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-==== GEORGE DUDLEY SEYMOUR ====
-GEORGE DUDLEY<sup>9</sup> SEYMOUR (1859--1945),((The following rehearsal of Mr.
-Seymour's public activities is substantially quoted from the "Story of
-Connecticut," for which it was compiled some years ago.)) born and bred in
-Bristol, Hartford County, Connecticut, was educated at the local graded schools
-and the Hartford Public High School (1878), and in 1880 received the degree of
-LL.B., from Columbian Law School, Washington, D. C. On October 6, 1883 his
-twenty-fourth birthday, Mr. Seymour opened an office in New Haven for the
-practice of patent law and for soliciting patents. Apart from his long and
-successful professional career he is best known for his interest in community
-welfare an interest that he traces to the fact that his father took him, as a
-small boy, to town meetings and impressed upon his mind the obligation of every
-man to take some part in public affairs beyond merely voting. These early
-lessons in civics were never forgotten by the son. Mr. Seymour, feeling no
-aptitude for city politics, did not take part in the usual political life of
-his adopted city, and did not hold any public office of a political nature.
-However, his interest in his city made him the author and leader of a sustained
-effort to induce New Haven to adopt a systematic plan for its future growth,
-using the historic Green (laid out in 1638) as a civic center, and to provide
-New Haven harbor with up-to-date terminal facilities that would make the harbor
-one of the city's chief commercial assets.  He is also well known for his
-interest in early Connecticut architecture and architects and in the furnishings
-of the early houses; and particularly for reviving the memory of Captain Nathan
-Hale, originating and leading a movement to place a statue in memory of Hale
-upon the Old Campus of Yale College, and himself buying and reconditioning the
-birthplace of Nathan Hale in South Covent as a shrine of the patriot, who was
-hanged by the British as a spy in 1776.
-Mr. Seymour's interest in the art and practice of city planning sprang from
-contacts in Washington with some of the principal men working there for a return
-to Major L'Enfant's plan for the development and ornamentation of the national
-capital. The idea of city planning was then beginning to attract attention in
-some of the progressive American cities and Mr. Seymour conceived the idea of
-bringing the message of city planning to New Haven which has he is fully
-persuaded, the oldest existing organized town plan on the American continent.
-Its great central open square, although primarily designed to serve as a market
-place, was wonderfully adapted, as he envisioned it to form the civic center of
-the New Haven of the future, if surrounded by public and semi-public buildings,
-and offered an opportunity not surpassed in the entire country.
-Mr. Seymour's first opportunity for real public service in this direction to the
-city of his adoption came in 1906, when he appeared before a committee of the
-Board of Aldermen in opposition to a petition presented by the directors of the
-New Haven Public Library, asking for a site on the Green itself for a new public
-library building.  The petition was defeated, and it is significant of the
-change of feeling that has since taken place regarding the Green, that it now
-seems hardly possible that the directors of the Library Board could ever have
-recommended the building of a public library upon the Green, the invasion of
-which Mr. Seymour felt would be nothing less than a public calamity.
-And yet the very next year the city was threatened with the erection of a huge
-hotel facing the Green on the site of Mayor Sargent's house. Mr. Seymour saw at
-once that the erection of a hotel on the key-site in question would be a serious
-blow to New Haven. To checkmate the project, he immediately prepared a
-comprehensive paper urging the adoption of city planning by New Haven and the
-utilization of the Green as its //civic center//. This paper was simultaneously
-published in full as an open letter to the Mayor, Board of Aldermen, and
-citizens of the city and county of New Haven, on June 2, 1907, in the issues of
-the //New Haven Sunday Register//, //Leader// and //Union//. It attracted wide
-attention, and led not only to the formation of a committee of citizens to
-secure a city plan, but also to the raising of a fund of about $8,000 for the
-purpose, and to inviting Mr. Cass Gilbert, one of the foremost architects of
-the country, and Mr. Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr., the country's foremost
-landscape architect, to visit New Haven. After studying the plan of the city,
-they drafted a report with recommendations.
