Before he was twenty he set up in business for himself. He had saved $100; his father, still poor, gave him $300; he bought land for his plant for $700 on long credit. After years of great struggle he succeeded in business and developed the process by which instead of employing one hand for every one hundred sides he could tan 40,000 with twenty lads and the cost was reduced from twelve cents a pound to four cents. The quality was improved even more than the cost was reduced. When the war of 1812 broke out he had practically the only important tannery in the United States, but the war scare and attendant evils led to his failure in 1815. He was now 45 years old with a wife and nine children. He went to work in a factory for day wages to keep his family supplied with the necessities of life. By some misunderstanding and a combination of law suits his patents were lost to him.

When Colonel Edwards failed in 1815 he owed considerable sums of money and nine years later the courts released him from all obligations, yet between the age of 69 and 75 he paid every cent of this indebtedness amounting to $25,924.

The chief interest in Colonel Edwards centers in his children. When his failure came there were nine children, five boys and four girls. The youngest was a few months old and the eldest 19. Seven of them were under 12 years of age. In the first four years of their reverses two others were born, so that his large family had their preparation and start in life in the years of struggle. Nevertheless they took their places among the prosperous members of the Edwards family. The eldest son, William W. Edwards, was one of the eminently successful men of New York. He lived to be 80 years old and his life was fully occupied with good work. He was engaged in the straw goods business in New York; helped to develop the insurance business to large proportions; organized the Dime Savings Bank of Brooklyn, of which he was treasurer and cashier. He was one of the founders of the American Tract Society and of the New York Mercantile Library. He was a member of the State legislature for several terms.

Henry Edwards was one of Boston's most eminent merchants and a most useful man. He had the only strictly wholesale silk house in Boston for nearly half a century. He was born in Northampton, 1798. At the age of fifteen he entered the employ of a prominent Boston importing house and began by opening the store, building the fires, and carrying out goods. By the time he was twenty he was the most trusted employee. He was a born trader. His brother in New York knowing that twist buttons were scarce in that city suggested that Henry buy up all there were in Boston before the dealers discovered the fact that they were scarce in New York and send them on to him. They cleared $500 in a few weeks. He was an earnest student. Not having had the advantages of an education he made up for it by studying evenings. They imported their silks from France which led him to study French until he was accomplished in the art of reading and speaking the French language. It is rather remarkable that learning the language in this way, he was able to go to France and out-rank most foreigners in Parisian society. An Edwards did not absolutely need the college and the university in order to be eminently scholarly in any special line.

At the age of twenty-five he went into business as the senior partner of the house of Edwards & Stoddard on State street, Boston. It was the only house that made its whole business the importing of silks. At the age of twenty-eight he went to Paris to purchase silks and remained there many years. They did a highly profitable business for nearly fifty years. He received much social attention while in Paris. General Lafayette was specially friendly, and the families visited frequently. He was also highly honored in Boston, where he was a member of the city government—it was an honor in those days—for nine years, one of the trustees of Amherst College for forty years, a member of the Massachusetts legislature and received several important appointments of trust and honor from Governor John A. Andrew and President Lincoln. Boston had few men in his day who were more prosperous or more highly honored.

Ogden E. Edwards was for several years at the head of one of the largest leather houses of New York City, eminently prosperous and of great service to the public. Alfred Edwards was founder and senior partner in one of the largest wholesale dry goods houses of New York for fifty years, known as Alfred Edwards & Co. Amory was for many years a member of the firm of Alfred Edwards & Co. He was also United States Consul at Buenos Ayres, and traveled extensively in South America. His nephew, Wm. H. Edwards, wrote of these travels. This nephew, resident at Coalbough, West Virginia, is the author of a famous work on "The Butterflies of North America," and also of an important work on "Shaksper nor Shakespeare." Richard C. Edwards was also a member of the firm of Alfred Edwards & Co. and shared the prosperity of the house with his brother.

