Item #3740 [Meeting Minutes for the Wide Awakes of Seymour, Connecticut.]. George C. Cary.
[Meeting Minutes for the Wide Awakes of Seymour, Connecticut.]
[Meeting Minutes for the Wide Awakes of Seymour, Connecticut.]

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[Meeting Minutes for the Wide Awakes of Seymour, Connecticut.]

Seymour, Connecticut, 1860. 8vo, half calf and paste paper over boards. 72 pp. of manuscript.

The minutes for the Seymour, Connecticut chapter of the Wide Awakes, the widespread political club and paramilitary organization that rallied in support of Lincoln's presidential candidacy in 1860.

Founded in March by “five young dry goods clerks” in Hartford, Connecticut, the movement spread throughout the North by November. Meetings were held at the Republican Club Room in Seymour and fostered the creation of various committees for recruiting, organizing, and fundraising (primarily for the Wide Awake uniform of black cape, cap, and long torch or lantern on a pole).

The first page records the group’s “decision to organize a Wide Awake Club in Seymour” and “to be governed by the rules & regulations of the Republican Wide Awake Club of Waterbury till we have time to draft & adopt others better to our circumstances.” 51 numbered signatures follow, three of which were later crossed-out. The following entry makes note of a meeting of the Republicans of Seymour which was held at their club room on Sept. 17th, resulting in the appointment of a committee to canvass the town of Seymour—a tactic widely used by the Wide Awakes. Five districts of Seymour are then listed with the names of the Wide Awake members assigned to each. At this same meeting, there is also a motion to create a committee to raise money for Wide Awake uniforms, and a hapless Peter Worth is apprehended "playing Eavesdropes's under the window." Amidst the official business, the meetings are rife with small-town interest.

During the next meeting on Sept. 25th, the canvassing committee, the matter of uniforms, and the intention to nominate town officers are all touched upon. Mention is also made of the Wide Awake club having received an invitation to join the New Haven club on their excursion to New York on the 3rd of Oct. By Sept. 25th, Peter is now reported to have "caught a severe cold…caused by laying under the window." The following passages from this meeting conjure a lively image of the gathering:

Business being disposed of Mr. French was called on for a speech. He arose and was greeting with tremendous applause. He gave a description of the Norwalk Wide Awakes and the meeting in that place gave Mr. Douglas a hoeing over wound up on the Tariff question and took his seat in a high fever… Mr. Devine was then called on and the Spirit moving him in Sundry places He Rose and Said He had Dreamed of Standing on a mountain top and the Camps of the [Philistines] was around and beneath him He gave a Description of those Camps and of the Republican luminous Circle and Bringing Down the House in several places at length seeing some of the unworthy Wide Awakes fast asleep Catching fly's He rested from his arduous labor’s

At a later meeting, following discussion about joining forces with the neighboring Oxford Wide Awake club for an event, "it was decided that this club was not half Wide Awake enough But that they deserved the name our Opponents give us as Fast Asleeps." The club considered collaboration with both the Oxford and the New Haven chapters. Passing mention during this meeting is made of the contemporaneous “glorious struggle of Freedom & Slavery.”

Though never officially unified under a national organization, the Wide Awakes had an extremely powerful presence throughout the North during the run-up to President Lincoln's election, and members were often the first to enlist in the Union Army.

The first 14 pp. of this volume are dedicated to the Seymour Wide Awake meetings, while the rest are filled with sums, notes, and amateur but amusing doodles, with occasional references to the Wide Awake meetings.

CONDITION: Rubbed, damage to top edge of first few leaves with bit of loss to text on first page.

Item #3740

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