fairfield

Frank S. Child
Frank S. Child
Publications [click on the titel for more informations: - review - summary - notes - price - publisher ..]
Old New England Town Frank S. Child Old New England Town
Fairfield Ancient and Modern, 1639-1909 Frank S. Child Fairfield Ancient and Modern, 1639-1909

INTRODUCTION
THE TOWN OF FAIRFIELD, which in Colonial days The included Redding, Easton, Weston, Green's Farms, Southport, Greenfield, Fairfield (Center), Stratfield and Black Rock has parted with all but four of these sections, namely: Fairfield (Center), Southport, Greenfield and Stratfield. The committee has, however, included Black Rock, now a part of Bridgeport, in the descriptive tours as that was, until recent years, a very important part of Fairfield town because of its exceptionally fine harbor.An honored historian of the Town -- Dr. Frank S. Child -- drew many a word picture of Fairfield's hills and shore line, its people and customs. He says: "This particular old New England town nestles down by an inflow of the sea. A favored resort of Indians, many of their wigwams dotted its shores."When our forefathers reached this spot they too were charmed with its virginal loveliness. In their enthusiasm, we can see the wearied immigrants turn aside from the hard toil of rearing log cabins and cultivating patches of corn to admire the landscape spread before them. They were men and women of refinement and culture. The beautiful must needs appeal to them. For we must remember that these people came from a land of gardens, cathedrals and art galleries."--'An Old New England Town.'




Among the prominent men who have lived in Fairfield are Roger Sherman, the first President Dwight of Yale (who described Fairfield in his Travth and in his poem Greenfield Hill),
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New York To New Haven
( Originally Published 1919 )



R. 1 § 1. New York to New Haven. 74.5 m.
Via the GRAND CONCOURSE AND PELHAM PARKWAY, STAMFORD, and BRIDGEPORT. STATE ROAD all the way. Marked from GREENWICH to NEW HAVEN with red bands on posts and with red arrows.
This is one of the principal motor routes in America; between one and two thousand automobiles pass over it every day. It is an excellent road, stretches of block pavement, asphalt, and oiled macadam alternating. The route out of New York as here described follows recently constructed boulevards, avoiding the Old Post Road until the shore is reached at New Rochelle.
The Old Boston Post Road originally commenced at the Battery and led through the Bowery and along what is now Third Avenue to Harlem, thence through Morrisania and East Chester to New Rochelle. As this district is now practically included within the bounds of New York City there are many streets and routes laid out by which New Rochelle is to be reached, which are preferable to the rather sordid modern conditions along the Boston Road


On the Post Road is the Sherman House, the spacious residence of Judge Roger M. Sherman, nephew of the Roger who signed the Declaration of Independence. He willed it to the Prime Ancient Society for a parsonage. It is known as The House of Sixty Closets, the title given a story about the portraits of the Judge and his wife which still hang in the east drawing room. Today it is the home of the Rev. Frank S. Child, the loyal historian of the countryside.
52.5 FAIRFIELD. Pop (twp) 6134. County-seat of Fairfield Co. Settled 1639. Indian name Uncoa. Mfg. chemicals, wire, rubber goods, aluminum, automobile lamps, and flat silver and tin ware.
Fairfield, named from its fair fields, in Colonial times one of the four largest towns in Connecticut, is today a beautiful residential town. In the village and on the hills are many handsome and elaborate estates of wealthy New York families.
Near the station the route turns to the right, passing the Memorial Library and a stone fountain. Just north of the station is the old barrel-roofed stone powder house. Beyond the Library is a stone set by "David Barlow, cidevant, farmer, 1791." In front of the Town Hall stands a boulder with a bronze tablet recording Tryon's Raid, July 7, 1779, when the Hessian Yagers returning from the pillage of New Haven burned two hundred houses.
The Town Green is the center today as in the past. Fronting it stands the old Sun Tavern, where Washington `baited his horsese and tarried all night Oct. 16, I789, on his Grand Tour. On the Green itself stands the ancient whipping post, now serving as a bulletin board. The town records show how one and another offender was sentenced to be whipped twenty or thirty lashes, or to be confined in the stocks three hours a day. Unseemly carriage, profanation of the Sabbath, witch work, and unlicensed use of tobacco, as well as other crimes, were expiated. On the west side of the Green was a pond in which Mercy Disbrow and Elizabeth Clausen, reputed witches, were thrust to determine whether or not they were daughters of Belial. The records tell us "that they buoyed up like a cork," positive evidence to the onlookers that they had sold themselves to the devil.
Benson's Tavern of stage coach days, now a private house, still stands on the main street. This was a favorite stop. The stage changed horses at Stamford but at Fairfield was supper. Famous travelers have sat about its board,—Macready, Edwin Booth, and Fanny Kemble. Souvenirs of distinguished men decorate the walls of the dining room and in the living room is Peter Parley's chair.
The ivy-mantled, gothic St. Paul's Church now stands where the gaol stood until the burning of the town. The Norman Church opposite is on the site of the original log meeting house of 1640 and five successive edifices.
Southeast of the Green on the road to the beach lies the ancient God's-Acre, entered by a beautiful stone lich-gate. The oldest stone bears the date of 1687. The Silliman monument commemorates the distinguished family which in successive generations gave many sons to public and university life. Here, too, are buried members of the Burr family.
The present fine old Burr mansion on the main street is the successor of the one burned by the drunken troops in spite of Tryon's written protection in the Sack of 1779. The present homestead, by John Hancock's request, was patterned somewhat on the Hancock mansion at Boston, since torn down.
In Colonial days the Burr family was most notable in these parts. The Burr mansion in its palmy days was the center of hospitality and about it cluster the local traditions. It was built about 1700 by Chief Justice Peter Burr, one of the earliest graduates of Harvard, and stood somewhat back from the village main street under a canopy of elms, a manorial structure. Its old fashioned garden with an ancient arbor-vita hedge, dates to Colonial days.
Washington, Franklin, Lafayette, John and Samuel Adams, and Dr. Dwight were frequent guests, and here Trumbull and Copley painted full length portraits, still preserved, of their host and hostess. After the Battle of Lexington in June, 1775, Governor John Hancock, fleeing from British justice, followed his affianced bride, Dorothy Quincy, the celebrated belle of Boston, who sought refuge in the house of Thaddeus Burr. The gossips say that while John was in Philadelphia attending the Continental Congress, Aaron Burr, a handsome youth of twenty, came to visit his cousin Thaddeus. There at once began a flirtation which greatly disturbed Hancock's peace of mind, as his letters plainly show. But for the intervention of Aunt Lydia Hancock it might have resulted disastrously, but Aaron was packed off to Litchfield to enter the law school of Judge Reeve (R. 6). John and Dorothy were later married here in the old house.
On the Post Road is the Sherman House, the spacious residence of Judge Roger M. Sherman, nephew of the Roger who signed the Declaration of Independence. He willed it to the Prime Ancient Society for a parsonage. It is known as The House of Sixty Closets, the title given a story about the portraits of the Judge and his wife which still hang in the east drawing room. Today it is the home of the Rev. Frank S. Child, the loyal historian of the countryside.
There are many fine old estates in Fairfield and the neighbor-hood. Mailands, situated on Osborn Hill, an old signal station of the Indians, is the extensive country seat of Mr. Oliver G. Jennings. Verna Farm is the country place of Hon. Lloyd C. Griscom, former Ambassador to Italy. Round Hill, another Indian signal station, is a commanding eminence belonging to Mr. Frederick Sturges. Sunnie Holme is the country estate of Miss Annie B. Jennings, and has gardens that are among the most beautiful and elaborate in the State. The house of Hermann Hagedorn, a poet and dramatist taking honorable place among the younger writers, is at Sunnytop Farm, a hill not far distant from the place where the first President Dwight wrote poetry, cultivated strawberries, and conducted his remarkable school. Waldstein is the home of Mrs. Mabel Osgood Wright, President of the State Audubon Society, and author of numerous works of fiction and books on nature.
A generous friend has recently given to the State Audubon Society a Bird Sanctuary,—some fifteen acres of diversified, well-wooded park land situated on the edge of the village, commanding a fine view of the Sound. Near the entrance is the rustic cottage of the curator and opposite is the quaint museum filled with several hundred specimens of our native birds. The Fairfield Historical Society has an interesting collection of antiquities and rare books in its hall. It has published some fifteen brochures on local history.
Fairfield Beach, extending for three miles, is one of the most attractive along this coast. Near the beach is the Fairfield Fresh Air Home, which cares for more than one hundred and twenty-five city children each summer season. Here, too, is the Gould Vacation Home for self-supporting women, a beautiful Colonial estate endowed by the Gould sisters. Grover's Hill projects boldly into the sea on the east of Ash Creek. This was the site of a fort in Revolutionary times; today it is a private estate, Shoonhoven Park, containing some of the finest country residences in Connecticut. Ash Creek in Colonial days had several tide mills upon it. Here it was the British landed the night they captured General Silliman, whose house was on Holland Hill. To the east is Black Rock Harbor.
In 1777 nine Tories crossed the Sound by boat and captured the Continental General Silliman and his son, who was then quartered in his own house, and took them to Oyster Bay. In retaliation a few months later a band of twenty-five Southport men crossed to Oyster Bay and seized the Tory Judge Jones and a young man named Hewlett, while a dance was going on in the Judgees house, and brought them back as prisoners, where Mrs. Silliman entertained them. Later the four prisoners were exchanged.
In the suburbs of Bridgeport on Fairfield Ave. at the corner of Brewster St. is a milestone inscribed "XXM to NH," which being interpreted indicates that it is twenty miles to New Haven. Just beyond is the Protestant Orphan Asylum and the Bur-roughs Home for Widows.
Where the road passes under the railway occurred the wreck of the Federal Express, fourteen killed and forty injured, July 11, 1911. In the short stretch of track between here and North Haven the New Haven Road has succeeded in wrecking five trains in five years, with a loss of fifty-seven lives and two hundred injured.
Passing under the railway we come to the winter quarters of the Barnum and Bailey circus, now owned by the Ringling Brothers, which occupy several acres. The winter quarters of Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show were formerly somewhere within the city limits. The old house of P. T. Barnum, America's greatest showman, is almost opposite Clinton Ave. In front of the house stands a statue of a sea god.
Barnum made his great hit in 1849 when he paid $150,000 to Jenny Lind for 150 concerts, a figure that was something stupendous for the time. Another of his stars, General Tom Thumb, was born in Bridge-port in 1832 and weighed nine pounds at birth, but after his seventh month he ceased to grow, and remained through life but twenty-eight inches high. In 1863 he married Miss Lavinia Warren of Middleboro, Massachusetts, who, like himself, was a dwarf (R. 31). Barnum starred General and Mrs. Tom Thumb through Europe, where they were received by "all the crowned heads." One of the Ringlings married a daughter of Barnum and inherited the circus business.
Barnum was a great benefactor of Bridgeport and through the city we find evidence of it, Barnum Public School, the Barnum Building, and Barnum Ave., so that Bridgeport is a sort of Barnum Museum itself. Barnum Institute is the head-quarters of the Historical and Scientific Society, contains collections, and is used for lectures. But his greatest gift was Seaside Park, a beautiful tract on the shore, in which there is, properly enough, a statue of the great circus man himself.
At the corner of Park Ave. opposite St. John's Episcopal Church is a beautiful memorial fountain to Nathaniel Wheeler, the originator of the Wheeler & Wilson Sewing Machine.