-This was no mean task, and due to one thing and another, the report was not
-published until 1910, and even then it attracted far less attention in
-conservative old New Haven than in the country at large. However, an Act of the
-Connecticut Legislature, approved May 28, 1913, creating a City Plan Commission,
-was secured, and the commission was soon organized, with Mayor Rice its
-chairman, and Mr. Seymour its secretary. The project had from the beginning the
-enthusiastic support of the Chamber of Commerce, then led by Colonel Isaac M.
-Ullman, but it was destined largely to fail because it never secured the real
-support of the municipal government, without which, as Mr. Olmsted declared,
-city planning could not be "put over."
-As an improvement closely related to his city-planning project, Mr. Seymour, in
-, led a campaign for the provision of the harbor with terminal facilities,
-with the view that the harbor might again be utilized as one of the chief
-commercial assets of New Haven.  That project, too, though care fully organized
-and endorsed by armer President Taft, and supported by the Chamber of
-Commerce, was destined to fail, although the Chamber's Harbor Committee employed
-Major Cassius E. Gillette, an army engineer of ability and experience
-recommended by Mr. Taft who, as Secretary of War, had become familiar with the
-subject of such engineering projects. Both Mr. Taft and Colonel Ullman were very
-alive and helpful in this ill-fated enterprise, in which nothing was seemingly
-accomplished. The day of the harbor has not yet come, but it is approaching,
-beyond doubt.
-With these two major projects -- city planning and harbor improvements -- Mr.
-Seymour was almost continuously engaged from 1907 to 1924, as the local
-newspapers covering this period afford Ample evidence. To rehearse the details
-would be impracticable, but some idea of these and other activities may be
-gained by consulting the articles listed in Appendix XI, which articles, for the
-most part, were prepared in support of the proposed plans and were published in
-the current local papers, if peradventure they do not fall into dust before they
-are consulted. In 1924 Mr. Seymour presented his resignation from the City Plan
-Commission in a long letter addressed to Mayor FitzGerald, in which he reviewed
-his aims in the premises.  (This letter was subsequently printed as "A Citizen's
-Valedictory," by Mr. Lewis S. Welch, one of Mr. Seymour's most active sup-
-porters in his various city improvement enterprises.)
-Although both of these major projects, originated and untiringly pushed year
-after year by Mr. Seymour, failed in their main objectives, their by-products
-have been in some measure compensatory. Thus Mr. Olmsted, with his wonderful
-vision, saw during his studies of the New Haven terrain in 1907 a great
-opportunity for an all-the-year-round park and playground in the extensive well-
-nigh-useless low swampy West River meadows. He enthused Mr. Seymour with the
-idea, who passed it on to Colonel Ullman and so to the City Plan Commission,
-where it long languished. Colonel Ullman and Mr. Seymour, however, both later
-became members of the New Haven World War Memorial Committee and continued so to
-cherish the idea that with some finesse they succeeded through Mr. Olmsted (a
-story as yet untold) in "selling" the idea to Mayor FitzGerald, in whose
-administration it was "put over," and a park (West River Memorial Park) of some
-two hundred acres in extent is now under way, though nothing has yet been done
-regarding the obelisk which was the keynote of Mr. Olmsted's design and was
-deemed necessary by him to mark the park as New Haven's World War Memorial. Mr.
-Frederick L. Ford, then the city engineer, was an active participant in this
-project. But the park will f ail as a //War Memorial// until the obelisk is
-erected, to complete Mr. Olmsted's design.
-Two other parks have also come to New Haven Seymour's interest and activity. The
-Congress having authorized the Secretary of War to dispose of Federal
-reservations no longer useful for defensive purposes, it was reported to Mr.
