CHAPTER VIII.

–––––– ASAPH HALL, CARPENTER.

Like many other impecunious Americans (Angeline Stickney included), Asaph Hall, carpenter, and afterwards astronomer, came of excellent family. He was descended from John Hall, of Wallingford, Conn., who served in the Pequot War. The same John Hall was the progenitor of Lyman Hall, signer of the Declaration of Independence and Governor of Georgia. The carpenter’s great-grandfather, David Hall, an original proprietor of Goshen, Conn., was killed in battle near Lake George on that fatal 8th of September, 1755.[1] His grandfather, Asaph Hall 1st, saw service in the Revolution as captain of Connecticut militia. This Asaph and his sister Alice went from Wallingford about 1755, to become Hall pioneers in Goshen, Conn., where they lived in a log house. Alice married; Asaph prospered, and in 1767 built himself a large house. He was a friend of Ethan Allen, was with him at the capture of Ticonderoga, and was one of the chief patriots of Goshen. He saw active service as a soldier, served twenty-four times in the State legislature, and was a member of the State convention called to ratify the Federal Constitution. Hall Meadow, a fertile valley in the town of Goshen, still commemorates his name. He accumulated considerable property, so that his only child, the second Asaph Hall, born in 1800 a few months after his death, was brought up a young gentleman, and fitted to enter Yale College. But the mother refused to be separated from her son, and before he became of age she set him up in business. His inheritance rapidly slipped away; and in 1842 he died in Georgia, where he was selling clocks, manufactured in his Goshen factory.

Footnote 1:

_See Wallingford Land Records, vol. 13, p. 541._

Asaph Hall 3rd, born October 15, 1829, was the eldest of six children. His early boyhood was spent in easy circumstances, and he early acquired a taste for good literature. But at thirteen he was called upon to help his mother rescue the wreckage of his father’s property. Fortunately, the Widow, Hannah (Palmer) Hall, was a woman of sterling character, a daughter of Robert Palmer, first of Stonington, then of Goshen, Conn. To her Asaph Hall 3rd owed in large measure his splendid physique; and who can say whether his mental powers were inherited from father or mother?

For three years the widow and her children struggled to redeem a mortgaged farm. During one of these years they made and sold ten thousand pounds of cheese, at six cents a pound. It was a losing fight, so the widow retired to a farm free from mortgage, and young Asaph, now sixteen, was apprenticed to Herrick and Dunbar, carpenters. He served an apprenticeship of three years, receiving his board and five dollars a month. During his first year as a journeyman he earned twenty-two dollars a month and board; and as he was still under age he gave one hundred dollars of his savings to his mother. Her house was always home to him; and when cold weather put a stop to carpentry, he returned thither to help tend cattle or to hunt gray squirrels. For the young carpenter was fond of hunting.

One winter he studied geometry and algebra with a Mr. Rice, principal of the Norfolk Academy. But he found he was a better mathematician than his teacher. Indeed, he had hardly begun his studies at McGrawville when he distinguished himself by solving a problem which up to that time had baffled students and teachers alike. But this is anticipating.

Massachusetts educators would have us believe that a young man of twenty-five should have spent nine years in primary and grammar schools, four years more in a high school, four years more at college, and three years more in some professional school. Supposing the victim to have begun his career in a kindergarten at the age of three, and to have pursued a two-years’ course there, at twenty-five his education would be completed. He would have finished his education, provided his education had not finished him.

Now at the age of twenty-four or twenty-five Asaph Hall 3rd only began serious study. He brought to his tasks the vigor of an unspoiled youth, spent in the open air. He worked as only a man of mature strength can work, and he comprehended as only a man of keen, undulled intellect can comprehend. His ability as a scholar called forth the admiration of fellow-students and the encouragement of teachers. The astronomer Brünnow, buried in the wilds of Michigan, far from his beloved Germany, recognized in this American youth a worthy disciple, and Dr. Benjamin Apthorp Gould, father of American astronomy, promptly adopted Asaph Hall into his scientific family.

If our young American’s experience puts conventional theories of education to the blush, much more does his manhood reflect upon the theory that unites intellectuality with personal impurity. The historian Lecky throws a glamor over the loathesomeness of what is politely known as the social evil, and calls the prostitute a modern priestess. And it is well known that German university students of these degenerate days consider continence an absurdity. Asaph Hall was as pure as Sir Gallahad, who sang:

My good blade carves the casques of men, My tough lance thrusteth sure, My strength is as the strength of ten, Because my heart is pure.

Let it be conceded that this untutored American youth had had an excellent course in manual training—anticipating the modern fad in education by half a century. However, he had never belonged to an Arts and Crafts Movement, and had never made dinky little what-nots or other useless and fancy articles. He had spent eight years at carpenter work; three years as an apprentice and five years as a journeyman, and he was a skilful and conscientious workman. He handled his tools as only carpenters of his day and generation were used to handle them, making doors, blinds, and window-sashes, as well as hewing timbers for the frames of houses. Monuments of his handiwork, in the shape of well-built houses, are to be seen in Connecticut and Massachusetts to this day. Like other young men of ability, he was becomingly modest, and his boss, old Peter Bogart, used to say with a twinkle in his eye, that of all the men in his employ, Asaph Hall was the only one who didn’t know more than Peter Bogart.

And yet it was Asaph Hall who showed his fellow carpenters how to construct the roof of a house scientifically. “Cut and try” was their rule; and if the end of a joist was spoilt by too frequent application of the rule, they took another joist. But the young carpenter knew the thing could be done right the first time; and so, without the aid of text-book or instructor, he worked the problem out, by the principles of projection. The timbers sawed according to his directions fitted perfectly, and his companions marveled.

To himself the incident meant much, for he had proved himself more than a carpenter. His ambition was aroused, and he resolved to become an architect. But a kindly Providence led him on to a still nobler calling. In 1854 he set out for McGrawville thinking that by the system of manual labor there advertised he could earn his way as he studied. When the stage rolled into town, whom should he see but Angeline Stickney, dressed in her “bloomer” costume!