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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.
Simeon Eben 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.
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.
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.
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."
Joseph Isadore "Joe" Lieberman (born February 24, 1942) is the juniorUnited States Senator from Connecticut. First elected to the Senate in 1988, Lieberman was elected to a fourth term on November 7, 2006. In the 2000 United States presidential election, Lieberman was the Democratic nominee for Vice President, running with presidential nominee Al Gore, becoming the first Jewish candidate on a major American political party presidential ticket. The Gore–Lieberman ticket won the popular vote but ultimately failed to gain the electoral votes needed to win the controversial election. Lieberman ran for re-election to the U.S. Senate while he was also Gore's running mate, and he was re-elected by the voters of Connecticut. He was an unsuccessful candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in the 2004 presidential election. Lieberman has been officially listed in Senate records for the 110th and 111th Congresses as an "Independent Democrat".
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.
Charles Edward Ives (October 20, 1874 – May 19, 1954) was an American modernistcomposer. 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.
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
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