Rebecca T. Edwards, the eldest daughter, married Benjamin Curtis, a wealthy merchant in business in New York and Paris. She was married in Paris and General Lafayette gave her away in place of her father. Sarah H. Edwards married Rev. John N. Lewis, a successful clergyman. Elizabeth T. Edwards married Henry Rowland, an eminently successful and useful citizen of New York, whose children, like himself, have been honored in many ways.

Ann Maria Edwards married Professor Edwards A. Park, D.D., the president of Andover Theological Seminary and the most eminent theologian of the day. Their son, Rev. William Edwards Park, of Gloversville, New York, is a preacher of rare ability. Rev. W.E. Park has two sons, graduates of Yale, young men of great promise.

The ten children of Colonel Edwards lived to great age, and each of the sons was eminently successful in business, and all were highly esteemed. Each of the daughters married men eminent in commercial or professional life. None of them were privileged to receive a liberal education because of the great financial reverses that came to the father in their youth, but every one of them was closely identified with educational institutions and all were rated as scholarly men and women.



CHAPTER XI

THE MARY EDWARDS DWIGHT FAMILY

After studying at some length the family of the eldest son of Jonathan Edwards, it is worth while to study the family of one of the daughters. Mary, the fourth child born at Northampton (1734), was married at the age of 16 to Timothy Dwight, born in Vermont (1726) and graduated from Yale in 1744.

It is interesting to find a daughter of Jonathan Edwards marrying a Yale graduate, who "had such extreme sensibility to the beauty and sweetness of always doing right, and such a love of peace, and regarded the legal profession as so full of temptations to do wrong, in great degree and small" that he persistently refused to study law, though it had been his father's great desire. The conscientiousness of Major Dwight is well illustrated by this incident. There was a lottery in the interest of Princeton college, authorized by the legislature of New Jersey, and Dwight was sent twenty tickets for sale. He returned them, but the time required for the mail in those days was so long that they did not reach the destination until after the drawing. Major Dwight was notified that one of his twenty tickets had drawn $20,000 and all but one ticket had drawn some prize. Major Dwight paid for the one blank ticket and would not take a cent of the large prize money. This was worthy a son-in-law of Mr. Edwards, the progenitor of a family of mighty men.

Major Dwight was a merchant in Northampton, a selectman, judge of probate for sixteen years and was for several years a member of the legislature. At the time of his death, 1778, he was possessed of 3,000 acres of valuable land in Northampton, and he willed his wife $7,050, and each of his thirteen children $1,165. At that time there were but five painted houses in Northampton and but two were carpeted. Of the fourteen children, thirteen grew up, and twelve were married; and their entire family adds greatly to the glory of the family of Jonathan Edwards. The oldest son, Dr. Timothy Dwight, president of Yale, said with much tenderness and force, "All that I am and all that I shall be, I owe to my mother." She was a woman of remarkable will power and intellectual vigor. She was but seventeen when her first child was born and was the mother of fourteen children at forty-two.

The first-born, President Timothy Dwight, S.T.D., LL.D., born 1752, was one of the most eminent of Americans. He learned his alphabet at a single sitting while a mere child, and at four knew the catechism by heart. He graduated from Yale at seventeen; taught the Hopkins school in New Haven at seventeen and eighteen; was tutor in Yale from nineteen to twenty-five years of age; wrote the "Conquest of Canada," which was reprinted in London, at nineteen. This work was dedicated to George Washington by permission. At twenty-three, he was in the fore front of the advocates of independence. At twenty-two, General Washington appointed him a chaplain in the army, and personally requested that he accept. His widow received $350 a year pension because of this service. He was a member of the Massachusetts legislature and secured an important grant to Harvard university. He was offered a professorship at Harvard and could have gone to Congress without opposition, but he declined both, and at thirty-two accepted a country pastorate at Greenfield Hill, Connecticut. He remained there twenty-two years. His salary was $750. He also had a gift of $1,500 for accepting the call, a parish lot of six acres, and twenty cords of wood annually. This was said to be the largest ministerial salary in New England. At forty-three he was called from the country parish to the presidency of Yale. His salary as president was $334. Later he had $500, from which he paid $150 for two amanuenses which he required because his sight had failed him. He published fourteen important works. He was largely instrumental in organizing the American Board of Commissioners of Foreign Missions; the American Missionary Society and the American Bible Society. To him is largely due the establishment of theological seminaries in the country. For forty-six years he taught every year either in a public or private school or college, and all but one year of that time he preached every week and almost invariably he prepared a new sermon. When he died, from a cancer at sixty-five, the children insisted that the estate should be for the mother during her lifetime, and when she died there was found to be $26,000 although his salary had always been ridiculously small.

