BANKS, ELMORE SHERWOOD, lawyer. Judge of Probate of Fairfield, Connecticut, and for several terms a representative in the General Assembly, who was born in Fairfield, Connecticut, May 34th, 1866, is a descendant of John Banks, who came from England and settled in Fairfield about 1640 and was lieutenant, boundary commissioner, and in many ways a prominent public man of his day. Mr. Banks is the son of Simon Banks, a merchant and farmer, who was assessor and a member of the school board and a man whose most conspicuous traits were industry, persistence, and honesty. Hannah Dwyer Banks, his mother, died when he was but two years old, but his stepmother filled her place in his life and exerted the best of influences upon his character.

Elmore Banks was a strong, robust, country boy, who delighted in athletics and particularly inclined to baseball. He was fond of reading and found the translations of Cicero and Virgil and the study of orations and oratory his most helpful literature. He was able to secure a thorough education, though obliged to work during vacations in his father's store and on the farm. This early work inculcated habits of industry and economy that have been of lasting value. He attended the Hopkins Grammar School at New Haven and entered the academic department of Yale University with the class of 1888, but left during his sophomore year. He afterwards entered Yale Law School, where he was graduated in 1895. In 1890 he taught school in Kentucky, where he met Beulah May Galloway, whom he married in April, 1898. From 1890 to 1893 he conducted a store, in 1894 he became town clerk of Fairfield, and in 1895 he was admitted to the bar and began the practice of law. In 1896, the year after the opening of his legal career, Mr. Banks became Judge of Probate of Fairfield and he still holds this office. He has continued in the practice of law with success in the firm of Davenport & Banks of Bridgeport. He has been attorney for the town of Fairfield since 1896 and was attorney for the County Commissioners in 1901.

In politics Judge Banks is a Republican of great activity and prominence. He represented Fairfield in the General Assembly in 1901, 1903, and 1905, and was leader of the House in 1903. During the session of 1901 he was chairman of the committee on insurance and ill 1903 and 1904 was chairman of the committee on judiciary and rules. He was also a member of the committee on the revision of Statutes. His favorite relaxation from business is in out-of-door sports such as baseball, horseback riding, rowing, hunting, and fishing.

The law was Mr. Banks' own choice of a profession and he considers that the strongest encouragement and incentive in attaining success in that profession has been the influence of his wife. Of that success, which has been true success in every sense of the word, he says: "I have had to work hard for all I have accomplished and, while that has been but little, I am reasonably well satisfied with the results thus far achieved. Three things only are necessary to success— honesty, work, and fair ability. With these anyone in good health can succeed."  Men of Mark Index

CUMMINGS, HOMER STILLE, lawyer, business man, president of the Stamford Board of Trade, mayor of Stamford, member of the Democratic National Committee, was born in Chicago, Illinois, April 30th, 1870. His father, Uriah Cummings, is an inventor, manufacturer of cement, and author of technical works. His first ancestors in America on the paternal side came from the disputed territory between England and Scotland and settled in Vermont. Uriah Cummings married Audie Stille, daughter of Jacob Schuyler and Audelia Stille of Buffalo, New York, whose ancestors were of Knickerbocker New York and Holland Dutch stock, with a mixture of Huguenot blood. Her most illustrious ancestor was Gen. Philip Schuyler of Revolutionary fame.

Homer Stille Cummings was a healthy child, brought up in the city of Buffalo, New York, to which city his father had removed, and his mother guided his intellectual, moral, and spiritual life. He was prepared for college at the Heathcote School, Buffalo, and was graduated at Yale University, Ph.B. 1891, LL.B. 1893. He began the practice of law in Stamford, Connecticut, in September, 1893, his choice of a profession being his uninfluenced personal preference. He is active in public affairs in Stamford and in seeking Improvements in its municipal arrangements. He is a leading Democratic party man, and, in 1896, received the nomination for secretary of state on the Democratic state ticket, receiving at the polls the highest number of votes cast for a candidate of his party that year. In April, 1900, he was elected mayor of Stamford, was reelected in 1901 by the largest majority ever given to a candidate for that office, and on November 8th, 1904, he was again elected mayor for a term of two years, serving from 1904 to 1906. In 1900 he was a delegate at large from Connecticut to the Democratic National Convention and represented his state as a member of the committee on resolutions at the convention and as a member of the Democratic National Committee and he held that position on the committee, by reappointment in 1904, and has recently been elected for the term of 1904 to 1908. In 1902 he was nominated as the Democratic candidate for representative at large from Connecticut to the 58th Congress and polled a larger vote than that cast for any other Democratic candidate that year. His business associations are director and secretary of the Cummings Cement Company and also of the Chickamauga Cement Company, president of the Varuna Spring Water Company, and president of the Stamford Board of Trade. He was also president of the Mayors' Association of Connecticut, one term, 1903-1904. He has affiliated himself with the order of Free and Accepted Masons, the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, the Fraternal Order of Eagles, Royal Arcanum, Knights of Pythias, and Knights of the Maccabees.

