George dennison biography

Here he had a house lot given to him by the town which he occupied until , when he sold out, went to Stonington, and settled on the land, a part of which has been in the possession of his descendants until the present generation; a tract of some five hundred acres in all, lying east of Pequotsop Brook. His homestead place was bounded on the west by John Stanton's farm, now mainly owned by Joseph S.

Williams, on the south by the Mason highway, which with slight variations, is the road from Mystic Bridge to the Road church, eastward to Palmer hill, and then by Amos Richardson's land, easterly by said lots and lands of Capt. John Gallup. The first house was probably a log house, which only served a temporary purpose, and was removed in Captain Denison's life time to make room for his mansion house.

This was located in the northwest corner of his tract, a few feet west of the present dwelling of the Misses Sarah and Phebe M. The spot was undoutedly selected, with the eye of a military leader, for the purpose of defense against Indians, who were then numerous, and disputed possession of the country with the English. There is no other spot so eligeble for the purpose of defense in the neighborhood.

The house stood upon the southern slope of a narrow plot of ground about twent-five rods long, buttressed with steep ledges on every side. This acre of ground, more or less, elevated from twenty to thirty feet above the surrounding ravines, and stockaded, was impregnable against any force the Indians could muster. There was a stone fort inside of the stockade near the house, and the remains of the old wall are still pointed out.

It was removed about a hundred years ago by those who had slight appreciation of the value of historical monuments. The location is a pleasant one, standing high above the adjacent fields and looking out southward over a broad tract of intervale, once probably cultivated by the aborigines, and now lying in meadow, the best part of the neighboring farms.

To the west lies Pequod Hill, once crowned with an Indian fort, and the scene of the terrible slaughter under Capt. John Mason.

George dennison biography

To the north lies Quocataug with the Mystic Valley on the left, stretching away toward Lantern Hill; a scene of rural beauty not easily matched in the country. The land has many ledges, with loose well rounded boulders upon the top, left in the ice period, geologists tell us, and ground into their present form by the moving glaciers. It is still hard land, even for Stonington, with rough pastures which the plow has never broken and probably never will.

There are however, smooth fertile acres between. Emigrants had been here five years before Captain Denison, to spy out the land, and the best locations had already been appropriated. The isolation of the early residents of Stonington made it difficult or impossible for them to attend the nearest church at New London. They had twice petitioned the General Court at Hartford for the right to establish their own church.

Four times they were blankly refused. They were outraged when they were ordered to pay tithes for the support of the New London church and its pastor. The first spark of "taxation without representation" kindled brightly. The Stonington settlers met at Thomas Miner's, near the center of their scattered settlement, and planned their strategy. George Denison offered a bold but clever plan.

Massachusetts claimed all the territory east of the Thames "by right of conquest" in the Pequot War. It was a thin claim, since the Massachusetts militia company had arrived after John Mason and his ninety Connecticut men had destroyed the two Pequot forts, but the case was currently before the Commissioners of the United Colonies, and a petition from the inhabitants of this disputed region was sure to be welcomed at Boston.

On 16 October , Captain George Denison was sent to Boston with the petition of the settlers requesting that they be granted "the Liberties and privileges of a Township" in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. George Denison was chosen to carry the petition not only because he was a disinguished veteran of Cromwell's "Ironsides"; but his brother, Daniel Denison, was husband of Patience Dudley, the daughter of the late Colonial Governor of Massachusetts, Thomas Dudley The Massachusetts magistrates received Denison warmly; however, following the dictates of intercolonial politics, they discreetly advised the petitioners to set up their own local government.

Massachusetts used the petition to make their case regarding claims to the disputed area, and on 21 October , Massachusetts made formal claim at Hartford to land east of the Pequot Thames River. His plays were produced at the Judson Memorial Church in New York and elsewhere, and his essays and fiction appeared in many periodicals. Contents move to sidebar hide.

Article Talk. Read Edit View history. Tools Tools. Download as PDF Printable version. In other projects. Although the biography sold 20, copies and Clay remained one of Kentucky's U. Senators , Prentice received no money for the book because the Hartford publisher went bankrupt. Henry Clay also never became President of the United States as he had dreamed, losing in as he had in and would again in Meanwhile, Prentice accepted an offer to co-found the Louisville Journal newspaper in , with the twin goals of further promoting Henry Clay, and rivaling the then-dominant Louisville Public Advertiser.

Prentice soon found himself in an editorial feud with Advertiser publisher Shadrack Penn, which continued until Penn left the city in Prentice's biting editorials and the savage wit of his replies to detractors helped make the Journal the most widely circulated newspaper in western America in the next four decades. Prentice became known for militant editorials before elections, which varied little over the next 25 years despite his changing party affiliation.

He initially promoted the Whig Party. He became a party leader, attended various national conventions and also visited Washington D. In mid, as the party disintegrated, Prentice editorialized in support of the Know-Nothing party and the pro-slavery, anti-Catholic and anti-foreigner movement that reached a hysterical level in the s in many parts of the nation.

In Louisville, this culminated in the Bloody Monday riot of August 6, , in which 22 people were killed as mobs tried to prevent Irish and German citizens from voting on election day. Days before, Prentice had editorialized against the "most pestilent influence of the foreign swarms" loyal to a pope he called "an inflated Italian despot who keeps people kissing his toes all day.

On July 21, , Prentice engaged in a pistol duel with Reuben T. Durrett over statements made between their two rival newspapers. Prentice supported the Union in the s and the Constitutional Union Party in , but disagreed with many of President Lincoln's policies during the Civil War , especially the decision to emancipate slaves.

In Prentice joined a group that urged Kentucky not to secede from the Union but instead establish itself as a neutral party in the war. Nonetheless, Louisville was occupied by Union troops for almost the entire war, and resentment seethed. Both Prentice's sons joined the Confederate army, and the elder, William, died September 21, shortly after the Battle of Antietam and as Union troops massed in Louisville to attack General Braxton Bragg's forces.

Burbridge , military commander of Kentucky. After the war Prentice opposed many of the policies of Reconstruction , as did the city's other major editor, Walter N. Haldeman of the Louisville Courier , which Union forces had seized and shut in September because of Haldeman's Confederate sympathies he moved to Nashville, Tennessee , and then Madison, Georgia , and returned to Louisville a hero after the war's end.

Prentice remained as editor of the paper during and after the merger of the Louisville Courier , Louisville Journal and Louisville Democrat that created The Courier-Journal , although he soon died and Haldeman's protege and dedicated Confederate veteran Henry Watterson became editor and would write and speak widely about his Southern viewpoint although born in Washington DC as the son of a Tennessee Congressman.

He died of influenza on January 22, , less than two years after his wife, and was buried in Cave Hill Cemetery. They went to Taunton and were returning home when they heard of a band of Indians working their way westward raiding as they went. They pursued the Indians catching them just beyond the Housatonic. He assisted as magistrate to enable the Pequot chiefs designated by the English to control the remnants of the Pequots.

Numerous tracts of land were given to George, primarily for his military service, so that he had several thousand acres of land in Stonington, Norwich, Windham and some in Rhode Island. George Denison died in Hartford, October 23, , during the session of the General Court, which he was attending as Deputy. He is buried at Ancient Burying Ground , where his stone says he died in the 74 year of his age.

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