-Seymour that certain business interests were in correspondence with the War
-Department regarding the purchase of the Fort Hale reservation of some thirty
-acres on the east shore of New Haven harbor, with the idea of buying it and
-converting it into an amusement park. Fearful that while the "City Fathers"
-were resting in fancied security, such a sale might take place, Mr. Seymour
-acted on his own personal responsibility. In June, 1921, he induced Colonel John
-Q. Tilson, M. C. for this District, to introduce a bill into Congress
-authorizing the Secretary of War to transfer the title of the reservation to the
-city of New Haven as a permanent memorial to Captain Nathan Hale. Mr. Seymour
-agreed at the same time to provide speakers when the bill came to a hearing
-before the Committee on Military Affairs of the House of Representatives.
-A little later, also at Mr. Seymour's request, Colonel Tilson introduced into
-Congress a bill f or the cession to the city of the small Federal reservation
-known as "Lighthouse Point," including the old stone lighthouse, and both bills
-came on for hearing on January 17, 1922. As previously agreed, Mr. Seymour made
-careful preparations for this hearing. He even succeeded in enlisting the
-services of Chief Justice Taft, who broke all precedents by participating in a
-Congressional hearing, The hearing had begun when, quite unannounced, the Chief
-Justice entered the room. Everyone present rose, and none was more surprised
-than were the members of the Congressional Committee to find the Chief Justice
-before them. Mr. Taft spoke briefly for New Haven and f or Hale. He then
-withdrew, and the hearing was resumed at a high pitch of enthusiasm. Both bills
-were reported out favorably, and ultimately the Fort Hale reservation was ceded,
-for strategic reasons, to the State of Connecticut, rather than to the City of
-New Haven, in recognition of the services of Hale to his country; while the
-Lighthouse Point reservation, having no historic association to warrant its
-cession without payment, was ultimately bought by the city. Nathan Hale Park
-(for so the former tract was renamed), though the title is in the State, is
-cared for and managed as a part of the New Haven Park System.
-Though the success of these park projects was due to Mr. Seymour's efforts, he
-was still greatly disappointed at the failure of his project to have New Haven
-adopt city planning in a larger way, and he determined not to retire without one
-further effort. He, therefore, again on his own responsibility, on March 3,
-, petitioned the Board of Aldermen to bond the city f or the purchase of a
-tract of eighty acres which adjoined the Lighthouse Point Reservation and which
-included a relatively short but fine beach washed by unpolluted salt water.
-After an intensive campaign of some months, in which he was ably assisted by
-Bernard Greenberg, Esq., and the late much-lamented Frederick W. Campbell, both
-then members of the Aldermanic Board, this project was put through. The
-property is now known as Lighthouse Point Park.
-The very first intimation that the city-improvement plan, proposed by Messrs.
-Gilbert and Olmsted, was to include the cutting of an imposing street or
-approach, leading from the railway station to the center of the city, to
-intersect with Temple Street or College Street, caused an immediate rise in all
-real estate valuations in the long neglected region through which such an
-approach was planned to pass. These valuations had risen so far before the city
-was prepared to take any action in this matter that the cost became prohibitive,
-and that outstanding feature of the plan had to be abandoned.  However, the
-necessity of a more direct route between the railway station and the city was so
-evident that Mr. Frederick L. Ford designed the "Orange Street Extension," so
-called, which involved the removal of the old armory and necessitated other
-expensive purchases of realty. This route, as designed by Mr. Ford, has now been
-executed and has already demonstrated its value, but is still seriously
-handicapped by the projection into it of the building containing the showroom
-and store of the New Haven Gas Light Company. The removal of this obstruction
-must take place before the full advantage of this new route is manifest. This
-improvement must be credited to the city-planning movement inaugurated by Mr.
-Seymour.
-Thus ended Mr. Seymour's career of almost twenty years devoted to city planning
-for New Haven, but not his public activities. In 1907-08, Mr. Seymour was the
-"prime-mover" in having the Yale School of the Fine Arts and the Peabody
-Museum opened without charge to the public on Sunday afternoons, and the great
-Newberry organ played for a restricted season on Sunday afternoons. These
-privileges, which were ultimately granted, have been taken advantage of, year
-after year, by throngs of people, and are still continued, with mounting
-interest and attendance. Being tax-exempt, Mr. Seymour argued that the use of
-these great instruments of pleasure and education would help to bridge the gap
-between "Town and Gown" and it is believed that they have measurably answered
-that purpose. Later appeals to the President and Fellows of the University to
-open the Carnegie Swimming Pool to men during the summer months, when the
-students were away, and to extend to the public the use of the University
-Library, under restrictions, failed.
