Читать книгу History of Bridgeport and Vicinity, Volume 2: Biographical - George Curtis Waldo jr. - Страница 6

For the larger part of two centuries the Wordin family has been established in or near the present city of Bridgeport and has been conspicuously and most influentially and honorably identified with the progress of the community. Its representative members have been active, prominent and successful in its religious, social, commercial and professional life. The family lineage is traced to Thomas Wordin, who was a resident of Stratford, Fairfield county, and married, in 1728, Jemima, daughter of David and Anne (Seeley) Beardsley. David Beardsley was a son of William Beardsley, who came to America in 1635 and became one of the founders of Stratford, Connecticut, in 1638. Captain William Wordin, son of Thomas, before mentioned, was born in what is now Trumbull, Connecticut, then North Stratford, and in 1772 purchased land of Ezra Kirtland in what is now the city of Bridgeport and erected his homestead at the corner of State street and Park avenue. He was a prominent citizen of the community, serving on the society's committee of the church and also on the school committee. During the Revolution he was captain of the Householders, a local militia company. He died in 1808. His wife was Anna Odell of Fairfield, Connecticut, daughter of Samuel and Judith Ann (Wheeler) Odell. Anna Odell was born in 1737 and died in 1805.

William Wordin (II), son of Captain William, was born in 1759 and died in Bridgeport, April 15, 1814. He married Dorcas Cooke, who died in 1854 at the age of ninety-one. She was a daughter of John and Martha (Booth) Cooke and a descendant of Thomas Cooke, who came to Quinnipiack, now New Haven, in 1630. In this direct line of ancestry was the Rev. Samuel Cooke, Yale 1705, rector of the Hopkins Grammar School, clerk of the Connecticut legislature, member of the Yale Corporation and second pastor of the Church of Christ of Stratfield, now the First Congregational church of Bridgeport, of which the present members of the family are attendants. Another line of ancestry is traced to Govemor William Leete of the New Haven colony, 1661 to 1665, and of the Connecticut colony, 1678 to 1693.

Thomas Cooke Wordin, son of William Wordin (II), was born in 1787 in the Wordin homestead built by his grandfather on what is now the comer of State street and Park avenue, Bridgeport. In boyhood he became a clerk in the drug store of Samuel Darling at New Haven, and at the age of twenty-one he embarked in the same business for himself in Bridgeport. Throughout his active life he prosecuted this enterprise with marked success, his store being in a building erected by him about 1816 on State street, just west of the old post-office. He was one of the representative merchants of his time and was known for the strictest integrity as well as for old fashioned New England ideas and principles. Acquiring by purchase the Norwalk flouring mills, he remodeled them for -grinding spices, and the resulting product commanded a ready market. He offered two thousand dollars toward establishing a public square west of Courtland street, Bridgeport, but the offer was not acted upon. He died November 20, 1852. In 1812 he married Ann, daughter of Philemon and Hepsibah (Burr) Sherwood and a descendant of Thomas Sherwood, who came from Ipswich, England, on the ship Frances in 1634 and several years later settled at Fairfield. About the time of the close of the War of 1812, Thomas C. Wordin left his wife and infant son, Nathaniel S., for a trip to Boston on the sloop Othello, commanded by Captain Joel Thorp. They were captured by the British and Mr. Wordin had great difficulty in being released and returning home. While he was gone, his wife, becoming alarmed at the frequent reports that the British had landed to pillage Bridgeport, took her infant son before the morning dawn and walked to her father's house some three miles away. The children born to Mr. and Mrs. Wordin were: Nathaniel S.; Lucy S., who married Edmund S. Hawley; Susan, who married Charles Kelsey; Thomas, who died in infancy; Elmer and a twin brother (unnamed), both of whom died in infancy; Mary; Ann B., who gave her hand in marriage to Deacon John W. Hincks; Caroline, who married W. W. Naramore; Thomas C, who married Betsey Ann Plumb, of Trumbull; and Elizabeth, who died in young womanhood.

Nathaniel Sherwood Wordin, eldest of the children of Thomas and Ann (Sherwood) Wordin, was born July 12, 1813,. in Bridgeport, where he was reared to manhood. He attended the district school presided over by the Rev. Asa Bronson, who was also pastor of the Stratfield Baptist church and known as a successful teacher as well as a strict disciplinarian. After leaving this school Nathanial S. Wordin then attended the Eastern Academy, also of Bridgeport, then conducted by the Rev. Nathaniel Freeman, pastor of the Congregational church. He was fifteen years of age when he completed his studies and then entered his father's business establishment as a clerk, and later, upon attaining his majority, he became a partner in the business. Soon after the father withdrew from active participation in the business to devote his attention to his milling interests at Norwalk, and the whole responsibility devolved upon Mr. Wordin, Jr. He was fully equal to his new task and from the excellent business left in charge developed something much larger still. Before long the increasing demands of the business required larger quarters and a larger building was erected on Water street, the lower floor of which was taken up by the drug store, while above there was a sort of auditorium known for many years as Wordin Hall. The old building, which he had left, was occupied by a number of succeeding men, still as a drug store, until the year 1879, making a period of about four score years that line of business was conducted there. The new store of Mr. Wordin became the local point for calls by physicians and was also the place of resort for sailors and seafaring men and for people out of town generally who needed supplies. For such as these Mr. Wordin prepared small and compact medicine chests together with printed descriptions of each remedy contained and directions for dose, etc. These gained him the sobriquet of Doctor, which clung to him during the remainder of his life. In this establishment, under both the elder and younger man, were trained a great number of clerks who afterwards became owners and proprietors of their own drug stores in the ever growing city.

