | sleep with Beethoven sonatas--the only time the busy mother had for her music. | ||
+ | |||
+ | Being a girl, little attention was paid to her mental diet, and it was | ||
+ | considered a joke when she was discovered reading Virgil; but her scholastic | ||
+ | aptitude was such that, thirty years later, to help me make up missed lessons, | ||
+ | she picked up the Aeneid and read page after page at sight, without an error! To | ||
+ | the end of her long life, she relished problems, whether in mathematics or | ||
+ | chess, and to the inherited love of the great in music and literature she added | ||
+ | an intense interest in painting. | ||
+ | |||
+ | In the hustling manufacturing city of Akron, Ohio, she was a | ||
+ | moving spirit in rousing a desire for beauty and knowledge; founded | ||
+ | clubs; introduced good pictures into the public schools; and was | ||
+ | president of the Womens Council of the city. She left a lasting | ||
+ | imprint as an influence for the finest things of life. H. D. P. | ||
+ | |||
+ | **WILLIAM EDWARD< | ||
+ | (Seymour) Parsons was born in Akron, Ohio, June 19, 1872. He attended school at | ||
+ | Western Reserve Academy, Hudson, Ohio, Bingham School in North Carolina and | ||
+ | Norwich Free Academy, and graduated from Yale College (Phi Beta Kappa) with the | ||
+ | Class of 1895. He studied Architecture at Columbia University, receiving degree | ||
+ | of B.S. in 1898 and entered the Ecole des Beaux Arts, Paris, in the fall of that | ||
+ | year, studying under Victor Laloux until July 1901. In 1899 he was awarded the | ||
+ | McKim Traveling Fellowship in Architecture. On returning from Paris he entered | ||
+ | the office of John Galen Howard, Architect, New York. On being appointed | ||
+ | Consulting Architect of the U. S. Government in the Philippine Islands, he left | ||
+ | New York and went to the Islands in November, 1905, where he remained nine years. | ||
+ | While there, he designed a great variety of public and semi-public buildings in | ||
+ | Manila and in the provinces, including Court Houses, schools, hospitals, | ||
+ | markets, prisons and parks; also the Manila Hotel, Philippine General Hospital, | ||
+ | Manila Club, University of the Philippines. In the tropics he introduced the use | ||
+ | of reinforced concrete for permanent buildings at a time when that material had | ||
+ | barely come into use in the United States. While his designs generally followed | ||
+ | the classic tradition, the use of concrete gave his work a modern expression in | ||
+ | advance of the movement toward modernism of today. He planned the restoration of | ||
+ | the old City Walls and Moats of Manila as public parks and playgrounds and | ||
+ | established standards of public architecture which have been and are being | ||
+ | generally followed. W. Cameron Forbes, Governor General, says in "The Philippine | ||
+ | Islands": | ||
+ | |||
+ | < | ||
+ | Mr. Parsons brought to the Islands a fine sense of proportion, thorough training | ||
+ | and unusual industry. He designed and secured the adoption of his plans for the | ||
+ | construction of many beautiful buildings, all of which were in excellent taste. | ||
+ | The Architecture of his time will stand as a permanent monument to the American | ||
+ | Administration in the Islands. His lines were always simple, proportions | ||
+ | harmonious, colors agreeable, and the useful purposes to which his plans were to | ||
+ | be put were never lost sight of in mere architectural beauty. | ||
+ | </ | ||
+ | |||
+ | He was charged with the interpretation of the Burnham Plans for Manila and | ||
+ | Baguio, extensive development of both cities having been achieved during his | ||
+ | stay in the Islands. Says Charles Moore in his book, " | ||
+ | |||
+ | < | ||
+ | Within three days after the plan of Manila was approved, work was begun. | ||
+ | Happily, the task of construction was entrusted to William E. Parsons, a young | ||
+ | American architect, who had eight years of continuous service before a policy of | ||