-In the forepart of 1909, Mr. Seymour was the leading spirit in a campaign to
-have the New Haven elms sprayed to get rid of the elm-leaf beetle pest and to
-bring bef ore the community the advisability of placing the whole subject of the
-care and replanting of trees under the direction of a superintendent of trees or
-city forester. To this end, Mr. Seymour published in the issues of the //New
-Haven Sunday Register// and //New Haven Sunday Union// of March 21st and 28th
-and of April 4th, 1909, a comprehensive historic review of the elms, which for a
-century had made the city world-famous as the "City of Elms." City Hall was
-opposed to the appointment of a superintendent of trees, but resistance was
-overcome, and on March 15, 1911, Mr. George Alexander Cromie, a graduate of the
-Yale School of Forestry, class of 1910, received the appointment. With what
-energy and judgment he filled the once, until he left it January 1, 1929, to
-become Superintendent of University Planting, is well known. In the //New Haven
-Sunday Union// of April 4th, 1909, appeared a highly-diverting cartoon by
-Howard Freeman, in which Mr. Seymour, beset with gigantic beetles, was shown on
-the top of a towering stepladder, belaboring an elm with a $10,000 feather
-duster!
-In 1904 Mr. Seymour subscribed $200 to a fund to repaint the North Church,
-stipulating that the woodwork should be painted white, rather than again in
-several contrasting shades of brown. Just before the actual painting was begun,
-Mr. Seymour was besought by the committee to "cut the string" attached to his
-subscription. This he firmly refused to do, on the ground, as he declared, that
-he would not participate in the further disfigurement of David Hoadley's superb
-design of a red brick fabric, with a belfry, frontispiece, and cornice of white
-woodwork, but when a compromise was tendered him, under which the belfry was
-to be painted white, he readily accepted it, knowing that if the community could
-once see the incomparable belfry painted white, with dark louvres, the painting
-of the frontispiece and cornice white would automatically follow, and it did.
-Mr. Seymour also strenuously urged the removal of the paint from the beautiful
-Flemish bond brickwork of the church, but that point the "First Citizen" would
-not yield. However, much had been gained. At this time, Mr. Seymour was
-permitted to direct the entire redecoration of the interior of the church, in
-the vestibule of which he erected a handsome tablet to the memory of David
-Hoadley, the architect and builder of the fabric.
-With this success behind him, Mr. Seymour in 1909 opened a campaign for the
-restoration of Center Church to its original exterior appearance. Though this
-project was endorsed by Mr. Cass Gilbert, the architect; by Dr. Maurer, the
-minister of the church; and by other high officials of the society, a
-determined faction opposed the plan with a bitterness scarcely believable. Mr.
-Seymour's substantial contribution in the form of a check was returned. The very
-idea that an //interloper// should place hands upon Center Church was
-intolerable! Mr. Seymour's unanswerable reply to these criticisms was that a
-church or school or whatever, accepting exemption from taxation, became by that
-act alone an object of public concern and the proper subject of criticism on the
-part of each and every taxpayer. All of the churches on the Green stand there by
-the sufferance of the town.
