Portal:Connecticut/Selected biography/1
James Morris III ((1752-01-19)January 19, 1752 – (1820-04-20)April 20, 1820) was a Continental Army officer from Connecticut during the American Revolutionary War and founder of the Morris Academy, a pioneer in coeducation.
Born in Litchfield County, Connecticut, James Morris spent his early life hoping and training to be minister. However, after graduating from Yale College, Morris accepted a commission of First Lieutenant from the Continental Army and joined the fight for American Independence. Morris was captured during the Battle of Germantown and spent most of the remaining war in captivity. Upon his release, Morris was promoted to the rank of Captain and supported Alexander Hamilton in the Siege of Yorktown. When he returned from the war, Morris began and ran an academy which trained both boys and girls together, a rarity at the time. James Morris died in 1820. In 1859 Morris's hometown (South Farms, Connecticut) was renamed Morris is his honor.
Portal:Connecticut/Selected biography/3
Alphonse "Buddy" Fletcher, Jr. (born 1966) is an African-American philanthropist who had previously been a successful money manager. Fletcher first became notable when employed by Kidder, Peabody & Co. During this time, he had an agreement entitling him to 25% of the profits he earned for the firm. However, when he generated $25 million one year, the firm did not uphold its agreement, and Fletcher sued for racial discrimination and US$3 million in back pay. He eventually won an arbitration award of $1.3 million. Fletcher had worked at Bear Stearns before working for Kidder and founded his own firm, Fletcher Asset Management, after the dispute with Kidder Peabody. Having donated tens of millions of dollars to various charitable causes, Fletcher has become a major philanthropist. He has established several lasting legacies with his charitable efforts; two such efforts include the establishment of the Fletcher Foundation and the endowment of a University Professorship at Harvard University.
Portal:Connecticut/Selected biography/4
Simeon E. Baldwin (February 5, 1840 – January 30, 1927), jurist, law professor and governor of Connecticut, was the son of jurist, Connecticut governor and U.S. Senator
Roger Sherman Baldwin and
Emily Pitkin Perkins. He was born in New Haven, which continued to be his home throughout his long life; in spite of his participation in activities of national and international importance, he was associated in a peculiar and intimate way with the political, legal, and intellectual life of his native town and state for more than half a century. On 19 October, 1865 he married Susan Mears Winchester, daughter of Edmund Winchester and Harriet Mears. Simeon and Susan had three children: Florence, Roger and Helen. As a boy he attended the
Hopkins Grammar School in
New Haven, Connecticut. Ties of loyalty and interest bound him to this school for the rest of his life. Active in all its alumni work, he was, more specifically, for many years president of its board of trustees; in 1910, on the occasion of the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the school, he delivered a discourse on its history.
Portal:Connecticut/Selected biography/5
Oliver Ellsworth (April 29, 1745 – November 26, 1807), an
American lawyer and politician, was a revolutionary against
British rule, a drafter of the
United States Constitution, and third
Chief Justice of the United States. On June 20, 1787, while at the
Federal Convention, Ellsworth moved to strike the word
National from the May 30, 1787 motion made by
Edmund Randolph of
Virginia, that called for the government to be called a
National Government of United States. Ellsworth moved that the government continue to be called the
United States Government. Oliver Ellsworth was born in
Windsor, Connecticut, to Capt. David and Jemima Leavitt Ellsworth. He entered
Yale in 1762, but transferred to the
College of New Jersey (later
Princeton) at the end of his second year. He continued to study
theology and received his
A.B. degree after 2 years. Soon afterward, however, Ellsworth turned to the law. After four years of study, he was admitted to the bar in 1771 and later became a successful lawyer.
Portal:Connecticut/Selected biography/6
Nathan Hale (June 6, 1755 – September 22, 1776) was a soldier for the
Continental Army during the
American Revolutionary War. Widely considered America's first
spy, he volunteered for an intelligence-gathering mission, but was captured by the British. He is best remembered for his speech before being hanged following the
Battle of Long Island, in which he reportedly said, "I only regret that I have but one life to give my country." Hale has long been considered an American hero and, in 1985, he was officially designated the state hero of Connecticut. A statue of Nathan Hale is located at the
CIA's headquarters in Langley, Virginia. Captain Nathan Hale was born in
Coventry, Connecticut in 1755. In 1768, when he was thirteen years old, he was sent with his brother Enoch to
Yale College. Nathan was a classmate of fellow patriot spy
Benjamin Tallmadge.
Portal:Connecticut/Selected biography/7
Josiah Willard Gibbs (February 11, 1839 – April 28, 1903) was an American theoretical
physicist,
chemist, and
mathematician. One of the greatest American scientists of all time, he devised much of the theoretical foundation for
chemical thermodynamics as well as
physical chemistry. As a
mathematician, he invented
vector analysis (independently of
Oliver Heaviside). It is in good part thanks to Gibbs that much of physical and chemical theory has since been exposited using vector analysis.
Yale University awarded Gibbs the first American
Ph.D. in
engineering in 1863, and he spent his entire career at Yale. His thesis was entitled:
On the Form of the Teeth of Wheels in Spur Gearing. In 1901, Gibbs was awarded the highest possible honor granted by the international scientific community of his day, granted to only one scientist each year: the
Copley Medal of the
Royal Society of London, for his greatest contribution, that being "the first to apply the
second law of thermodynamics to the exhaustive discussion of the relation between chemical, electrical, and thermal energy and capacity for external work."
