Miss Sargent, Firm Founder's Daughter, Dies
The death of Miss Laura Sargent, 92, daughter of Joseph B. Sargent, founder of the Sargent hardware Company and former mayor of New Haven, occurred yesterday at 1:30 P.M. in her home, 178 Bishop Street. Private funeral services will be held today at 2 in the parlors of Beecher and Bennett.
Miss Sargent is survived by a sister, Mrs. Samuel H. Fisher of Litchfield; a brother, John Sargent of Greenwich; and a nephew, William F. Sargent, who made his home with her for the last several years.
She was the thrid of 12 children of the late Joseph Bradford and Elizabeth Collier Sargent, Miss Sargent was born Oct. 18, 1854 in Brooklyn, NY. The family came here when she was ten. In 1878 the Sargent family lived at the corner of Elm and Church Streets, site of the present County Court House. Following the death of her father in 1907, Miss Sargent traveled extensively in Europe, especially in Italy.
She had lived in Bishop Street since 1912 when she had the home built. She was an early member of the Saturday Morning club in which she took an active interest, and was for many years secretary.
Mrs. H. Sargent Passes Away In Her 88th Year
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Long Interested in Historical Matters - Funeral Rites Private.
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Mrs. Harriet Amelia (Oaks) Sargent, widow of Henry Bradford Sargent, who died in 1927, died yesterday in her 88th year. For the last three years she lived with her daughter, Miss Elizabeth Collier Sargent, at 313 St. Ronan Street.
Funeral rites will be private.
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Many Interests
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Mrs. Sargent was interested in historical matters, was one of the founders of the Mary Clap Wooster chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution and an active member of the Connecticut society of colonial Dames. She was a member of the Fortnightly.
She was interested in many charities, and through her family had a wide acquaintance among Yale men and was a keen follower of the university's affairs. Her husband was treaturer of the Yale Field Corporation for 20 years, followed by 18 years as an elected alumni fellow of the university.
In his later years they took several Summer trips to Europe with their daughter Elizabeth, and after his death she spent many summers motoring in England with her daughter, until affairs abroad prevented it.
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Noted Family
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Ms. Sargent was born in New York City May 27, 1854, the youngest of three children of Charles Henry Oaks of this city, and his third wife Rhoda. Her great-grandfather, Nathan Oakes was the first of the family to settle in this city. He was one of the 58 members of the Second Company, Governor's foot Guard, formed marcy 2, 1775, which marched to Boston under Capt. Benedict Arnold after his historic demand for the keys to the powder house here.
Mrs. Sargent spent her first five years at her widowed father's home, and then went to live with her aunt Amelia, wife of Rev. George E. Day, later dean of the Yale Divinity school. They were residing in Walnut Hills, near cincinnati, Ohio, at the time. One of her early recllections was of being in cincinnati during the civil War and seeing President Lincoln drive by.
The Days moved to this city in 1870, when Mr. Day was appointed to the holmes professorship of the hebrew language and literature at the Yale Divinity school. He was dean from 1888 to 1895.
Through her brother she met Henry Bradford Sargent, the eldest son of Joseph B. Sargent, who moved to New Haven when the Sargent & Co. factory moved here in 1864. They were married in her uncle's house Dec 4, 1879. They lived in the old Bacon house at 247 church treet which they later purchased and where she lived until 1938.
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Had Five Children
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She had five children, Elizabeth Collier Sargent, unmarried, who retired a few years ago from the staff of the Ethel Walker School of Simsbury, and has since been living with her mother; Ziegler Sargent, who is vice-president and treasurer of Sargent & co.; Rhoda Miles Sargent, the widow of Robert F. Tilney, proprietor of the Pettibone Tavern, Westogue, and who has two married children, Bradford S. Tilney of Cheshire and Sylvia, M., the wife of Henry H. Skerrett, Jr., of Weatogue; Murray Sargent, who has four sons, Murray, Jr., (married and father of Murray 3d) James C., Henry B. and John M.; and Bradford Sargent, who died in boyood.
Ziegler Sargent exemplified for New Haveners the life of service that need not be spectacular, or even very public, to be productive. He spent his life in supporting the growth and improvement of the family business, of Hopkins Grammar School and Yale University and of New Haven. He will be long remembered for his warm, friendly, and conscientious contributions to the welfare of the people and the institutions with which he was associated.
At Sargent & Company, where he was vice president and treasurer when he retired in 1951, he spent a half-century in the firm's financial departments and his lasting testimonial there is the Sargent retirement plan which was set up along plans he had worked out after long study. At Hopkins Grammar School he had been secretary and treasurer and was a trustee in later years. He followed his father, who had been a member of the Yale Corporation, in active support of University objectives over the years - and when he retired in 1951 he returned to Yale to work for, and win, the Master of Arts degree which he had neglected to pursue in his early college days.
Mr. Sargent typified the best traditions of New England reserve, responsibility, and lack of pretense. He was retiring in social and business contacts but extremely warm and humane in all relationships once they were established. Throughout his working life he rode the same bicycle daily to the Sargent plant - and he took it with him to Yale when he resumed studies at 70. At Sargent and Company he not only directed the concern's financial programs, he also became the chief custodian of all historical material about the century-old firm.
Ziegler Sargent was a quiet, steady, constructive influence wherever he went. In his passing his family and the community have both lost a heartening personality.
In the death of Ziegler Sargent, New Haven has lost another link with a proud and constructive community tradition. He was a member of a family which has done much to shape the New Haven that we know today. At the Sargent hardware plant in Water Street, at Yale, at the Hopkins Grammar School, and in a host of other community endeavors, Ziegler Sargent brought to his many duties and voluntary burdens a sense of history, of continuity, or relationship between yesterday and tomorrow.
At Sargent & Company he was for many years the vice president and treasurer of the firm - and the chief conservator of its records and its history. Within his own family he was an ardent genealogist and his small but widely distributed news sheet, "Sargentrivia", brought news of family doings to members of the family in all parts of the world. When he retired in 1951, at the age of 69, Mr. Sargent turned to a wider field of history and enrolled at Yale - as its oldest matriculating student - in pursuit of the M. A. which he had not sought in his first years at college. He received this degree last year.
Ziegler Sargent was retiring by nature, but warm and humane in all his relationships. His familiar figure on the same bicycle which he rode summer and winter, for almost 50 years between his Bishop Street home and the Sargent factory, was known to a whole generation of New Haven workmen with whom he shared the trek to the job each day. He gave quiet devotion to his interests in the development of the Sargent family business. The Sargent retirement program which was instituted a few years ago along lines he charted is a testamony to his concern for the men and women with whom he worked. He gave the same devotion in more general terms to Yale, to Hopkins - and to all New Haven. His sincerity, his gentleness, and his alert interest in the common welfare will all be remembered - and missed.
JBS, during a whooping cough epidemic, wrote to his wife Florence who was visiting in Lakewood NJ:
...This forenoon I spent an hour or more playing with Lawton, Bradford and with Bessie's older children.2
JBS, during a whooping cough epidemic, wrote to his wife Florence who was visiting in Lakewood NJ:
...This forenoon I spent an hour or more playing with Lawton, Bradford and with Bessie's older children.2