-Happily, the opposition, unable to //finance// a reactionary plan to repaint the
-woodwork and brickwork of the church in contrasting tones of gray, failed, and
-in 1912, when the repainting of the church became imperative, Mr. Seymour's plan
-of removing the paint from the brickwork and painting the woodwork white was
-carried out. The result was a revelation to the community. No one had properly
-seen Center Church as designed by Ithiel Town since 1845, when its superb
-Flemish bond brickwork was first lost to view under a coat of paint. This new
-gospel rapidly spread to Hartford where the paint was soon removed from the
-brickwork of Bullfinch's Old State House, from the First Church, and so on. In
-Mr. Seymour placed a slate tablet in the vestibule of the church in memory
-of Ithiel Town, and has very recently secured for the church his portrait by
-Spencer, now hanging beside the tablet. In Mr. Seymour's career he has met with
-much opposition, but none so bitter as that attending the removal of the paint
-from the brickwork of Center Church. He hopes that it will not be long before
-the paint is removed from the beautiful Flemish bond brickwork of the North
-Church. In 1924-25 Mr. Seymour directed the redecoration of the meeting house in
-Woodbridge.
-Mr. Seymour's great interest in the ornamental wood and iron work of old houses
-of the better class led him to secure for the New Haven Colony Historical
-Society the Palladian window of the once-famous Dyer White house on the
-northwest corner of Orange and Center streets; the fine staircase, front doors,
-and some paneling, from the James Abraham Hillhouse mansion ( 1765), familiarly
-known in greatly-disguised form as "Grove Hall"; and the superb wrought-iron
-posts and railing which ornamented the entrance of the Nathan Smith house,
-designed and built about 1816 by David Hoadley, on Elm street facing the Green,
-later known as the "Edwards House." The staircase in question has been installed
-in the new Historical Society Building, while the wrought-iron posts and railing
-from the Nathan Smith house have been used in front of the building, designed by
-J. Frederick Kelly. Mr. Seymour's great regret is that he was too late to secure
-the exquisite portico, now one of the treasures of the Metropolitan Museum, of
-the house designed and built about 1800 by David Hoadley for Judge Simeon
-Bristol, which occupied the site of the Ives Memorial Public Library. It was
-also Mr. Seymoor who began the agitation which led to the removal of the
-pyramidal cap that so long disfigured Trinity Church, designed and built about
-by lthiel Town, on the New Haven Green; and it was through Mr. Seymour's
-protracted efforts that the two so-called "'Branford Rooms," now installed in
-the Yale School of the Fine Arts, were secured from the New Haven Water Company
-when it demolished the famous Curtis-Rose house of about 1710 in North Branford.
-Interested from boyhood in portraits and portrait painting, Mr. Seymour was the
-"prime-mover" in having John W. Alexander, N.A., paint a portrait of Professor
-John F. Weir for the Yale School of the Fine Arts on his retirement; in having
-Mayor Chauncey Jerome's portrait painted by Herman Sodersten for the City Hall;
-and the late Samuel Hemingway's portrait painted by Ernest L. Ipsen, N. A., for
-the Second National Bank. He has presented a copy of Duche's portrait of Bishop
-Samuel Seabury (Primus Episcopus Americanus), and a portrait of John C.
-Calhoun, to the University, both now hanging in the great Dining Hall in the
-Bicentennial Buildings.
-In 1897 the late Mrs. Mary Russell Mann, of Branford, presented to Mr. Seymour
-the original doors of Parson Russell's house in Branford -- the doors that gave
-passage to the founders of Yale when they met and, according to tradition,
-placed books upon the parson's study table, each saying, "I give these books for
-the foundation of a college in this colony." Mr. Seymour presented the doors to
-the University in 1901 and, now hung as the entrance of the "1742 Room" in the
-new University Library, they are believed to be the earliest existing relics of
-any Yale building.
-Mr. Seymour's interest in history and in memorial tablets as works of art has
-led him to erect several tablets on his own account. They include a tablet to
-Captain Charles Churchill (by Frank Crawford Boardman), and one to Captain
-Robert Wells IV (by Lee Lawrie) in the Congregational Meetinghouse in Newington
--- both of bronze; tablets to Captain Nathan Hale in Battell Chapel, to Ithiel
-Town in Center Church, to David Hoadley in the United Church-all three of slate
-designed by the late Henry Charles Dean; an engraved wrought-brass tablet to
-Deacon Richard Hale, the father of Nathan Hale, in the Church at Coventry,
-Connecticut; and with Lee Lawrie Mr. Seymour designed the tablet, executed in
-slate, erected by the Church Society to Governor Simeon Baldwin in the United
-Church, New Haven. Mr. Seymour was also the prime-mover in the erection of a
-tablet to his friend, Professor Edward T. McLaughlin, in Battell Chapel, and
-secured Russell Sturgis, Jr., to design the tablet.
