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DAVENPORT is the lineal descendant of Rev. John Davenport, a native of
Coventry, England, who was the first minister at New Haven, Connecticut, and one of
the founders of the New Haven Colony. The youngest child and only son of Charles
Augustus and Sarah Maria (Gaylord) Davenport, our classmate was born in the rural
precincts of Wilton, Connecticut, November 24, 1840, and was on hand for the
Thanksgiving feast of that year, as he has ever been since. After graduation at "the little
red schoolhouse" of Wilton, he completed his preparation for college in Wilton Academy, a somewhat noted school, under the charge of Edward
Olmstead, A.M. (Yale, 1844), and joined our Class at its organization, in September, 1859. From the outset and
through the entire course, he was one of the leading scholars of the class. While in
college he joined the 'Logian Literary Society, was its secretary one term during Junior
year, and its president one term during Senior year; a member of Mills Society, its
treasurer one term during Junior year, and its vice-president one term during Senior
year; a member of the Lyceum of Natural History and of Greylock Baseball Club. He
was poet at the Biennial Celebration, 1861, and on the Class Day program, July, 1863;
was assigned the Greek oration on Junior exhibition, 1862, and the Salutatory oration on
the Commencement program.
After graduation, Davenport taught for a year at a classical academy in the
picturesque town of Jewett, among the Catskill Mountains. Entering Union Theological
Seminary in the autumn of 1864, he spent a year there, having his fellow-graduate of
Williams, Baldwin, for a roommate. Then he was called back to the old college to fill a
humble position in the faculty and to have his name immortalized in the General Catalogue, with the names of Mark and Albert Hopkins and other shining lights, as that
of one of the "Tutores." However, the two years thus spent were very agreeable and
helpful. The teacher was taught, not only by the experience of handling two college
classes, but by the direct influence and instruction of our venerated Dr. Hopkins. With
C. R. Treat, Franklin Carter, John Denison and Harry Hopkins, Davenport had the privilege of being led by him through the fields of dogmatic theology. It was a somewhat
informal but exceedingly stimulating and suggestive study.
March 5, 1866, Treat and Davenport, recommended by Dr. Hopkins, were licensed
to preach by the Berkshire North Association of Congregational Ministers. After this, on
seven different occasions, Davenport had the honor of occupying the pulpit of the
college chapel and of thence enlightening not only the students, but the faculty as well.
It was a great thing to have them all at one's mercy and to be as long and prosy as one
desired.
While tutor, November 29, 1866, Davenport married Miss Alice Westcott, of Wilton,
and took his bride with him to college for a six months' course. Graduating for the
second time in the summer of 1867, he went back to Wilton, and the winter was there
spent in study and in preaching in the pulpit of the old town. It was a curious
experience, that of attempting to instruct and inspire those to whom the youth had
looked up all his life.
In March, 1868, an invitation came to the unfledged minister to preach a Sunday in
the pulpit of a new church in the eastern part of the city of Bridgeport, Connecticut.
This was accepted, and was followed by a call to settle as pastor. After three months'
trial the call was accepted; and July 1, 1868, a council of adjacent churches ordained our
classmate to the gospel ministry and installed him pastor of the young church known as
Park Street Congregational Church of Bridgeport. For thirteen happy years he remained
in Bridgeport, seeing the young church grow into goodly proportions and assuming
considerable influence in Park City.
In the spring of 1881, there came a call to the pastorate of the Second
Congregational Church in Waterbury. After due deliberation this was accepted and a
term of service was begun which has already exceeded twenty-one years. The reader will
pause here for a moment to consider the patience of a long-suffering people in listening
to the counsels of one man for more than a score of years. But, with all their intermixture of sadness, the years have been happy ones, crowded with activities and
crowned, as we may trust, with something of success. The church has doubled in membership and a beautiful sanctuary has been built, which, with the
parsonage, cost $160,000. Waterbury has grown rapidly, and to this fact is due in part the development
of the church.
The life of the subject of this sketch, like that of any pastor, has contained its
common round of unreportable duties, its trials and victories, its shadow and sunlight.
Never had a man a more indulgent and appreciative people. In fact, in his two pastorates Davenport has seen the ministry only upon its sunny side, and naturally thinks
it the most desirable calling in the world. If he were to live his life over again, he would
desire no other profession. To give just a hint of some of the things that have occupied
him, he might state that during his ministry (to the date of December 1, 1902) he has
attended 1,096 funerals, married 1,063 couples, and received 1,756 persons into fellowship with the church.
In obedience to the request of the Class circular, Davenport reports, in regard to
the honors of which he has been the recipient and the societies of which he is or has
been a member, that he has been three times sent to the National Council of Congregational Churches, is a Corporate member of the American Board since 1894, has
been chaplain and governor of the Connecticut Society of the Founders and Patriots of
America, and chaplain of the National Society. In 1881, he gave the report of the
Alumni Visitors of Williams College, and in 1893 the old college honored him with the
degree of Doctor of Divinity. In 1874, he was Grand Worthy Patriarch of the Sons of
Temperance of Connecticut. In 1897, he was elected moderator of the General Association of the Congregational Ministers of Connecticut. He is now a member of the
Historical Society of Waterbury and one of its directors, also chaplain of Waterbury
Corps of Spanish and Philippine War Veterans.
