Frothingham Fish (1820-1895)

From the Medico-Legal Journal, Volume 25, 1907.

   Oddly named New Yorker Frothingham Fish was a two-term member of the state assembly, a Montgomery County district attorney, and a State Supreme Court justice. A member of the prominent Fish family of New York State, Mr. Fish was blessed with a very eye-catching first name, one that is truly unique in the annals of the New York State Assembly (a legislative body that has been very well represented here!)

    Frothingham Fish was the third of five children born to Howland (a former Montgomery County district attorney) and Eliza Frothingham Fish, his birth occurring in the town of Glen, New York on August 26, 1820. Given the first name "Frothingham" due to it being his mother's maiden name, Fish followed in his father's footsteps and embarked upon the study of law in Montgomery County, eventually establishing an office in the town of Fultonville.

   On April 29, 1845, Fish married Susan E. Bronk (1820-1906), with whom he would have four children: Robert Bronk (1849-1919), Howland (1848-1888), Edmund (1858-1918) and Leonard Frothingham (1867-1932). Of these children, Leonard followed in his grandfather's stead and was elected as the District Attorney for Montgomery County in 1893, serving six years in office.

   Three years following his marriage Frothingham Fish was elected to the first of two terms in the New York State Assembly, representing Montgomery County. Taking his seat at the beginning of the 1849 term, Fish served on the assembly committees on Privileges and Elections. He was later returned to the assembly for the 1861 term and sat on the House Committee on Claims. A capable member of the legislature, Fish was described in the 1861 Biographical Sketches of the State Officers and Members of the Legislature of the State of New York as:

"Formerly a Whig. He adhered firmly to that ancient organization until it ceased to exist, and then became a Republican, to the principles and policy of which party he is still firmly attached. He is not one of the rabid Abolition John Brown school of politicians, and in the present threatening aspect of our national affairs, has generally, by his votes in the house, shown a disposition to do whatever appears best calculated to restore peace and quiet to the country."

Frothingham Fish, from an 1861 New York Assembly photo album.

    After leaving the legislature Fish returned to practicing law in Fultonville and continued along this route until reentering political life in 1883, when he was elected as an Associate Justice of the New York State Supreme Court for the state's 4th judicial district, which comprised the counties of Montgomery, Saratoga, Warren, Fulton, and Hamilton. His tenure on the court extended until 1891 when he retired, and during his time on the bench "occasionally presided at the Warren County circuit at Lake George." 
  Frothingham Fish spent the remainder of his life in retirement in Fultonville and died at his home there on April 27, 1895, at age 74, and was mentioned in his Johnstown Daily Republican obituary as "having been an invalid for a long time." He was survived by his wife Susan, who, following her death in 1906 was interred in the same plot as her husband at the Fultonville Cemetery and Natural Burying Ground.

                                                         From the Johnstown, NY Daily Republican, April 1895.

Luzon Burritt Morris (1827-1895)

   A prominent Connecticut lawyer and legislator, Luzon Burritt Morris etched his name in the annals of history in 1892 when he was elected as the 52nd Governor of Connecticut. This oddly named Governor remained "faceless" for many years because this author failed to locate an actual portrait of him. In 2002 a portrait of a statue of him was located, and that
remained the only actual picture that I found until the discovery of the above print in the 1891 work Representative Men of the State of Connecticut. Since that portrait's discovery a few months ago I've managed to locate three additional pictures of him (courtesy of Google Books) and I'm proud to relate that because of this following profile, there will now be at least a few new pictures of him available online.
   Luzon B. Morris was born on April 16, 1827, in Newtown, Connecticut, the son of Eli Gould and Lydia Bennett Morris. Luzon attended schools local to the Newport area and during his teenage years was employed as a toolmaker and blacksmith. Morris eventually accumulated enough savings to put himself through school and in 1848 enrolled in the Connecticut Literary Institute. After graduating from here he moved on to Yale University, where he received his law degree. While still pursuing his education, Morris began to test the political waters, being elected to the Connecticut General Assembly in 1855 and 1856 and in the latter year was admitted to the state bar. Also in 1856, Morris married Eugenia Tuttle, with whom he had three sons and three daughters.

From the Illustrated Popular History of Connecticut, 1891.