Child Obituary

Frank Samuel Child, D.D.S. was born in Exeter, New York, March 20, 1854. He was educated at Hamilton College and Union Theological Seminary and ordained to the Christian ministry in 1879. After two pastorate postings at Sound Beach and New Preston, Connecticut he became pastor of the First Church of Christ, Congregational, in Fairfield, Connecticut in 1888. He married Elizabeth Lilly (Bessie) in 1881; she died in Fairfield March 8, 1918. They had eight children. During his lifetime he traveled extensively in Europe, Palestine, Egypt, Mexico and throughout the United States. Returning from wintering in El Paso, Texas, Dr. Child died at Bridgeport Hospital following a brief illness caused by a scratch on his lip which infected and turned into a carbuncle on May 4, 1922. He was 69.

He was one of the foremost citizens of Fairfield and widely known beyond it. He was founder and president of the Fairfield Historical Society; founder and president of the Fairfield Fresh Air Society (a rented house that was used to give poor children -- over 2,000 by 1902 -- from New York a vacation in the country); president of the Fairfiled chapter of the American Red Cross; president of the board of directors of the Gould Homestead (the Gould Vacation Home for Working Women for single, white Episcopal working girls to spend a summer vacation near the Sound); and founder of the Fairfield Memorial Library. Dr. Child was a writer of renown, particularly in history and author of some twenty books along with numerous pamphlets and papers. He also was trustee of Alfred University in New York State and Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida, and received, honoris causa, the degree of D. D. from several colleges, including Hamilton, his alma mater, the degree of Doctor of Letters from Alfred University and, from Elon College in North Carolina the honorary degrees of Doctor of Divinity (1897) and Doctor of Laws (1911) where he was visiting professor from 1902 to 1922. Additionally he was a corporate member of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions and a trustee and corresponding secretary of the Francis Asbury Palmer Fund, out of the income of which hundreds of young men and women have been able to acquire college educations.

Child Obituary

The Sherman Parsonage "The House with Sixty Closets"

THE ROGER SHERMAN PARSONAGE

Fairfield, Connecticut
by
S.C. Whitaker

December, 1961

The Judge Roger Minot Sherman House, commonly known today as the Sherman Parsonage, is a large, quiet yet imposing house situated at 500 Old Post Road in Fairfield, Connecticut. Judge Sherman, nephew of Roger Sherman, a signer of the Declaration of Independence; graduate of Yale College; and described as an orator on par with Daniel Webster[1] was in his time “undoubtedly the most eminent and conspicuous citizen of the town.”[2] A modest and reserved man who preferred the quiet of his study and the society of his cultivated friends to the burdens of public office, he nevertheless served the state in several capacities for many years, first as a member of the State Assembly and Senate and later as an Associate Justice of the State Supreme Court. He might have been a U.S. Senator but for his participation in the Hartford Convention of 1814.[3]

Born in 1775, he entered Yale at the age of fifteen, and in 1796 he married into another prominent Connecticut family when he took Elizabeth Gould as his wife. After living in New Haven for several years, the Shermans moved to Fairfield in 1807 and one year later acquired the main block of the property upon which the house stands from Abraham D. Baldwin along with several other small parcels to make an area of about nine acres.

The earliest mention of the property itself is 1653 when a Robert Hawkins described the boundaries. Henry Lyon became the first owner of the property and in 1670 sold it to a Thomas Wilson. After passing into several other hands, the land was sold to Mr. Baldwin. There is no mention of the building or buildings that existed on the property prior to the present one.[4]

The house, which was begun in 1814 and completed in 1816,[5] stands about fifteen feet from the street, and the plot slopes down from the road so that the house has an exposed basement about ten feet high at the rear. Built at a cost of $15,000, it was the largest and most impressive house in Fairfield at the time.[6] There is no record of the architect’s or builder’s names, and it appears as if Mrs. Sherman did most of the floor plans leaving only the final design and details to the architect.[7]

The plan of the original block is the traditional central hall type with two rooms on either side and has outside dimensions of 45 feet by 34 feet. It is built in the post colonial or Federal style, and the outside is very simple and plain (photos # 1, 2, 6). Plain flat boards frame each side. The pitched roof is low and has a balustrade on the front of the roof at the eaves, and the white of its shingled walls contrasts with the dark green of the wooden shutters. Instead of the present porch extending across most of the front, it had a colonial porch about six feet square.[8]

The house did not retain its original form long. Additions were begun almost immediately. Tradition says that when the velvet Wilton rugs for the two front parlors arrived from England, it was found that they were about seven feet too long. But instead of cutting the rugs off, Mrs. Sherman insisted that small wings be added to the two rooms to accommodate them.[9]

A few years later, Mrs. Sherman became a semi-invalid (probably about 1825).[10] This required that she have a first floor bedroom, and so the dining room (where the first floor bedroom is now) was moved into the room where the kitchen was originally, and an annex was built at the rear to accommodate the kitchen, a back porch and a dressing room for Mrs. Sherman’s bedroom along with a small chimney in the Northwest corner of the kitchen.