Various articles by Davenport, sermons, sketches, papers, given before various
bodies, have found their way into print. He has been the poet upon several
commemorative occasions, namely: at the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the
Wilton Church, and beside this the anniversaries of the following churches, all in
Connecticut and all Congregational one hundredth in North Stamford, one hundred and
fiftieth in New Canaan, two hundred and fiftieth in Stamford, two hundredth of the First
Church in Waterbury; and likewise at the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the
founding of the town of Norwalk, Connecticut. The poems thus produced have all been
published. In April, 1902, a story, "The Fulfilment; or, A Church at Work," of which
Davenport was the author, was published by E. P. Dutton and Company.
Our classmate and his wife have had three children: Clarence Gaylord, of whom a
sketch is given below; Lilian Louisa, born June 23, 1894, and is living at home, her
mother being an invalid from rheumatism; Mary Lindley, born March 12, 1877. Both
Lilian and Mary were educated at St. Margaret's School, in Waterbury, at McLean Seminary, Simsbury, Connecticut, and Granger Place Seminary, Canandaigua, New York.
On the fifteenth of October, 1902, Mary Lindley was married, her father officiating, to
Mr. Herbert Joel Wilcox, of Waterbury.
THE CLASS BOY.
Wilton, Connecticut, April 21, 1868.
Ponce, Porto Rico, October 26, 1898.
Firmly he grasped the cup of mortal life.
Its rim was garlanded with blossoms rare;
Its sparkling contents perfumed all the air.
It seemed with joy and inspiration rife!
From it he quaffed, then turned to face the strife,
Earth's heaviest burdens coveting to bear,
Eager the heights most difficult to dare,
The while he praised the thrilling cup of life!
Sweet, priceless drops it yielded to his lips:
Success in study, prominence in toil,
Warmest esteem and love of worthy scores;
Into great Nature's mysteries he dips,
And then, a soldier on an alien soil,
On freedom's altar life's bright cup outpours!
J. G. D.
CLARENCE GAYLORD DAVENPORT.
Class Boy
ACCORDING to a long standing college custom, a Class drinking cup of silver was
voted to the first son born to our Class. Cairns had the first boy, born in August, 1863, a
few days after the father received his diploma. This was all right in Cairns's case, for he
was married more than a year before the boy appeared. But as a Class boy he was not
legitimate. The next boy was Lapham's, born in 1866, but he died within a year, and
before the Class was notified of the birth. Then followed Seymour's son, born February
9, 1868; Merwin's son, born March 9, 1868, in Chile, South America; Davenport's son,
born April 21, 1868. At the Class meeting in July, 1868, as none of the earlier births of
the year had been reported or were known to the Class, the cup was voted (rightfully, it
was supposed) to Davenport's boy, though in reality Charles H., the son of our classmate, Charles W. Seymour, was entitled to it. But reviewing all the circumstances of
this perplexing situation, and in consideration of the fact that Lapham's boy died in early
infancy and Merwin's boy followed in 1872; in view of the fact that the cup, suitably
inscribed, had been conferred, the Class at its tenth year reunion confirmed its previous
action.
It is a singular happening that all these boys are now deceased, the one holding the
cup being the last survivor. The death of two occurred as already noted. Seymour's boy
died shortly after our twentieth year reunion, September 18, 1883, and Davenport's son
as given below.
Clarence Gaylord Davenport, whose half-tone portrait precedes this sketch, was born
April 21, 1868, in Wilton, Connecticut. After attendance at the public schools of
Bridgeport and Waterbury, Clarence spent two years at George Mills's school, in South
Williamstown, three years in the Worcester (Massachusetts) Polytechnic Institute, and
then took a course of instruction in the electric works of Thompson-Houston, at Lynn,
Massachusetts, and, after a year in the Atlantic Avenue (Boston) works of that company,
went into the employ of the General Electric Company, New York City. Here he was
eminently successful and exceedingly popular. On his thirtieth birthday, April 21, 1898,
the United States declared war against Spain. Clarence was desirous of having a part in
the conflict, but abandoned the project on account of the reluctance of his invalid
mother to give her consent. But near the end of July, he entered the First Regiment of
Volunteer Engineers and went to join General Miles at Porto Rico, landing at Ponce,
August 14. From that time on he was active and happy, winning the regard of his
comrades and doing good service for his country. But on the 24th of October, his father
received the following cablegram: "Davenport suddenly develops serious typhoid." Two
days later sad tidings flew over the wires: "Davenport died today. Will send body by
first transport." November 12, the lifeless form came to Waterbury, and, November 15,
the funeral was held in the church and military honors were paid to the soldier boy. The
demonstration on the part of the people was remarkable. Dr. Anderson, of the First
Church, Waterbury, and our classmate, Foster, who had baptized him as a baby, pronounced his eulogy. Beautiful words were spoken, but they could not altogether
assuage the grief of the stricken-hearted. The boy's departure has left a vacancy that can
never be filled.
So many of our Class have been touched and wounded in their heart's deepest
feelings that there can be no lack of sympathy for our honored and beloved classmate.
Source:
Class of Sixty-Three Williams College Fortieth Year Report, by
the Class Historian, Thomas Todd Printer, Boston, 1903
Davenport
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