Mr. Cummings was married, June 27th, 1897, to Helen Woodruff Smith, daughter of James D. and Elizabeth Henderson Smith of Stamford, and their son, Dickinson Schuyler Cummings, was born June 17th, 1898.  Men of Mark Index

CURTIS, HOWARD J., lawyer and Judge of the Civil Court of Common Pleas for Fairfield County, Connecticut, was born in Stratford, Fairfield County, Connecticut, June 29th, 1857, the son of Freeman L. Curtis, a farmer, and Georgiana Howard Curtis.

He traces his ancestry to Widow Elizabeth Curtis, who, with her three sons, made one of the seventeen families that settled Stratford in 1639. His boyhood was spent in Stratford under the advantages and disadvantages enjoyed by all boys who spend their impressionable years amid the activities of farm life in a thickly settled community, where companionship is abundant, and where outdoor work and outdoor play are fairly combined. These circumstances tended to produce health of body and an optimistic spirit. In 1874 he entered the employ of the Housatonic Railroad Company at Pittsfield, Massachusetts, as shipping clerk in the freight office and remained there one year, when he decided to take a college course. He returned to Stratford in the fall of 1875 and entered the preparatory school of Frederick Sedgwick. Here he enjoyed for two years the instruction of Mr. Sedgwick, a teacher of unique power and a personality of marked originality and force. In 1877 Mr. Curtis entered Yale University and took his academic degree in 1881. He spent the next year at Chatham, Virginia, teaching and incidentally studying law. In the fall of 1883 he entered the senior class of the Yale Law School and received his degree of LL.B. in June, 1883. His choice of the profession of law was determined by his own preference and because "1aw looms large in the horizon of a country boy."

After a short experience in reading law in the office of Amos L. Treat of Bridgeport, Connecticut, Mr. Curtis settled down to the practice of law in Bridgeport, in 1883, with George W. Wheeler, now Judge of the Superior Court, as Wheeler & Curtis. This partnership lasted for ten years until, in 1893, Mr. Curtis became Judge of the Civil Court of Common Pleas for Fairfield County, which position he still fills. In addition to his practice and his duties on the bench Judge Curtis has been a member of the Stratford Board of Education since 1884 and has been active in many town affairs. He is a member of the society's committee of the First Ecclesiastical Society of Stratford, which is Congregational in denomination. In politics he is a "Gold Wing Democrat." He is a member of the Seaside Club, the Contemporary Club, The University Club of Bridgeport, and The University Club of New York City. On June 5th, 1888, Judge Curtis married Ellen V. Talbot, by whom he has had three children, all of whom are now living.  Men of Mark Index

EMERY, ALBERT HAMILTON, civil and mechanical engineer and inventor, was born in Mexico, Oswego County, New York, June 31st, 1834. His father, Samuel Emery, was a farmer in the town of Mexico, Oswego County, and married Catharine Shepard. His first American ancestor, John Emery, was born in England, September 29th, 1598, son of John and Agnes Emery of Romsey, Hampshire County, familiarly known as Hants, England. He sailed from Southampton, April 3rd, 1635, with his brother Anthony, landed in Boston, Massachusetts Bay Colony, June 3rd, 1635, became one of the original proprietors of the plantation of Contocook, Massachusetts Bay, and subsequently located in Newbury.