At the same time the two-story library wing with its separate porch and entrance was added, and the passageway from the front hall to the library was made by moving the bedroom wall back a few feet, and a new chimney was built to accommodate both Mrs. Sherman’s bedroom and the library. On the first floor, the library wing was really two rooms consisting of a large study with a small library to the rear. Bookshelves lined all available wall space in these two rooms and the woodwork of the library was stained red.[11] Originally the only entrance to the library was from the study, but a small stairway led from the library to another library on the second floor (the present Northeast rear bedroom), which had no other means of access.[12] The Ionic column was installed then also. Upstairs, the north wing included the above- mentioned library along with another bedroom and several huge closets.

The final addition made by the Shermans was the hall off the dining room and kitchen, made to add to the kitchen conveniences sometime before the Judge died. This consisted of several rooms and halls and had its own entrance too (probably for tradesmen) as well as a small outside porch and stair that descends to the backyard.[13]

The Judge died in 1844, and Mrs. Sherman followed him four years later. In his will the Judge, who was a lay theologian of some note, bequeathed the house, its furnishings, and its land to the First Congregational Church of Fairfield to be used as a parsonage after Mrs. Sherman died.[14] From 1848 until 1950, when the church acquired a new parsonage, a series of distinguished ministers occupied the house, including Dr. Frank S. Child, who lived in the house from 1838 to 1915.

A man with a strong feeling for American History, he was one of the founders of the Fairfield Historical Society and wrote several books and pamphlets about the house including a children’s Christmas story called The House with Sixty Closets and another book called A Country Parish. Though his writings are more concerned with the people who have lived in the house than the architectural features and are vary vague concerning dates and descriptions, they do help give a general picture of much of the house’s history. (There were no documents of Judge Sherman’s that this author could find that concern the house other than an inventory or deed of land transfer when the church acquired the land that is now in the Probate or Land Records of the Town of Fairfield.) The only other real sources of information are the brief citation in Old Houses of Connecticut and a letter written by Caroline Rankin, a daughter of Dr. E. E. Rankin, a minister who occupied the house from 1866 to 1880, describing the house as it stood in 1866. This letter is in the files of the Fairfield Historical Society. A detailed drawing of the house plans done in 1938 by the H.A.B.S. is in the files of the Yale University Art Library.

Few changes have been made to the house since Judge Sherman died. The present front porch replaced the original porch in 1856,[15] and the front hall was probably enlarged to extend the whole width of the house at about this time. By any means the hall had been enlarged before 1866, for the letter by Caroline Rankin describes the hall as extending the width of the house. By 1866 also, a rather wide stairway had been built to lead from a carriage drive to the back porch, and a photograph of 1895 shows the porch as it was then.[16] The stairway has subsequently been removed.

The last major change was made in 1905 when the ladies of the parish raised $7,000 to refurbish the house. Hardwood floors were laid in the first floor to replace the old vari-width pine boards. Plumbing along with various other modern conveniences was installed and several of the huge closets were made into rooms, and the upstairs hall running from the back hall to the old nursery was narrowed to make a bathroom. The exterior was changed very little. The shingling of the roof was replaced by tin sheathing, and the front veranda was widened and given Doric columns to support it. A balustrade was placed over the porch, and the broken lines of the numerous wings at the rear were straightened into an unbroken roofline stretching about seventy feet.[17]

DESCRIPTION AND CONSTRUCTION.

The front facade (photo #1) of the original block has the usual five bays of the Federal style. The front entrance is in the center of the block and has an elliptical fan light and side lights after the McIntyre style. The whole is framed and supported by thin, shallow pilasters below a very thin broken entablature. The front windows, as are most of the windows, are very large (3’4” x 5’10”) and simply framed without cornices. They are six over six and have very large panes separate by very thin muntins.

The front facade of the North addition with its Ionic column (photo #2) that seems somewhat incongruous in relation to the rest of the house has its own entrance. The door framing follows the same general design as that of the main entrance, but the pilasters are fluted. The windows of the door and its transom are leaded in a diamond design, and the other windows are narrower than the main front windows though the pane size and height are the same.

With the many additions to the house it is hard to say how the sides of the house were originally, although from the untouched part of the second story of the South side (photo #3) and the symmetrical layout of the front, it may be inferred that the sides were likewise originally symmetrical with each side having four windows. The gable ends (photo #4) have medallioned cornices carried across ends and medallions under the eaves. (When the North addition was made, the South gable was copied with the exception that the framing of the vertical elliptical windows was made a little more ornate.)

The rear of the house has been changed so much that it is impossible to determine how it looked originally. It is now very plain and rather austere, and the long roof line of the back addition, along with the exposed basement, heightens the impression of great size. The roof overhangs of the additions have a much greater projections than those of the rest of the house, and those windows without shutters are much later twentieth century additions (photo #5).

The final note of interest about the exterior does not really concern the house at all. Farther to the South about fifty feet from the house stands a little outbuilding (photo #6). Though not much could be gleaned from the available facts concerning the house about the building, it appears that it was built at about the time that the original block of the main house was constructed, for it served the Judge as his law office before the growth of his library forced him to build the North annex. As seen in the photo, it takes a simple pitched roof building and clothes it with classical ornament. Like the main building it is of timber frame construction and has a wooden exterior. On the front and back the boards are mounted flush to try to give the illusion of stone, while the sides are clapboarded. It is an attempt to symbolically recreate a Doric temple. It takes the general form of a temple but does not try to copy one exactly, for instead of columns there are rectangular pilasters. The pilasters “support” an entablature, but there are no triglyphs or metopes. And the pediment has an ornament that suggests a half elliptical window with fan-shaped reeding that is in the Federal style.

The simplicity of the exterior is generally carried over to the interior, and the hallway is the most ornately decorated room in the house. Almost every room on the first floor may be reached directly from the front hall. The staircase dominates the hall. It is ovaloid in the plan and turns out at the bottom. The balusters are two to a tread and are very simple and well-proportioned, but they may not be original (photo #7). The newel post certainly is not original. Up the wall runs a brown velvet rope that may be original. The stringer is beaded and the tread ends are moulded. Originally a series of closets were beneath the stairway.

It is in the hall that the most elaborate mouldings of the house are found, but even here they are reserved and conservative. The interior of the front entrance is supported by pilasters which run up to a broken entablature. Note the simplicity and stylization of the pilasters (photos #8 & 9). The only real attempt at ornamentation is in the spiral design of the beading of the pilasters except in the pilasters of the passageway leading from the front hall to the library (photo #9) where they are fluted. The only other moulding of any interest is the flat, thin cornice around the two front parlors at the ceiling.

The two front parlors are very large and almost identical except that the North window of the North parlor is very high, stretching from the floor to almost ceiling height. There were originally two windows at this end,[18] one of which lead to a closet that then opened into the vestibule of the library and is now a door. In both rooms there are fine identical fireplaces of black Italian marble[19] veined in yellow (photo #10). The design here too is very simple being only a post and lintel construction. The baseboard around each room (as in all the rooms) is rather high without ornamentation. The ceiling cornices are very flat though they are sharply in a graceful curve at the ceiling.

The dining room is reached from the South parlor through a short arched passageway containing a closet (photo #11). It too is a rather large, high ceilinged room and has no ornamentation. The fireplace here, however, is the most elaborate of the marble one (photo #12). It is very heavy, of black-veined marble, and was probably installed after the house was built since the dining room was first the kitchen. The room has two closets, one of which contains the dinner plates and has a door with a leaded window (photo #11). From this room leads doors to the modern kitchen and pantry and to the rooms of the well which are unfinished. There is an enclosed stairway that gives access to the basement and serves as a back stair to the second floor.