-A lifelong interest in Captain Nathan Hale induced Mr. Seymour to buy, in 1914,
-the neglected and abandoned birthplace of the patriot in South Coventry in
-Tolland County -- a stately farmhouse built in 1776 by Nathan's father, Deacon
-Richard Hale, who incorporated in it a fragment of the actual birth house built
-by him on substantially the same site in 1746. The farm contained three hundred
-and two acres of which fifty were added to the acreage after Deacon Hale's death
-in 1802. Mr. Seymour reconditioned the mansion with knowledge and taste,
-gathered furnishings of Connecticut origin for it, including some pieces of
-immediate Hale interest, such as Hale's army trunk. In order to protect the
-property, Mr. Seymour bought in 1925 another farm on the opposite side of the
-highway, with a house of about 1720 in which Hale's "good grandmother Strong"
-lived and died. This house is now called "Northampton House," thus memorializing
-that early group of settlers of Coventry, including the Strongs, who removed
-there from Northampton, Massachusetts, to escape the menace of the Indians.
-This old fabric has also been reconditioned and furnished. The present property
-of nearly a thousand acres is now being managed on principles of practical
-forestry under the direction of Mr. George A. Cromie. Apart from their historic
-interest in connection with Hale, both of these homes are of marked interest to
-the students of early Connecticut domestic architecture.
-Mr. Seymour's interest in Nathan Hale also made him the "prime-mover" in the
-erection in 1913 of a statue of Hale, who was of the Yale Class of 1773, on the
-d Campus of Yale College -- a sustained effort of sixteen years and "crowned"
-only after many vicissitudes.  The statue was designed by Bela Lyon Pratt, and
-near the Hale mansion in Coventry Mr. Seymour has erected a bronze replica of
-it.
-In 1925 the Federal Government, through Mr. Seymour's persistent efforts of
-something over two years, issued a half-cent Federal stamp bearing the head of
-Pratt's "Hale." Nearly three billion of these stamps have now been printed and
-issued. In a very real sense, these stamps, freely circulating everywhere from
-coast to coast, have made the nation "Hale-conscious." Mr. Seymour has
-presented many framed life-sized photographs of the head and bust of Pratt's
-"Hale" to schools, libraries, etc., throughout the State.
-A collector nearly all his life, particularly of early New England furniture,
-Mr. Seymour has not only furnished his house in New Haven and his two houses in
-Coventry with antique furniture and household goods, but has on deposit in the
-Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford an extensive collection of early pieces,
-including many specimens of seventeenth century oak, as well as some painted
-pine chests. It has been his aim to collect only pieces of Connecticut origin.
-In the main he has specialized in pre-Revolutionary household things, and he is
-regarded as no mean authority in that field. He has also on deposit in the
-Atheneum a small collection of old silver, and in the Hale Mansion he has
-brought together a consider- able collection of early Connecticut folk-pottery
-(made in New London and Norwich), and a collection of the painted basketry of
-the Mohegan Indians.
-In 1931 Mr. Seymour presented to the town of Newington as a memorial to his
-mother and her family, a tract of about twenty acres of farm land, to be used
-primarily as a playground, the land being a fragment of the farm occupied by her
-Churchill forbears since the early days of the Colony and including the site of
-the mansion, which was built in 1761 by his great-great-grandfather and was
-noted for the beauty of its highly-ornamented front doorway. This gift of land
-in Newington was the outgrowth of Mr. Seymour's long-continued interest in New
-Haven's recreational facilities in inside and waterfront parks, which he had
-helped so much to increase.