Mr. Wordin inherited from his father, besides the drug business, a large quantity of real estate in Bridgeport which the same growth of the city just remarked tended still to increase in value. In this matter his great business talent and foresight were of inestimable value to him and his holdings rapidly increased in quantity as well as quality. In 1850 he withdrew from the management of the drug business, being succeeded by a brother, and thenceforth devoted himself to the care of his private estate and certain other financial interests with which he had become identified. He became a director of the Bridgeport Mutual Savings Bank and Building Association and of what was then the Farmers Bank, now the First-Bridgeport National Bank. He was also an incorporator of the Bridgeport Savings Bank and an incorporator of the Farmers and Mechanics Savings Bank. But in spite of the demands made upon his time and strength by his varied business interests, Mr. Wordin did not neglect those civic duties which his talents in a certain degree involved him in. It was in a purely non-partisan and disinterested spirit that he entered local politics and this his fellow citizens quickly realized and elected him to the office of city treasurer, which he held between the years 1841 and 1845. In 1848 he was appointed to number the buildings in the city of Bridgeport in accordance with a plan agreed upon by that body, a task: by no means easy but which he accomplished rapidly and successfully. In 1859 he was elected assessor and held this office until 1862 and again from 1867 to 1868. Mr. Wordin was keenly interested in military matters and was prominent in militia circles for a number of years. He served as surgeon with the Fourth Regiment of Light Artillery, Colonel Robbins, to which office he was commissioned September 6, 1836. Of strong religious feelings and beliefs, he joined the First Congregational church of Bridgeport in 1831, when he was but eighteen years of age, and was from that time onward a most faithful attendant upon divine service there. At his death he was the eldest member of the congregation. In 1834 he was elected clerk of the society and served in that office for over fifty years, never failing during that long period to be present at the annual meetings to call them to order. It is stated that in elegance of penmanship and general accuracy, the records kept by him of the society's business transactions were unsurpassed. In the year 1885 this long and pleasant association was cut short by a seizure of apoplexy which, though not fatal, yet ended very largely his participation in affairs. His death finally occurred from the same disease on January 9, 1889. Another manner in which he was identified with the church was as leader of the choir for many years.

On May 29, 1839, Nathaniel S. Wordin married Fanny Augusta, youngest daughter of Dr. Frederick Leavenworth of Waterbury, Connecticut, a successful physician and also for a score of years postmaster at that place. He was a son of Colonel Jesse Leavenworth, who graduated from Yale College in 1759, a lieutenant in the famous Governor's Foot Guards of New Haven, under the captaincy of Benedict Arnold and which organization responded to the call from Lexington at the outbreak of the Revolution in 1775. Rev. Mark Leavenworth, the father of Colonel Jesse Leavenworth, graduated from Yale College in 1737 and was chaplain to the Second Connecticut Regiment and went with it to Canada during the French and Indian war. Four of his sons saw service in the war of the Revolution. The grandfather of Rev. Mark Leavenworth was Thomas Leavenworth, who came to America soon after the restoration of King Charles II, settling first at New Haven, and his name appears as of record at Woodbury, Connecticut, in 1664. His son. Dr. Thomas Leavenworth, in direct line of this ancestry, and father of Rev. Mark, was one of the founders of the first church at Ripon, now Huntington, Connecticut, and was a man of position, influence, energy and wealth. To Mr. and Mrs. Nathaniel S. Wordin the following children were born: Frederick Augustus, who died in infancy; Helen Caroline; Nathaniel Eugene, of whom a sketch appears elsewhere in this work; Fanny Leavenworth; and Thomas Cooke. The Misses Helen Caroline and Fanny Leavenworth Wordin are residents of Bridgeport, occupying the stately Wordin homestead at 510 State street and which was erected by their father. Nathaniel Sherwood Wordin represented a splendid example of that fine type of manhood developed in New England during the past generation. At once an idealist and practical man of affairs, he possessed that other not more common nor less worthy union of the strictest of moral standards where he was himself concerned and a gentle tolerance for all others. He was also a man of fine tastes and great talents in many directions. His musical ability has already been referred to in the statement that he was leader of his church choir for many years and indeed he displayed great ability in this direction. He was the prime mover in the organization of the Bridgeport Musical Society and served as its secretary for some years. He was himself possessed of a fine tenor voice and performed very well on the flute and bass viol. Another of his talents was in the direction of the pictorial arts, in which he was equally skillful in the use of pen, crayon and brush. This ability he often turned to account as a pastime and in that manner turned out some excellent work. His oil canvases charmingly decorate the home and for one of these he received a prize at an exhibition held at the state fair. While he thus was an example of substantial business methods and good citizenship, he was also a factor in the spread of art and culture and of his ideals in all departments of life. His death was a very real loss to the community in which he shall long be remembered as a benefactor.