The first floor bedroom behind the North parlor, as noted before, has been completely changed. There is a vary simple wood mantel (photo #13) and the chief point of interest is the large closet reaching from the floor to ceiling where Mrs. Sherman kept her hats. The library has likewise been completely changed, and the two rooms, study and library, are now one room.

The upstairs is very plain. The original variwidth pine floorboards are still in place. The framing of the doors and windows is very plain and the doors themselves are of the usual design. The chief architectural features of the second floor are the wood mantels of the two front bedrooms (photo # 14). Though they cannot begin to compare with the elaborate mantels of Robert Adam, Charles Bulfinch or Samuel McIntyre, they do try to follow the pattern of McIntyre’s mantels of the Gore House in Waltham, Massachusetts, for example, or Bulfinch’s Pingree House in Salem. The mantels are supported by pilasters broken up about three-quarters of the way up by a horizontal band; they divide the architrave into thirds with the center panel the predominate one; and the mantel ledge itself has little vertical reading running around it and is broken where the pilaster meets the ledge. But of course the richness and intricacy of McIntyre’s designs, as in all other cases in the house where the McIntyre inspiration is present, is missing. Only the general outlines, which a much less talented local carpenter could execute could followed.

The rest of the upstairs is very unornamented and utilitarian. The small Southwest bedroom has a small fireplace (photo #13) with the same design as that of the downstairs bedroom and library. On the interior wall of this room in the back hall is the back stairway, which originated from the dining room and continues up to the attic. The nursery at the other end of the building also has a fireplace of the same design and leads into a small low-ceilinged bedroom over the library and into another bedroom, which was once the upstairs library, at the back of the house. The bathroom in the center of the hall was once a servant’s room. The only other thing of interest on the second floor is the profusion of closets leading from the masters bedroom over the North parlor. These closets once had very wide shelves, and the children of Dr. Rankin used to pretend that these were ships berths.[20]

As may have been noticed before, this house has an enormous number of closets. In fact, at one time the house had a total of some sixty of them; these were the inspiration for Dr. Child’s book The House with Sixty Closets. Through the years many have disappeared and many of the larger ones made into rooms, but about forty closets still remain. The reason for such an enormous number of closets seems to lie in the fact that the Judge and Mrs. Sherman were very charitable and needed the large number of closets to hold all of the articles they eventually gave away. The story goes that the house was even designed around the closets, and that even though Mrs. Sherman was an invalid, she knew by heart, without an inventory of any kind, just what each closet contained.[21]

The framing contains nothing unusual and is timber frame construction throughout. In the four corners of the original block the corner posts are exposed and cased. In the basement the hand-hewn framing timbers may be easily seen with the girts mortise-and-tenoned into four summer beams. The foundation is of rough field stone held together with lime mortar and has cut blocks above the surface of the ground. The chimneys are of red brick with fieldstone foundations and are solid and well constructed. In the basement of the South stack there are the remains of a cooking fireplace with a baking oven. In the same stack in the attic there was originally a small smoking chamber that existed until the twentieth century.[22] The roof framing uses the “rafter roof” construction method. The vertical common rafters carry the horizontal roof boards, and two sets of purlins run under the common rafters to be framed into the principal rafters. There is no ridgepole.

FINAL THOUGHTS

The house as a whole must be considered typical of its period and place, for the Puritan influences was still very strong in New England when this house was built and the English traditions lingered on. It is very poor in decoration, and its modest architectural effects depend very much on mass and disposition of parts. But the Judge showed himself to be aware of the new force in American architecture which was beginning to sweep the country, as the design of his little law office shows. It is as if symbolic eclecticism is beginning to influence the thinking of the good Judge too. Indeed, the Ionic column of the entrance to his new office is another example of symbolic thinking, and one wonders that if the Judge had begun his house a few years later, when the Classic Revival had gathered full momentum, whether he would have built in the Federal style it all, for the Greek Revival style with all of its democratic identifications would have been ideal for a man with the profession and stature he had.

But the house was not built in that style, and Judge Sherman contented himself with only a few subtle hints of symbolism, so such speculation must not be carried too far. However, the house does in large measure reflect Judge Sherman’s thinking; a man with an austere, intellectual temperament and a deacon in the church, the Judge would not or perhaps could not in a town of Fairfield’s nature build a house after the fashion of the ornate mansions of Salem or Boston. Nor did he have craftsman of the caliber of McIntyre or Bulfinch nearby, though he was in a position to import them if he had so desired, for he certainly did not stint to import many of his interior furnishings from England.[23]

As mentioned earlier, the plan is very conservative, perhaps too much so at this time when plans are growing freer. The exterior attempts to be light though the close proximity of the windows on the front with their heavy shutters dampens the effect there. But elsewhere, the thin rows of shingling and the thin strips of plain wood which frame the corners of the house offset this. The outbuilding represents in a small way the attempt to imitate stone forms in wood. The projections of the main roofline are restrained as are all external projections, and the roof line is suppressed and has a balustrade adorning the front caves.

The windows are large with large panes and thin muntins. It has the typical fan lights and oval windows. The framing of the exterior and interior of the windows tries to be thin and delicate, and pilasters from all important doors. The ceilings are very high (a little over nine feet) to give the rooms an open and airy feeling. The interior wall surfaces are simple, though wainscoting and chair rails never seem to have been present. (Whether the walls were painted or had wallpaper originally is not known). The use of elliptical arches such as the one at the junction of the front hall and side passageway (photo #9) and over the passage from the South parlor to the dining room (photo #11) are also typical.

In such ways then does the house show its typicality. It shows itself to be a very conservative Federal style house where the attempts at refinement and delicacy are made with simple forms. It attempts clean, sharp, ordered forms. It is a very good example of provincial architecture, where the styles and patterns set by the leaders of fashion in the big cultural centers are imitated in a general, but often very good, way by a local carpenter. And as seen in the rather haphazard fashion in which the house grew, with additions being added here and there as necessity and desire dictated, comfort and utility were the main objectives and any other merits the house might attain become more or less secondary byproducts.
[1] Frank S. Child, Fairfield Ancient and Modern (limited printing by the Fairfield Historical Society 1909), p. 38.
[2] Ibid., p. 38.
[3] Ibid., p. 38.
[4] Frank S. Child, A Country Parish (Boston, 1911), p. 196.
[5] Old Houses of Connecticut, ed. Bertha Trowbridge (New Haven 1923), p. 153. (Various books of Dr. Child.)
[6] Ibid., p. 153.
[7] Frank S. Child, The House with Sixty Closets (Boston, 1899), pp. 19-21.
[8] Old Houses of Connecticut, op. cit., p. 153.
[9] Old Houses of Connecticut, op. cit., p. 154.
[10] Frank S. Child, A Country Parish, p. 56.
[11] A letter written by Caroline Rankin in 1904 describing the house as it stood in 1866.
[12] Ibid.
[13] Frank S. Child, A Country Parish, p. 54.
[14] Ibid., p. 72.
[15] Old Houses of Connecticut, p. 153
[16] Frank S. Child, An Old New England Town (New York, 1895), p. 205.
[17] Frank S. Child, A Country Parish, p. 211.
[18] Miss Rankin’s letter.
[19] Ibid.
[20] Miss Rankin’s letter.
[21] Frank S. Child, A Country Parish, p. 40.
[22] Miss Rankin’s letter.
[23] Old Houses of Connecticut, p. 152.