Albert Hamilton Emery was a delicate child up to his tenth year when he began to gain strength through manual labor on his father's farm. This farm work proved useful and beneficial. His mother early taught him that whatever he did he should do well. She also directed his reading and he became familiar with the Bible, Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, and Dick's philosophical works. Aside from his training in the district school, he paid his own tuition while attending the Mexico Academy during two terms, after he was eighteen years old. He was a land surveyor in his native town, then taught school, then took up railroad surveying, and in this way helped to pay his expenses through the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York, from which he was graduated as a civil engineer in 1858. His chief inspiration to acquire a thorough knowledge of his chosen profession came through the talks, advice, and example of an elder sister. He credits home life as the strongest influence on his own success, and his school life as second. He began his professional career in the fall of 1S61, as draughtsman and mechanical engineer for General Richard Delafield, of the United States Corps of Engineers, who had charge of the fortifications of the state and harbor of New York, 1861-62, and after 1862 he devoted himself to experimenting with and working out his own inventions, including a testing machine for determining the strength and tension of iron and steel, which became recognized as "one of the greatest pieces of engineering that has ever been done." At the annual fair of the Massachusetts Charitable Mechanics Association held in 1881, the Boston Society of Arts and Sciences exhibited a number of specimens of wood and metal which had been tested on this machine; and the machine, though not at the Fair, was open to the inspection of visitors of the Fair. It happened that year that a grand medal of honor had been provided, to be awarded to that "exhibit most conducive to human welfare," which was the highest requirement that any exhibit could be called upon to sustain, and to insure its proper award. The American Academy of Arts and Sciences was asked to appoint from its members a committee to visit the exhibition and award this medal. The jury so selected awarded this medal to Mr. Emery. In the judges' report the machine is referred to as "the greatest invention in mechanism of the present century." The machine came into constant use and its determinations are invaluable to the engineering, mechanical, and scientific world. In 1905 the United States and foreign patents issued to Mr. Emery numbered one hundred and forty.

He is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and a member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. In national politics Mr. Emery has always been a Republican, never having occasion to change his political faith. He was brought up from childhood in the Presbyterian Sunday School and joined the Presbyterian Church when sixteen years of age. In 1881 he came into sympathy with the teachings of Swedenborg, in which he fully believes.

To young men he says: "If I had tried to do only one-tenth as much as I have tried to do, I might have done ten times more than I have done." His advice to them is: "Do nothing but what you try to do well, and ever remember that we all owe constant service to Him who is our very best friend and who can only give us true happiness and true success."

Mr. Emery was married March 3rd, 1875, to Mrs. Fanny B. Myers, daughter of Frederick A. King and Amanda (Howard) King of Sharon, Connecticut, and they make their home in Stamford, Connecticut. She had one daughter and they have one son, Albert H., Jr., who was graduated at Cornell University in the class of 1898 as a mechanical engineer, receiving one of the two prizes which were given to the graduating class in mechanical engineering. Since graduation he has been engaged with his father in engineering work. The daughter, Maggie, is now Mrs. G. A. Clyde of Rome, New York.  Men of Mark Index

GRIPPIN, WILLIAM AVERY, president of the Bridgeport Malleable Iron Company, of the Troy Malleable Iron Company of Troy, New York, and of the Vulcan Iron Works of New Britain, Connecticut, was born in Corinth, Saratoga County, New York, February 23rd, 1851. The ancestry of the Grippin family is traced to Welch and English origin. Their first emigration was to Vermont, but later they settled in Corinth, New York. Elijah Grippin, Mr. Grippin's great-grandfather, participated in the Revolutionary War from 1776 to 1783. Mr. Grippin's parents were Alonzo J. Grippin and Mary Burritt. His father was a farmer of Corinth and a man highly respected. His most marked characteristics were a sincere Christian spirit and high moral principles. His mother was a woman of deep spirituality and her influence on her son was very pronounced.

Mr. Grippin, though not a strong boy, enjoyed the duties and tasks of his early country life and considers these early days of labor on the farm as most beneficial to his health and character, adding that, "the influence of work well done is for good with boy as with man." He was devoted to books, especially the Bible and historical works.
While experiencing no serious difficulties in acquiring an education, Mr. Grippin received a very brief one, consisting of that offered by the country, district, and village public schools and the academy at Ballston Spa, New York, and terminating when he was fifteen. This, however, was supplemented by a commercial course at Eastman's Business College, Poughkeepsie, New York, in the spring and summer of 1869.

In September, 1869, Mr. Grippin began his business life at general office work with a firm manufacturing malleable iron castings at Troy, New York. He took this step from personal preference, guided by what he terms "providential circumstances," actuated by the firm belief that, "if anything is worth doing at all, it is worth doing well and that advancement and success are sure to follow consistent action in this line." That Mr. Grippin began his career with the proper ideas for a young man is amply proved by the highly important positions to which he has been elected in the industrial world. In 1884 he became president of the Troy Malleable Iron Company, which position he still holds, and treasurer of the Bridgeport Malleable Iron Company, of which he became vice-president in July, 1904, and president in November of the same year. Since November, 1890, he has been president of the Vulcan Iron Works of New Britain. He is director in several other manufacturing companies, and in the Pequonnock National Bank of Bridgeport and the Century Bank of the City of New York.