-Mr. Seymour traveled in England and Scotland in 1889, on the Continent in 1905,
-and again on the Continent (by motor) in 1909 and in 1911. In 1900 he went with
-a party headed by the late Prof . Charles E. Beecher, then Director of the
-Peabody Museum, to witness the snake dance of the Moki Indians, and visited the
-Grand Canyon of the Colorado, the Painted Desert, and the Petrified Forest. In
-he went around the world with the Hon. Gifford Pinchot, whose errand was to
-secure material for a report to President Roosevelt on the forest resources of
-the Philippine Islands. Arrived at Manila after crossing Asia on the newly-
-opened Trans-Siberian Railway, they were the guests at the old palace of
-Malacanan of the Governor General and Mrs. Taft. Mr. Taft placed his official
-boat, the //Alava//, at their disposal, and they made an extensive tour of the
-Islands, taking in Sandakan in Borneo as a side trip. They returned home //via//
-Japan and the Hawaiian Islands. At that time, few persons had seen as much of
-the Islands as Mr. Pinchot and Mr. Seymour saw on this trip. In Manila Mr.
-Seymour renewed an acquaintance with Mr. Taft which was to grow into a close
-lifelong friendship.
-Mr. Seymour has found, as he often says, that "the way of the reformer is hard,"
-calling, as it does, for continuous study, for constant sacrifice of time and
-patience, and above all for a philosophical spirit to bear frustrations,
-derision, and disappointments. Looking backward, he regrets most of all the
-failure to realize what was an important feature of the improvement plan
-advocated in 1907 by Messrs. Gilbert and Olmsted, the creation of a park-
-bordered marginal highway extending along the harbor front of New Haven,
-providing near access to the water from the center of the city, and a route
-for east and west traffic that would have avoided the center of the city and
-relieved congestion. One has but to look at a map of New Haven and note the
-vacant acres back of the railway station, to realize what New Haven daily misses
-in convenience of transportation, and how our citizens, although they live so
-close to the sea, are deprived of the advantages and pleasure of it.
-As little fruitful as Mr. Seymour's city and harbor improvement efforts were,
-considering the time, energy and labor invested in them, and as compared with
-his hope of benefits to proceed from them, if in reasonable measure realized, he
-has at least the sustaining consciousness that he is on "the side of the
-future."
-As a member of the State Commission of Sculpture, Mr. Seymour some years ago
-advocated memorials in the Capitol at Hartford to John Brown of Osawatomie and
-to Harriet Beecher Stowe, both natives of Connecticut and both outstanding
-contributors to the cause of human freedom. This proposition never got to the
-public, and what the public reaction would have been is a matter of speculation
-; but he mentioned the matter to Colonel Osborn, who said, "Until the pen drops
-from my palsied fingers I will oppose in the columns of the //Journal-Courier//
-a proposition to erect any memorial to John Brown in the Capitol at Hartford''
-At the same time the late Professor Henry Augustine Beers said, "I will use my
-pen as long as I can write to forward your proposition to erect a memorial to
-John Brown in the Capitol. You remember that Emerson said, 'John Brown has made
-the gallows as sacred as the cross.'"
-The foregoing account of the author's public activities was prepared some years
-ago for a different purpose, and it is included here at this time perforce
-because, as the result of a shock suffered by the author two years ago, he has
-been unable to go through his papers and files for the preparation of an account
-of his abilities, which if written to-day would be far less detailed.
-Nevertheless, he is now constrained to add some later items. One of them is the
-purchase in Coventry of the Joseph Huntington Parsonage, built about 1764, in
-which Nathan Hale was prepared for Yale College. Another is the erection, with
-suitable inscriptions, of four granite markers of historical sites connected
-with Nathan Hale and one marking the site of the first house built in Coventry.
-Another is erecting a suitable monument in the town of Bolton to mark the
-forgotten grave of Ralph Earl, the Revolutionary portrait painter. Still others
-are the employment of an expert to recondition a number of early portraits in
-the possession of the Connecticut Historical Society and the commission of a
-well-known American artist to paint a portrait of his friend, Chief-Justice
-Taft, for the Robing Room of the United States Supreme Court Building in
-Washington.