Thomas Cooke Wordin, youngest member of the family of Nathaniel Sherwood and Fanny Augusta (Leavenworth) Wordin, was born October 15, 1853, in Bridgeport, and received his early education in the public schools, later attending the Williston Seminary at Easthampton, Massachusetts, where he prepared himself for college. In 1870 he matriculated at Yale University and graduated therefrom with distinction as one of the famous class of 1874, which numbered among its ranks William Howard Taft, ex-president of the United States; John Addison Porter, ex-secretary of war; Webb Wilcox, Clarence Kelsey and other prominent men. After graduation he read law with Daniel Davenport, corporation counsel of Bridgeport, but never practiced. On completing his studies he resided two years in St. Joseph, Missouri, and about the same time in Indianapolis, Indiana. Returning east in 1884, he became secretary of the Fairfield Rubber Company and so served for the following seven years. From 1892 to 1897 he was engaged in the banking and brokerage business in New York and Bridgeport and then was appointed assistant appraiser of merchandise for the district of New York. Mr. Wordings mind was a peculiarly sensitive one to every stimulus of an aesthetic nature and, indeed, to the power of broad ideas in all departments of thought. His interest in life was wide enough to include well nigh everything of worth and he became at once a powerful factor in the development of culture in his native city. In politics he was keenly interested, giving much thought to the issues of the day and even taking an active part in them, though always from, the position of the private citizen who desired no political reward. He received a reward, however, if that can be called a reward which involves the recipient in much difficult labor in behalf of the community, when he was appointed by President McKinley assistant appraiser of merchandise in New York Custom House, his department being jewelry and the fine arts. In this capacity it was possible for him to turn his unusual knowledge in matters aesthetic to the use of his fellow citizens in a most practical way. Among the scholarly attainments of Mr. Wordin was that of a very charming literary style and he was the author of a number of excellent articles on miscellaneous subjects that would have done credit to any pen. He was a contributor at irregular periods to the "Standard" of Bridgeport on various topics of general interest and thus became very well-known both to the public and the newspaper profession and was admired on account of the purity and fluency of his style. He was a man of strong religious feeling and was affiliated for many years with the First Congregational church of Bridgeport, which was the first church of Bridgeport — that is the first church built there of any denomination. Upon the death of his father, who had kept the records of the church for fifty years, the son was appointed to the same office, holding it himself for ten years or until the time of his death.

Mr. Wordin married, at Indianapolis, October 28, 1884, Mrs. Frances E. Johnston, daughter of the Rev. Frederick Patterson Cummings, pastor of St. John's Presbyterian church of Crawfordsville, Indiana. With the cooperation of his wife, Mr. Wordin founded in 1894 the Contemporary Club of Bridgeport, a literary and social club, which attained a membership of over one hundred members and exerted an influence beneficent to the community. He was president of the club for three years and secured for it addresses of many men of eminence. Mrs. Wordin survived her husband two years, her death occurring in 1907. Thomas Cooke Wordin was distinctly the typical scholar. That quiet life of research and thought made an especial appeal to his sensitive nature and was well fitted as a field for his fruitful talents. This does not imply, however, an undue shrinking from the society of his fellows and still less from the active duties in which circumstances involved him. He was quite capable of enjoying the heat and bustle of the daily competition of life and, indeed, felt the zest of it rather more keenly than most men. But it was in the other province that his abilities shone with their brightest and most normal luster and where he was, so to speak, at home. It is perhaps more difficult to measure the influence upon the world about of such a character than of any other that we meet. Mr. Wordin passed away on April 6, 1905, and by his death Bridgeport lost one of its leading citizens. The ''Standard" of Bridgeport at the time of his death contained a long obituary article and an editorial comment. In the latter it remarked in part as follows: "The sudden death of Mr. Thomas Cooke Wordin, of this city, removes a man of refinement and culture from the midst of many appreciative friends who will sincerely mourn his loss. He took a great interest in whatever was uplifting and worthy and was active in behalf of that which made for high civic and social ideals and the true life. Quiet and unobtrusive, his influence was still operative and strong and always for the right."