Frank Samuel Child's books

CHILD, Frank Samuel, clergyman, author; b, Exeter, N. Y., March ü'j, 1.S51; s. H. H. and Betsey (Brand) C. ; grad. Hamilton Coll.. 1875 (D. D., 1896); grad. Union Theol. Sem., 1878; (L. H. D., Alfred Univ., 1903); m. Oct. 21, 1880, Lizzie J., d. Gen. John Lilly, of Lafayette, Ind. Lecturer on literary and hist, subjects; contb'r to the press; corporate mem. A. B. C. P. M.; trustee F. A. Palmer Fund, same. Author: An Old New England Town, 1895 S3; The Colonial Parson of New England, 1896 Bl; A Colonial Witch, 1897 Bl; A Puritan Wooing, 1897 Bl; The House with Sixty Closets, 1899 L3; An Unknown Patriot, 1899 H5; The Little Dreamer's Adventure, 1900 L3; Friend or Foe, 191X1 H5. Address: Fairflcld, Conn.
[http://books.google.com/books?id=8dDUv19AKv4C&pg=PA212&lpg=PA212&dq=%22friend+or+foe%22+by+frank+samuel+child&source=web&ots=EVZtDJKsM4&sig=J5SyfZ7EazoN5tSwUOzHw7oiZbw]

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------The Dictionary of American Authors By Oscar Fay Adams:

Child, Frank Samuel. N. T., 1854- Fail-field, Connecticut, known as a lecturer on historical subjects. The Boyhood of Beecher ; Be Strong to Hope ; The Friendship of Jesus ; An Old New England Town ; The Colonial Parson of New England ; A Colonial Witch ; A Pariten Wooing ; The House with Sixty Closets ; An Unknown Patriot ; Friend or Foe, a Tale of the War of 1812; Little Dreamer's Adventure. Ba- Hou. Le. Scr. . A Congregational clergyman of Childs,
[http://books.google.com/books?id=mx8PAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA468&lpg=PA468&dq=%22friend+or+foe%22+by+frank+samuel+child&source=web&ots=NtUePP2pmV&sig=GaR8jokwm7prmlN3b3P_-s84-HQ#PPA468,M1]

“A Puritan Wooing A Tale of Great Awakening in New England” 1898

“Friend or Foe A Tale of Connecticut During the War of 1812” 1900

“The Little Dreamer’s Adventure A Story of Droll Days and Droll Doings” 1900

“Fairfield Ancient and Modern A Brief Account, Historic and Descriptive of A Famous Connecticut Town” 1909

“An Old New England Town Sketches of Life, Scenery, Character” 1895

“An Unknown Patriot A Story of the Secret Service” 1899

“The Colonial Parson of New England A Picture” 1896

“The House with Sixty Closets A Christmas Story for Young Folks and Old Children” 1899

“A Country Parish Ancient Parsons and Modern Incidents” 1911

Don’t have

“A Colonial Witch Being a Study of the Black Art in the Colony of Connecticut”

“An Old New England Church” 1910


Through Google - A Puritan Wooing: A Tale of the Great Awakening in New England - Google Books Result
by Frank Samuel Child - 1898 - 305 pagesL. H. Wright, American fiction, 1876-1900, no. 1024.books.google.com/books?id=W3cgAAAAMAAJ... – this book can be copied (A Puritan Wooing.)

A PURITAN WOOING A Tale of the Great Awakening in New England. 1740-1750. By FRANK SAMUEL CHILD. I2mo, cloth, gilt top, $1.25. The story of a courtship which involved the play of intense, fanatic, religious feeling, and the deep forces which master the human heart in its expenence of the tender passion. The li cof the period called the " Great Awakening " has never been previously touched in fiction. This book is a gateway into a fresh realm of New England life, full of startling changes and tragic situations. A COLONIAL WITCH Mr. Child is a ripe scholar in colonial history, and has given special attention to the psychology of the witchcraft delusion. His treatment of the theme takes the form of a well-sustained and fascinating narrative. Mr. Child has made large use of town and court records, private journals, and public documents in the historic setting of the narrative. Being a Study of the Black Art in the Colony of Connecticut. By the same author. i2mo, cloth, gilt top, $1.25

The Bookman P. 390

THE BOOKMAN
AN ILLUSTRATED LITERARY JOURNAL VOLUME VIII. SEPTEMBER, 1898—FEBRUARY, 1899 " / am a Bookman."—JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL NEW YORK DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY FIFTH AVENUE AND ZIST STREET COPYRIGHT, 1899, BY DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY All Rights Reserved
(The Bookman - Google Books Result
1899A treasure."—Boston Journal of Education. A PURITAN WOOING A Tale of the Great Awakening in New England. 1740-1750. By FRANK SAMUEL CHILD. ...books.google.com/books?id=6IQTAAAAMAAJ...
_______________________________________________________
Mr. Frank Samuel Child, of Connecticut, of whom our readers have had some account in full, has written The Little Dreamer's Adventure,

(The Literary World - Google Books Result
by Samuel R. Crocker, Edward Abbott, Nicholas Paine Gilman, Madeline Vaughan Abbott Bushnell, Bliss Carman, Herbert Copeland - 1900In Connecticut during the War of 1812 Mr. Frank Samuel Child finds the materials for Friend or Foe. There are eight short stories in Mar) Tracy Earle's ...books.google.com/books?id=GDQ-AAAAMAAJ...
RootsWeb's WorldConnect Project: Sappington )