+ | retrogression in the Philippines caused his resignation. At the time of his | ||
+ | appointment, | ||
+ | from the Ecole des Beaux Arts and had entered upon private practice in New York | ||
+ | City. Under the terms of his agreement with Commissioner W. Cameron Forbes, Mr. | ||
+ | Parsons had general architectural supervision over the design of all public | ||
+ | buildings and parks throughout the Islands. Thus he became the interpreter and | ||
+ | executant of the Burnham-Anderson plans; and he also did private work. It is not | ||
+ | possible to praise too highly the fidelity with which Mr. Parsons carried out | ||
+ | the spirit of the plans, the judiciousness of the modifications he made in them, | ||
+ | the simplicity, directness, and good taste which characterize the many and | ||
+ | varied buildings he designed, the ability with which he solved problems both old | ||
+ | and new, and the judgment he displayed in all his dealings with both officials | ||
+ | and people. | ||
+ | </ | ||
+ | |||
+ | Mr. Parsons resigned in 1914 and associated in practice with E. H. Bennett in | ||
+ | Chicago and since 1922 has been a member of the firm of Bennett, Parsons and | ||
+ | Frost, Architects, planners of Civic improvements in Chicago and other cities | ||
+ | including St. Paul, Phoenix, Palm Beach and Pasadena, the last named comprising | ||
+ | a group of public buildings at the City Center. In 1918 he planned Camp Knox in | ||
+ | Kentucky. He was Consulting Architect for Puerto Rico in 1924-26, making several | ||
+ | trips there, planning the Ocean Boulevard and Rivera Park in San Juan, and | ||
+ | making a general plan of extension for the University of Puerto Rico. | ||
+ | |||
+ | Mr. Parsons designed the New Botanic Gardens and Conservatory and (he | ||
+ | Enlargement of the Capitol Grounds in Washington by extending the grounds from | ||
+ | the Capitol to the Union Station. This project covered an area of twelve city | ||
+ | blocks, involving the razing of many old buildings, the location of a new avenue | ||
+ | (Louisiana) connecting the Union Station Plaza with Pennsylvania Avenue, the | ||
+ | relocation of street car lines, and the construction of the great terrace and | ||
+ | fountain, beneath which a large garage for Members of Congress was built. | ||
+ | |||
+ | He served from 1929 to 1937 as Advisory Architect for the Federal Commission for | ||
+ | the George Rogers Clark Memorial on the site of Fort Sackville in Vincennes, | ||
+ | Indiana. He was responsible for the general plan of the grounds with streets and | ||
+ | approaches, the placing of the Memorial structure and statues of Vigo and Father | ||
+ | Gibault. The Memorial, now a national monument of first historic importance, | ||
+ | stands on the banks of the Wabash River covering an area of twenty-five acres, | ||
+ | within which is preserved the old Catholic Cathedral. The river wall and the | ||
+ | bridge approaches also were built from his designs. | ||
+ | |||
+ | Dr. Charles Moore, Chairman of the Commission of Fine Arts, says in | ||
+ | " | ||
+ | recommended Mr. Parsons first to Governor Towner to plan the government | ||
+ | buildings at Puerto Rico, then to the Indiana Commission on the rejuvenation of | ||
+ | Vincennes in connection with the George Rogers Clark Memorial, and finally to | ||
+ | the Committees of Congress, charged with the removal of the Botanic Gardens and | ||
+ | the extension of the Capitol grounds. The completion of these plans marks a fine | ||
+ | record of progressive achievement on Mr. Parsons' | ||
+ | |||
+ | The William Wrigley Memorial, Santa Catalina Island, California, was executed | ||
+ | from Mr. Parsons' | ||
+ | later projects of his firm. | ||
+ | |||
+ | In 1938 Mr. Parsons received an appointment as Associate Professor of | ||
+ | Architecture in the Yale School of Fine Arts, where he will teach in particular | ||
+ | city and regional planning. | ||
\\ [[236.ira|(< | \\ [[236.ira|(< | ||
book/237.nathan_perkins.txt · Last modified: 2018/01/06 14:21 by jims