Hoadley

ing to genius. With no schooling in that field
and little schooling of any character, as early as
1795 he was credited with designing the Con-
gregational and Episcopal churches then build-
ing in Waterbury, both of which were greatly
admired at the time and became famed through-
out the state. In 1800 he planned and built in
Waterbury a beautiful mansion for Col. William
Leavenworth, which stood until 1905. Between
1800 and 1802 he designed and built the house
of Judge William Bristol, facing New Haven
Green. The front entrance of this house, now
preserved in the Metropolitan Museum in New
York, is an almost faultless design of its kind and
shows that at the time it was built Hoadley had
somehow, somewhere, become familiar with the
principles of classical style. He was "self-
taught," but what books he got hold of and mas-
tered are unknown. In 1805 he built in Water-
bury a house for Judge John Kingsbury. In
1814-15 he built in New Haven the North
Church on New Haven Green, his master work.
Any architect, wherever schooled, might be
proud of this structure. Hoadley also designed
churches in Bethany (1809), Orange (1810),
Norfolk (1815), and Milford (1823), and
churches in Southington, Cheshire, Monroe, and
Huntington, Conn., are attributed to him. In
New Haven he was the architect for the Bennett
house, 86 Broadway (1805?), and the Nathan
Smith (1816), David Curtis De Forest (1820-
21), Kingsley (1824-25), Jonas Blair Bowditch
(1815-20?), Rev. Nathaniel Taylor (1815?),
Staples (1820-21), and Dexter houses. The two
last, both on Church Street, are now gone, as
well as the Ebenezer Johnson house, which stood
on Chapel Street next to the Thomas Darling
house, later the home of the Quinnipiac Club.
For Col. Daniel Beecher he built at Naugatuck
a great farmhouse, now demolished; for Darius
Beecher he built in Bethany a house noted for
its delicate paneling, mantelpieces, and ballroom.
The Eli Terry house at Greystone, Conn., is also
attributed to Hoadley. Between 1824 and 1827
he built, and probably designed, the Tontine Ho-
tel in New Haven, recently demolished. He is
also credited by J. Frederick Kelly with design-
ing the Huggins house, 32 Elm St., and the beau-
tiful ballroom occupying the third floor of the
house at 35 Elm St., New Haven. His last no-
table design was the Samuel Russell mansion
(1828) in Middletown, still unsurpassed in Mid-
dlesex County for dignity and "grand air."
Hoadley broke down in middle life and returned
to Waterbury, where he died in July 1839. It
was said then of him: "He had a sound judgment,
a well-balanced mind, a generous and honest

Hoadley
heart" (Bronson, post, p. 396). The late Fred-
erick John Kingsbury, who as a boy knew Hoad-
ley intimately, described him as a large fine-
looking man. A slate tablet was erected to his
memory in the vestibule of the North Church in
1915 and in 1924 a tablet was placed in the Mat-
tatuck Historical Society in Waterbury, where
there is a comprehensive collection of photo-
graphs of his designs, Hoadley's works show in
every instance taste, refinement, invariable pro-
priety, and the translation of the orders and clas-
sical details from stone to wood in a manner
amounting to genius. No man of his time sur-
passed him in church and domestic architec-
ture ; few equaled him. His North Church on
New Haven Green in particular sustains the
great tradition of so-called "colonial" architec-
ture. Hoadley was married, about 1798, to Jane
Hull, She died some months later and about
1805 he was married to Rachel Beecher of Kent
[Henry Bronson, The Hist, of Waterbury, Conn.
(1858); F. B. Trowbridge, The Hoadley Geneal
(1894) ; Jos. Anderson, The Town and City of Water-
bury (1896); G. D. Seymour, "David Hoadley: The
'Self-Taught* Architect, 1774-1839," Cat. Third Ann.
Exhibition, the Architectural Club of New Haven
(1922), and article in Art and Progress, Apr. 1912; F.
J. Kingsbury, A Narrative and Documentary Hist, of
St. John's Protestant Episc. Ch-----of Waterbury Conn.
(1907) ; Waterbury American, Apr. 19, 1910; Saturday
Chronicle (New Haven), Jan. 22, 1916; manuscript
material in the possession of the author of this sketch.]
G.D.S.
HOADLEY, JOHN CHIPMAN (Dec. 10,
r8i8~0ct. 21, 1886), civil engineer, mechanical
engineer, manufacturer, was born at Martins-
burg, Lewis County, N. Y., the son of Maj. Les-
ter and Sarah (Chipman) Hoadley. He was de-
scended from William Hoadley (or Hoadle)
who emigrated from England to America before
1663 and settled eventually in Branford, Conn.
His father, a fairly well-to-do farmer, moved the
family in 1824 to Utica, N. Y., where John grew
up. He attended the common schools, spent two
years in a machine and pattern shop in Utica,
and after a few months as rodman on the sur-
vey for the railroad between Utica and Bingham-
ton, returned to the Utica Academy for a year of
technical study. In 1836 he obtained work with
the engineers surveying for the enlargement of
the Erie Canal, and after progressing through
the position of rodman, leveler, surveyor, and
draftsman, he was put in charge of that section
of the work between Utica and Rome, N. Y.
His method of recording the location of the old
and new lines of the canal was of such value in
the settlement of claims against the state that he
was retained until 1844, when he received an
offer of seven hundred dollars a year from Hora-