We are glad to see another book from the pen of Rev. Frank Samuel Child, author of “An Old New England Town,” “The Colonial Parson of New England,” etc. Whatever Mr. Child writes, we may be sure is of highest excellence. His latest book, “A Colonial Witch,” is of this order. This book is a keen and sympathetic study of the social conditions which prevailed in Connecticut between the years 1640 and i66o. The author is a ripe scholar in colonial history, and has given special attention to the psychology of the witchcraft delusion. His treatment of the theme takes the form of a well sustained and fascinating narrative. Mr. Child has made large use of town and court records, private journals and public documents in the historic setting of the narrative. The analysis of the witch's character is a deft and subtle piece of literary workmanship, suggestive of the deep problems connected with this popular superstition. Although the theme is a sombre one, the author charms his reader by the play of quaint fancy and genial humor. The black art was a tragic reality in the opinion of the masses. The colony of Connecticut was ore with the whole world in its ready credence. In por. traying a remarkable phase of life in this early period of American history, the author has endeavored to incite an interest that shall prove charitable in respect to our ancestors, at the same time that it shall be intelligent in its survey of the subject. I2mo., cloth, gilt top, $1.25. Sent postpaid on receipt of the price by the Baker & Taylor Co., publishers, 5 and 7 East Sixteenth street, New York.
The American Monthly Review of Reviews - Google Books Result
by Albert Shaw - 1899The "Sophie May •• books for small children have their assured ... a story by Frank Samuel Child, which takes its name from the old Sherman mansion in Fair- ...books.google.com/books?id=5NMCAAAAYAAJ...
The House with Sixty Closets (Lee & Shupard) is a story by Frank Samuel Child, which takes its name from the old Sherman mansion in Fair- field, Connecticut. It is a fantastical tale of the successive occupants of the many-closeted house.
_______________________________________________________Publishers Weekly - Google Books Result
by Publishers' Board of Trade (U.S.), Book Trade Association of Philadelphia, American Book Trade Union, Am. Book Trade Association, R.R. Bowker Company - 1894Frank Samuel Child. BAKER, VOORHIS & Co. will have several important books in their special field, full titles of which will be found elsewhere in this ...books.google.com/books?id=6gEDAAAAYAAJ...
This house has just issued " The Friendship of Jesus," an Eister booklet, by Rev. Frank Samuel Child.
_______________________________________________________
Frederick Douglass. ONE day the accustomed decorum of the Boston Radical Club was interrupted by cries of "Speech!" "Oh, yes!" "Just a few words ! " " Speech ! " to which, at intervals, a round, musical voice answered " No, no ! " and at last laughingly said: "Well, if all you want is to see me, look ! '' and up stood a tall man, probably the tallest man present ; a figure with broad, erect shoulders, graceful port, and a slightly silvered head, at that moment flung backward in mirthful defiance ; dark, steady eyes, and face like an old bronze. Holding a great cloak about him, the man stood for a moment amid applause, and then seated himself, obstinately dumb. He had nothing to say, and would not speak. This rare person was Frederick Douglass, ex-slave, Abolitionist, orator, and editor; the man to whom England gave the money to purchase his freedom ; the friend of John Brown ; the man who had been invaluable in recruiting negro regiments ; the man whose life, in spite of its multifarious outward shows was one long work of self-education and study. He wrote his own "Life and Times" in 1882, and wrote it well ; he wrote two other autobiographies earlier in life, and he appears in all the biographies and reminiscences of the Abolitionists, whom he richly repaid for their goodness to him. There was no lack of material before Mr. Charles W. Chesnutt, who adds his life to the Beacon Biographies. For many reasons his task was difficult. The most active and brilliant parts of Douglass's career were enveloped in an atmosphere of enthusiasm of which the younger generation can have little conception. Toleration there was none. The Abolitionists knew the slaveholders' present deserts and future destiny, and announced them as often as might be, and the slaveholder rejoined with the terror of the Constitution. The Abolitionists making daily sacrifices for an idea consoled themselves with their likeness to the chosen people among the Canaanites, and were happy in persecution, and their persecutor was as self- righteous as they. The fever heat registered in Harriett Martineau's " Martyr Age " burned as hotly in the veins of Maria Chapman as in those of her cousin. Wendell Phillips. Now gentleness icigns, and when any erring brother tries to arouse the old feeling in behalf of a Filipino nobody wastes eggs on him, and somebody makes a cartoon of him. It is probable that Douglass, earnest worker though he was, never actually shared the feelings of his white friends, for he was making no sacrifices, and was working to lib- crate his own. Occasionally he encountered mobs, but he never suffered seriously; as a rule he earned enough to carry out his plans, and if he had it not it came to him from some friend or group of friends. He was always in a state of tutelage to some one. but the yoke was light. He was so busy that the bare racord of his work occupies nearly all the books, and Mr. Chesnutt has deviated little from it. adorning it with the briefest touches of anecdote or epithet, and probably has come nearer to the real man than any one who has described him. (Small. May- rnrd & Co. 75C.)—JV. Y. Times Review. Frank Samuel Child. MR. CHILD, for whom Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin & Company have just published an historical story called " An Unknown Patriot'' ($1.50), asks: "How could I help reading or writing history when I came of an historic family, live in an historic house, am pastor of an historic church, and have been compelled by circumstances to take a part in the affairs of one of the most historic towns in New England ? " Mr. Child was born in New York, but the Child family for six generations are Connecticut stock, then for two generations from Boston, an-1 further back from England, where the Child Bank is one of the oldest and strongest corporations in England. As to house, Mr. Child lives in the Judge Roger M. Sherman house, given in the early part of the century to the Congregational church for a parsonage. This house has been the centre of intellectual and social life in this section for almost a century. The old clock looks down upon the family. The portraits of the Judge and his lady hang on guard in the east parlor and bestow their constant benediction. This is the house which figures in March, i goo] THE LITERARY NEWS. 73
Mr. Child's " The House with Sixty Closets." His study windows look down upon the Sound, and the old house is surrounded with mighty trees. As to church, Mr. Child is pastor of the First Church of Fairfield, one of the oldest in Connecticut, having resetted its sooth anniversary. It is one of the strongest country churches in New England, and has been served by л famous line of parsons, including such men as President Humphrey of Am- herst, Professor Atwater, and D|¿. McLean, while many eminent laymen like Roger Ltid- low, Governor Gold, General Silliman, etc., have been its efficient officers. During the past two or three years he has spoken many times before schools, colleges, literary societies, Sons or Daughters of the Revolution, etc. Various opportunities have come to him to take professional chairs in colleges and seminaries, or even to take more responsible positions, but the quiet, congenial atmosphere of a literary and historical town with the happy work of an ideal pastorate has held Mr. Child to the present order of things. Ten Years' War. MR. Rus is an expert in the matter of life among the less successful classes ia large From " A Ten Yea»' War." Copyright, 1899, by Houghton.Mlfflln A Co. EVENING IN ONE OF THE COURTS OF THE MILLS HOUSE, NEW YORK CITY. As to town, Fairfield is as full of interesting and delightful historic associations as " an egg is of meat." One never puts the plough into the furrow that he does not turn up old arrow heads, antique cannon balls, venerable coins, and like stuff. The town records, family traditions, journals, and correspondence yield a proditral harvest. Mr. Child was born in the fifties and was graduated from Hamilton College in 1875, and three vears later from Union Theological Seminary, New York. Two years ago his Alma Mater bestowed upon him the degree of Doctor of Divinity. Since his graduation from college he has contributed to the press, and had published a list of five books, all abounding in historical fact and incident. cities. He writes from the fullest and most careful observation, and his opinions as well as his facts are entitled to the most respectful consideration. This book might fitly be entitled The Blossoming of the City Desert, since it not only describes the waste places of human life in the slums and tenements of New York City, but records the sagacious efforts made to better the conditions in which the more unfortunate tenants live, anù the very encouraging results. The subject suggests a somewhat pessimistic view of prevalent discouraging facts, but Mr. Riis out of the amelioration he has witnessed is able to lend a mildly optimistic light to it. His book deserves wide and thoughtful reading; its spirit is admirable and the impression it leaves is hopeful. (Houghton, M. $1.50.)
Literary News - Google Books Result
by L. Pylodet, Augusta Harriet (Garrigue) Leypoldt - 1899Frank Samuel Child. MR. CHILD, for whom Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin & Company have just published an historical story called " An Unknown Patriot'' ($1.50), ...books.google.com/books?id=CsUEAAAAYAAJ...
Semantic Web - N3 Rules


Mr. Frank Samuel Child carries on the curious machinery of his last year's " House with Sixty Closets " with "The Little Dreamer's Adventure" (Lee & Shepard), and makes the book fully justify its subtitle of " A Story of Droll Days and Droll Doings." Many pen-and-ink drawings by Mr. C. H. L. Gebfert carry on the story's intention

Another book “Friend or Foe” about Connecticut during the War of 1812
THE BOOKMAN,
THE COLONIAL PARSON OF NEW ENGLAND. By Frank Samuel Child. New York : The Baker & Taylor Co. $1.25. OLD COLONY DAYS. Bv May Alden Ward. Boston : Roberts Brothers. $1.25. Old Colony Days, lying along somewhat similar lines, comes after the other like asphalt after cobblestones. In a style of perfect ease and simplicity, its author also has much to say of the colonial parson, whom it would be difficult, indeed, to separate from any account of the beginnings of New England. He is not, however, here made the more important figure. It is to Governor William Bradford, "the father of American history," that the opening chapter is devoted, the Rev. Cotton Mather and his contemporary brethren of the cloth receiving a second place. Under the heading " An Old-time Magistrate" there is a charming portrayal of good Judge Samuel Sewall, a princely gossip, who did for America in the seventeenth century what Pepys did for England, and Saint Simon for France. Each of these men wrote down from day to day, apparently for his own use, the occurrences of the day, the details of the life about him ; and each has given us an incomparable picture ot the world in which he lived—a picture which no historian, biographer, poet, or painter could have equalled. And they have painted three widely differing worlds. Nothing could better illustrate the difference between the countries they represent than the pages of these old diaries of the seventeenth century. Judge Sewall seems to have been in the main a genial and tender-hearted man, yet he believed in witchcraft, and attended executions. The chapter on witchcraft will perhaps be generally regarded as the most interesting in the book. The author has evidently studied this outbreak of superstition in New England thoroughly, and gives in her brilliantly written account of it a mm ¡rent story than most writers on the subject hi to offer. In connection with the colonial parson figures consp sometimes, it is pleasant to re« of his memory. This industrious and conscientious historian of the colonial parson characterises his work as " a picture," but he does not say, and possibly does not know, that the picture has been printed in detached sections, like a child's puzzle, and that it requires a good deal of ingenuity to fit the right body to the right head. It is not easy to tell without looking forward or turning back whether the character immediately under discussion be the New England parson or the Virginia clergyman. The whole book reads, indeed, much as if it had been printed directly from the author's notes, with little thought of sequence or continuity. And yet the work is valuable and even interesting in a jolting, jumping way. It reveals great research ; it is rich in anecdote ; it presents the colonial parson in every aspect by which he is known to history— asan agriculturist, as a politician, a preacher, a teacher, a writer, a scholar, a poet, a man. and, above all, as an ancestor. Certainly no fault can be found with the substance of the work ; and if it be intended for a text-book, as its appearance would seem to indicate, and thus to be taken in small, broken doses, it will doubtless serve its purpose admirably. FOLK-SONGS л tory Exen rösch. New \ It is wit!i publication of i rosch, whose su, serves to be quo; "The chief diftu active promoters ties, especially in tli lack of singers \vl slow process of ti such untrained mau conductor and the "It seems to be m possible opportunity pie who can sing a lit rus, to learn the simj if proper methods are • in a comparatively There is, perhaps, no i more authority or is К subject than Mr. Damn and inspiring work :i combined with his br founder and leader of and the People's Classes, cess of which in widely dh music are well known to ti. cial importance to any sugg in this field of work, and v to leaders and singers. The purpose of th to present a sight-s conductor can readr pose, but to urge the tor permanently su> plement a previous rosch, entitled
A colonial witch. Being a study of the black art in the colony of Connecticut,
Friend or foe. A tale of Connecticut during the war of 1812,
by Frank Samuel Child
Type:
Microform
Language:
English
Publisher:
Boston and New York, Houghton, Mifflin and Co., 1900.
Editions:
3 Editions
OCLC:
19174929

by Frank Samuel Child
Type:
Microform
Language:
English
Publisher:
New York, The Baker & Taylor Co. [1897]
Editions:
5 Editions
OCLC:
19175010
Both in the University of Washington Library in Microfiche.