Between 1894 and 1904 Mr. Grippin served two unexpired terms and one full three year term on the Board of Apportionment and Taxation of Bridgeport. He is a member of the Seaside Club, of the Contemporary Club, of the Bridgeport Yacht Club, and the Scientific Historical Society of Bridgeport. In politics Mr Grippin is identified with the Republican party, from which he has never turned his allegiance on any national issue, though on local issues he favors the best man regardless of party. In religious views Mr. Grippin is a Baptist, and is very prominent and active in church work as will be seen from the following: From October, 1896, to October, 1900, he was president of the Connecticut Baptist Convention, and since April, 1904, has served on the executive board of the American Baptist Home Mission Society of New York. He was president of the Baptist Social Union of Connecticut during 1901-1902 and continues an active member.

On November 10th, 1875, Mr. Grippin married Adell Jackson of Ballston Spa, New York. They have two children, a son, William Jackson, general manager and treasurer of the Bridgeport Malleable Iron Company, and a daughter, Edna Adell. Mr. Grippin's home, since 1884, has been at Marina Park, Bridgeport, Connecticut, with a summer home, "Blythewood," at Lake George, New York.

Beginning like so many of our foremost American citizens, in the simple, healthy, industrious life of farming, Mr. Grippin has made his way with rapid strides to places of recognized importance in the business world. Along the pathway of business success he has gathered a broad culture and lively spiritual interests. To young men who would succeed in life he says: "Be prompt, systematic. thorough, honest, industrious, and temperate; stand firmly for principle, avoid debt, and strive to keep expenditures well within income. If you do not find just what you would like to do, take what you can find and do it so well that something more desirable will follow as a natural result. Do not wait for something to turn up, but turn up something,—in other words, make opportunities."  Men of Mark Index

HALL, FREDERIC BYRON, lawyer and judge of the Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut, was born in Saratoga Springs, Saratoga County, New York, February 30th, 1843. His father, Jonathan Hall, 4th, son of Jonathan, 3rd, and Phebe (Britton) Hall, was a machinist and iron foundry man and married Livonia Hayward, a descendant from Thomas Hayward, who came from Aylesford, Kent, England, to Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1635. Jonathan Hall's first American ancestor, Thomas Hall, came to America in 1718 with his wife Mary Dickey, in company with a body of English colonists, who left Londonderry in the North of Ireland in that year and settled on lands in New Hampshire granted to the colony and they named the settlement Londonderry, the territory being subsequently divided into four townships, in one of which is located the famous manufacturing city of Manchester, New Hampshire.

Frederic Byron Hall was brought up in the village of Saratoga Springs, where he began to earn his own living by selling newspapers. He removed to Bridgeport, Connecticut, in 1858 and found employment as a molder in the foundry of the Wheeler & Wilson Sewing Machine Company, and he continued to work there during his vacations from school and college and while studying law. His mother, a superior woman, intellectually, morally and spiritually, directed his early life in the way of her own beautiful example and encouraged him to work and study. The financial needs of the family forced the necessity of labor foremost and his school attendance during his boyhood days was secondary to bread winning. As he became able to earn better wages, he supplemented home study, which he had always kept up under the inspiration of his mother, who was desirous that he should be a lawyer, with attendance at the Connecticut Literary Institute, Suffield, and he was graduated at that school in 1862 and the next year he matriculated at Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, and was graduated A.B., 1867. He studied law in the office of Henry S. Sanford of Bridgeport, and was admitted to the Fairfield County Bar in 1870. He was a partner in the practice of law with Goodwin Stoddard, 1870-77.

He was married January 1st, 1872, to Jennie A., daughter of George and Jennett Lewis of Stratford, Connecticut, and the three children born of this marriage are Alice Burr Hall, now wife of William B. Boardman, member of the bar of Fairfield County, Connecticut, Dwight Hubbell Hall and Lewis Frederic Hall, both graduates of Brown University.

His judicial labors began in 1877, when he was appointed judge of the Court of Common Pleas of Fairfield County for the term of four years and he has been twice re-appointed to the same position, serving 1877-89. In 1889 he was appointed judge of the Superior Court and re-appointed in 1897. In September, 1897, Governor Cook appointed him judge of the Supreme Court of Errors to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Judge Fenn and, at the next session of the Legislature in 1899, he was appointed judge of the Supreme Court of Errors for the term of eight years. Judge Hall's military service in the Civil War was cut short by physical disability resulting from typhoid fever contracted during the service. He enlisted in Company D, Seventeenth Connecticut Volunteer Infantry, in 1862, when nineteen years old, but he was honorably discharged before the close of the next year and sent home to save his life.