Portal:Connecticut/Selected biography/9
Ethan Allen (January 21, 1738 [O.S. January 10, 1737] – February 12, 1789) was a farmer, businessman, land speculator, philosopher, writer, and American Revolutionary War patriot, hero, and politician. He was an early American revolutionary and guerrilla leader who, before the war, fought against the Province of New York's attempts to take control of the New Hampshire Grants. He is probably most widely known for his participation in the May 10, 1775 capture of Fort Ticonderoga, and for later political and military activities leading first to the formation of the Republic of Vermont and then to Vermont's statehood. Ethan Allen was born in Litchfield, Connecticut, the first-born child of Joseph and Mary Baker Allen. The family moved to Cornwall shortly after his birth. Seven siblings, all of whom survived to adulthood, joined the family between Allen's birth and 1751.
Portal:Connecticut/Selected biography/10
Craig Andrew Breslow (born August 8, 1980, in
New Haven, Connecticut) is a
Major League Baseball relief pitcher for the
Oakland Athletics. He throws left-handed, and is considered a
lefty specialist. Through 2008, he held major league batters to a .163
batting average with runners in scoring position (and .116 with two outs and runners in scoring position), and lefties hit only .188 against him, with a .256
slugging percentage. Breslow was given the nickname "smartest man in baseball" by
Minneapolis Star Tribune Twins beat writer La Velle E. Neal. Breslow attended
Trumbull High School in
Trumbull, Connecticut, graduating in 1998, and was a standout in soccer and baseball. When Breslow was 12 years old, his sister Lesley—two years older—was diagnosed with pediatric
thyroid cancer. This experience led Breslow to take an interest in
molecular biophysics and
biochemistry. Later in life, Breslow formed a
non-profit foundation to help children with cancer.
Portal:Connecticut/Selected biography/12
Charles Edward Ives (October 20, 1874 – May 19, 1954) was an American
modernist composer. He is widely regarded as one of the first American composers of international significance. Ives' music was largely ignored during his life, and many of his works went unperformed for many years. Over time, Ives came to be regarded as an "American Original"; Ives combined the American popular and church-music traditions of his youth with European art music, and was among the first composers to engage in a systematic program of
experimental music, with
musical techniques including
polytonality,
polyrhythm,
tone clusters,
aleatoric elements, and
quarter tones, thus foreshadowing virtually every major musical innovation of the 20th century. Charles Ives was born in
Danbury,
Connecticut, the son of George Ives, a
U.S. Army bandleader in the
American Civil War, and his wife Mary Parmelee.
Portal:Connecticut/Selected biography/13
Bradley David "Brad" Ausmus (born April 14, 1969, in
New Haven, Connecticut) is an American
catcher in
Major League Baseball for the
Los Angeles Dodgers. Entering the 2009 season, he ranked 9th in major league history in career games as a catcher (1,887), second in
putouts (12,473) and
total chances (13,489), and third in
fielding percentage (.994). He is a three-time
Gold Glove Award winner (2001-02, 2006). Through 2008, he also ranked second all-time among all Jewish major leaguers in career games played, fifth in
hits (1,537), and eighth in
home runs (79; just ahead of
Gabe Kapler and
Ryan Braun) and
runs batted in (596), trailing only
Hank Greenberg and
Shawn Green in all three categories. He also won the January 2007
Darryl Kile Award "for integrity and courage," presented annually by local chapters of the
Baseball Writers' Association of America (BBWAA) to players on the Astros and
St. Louis Cardinals.
Portal:Connecticut/Selected biography/14
David Wooster (March 13, 1711 [
O.S. March 2, 1710] – May 2, 1777) was an American general who served in the
French and Indian War and in the
American Revolutionary War. He died of wounds sustained during the
Battle of Ridgefield, Connecticut. Cities, schools, and public places are named after him. He has been called "a largely forgotten hero of the Revolution." David Wooster was born in
Stratford,
Connecticut. He entered
Yale College in 1735, and graduated in 1738. In 1739, following the outbreak of
war between Britain and Spain, he joined the provincial militia as a lieutenant, but apparently saw no action. In 1741 he was named lieutenant of a ship of the provincial
guarda-costa, or
coast guard, which the colony had established to protect against potential Spanish attack. On March 6, 1745, Wooster married Marie Clapp, the daughter of Yale's president,
Thomas Clapp
Portal:Connecticut/Selected biography/15
Dana White (born July 28, 1969 in Manchester, Connecticut) is the current President of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), a mixed martial arts organization based in the United States. Born in Manchester, Connecticut, White grew up in Las Vegas, Boston and Levant, Maine. White is a fierce Boston Red Sox fan. During his youth, he bounced back and forth between Las Vegas and Maine. He attended college in Boston for two years but did not finish; however, while there he did launch a boxing program for inner-city children. In 1992, White established Dana White Enterprises in Las Vegas. He conducted aerobics classes at three gyms in the Las Vegas area and began managing MMA fighters Tito Ortiz and Chuck Liddell. White and his wife Anne have two sons and a daughter.
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