Through Google - A Puritan Wooing: A Tale of the Great Awakening in New England - Google Books Result
by Frank Samuel Child - 1898 - 305 pagesL. H. Wright, American fiction, 1876-1900, no. 1024.books.google.com/books?id=W3cgAAAAMAAJ... – this book can be copied (A Puritan Wooing.)

A PURITAN WOOING A Tale of the Great Awakening in New England. 1740-1750. By FRANK SAMUEL CHILD. I2mo, cloth, gilt top, $1.25. The story of a courtship which involved the play of intense, fanatic, religious feeling, and the deep forces which master the human heart in its expenence of the tender passion. The li cof the period called the " Great Awakening " has never been previously touched in fiction. This book is a gateway into a fresh realm of New England life, full of startling changes and tragic situations. A COLONIAL WITCH Mr. Child is a ripe scholar in colonial history, and has given special attention to the psychology of the witchcraft delusion. His treatment of the theme takes the form of a well-sustained and fascinating narrative. Mr. Child has made large use of town and court records, private journals, and public documents in the historic setting of the narrative. Being a Study of the Black Art in the Colony of Connecticut. By the same author. i2mo, cloth, gilt top, $1.25

The Bookman P. 390

THE BOOKMAN
AN ILLUSTRATED LITERARY JOURNAL VOLUME VIII. SEPTEMBER, 1898—FEBRUARY, 1899 " / am a Bookman."—JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL NEW YORK DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY FIFTH AVENUE AND ZIST STREET COPYRIGHT, 1899, BY DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY All Rights Reserved
(The Bookman - Google Books Result
1899A treasure."—Boston Journal of Education. A PURITAN WOOING A Tale of the Great Awakening in New England. 1740-1750. By FRANK SAMUEL CHILD. ...books.google.com/books?id=6IQTAAAAMAAJ...
_______________________________________________________
Mr. Frank Samuel Child, of Connecticut, of whom our readers have had some account in full, has written The Little Dreamer's Adventure,

(The Literary World - Google Books Result
by Samuel R. Crocker, Edward Abbott, Nicholas Paine Gilman, Madeline Vaughan Abbott Bushnell, Bliss Carman, Herbert Copeland - 1900In Connecticut during the War of 1812 Mr. Frank Samuel Child finds the materials for Friend or Foe. There are eight short stories in Mar) Tracy Earle's ...books.google.com/books?id=GDQ-AAAAMAAJ...
RootsWeb's WorldConnect Project: Sappington )

We are glad to see another book from the pen of Rev. Frank Samuel Child, author of “An Old New England Town,” “The Colonial Parson of New England,” etc. Whatever Mr. Child writes, we may be sure is of highest excellence. His latest book, “A Colonial Witch,” is of this order. This book is a keen and sympathetic study of the social conditions which prevailed in Connecticut between the years 1640 and i66o. The author is a ripe scholar in colonial history, and has given special attention to the psychology of the witchcraft delusion. His treatment of the theme takes the form of a well sustained and fascinating narrative. Mr. Child has made large use of town and court records, private journals and public documents in the historic setting of the narrative. The analysis of the witch's character is a deft and subtle piece of literary workmanship, suggestive of the deep problems connected with this popular superstition. Although the theme is a sombre one, the author charms his reader by the play of quaint fancy and genial humor. The black art was a tragic reality in the opinion of the masses. The colony of Connecticut was ore with the whole world in its ready credence. In por. traying a remarkable phase of life in this early period of American history, the author has endeavored to incite an interest that shall prove charitable in respect to our ancestors, at the same time that it shall be intelligent in its survey of the subject. I2mo., cloth, gilt top, $1.25. Sent postpaid on receipt of the price by the Baker & Taylor Co., publishers, 5 and 7 East Sixteenth street, New York.
The American Monthly Review of Reviews - Google Books Result
by Albert Shaw - 1899The "Sophie May •• books for small children have their assured ... a story by Frank Samuel Child, which takes its name from the old Sherman mansion in Fair- ...books.google.com/books?id=5NMCAAAAYAAJ...
The House with Sixty Closets (Lee & Shupard) is a story by Frank Samuel Child, which takes its name from the old Sherman mansion in Fair- field, Connecticut. It is a fantastical tale of the successive occupants of the many-closeted house.
_______________________________________________________Publishers Weekly - Google Books Result
by Publishers' Board of Trade (U.S.), Book Trade Association of Philadelphia, American Book Trade Union, Am. Book Trade Association, R.R. Bowker Company - 1894Frank Samuel Child. BAKER, VOORHIS & Co. will have several important books in their special field, full titles of which will be found elsewhere in this ...books.google.com/books?id=6gEDAAAAYAAJ...
This house has just issued " The Friendship of Jesus," an Eister booklet, by Rev. Frank Samuel Child.
_______________________________________________________
Frederick Douglass. ONE day the accustomed decorum of the Boston Radical Club was interrupted by cries of "Speech!" "Oh, yes!" "Just a few words ! " " Speech ! " to which, at intervals, a round, musical voice answered " No, no ! " and at last laughingly said: "Well, if all you want is to see me, look ! '' and up stood a tall man, probably the tallest man present ; a figure with broad, erect shoulders, graceful port, and a slightly silvered head, at that moment flung backward in mirthful defiance ; dark, steady eyes, and face like an old bronze. Holding a great cloak about him, the man stood for a moment amid applause, and then seated himself, obstinately dumb. He had nothing to say, and would not speak. This rare person was Frederick Douglass, ex-slave, Abolitionist, orator, and editor; the man to whom England gave the money to purchase his freedom ; the friend of John Brown ; the man who had been invaluable in recruiting negro regiments ; the man whose life, in spite of its multifarious outward shows was one long work of self-education and study. He wrote his own "Life and Times" in 1882, and wrote it well ; he wrote two other autobiographies earlier in life, and he appears in all the biographies and reminiscences of the Abolitionists, whom he richly repaid for their goodness to him. There was no lack of material before Mr. Charles W. Chesnutt, who adds his life to the Beacon Biographies. For many reasons his task was difficult. The most active and brilliant parts of Douglass's career were enveloped in an atmosphere of enthusiasm of which the younger generation can have little conception. Toleration there was none. The Abolitionists knew the slaveholders' present deserts and future destiny, and announced them as often as might be, and the slaveholder rejoined with the terror of the Constitution. The Abolitionists making daily sacrifices for an idea consoled themselves with their likeness to the chosen people among the Canaanites, and were happy in persecution, and their persecutor was as self- righteous as they. The fever heat registered in Harriett Martineau's " Martyr Age " burned as hotly in the veins of Maria Chapman as in those of her cousin. Wendell Phillips. Now gentleness icigns, and when any erring brother tries to arouse the old feeling in behalf of a Filipino nobody wastes eggs on him, and somebody makes a cartoon of him. It is probable that Douglass, earnest worker though he was, never actually shared the feelings of his white friends, for he was making no sacrifices, and was working to lib- crate his own. Occasionally he encountered mobs, but he never suffered seriously; as a rule he earned enough to carry out his plans, and if he had it not it came to him from some friend or group of friends. He was always in a state of tutelage to some one. but the yoke was light. He was so busy that the bare racord of his work occupies nearly all the books, and Mr. Chesnutt has deviated little from it. adorning it with the briefest touches of anecdote or epithet, and probably has come nearer to the real man than any one who has described him. (Small. May- rnrd & Co. 75C.)—JV. Y. Times Review. Frank Samuel Child. MR. CHILD, for whom Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin & Company have just published an historical story called " An Unknown Patriot'' ($1.50), asks: "How could I help reading or writing history when I came of an historic family, live in an historic house, am pastor of an historic church, and have been compelled by circumstances to take a part in the affairs of one of the most historic towns in New England ? " Mr. Child was born in New York, but the Child family for six generations are Connecticut stock, then for two generations from Boston, an-1 further back from England, where the Child Bank is one of the oldest and strongest corporations in England. As to house, Mr. Child lives in the Judge Roger M. Sherman house, given in the early part of the century to the Congregational church for a parsonage. This house has been the centre of intellectual and social life in this section for almost a century. The old clock looks down upon the family. The portraits of the Judge and his lady hang on guard in the east parlor and bestow their constant benediction. This is the house which figures in March, i goo] THE LITERARY NEWS. 73
Mr. Child's " The House with Sixty Closets." His study windows look down upon the Sound, and the old house is surrounded with mighty trees. As to church, Mr. Child is pastor of the First Church of Fairfield, one of the oldest in Connecticut, having resetted its sooth anniversary. It is one of the strongest country churches in New England, and has been served by л famous line of parsons, including such men as President Humphrey of Am- herst, Professor Atwater, and D|¿. McLean, while many eminent laymen like Roger Ltid- low, Governor Gold, General Silliman, etc., have been its efficient officers. During the past two or three years he has spoken many times before schools, colleges, literary societies, Sons or Daughters of the Revolution, etc. Various opportunities have come to him to take professional chairs in colleges and seminaries, or even to take more responsible positions, but the quiet, congenial atmosphere of a literary and historical town with the happy work of an ideal pastorate has held Mr. Child to the present order of things. Ten Years' War. MR. Rus is an expert in the matter of life among the less successful classes ia large From " A Ten Yea»' War." Copyright, 1899, by Houghton.Mlfflln A Co. EVENING IN ONE OF THE COURTS OF THE MILLS HOUSE, NEW YORK CITY. As to town, Fairfield is as full of interesting and delightful historic associations as " an egg is of meat." One never puts the plough into the furrow that he does not turn up old arrow heads, antique cannon balls, venerable coins, and like stuff. The town records, family traditions, journals, and correspondence yield a proditral harvest. Mr. Child was born in the fifties and was graduated from Hamilton College in 1875, and three vears later from Union Theological Seminary, New York. Two years ago his Alma Mater bestowed upon him the degree of Doctor of Divinity. Since his graduation from college he has contributed to the press, and had published a list of five books, all abounding in historical fact and incident. cities. He writes from the fullest and most careful observation, and his opinions as well as his facts are entitled to the most respectful consideration. This book might fitly be entitled The Blossoming of the City Desert, since it not only describes the waste places of human life in the slums and tenements of New York City, but records the sagacious efforts made to better the conditions in which the more unfortunate tenants live, anù the very encouraging results. The subject suggests a somewhat pessimistic view of prevalent discouraging facts, but Mr. Riis out of the amelioration he has witnessed is able to lend a mildly optimistic light to it. His book deserves wide and thoughtful reading; its spirit is admirable and the impression it leaves is hopeful. (Houghton, M. $1.50.)
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by L. Pylodet, Augusta Harriet (Garrigue) Leypoldt - 1899Frank Samuel Child. MR. CHILD, for whom Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin & Company have just published an historical story called " An Unknown Patriot'' ($1.50), ...books.google.com/books?id=CsUEAAAAYAAJ...
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Mr. Frank Samuel Child carries on the curious machinery of his last year's " House with Sixty Closets " with "The Little Dreamer's Adventure" (Lee & Shepard), and makes the book fully justify its subtitle of " A Story of Droll Days and Droll Doings." Many pen-and-ink drawings by Mr. C. H. L. Gebfert carry on the story's intention