He is a member of the University Club of New York, and Brown University by a special vote taken in 1890 gave him the honorary degree of A.M. and Yale University at the Commencement exercises of 1890 conferred on him a similar degree. He is a voting member of the Republican party, but takes no active part in political campaigns, always regarding the high office which he holds as superior to and outside the field of political controversy. His home is on Mill Hill Avenue, Bridgeport.

His life is a splendid example to young men of the possibilities open to any young man in America who is willing to labor and to study. He, with the help of the product of his own work and the advice and encouragement of an ambitious mother, became a man of mark—so can the young reader of this biography.  Men of Mark Index

HILL, HON. EBENEZER J., manufacturer, banker and financier, politician and Congressman, of Norwalk, Connecticut, was born in Redding, Fairfield County, Connecticut, August 4th, 1845. He is of Scotch-English descent, coming in direct line from Hugh and Brice McLellan, two cousins, whose son and daughter were his maternal grandparents and who came from Scotland and settled in York, Maine, in 1720. His other ancestors came from England to America before 1650 and settled in various parts of New England. Among them were William Hill, who came from Exeter, England, to Dorchester, Massachusetts, in 1632, and to Windsor, Connecticut, in 1635, and settled in Fairfield, Connecticut, in 1644; Rev. John Jones, who came from London to Concord, Massachusetts, 1635; John Burr, who came with Winthrop in 1630; Francis Bradley, who came to New Haven with Eaton; William Ilsley, who came from Wiltshire, England, to Ipswich, Massachusetts, in 1634, and Capt. Thomas Bradbury, who came from Essex County, England, to York, Maine, in 1634. All these men and many others who were Mr. Hill's ancestors were leaders in Colonial affairs, social, civil, and military and served their country with honor. Another, Tristram Coffin, was the first chief magistrate of Nantucket, and another, Andrew Ward, was a member of the General Assembly and of the two important commissions to organize the government and the church in the new Colony of Connecticut. Indeed there were few if any sessions of the General Court from its first to the time of the Revolution of which his ancestors were not members. There were also among his progenitors those who fought the Indians in New England, the French in Canada and Cape Breton and the English during the Revolution.

Rev. Moses Hill, Mr. Hill's father, was a Methodist clergyman, who was several times a member of the General Conference of the Methodist-Episcopal Church, a member of the Connecticut General Assembly and of the Norwalk Board of School Visitors. He was a man of unswerving integrity, keen mental powers of analysis, marked independence of thought and action, a strong advocate of anti-slavery and of temperance. Mr. Hill's mother was Charlotte Ilsley McLellan, who died when he was but eight years of age.

Most of Mr. Hill's boyhood was spent in Norwalk, where he attended the public schools. He was naturally very studious and was fully prepared for college at the age of fourteen, when he spent two years as clerk in the lumber business before entering Yale, the college of his choice. The classical books used in his college preparation were helpful and enjoyable reading, but the study of the Bible in both English and Latin proved to be to him more useful than any other book. He has always continued a wide course of reading and has been greatly interested in the study of political economy. He entered Yale College with the class of 1865 and remained two years, when in 1863, he left college and entered the army in civilian capacity and remained in service throughout the War as clerk in the Commissary Department, U. S. A. In 1867 he became secretary and treasurer of the Norwalk Iron Works and in 1871 he became connected with the lumber business, from which he retired twenty-three years later. He is now vice-president of the Norwalk Woolen Mills, vice-president of the National Bank of Norwalk, and was for several years president of the Norwalk Gas Company and president of the Norwalk Street Railway Company.

As a politician and public servant, Mr. Hill has been as prominent and as useful as he has been in business life. He was chairman of the Norwalk Board of School Visitors for two terms, state senator from 1887 to 1889, member of the Republican State Central Committee one term, delegate to the Republican National Convention in 1884 and he was elected in 1894 as representative in the Fifty-Fourth Congress and has served in that capacity continuously ever since. He spent eight years in studying sound money as member of the banking and currency committee in Congress and is now a member of the ways and means committee in Congress.