-Mr. Seymour was a member of the Mayor's committee to celebrate the Tercentenary
-of New Haven and a member of the committee for the erection of a Cenotaph to
-Theophilus Eaton, the first Governor of the New Haven Colony. During the
-Tercentenary year he compiled and published a brochure entitled "Memorials of
-Governor Eaton."  He has also prepared for publication a "Documentary Life   of
-Nathan Hale," this at the suggestion many years ago of the late Professor Thomas
-R. Lounsbury of Yale. At present he is preparing to erect at the Birthplace a
-monument to his veteran riding horse, who died nearly a year ago, a horse so
-highly educated, so great a gentleman, that he seemed deserving of a Latin
-inscription, which has been prepared by a learned Latanist of Yale.
-|  D M  |
-|  THOMAS HOOKER BONES  |
-|  1907-1937  |
-|  EQUI BENE MERITI  |
-|  GENERE NOBILIS DOCTRINA INSTITUTI VIRTUTIBUS ORNATI  |
-|  INGENUI LIBERALIS HUMANI  |
-|  S T T L  |
-|  HOC MONUMENTUM PONENDUM CURAVIT  |
-|  GEORGIUS DUDLEY SEYMOUR  |
-|  MDCCCCXXXVIII  |
-A list of the major portion of articles which Mr. Seymour from time to time has
-published on early Connecticut architects and their work has been included in
-the appendix to this history.
-Mr. Seymour is a Congregationalist and in politics a Republican. He received the
-honorary degree of M.A.   from Yale College in 1913. and the degree of L.H.D.
-from George Washington University in 1921.
-//Clubs// -- Dissenters, Graduates, Elizabethan, New Haven ; Acorn, Connecticut
-; Cosmos, Washington ; Century, Coffee House, Yale, and Ends of the Earth, New
-York.
-Vice-president Connecticut Historical Society; member New Haven Colony Historical Society; honorary member Chicago, Mattatuck (Waterbury), and Wallingford Historical societies; member Board of Trustees, Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford; chairman State Commission of Sculpture; corresponding member American Institute of Architects; sometime (twenty-five years) member Board of Trustees of The Henry Whitfield State Historical Museum, Guilford; member Board of Trustees, Thomas Lee House, East Lyme; member Board of Trustees, Donald G. Mitchell Memorial Library, Westville; member Board of Managers of New Haven Dispensary; member of New Haven Commission on Zoning; member Committee on Restoration of the Glebe House, Woodbury (and first to urge it) ; member General Committee of the Yale Pageant (1916); chairman of Sub-Committee on Medals, Stamps and Coin, State of Connecticut Tercentenary Commission; member Committee for Building New Haven Public Library; member Committee on Cornelius Bushnell Memorial; chairman of Tablet Committee of the United Church; member General Committee on the Commemoration of the Two Hundredth Anniversary of the Removal of Yale College to New Haven; sometime member New Haven Municipal Art Commission; member Jury for Selecting Design for Veterans' Home at Rocky Hill; member New Haven World War Memorial Committee; secretary, 1913-24, New Haven City Improvement Commission; member New Haven Harbor Development (State) Commission, and writer of its report dated October 1, 1922; for many years active member New Haven Chamber of Commerce; honorary member Connecticut Society of the Cincinnati; member Connecticut Society Colonial Wars (sometime secretary); member Connecticut Society Sons of the Revolution; honorary member Beaumont Medical Society; vice-president Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities; vice-president American Federation of Arts; honorary associate fellow of Berkeley College, Yale University; honorary member Phi Chi Chapter of Beta Theta Pi Fraternity; member Hiram Lodge, No.1, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons; member Walpole Society; member City Hall Building Commission; member The American Friends of Lafayette; member New Haven County Bar Association; member The Yale Alumni Association of New Haven; chairman New Haven Municipal Art Commission, 1933; member Connecticut Fish and Game Association; member Mory's Association; member American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Mass.
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