Another book “Friend or Foe” about Connecticut during the War of 1812
THE BOOKMAN,
THE COLONIAL PARSON OF NEW ENGLAND. By Frank Samuel Child. New York : The Baker & Taylor Co. $1.25. OLD COLONY DAYS. Bv May Alden Ward. Boston : Roberts Brothers. $1.25. Old Colony Days, lying along somewhat similar lines, comes after the other like asphalt after cobblestones. In a style of perfect ease and simplicity, its author also has much to say of the colonial parson, whom it would be difficult, indeed, to separate from any account of the beginnings of New England. He is not, however, here made the more important figure. It is to Governor William Bradford, "the father of American history," that the opening chapter is devoted, the Rev. Cotton Mather and his contemporary brethren of the cloth receiving a second place. Under the heading " An Old-time Magistrate" there is a charming portrayal of good Judge Samuel Sewall, a princely gossip, who did for America in the seventeenth century what Pepys did for England, and Saint Simon for France. Each of these men wrote down from day to day, apparently for his own use, the occurrences of the day, the details of the life about him ; and each has given us an incomparable picture ot the world in which he lived—a picture which no historian, biographer, poet, or painter could have equalled. And they have painted three widely differing worlds. Nothing could better illustrate the difference between the countries they represent than the pages of these old diaries of the seventeenth century. Judge Sewall seems to have been in the main a genial and tender-hearted man, yet he believed in witchcraft, and attended executions. The chapter on witchcraft will perhaps be generally regarded as the most interesting in the book. The author has evidently studied this outbreak of superstition in New England thoroughly, and gives in her brilliantly written account of it a mm ¡rent story than most writers on the subject hi to offer. In connection with the colonial parson figures consp sometimes, it is pleasant to re« of his memory. This industrious and conscientious historian of the colonial parson characterises his work as " a picture," but he does not say, and possibly does not know, that the picture has been printed in detached sections, like a child's puzzle, and that it requires a good deal of ingenuity to fit the right body to the right head. It is not easy to tell without looking forward or turning back whether the character immediately under discussion be the New England parson or the Virginia clergyman. The whole book reads, indeed, much as if it had been printed directly from the author's notes, with little thought of sequence or continuity. And yet the work is valuable and even interesting in a jolting, jumping way. It reveals great research ; it is rich in anecdote ; it presents the colonial parson in every aspect by which he is known to history— asan agriculturist, as a politician, a preacher, a teacher, a writer, a scholar, a poet, a man. and, above all, as an ancestor. Certainly no fault can be found with the substance of the work ; and if it be intended for a text-book, as its appearance would seem to indicate, and thus to be taken in small, broken doses, it will doubtless serve its purpose admirably. FOLK-SONGS л tory Exen rösch. New \ It is wit!i publication of i rosch, whose su, serves to be quo; "The chief diftu active promoters ties, especially in tli lack of singers \vl slow process of ti such untrained mau conductor and the "It seems to be m possible opportunity pie who can sing a lit rus, to learn the simj if proper methods are • in a comparatively There is, perhaps, no i more authority or is К subject than Mr. Damn and inspiring work :i combined with his br founder and leader of and the People's Classes, cess of which in widely dh music are well known to ti. cial importance to any sugg in this field of work, and v to leaders and singers. The purpose of th to present a sight-s conductor can readr pose, but to urge the tor permanently su> plement a previous rosch, entitled
A colonial witch. Being a study of the black art in the colony of Connecticut,
Friend or foe. A tale of Connecticut during the war of 1812,
by Frank Samuel Child
Type:
Microform
Language:
English
Publisher:
Boston and New York, Houghton, Mifflin and Co., 1900.
Editions:
3 Editions
OCLC:
19174929

by Frank Samuel Child
Type:
Microform
Language:
English
Publisher:
New York, The Baker & Taylor Co. [1897]
Editions:
5 Editions
OCLC:
19175010
Both in the University of Washington Library in Microfiche.