Outside of his many public and business duties Mr. Hill finds time and heart for religious, social, and patriotic interests. He is a Methodist in creed, was a member of the Methodist General Conference in 1892, and taught a Bible class in Sunday School for nineteen years. He is a member of the Order of Odd Fellows and was Grand Master of the State Order for two terms and a Grand Representative to the United States Grand Lodge for two terms. He is a member of the Sons of the American Revolution. His favorite diversions are reading, walking, and traveling in this country and abroad. On June 15th, 1868, Congressman Hill married Mary Ellen Mossman of Amherst, Massachusetts, by whom he has had four children, Frederick Asbury, born 1869, a graduate of Yale University, 1893, and of Yale Law School, 1895, Judge Advocate with rank of lieutenant-colonel on staff of General James H. Wilson in the Spanish-American War; Clara Mossman, a graduate of Vassar College, 1895; Helena Charlotte (Mrs. Walter H. Weed), a graduate of Vassar, 1896, and A.M. of Vassar, and Elsie Mary, a graduate of Vassar, 1906.

Congressman E. J. Hill is a veteran in public service, a successful business man, and a man of marked worth and ability to whose words of advice it is a privilege to listen. He advocates two things: "First, practice economy and always live within your income; second, try to know something better than anyone else does while still having a general knowledge of all important live questions. Practice the art of selecting the essentials for study and investigation."

On September 22nd, 1906, Mr. Hill was unanimously re-nominated for Congressman.  Men of Mark Index

HOYT, GEORGE HENRY, the late president of the Stamford Savings Bank, vice-president of the Stamford National Bank, treasurer of the Stamford Water Company and of the Stamford Electric Light and Gas Company, was born in Stamford, Fairfield County, Connecticut, December 11th, 1838, and died there November 20th, 1904. He was a direct descendant of Benjamin Hoyt, who was born in Windsor, England, in 1644 and emigrated to Stamford about 1711, and of Thaddeus Hoyt, born 1742, who was distinguished for bravery in the Revolutionary War. Mr. Hoyt's father, James H. Hoyt, was the general superintendent of the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad, and a man of unusual business capacity and public spirit. He was State senator and in many ways a prominent factor in the political and industrial life of the town in which the family have always been conspicuous for useful citizenship. Mr. Hoyt's mother was Sarah J. Gorham, a woman worthy in all respects to bring up her son under the best moral and spiritual influences.

Stamford was Mr. Hoyt's home in his youth as it was throughout his whole life and he received his education in the Stamford public schools. He was a sturdy, active boy, who inherited his father's ambition and energy as well as his business ability and after his father's death he occupied himself with his father's many business interests and built well upon the firm foundations already laid. He began work in the employ of the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad in New York City, and later became their Stamford agent. In 1878 he became president of the Stamford Savings Bank and he held this position until his death. He was vice-president of the Stamford National Bank and both of these institutions were organized through his father's efforts. He was for many years treasurer of the Stamford Water Company, of the Stamford Gas and Electric Light Company, of St. John's Church, and of Stamford Hospital, and he was a director in the New York Transfer Company, and in several other institutions.

In spite of all these important business ties Mr. Hoyt found time to act as guardian, trustee, and adviser for many individuals and corporations, and always gave generously of his time, thought, and judgment to the many who consulted him. He was also called upon to fill many public offices, some of which he declined. He served as burgess for several years and as State representative for two terms. He was also a member of the Board of Appropriation and Apportionment and of the public building committee. He led the movement which brought about the memorable celebration of the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the town of Stamford in 1892, and it was greatly due to his untiring efforts that the occasion was such a marked success. In politics he was a Democrat and like many other Democrats swerved from the party lines on the gold issue in 1896. He was often a delegate to party conventions. Though not a public speaker he was an interesting talker, and, after a tour in Europe a few years before his death, he gave interesting lectures which his natural literary taste rendered doubly pleasing.

A devoted churchman and junior warden of St. John's Protestant Episcopal Church, Mr. Hoyt gave to that church the best and most complete service a layman can render. He was a member and constant attendant at St. John's from his early boyhood and he served the parish as vestryman and financial manager as well as a frequent delegate to diocesan conventions. His loss is felt as keenly in religious as in business and social circles. Of him it may truly be said that he served God "with constancy on earth," " always abounding in the work of the Lord."

Mr. Hoyt's sudden death on his way to morning service on Sunday, November 20th, 1904, was a keen shock to all who knew him and an irreparable loss to his community. He is survived by his wife, Josephine Bailey Hoyt, whom he married in 1865, and by two daughters.  Men of Mark Index

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