   In addition to his law practice and early legislative service, Luzon B. Morris also served as Probate Judge for the district of New Haven from 1857 to 1863. Over the next few decades, he earned a reputation as one of the most distinguished members of the Connecticut Bar and was reelected to the Connecticut House of Representatives in 1870, 1876, 1880, and 1881. In 1874 Morris was elected to the State Senate, and during his term served as the chairman of the senate judiciary committee. He is also recorded as serving as President Pro tem of the senate during his one term.
   While Morris continued honing his political and judicial career, he is also mentioned as having a keen interest in the financial affairs of his home state. The Representative Men of Connecticut notes that Morris served as the Vice President (and later President) of the Connecticut Savings Bank of New Haven for over two decades. He was later named to the New Haven Board of Education and eventually served as its president.
  During his time in the legislature and afterward, Luzon Morris put his law expertise to use by serving on several committees that aided in the revising of probate laws in Connecticut. His work in these areas eventually caught the eye of Connecticut Democratic party leaders, who in 1888 urged him to run for Governor. In that year's gubernatorial election, Morris faced off against Republican nominee Morgan Gardner Bulkeley (1837-1922). 
   When the results were tallied in November 1888, Morris had accumulated more votes than his opponent but neither candidate had the required 50% to claim an election victory. Following a then-existing state law, the decision was left in the hands of the Connecticut General Assembly. Seeing that the Assembly had a large Republican majority, Morgan Bulkeley was declared the victor. Similar election chicanery occurred when Morris ran again in 1890 (this time losing the Democratic nomination to Samuel Merwin) but it is reported by the 1905 work Governors of Connecticut that even in the face of skewed election results and political bickering, Morris remained "perfectly conservative and very dignified."
  

           This portrait of Morris appeared in the "Governors of Connecticut", originally published in 1905.

    Luzon Burritt Morris eventually won the Connecticut governorship in 1892, defeating Republican candidate Samuel Merwin by a vote of 82,878 to 76,745. He officially took office in January 1893 and during his two-year term pressed for improvements in existing Connecticut state election laws. During the second year of his term, Morris was named as the director of the New York, New Haven, and Hartford Railroad Company and continued serving in this post after his term as Governor concluded. Also during his tenure, Morris had to contend with the financial panic of 1893-94, and it is mentioned that his overall popularity with voters suffered immensely because of this. Morris did not seek reelection in 1895, and on August 22nd of that year was felled by a stroke in his law office. He was subsequently taken to a local hospital, where he died sometime later. Following his death, he was interred at the Evergreen Cemetery in New Haven. Morris's obituary below appeared in an August 23, 1895 edition of the Glens Falls Morning Star.

Silenus Hulbert Fellows (1827-1905)

From the Plainfield Bicentennial, 1899.

   This obscure gentleman is Silenus Hulbert Fellows, a clergyman from Windham County, Connecticut who served one term in his state's House of Representatives. Information on Fellows' life has proven to be rather scant, but enough has been found to compile a profile on his life.
  A New Yorker by birth, Silenus H. Fellows was born on August 11, 1827, in the town of Durham, being the son of the Rev. Linus Hulbert (1790-1881) and Lydia Eldred Fellows. Silenus was received into full communion in his father's church in 1845 at age 18 and eight years later married Sylvia Newell, also a resident of Durham. The couple later had two daughters, Ida L. and Carrie Louise Fellows, who was born in June 1858 in Durham. In the year following Carrie's birth, the Fellows family resettled in Windham County, Connecticut. 
   Within months of his relocation Fellows was ordained as a preacher in April 1859 and in December of that year became pastor of the Congregational Church in the town of Wauregan. Fellows continued to hold this pastorate until his death nearly fifty years later! 
  The name of Silenus Fellows grew to be a prominent one in both civic and religious circles in the Wauregan area. For over forty years he was a member of the Wauregan town school board and later served as the Secretary of the Windham County Conference for two decades. Political service also beckoned to Fellows and in 1878 he (along with fellow Windham County resident Reuben Weaver) was elected to the Connecticut State House of Representatives, serving in the session of 1879-80.
  After the conclusion of his legislative service Fellows continued in his pastorate and later served as the director of the Missionary Society of Connecticut for fifteen years. He died at the home of his grandson in McKeesport, Pennsylvania on April 20, 1,905 at age 78 and was subsequently buried in the Westfield Cemetery in Windham County, Connecticut. The Advance, a prominent religious newsletter in the early 1900s, remembered Fellows as "the Apostle John of Eastern Connecticut" and lamented that "a father in Israel has fallen asleep." The portrait of Fellows shown above (and very likely the only one to be found online) was discovered in the Plainfield Bicentennial, a souvenir history of the town of Plainfield, Connecticut published in 1899. 
   I also must mention the origins of Fellow's odd first name, Silenus. It is presumed that he was named in honor of the Greek mythological figure Silenus, a friend and tutor of Dionysius, the god of wine. Strangely (especially when one considers Fellows being a man of the cloth) some sources mention Silenus as "a notorious consumer of wine, he was usually drunk and often had to be supported by satyrs or carried by a donkey." Silenus is also reported to have "special knowledge and power of prophecy" when highly intoxicated. One can only wonder why Linus Fellows chose to name his son in honor of this interesting mythological figure!