The eight children were all boys, and all but one grew to manhood. Timothy was a hardware merchant in New Haven and New York for more than forty years. He endowed the "Dwight Professorship of Didactic Theology in Yale," which was named for him. There were nine children, grandchildren of President Dwight by his eldest son. Of these the eldest, also Timothy, was the leading paper manufacturer in the trust mill headquarters at Chicago, and his six children were enterprising and successful business men in Illinois and Wisconsin. John William Dwight was one of the leading manufacturers of chemicals in Connecticut. Edward Strong Dwight, of Yale, 1838, and of Theological Seminary, Yale, was for many years a trustee of Amherst and a prominent clergyman. J.H. Lyman, M.D., and Edward Huntington Lyman, M.D., were names that added luster to the family of President Dwight. Benjamin Woolsey Dwight, M.D., another son of the President of Yale, was a graduate of Yale and treasurer of Hamilton college for nineteen years. Among his descendants are Richard Smith Dewey, M.D., of Ann Arbor, in charge of Brooklyn City Hospital; charge of military hospital at Hesse Cassel in Franco-Prussian war; assistant superintendent Illinois State Insane hospital at Elgin. Also Elliott Anthony, of Hamilton, 1850; Chicago lawyer; city attorney; a member of the Illinois Constitutional Convention in 1862 and again in 1870; founder of the Law Institute, Chicago, and for several years the president. Also Edward Woolsey Dwight, who was a leading citizen and legislator of Wisconsin.

It is impracticable to give the record of many of the distinguished members of such a family, but a brief notice of a few will give some idea of the standard of the family.

Benj. Woodbridge Dwight, Ph.D., b. 1816, g. Hamilton 1835, Yale Theological Seminary, professor in Hamilton; founded Central Presbyterian church, Joliet, Ill.; established "Dwight's High School," Brooklyn; editor-in-chief of "The Interior" of Chicago, which he owned and edited; contributor to many magazines; author of several scholarly works; had the first preparatory school which placed German on a level with Greek in importance, and founded a large preparatory boarding school at Clinton, N.Y. He was a man of rare ability, character and success.

Prof. Theodore William Dwight, LL.D., b. 1822, g. Hamilton 1840, g. Yale Law S.; professor Hamilton College sixteen years; dean of Columbia College Law S. from 1858 to 1892. James Brice of England placed him at the head of legal learning in the United States and said: "It would be worth an English student's while to cross the Atlantic to attend his course." Another eminent English lawyer, A.V. Dicey, in "Legal Education" wrote of him as "the greatest living American teacher of law." He gave a course of lectures each year at Cornell; was a member of the N.Y. Constitutional Convention in 1867; was a member of the famous committee of seventy in N.Y. City that exposed the Tweed ring; was president of the New York Prison Association and presided when Mr. Dugdale was employed to study the Jukes; associate editor "American Law Register;" was legal editor of "Johnson's Encyclopaedia," and made many important contributions to the legal literature of the country. There have been few men of equal eminence in our country's history.

President Theodore Dwight Woolsey, D.D., LL.D., b. New York City, October 31, 1801, was the grandson of Mary Edwards Dwight and great grandson of Jonathan Edwards; g. Yale 1820; studied at Princeton Theological Seminary and g. at Yale L.S.; studied in German universities; professor in Yale twenty-two years; president of Yale 1846-1871. Wesleyan conferred degree of LL.D. and Harvard that of LL.D. and S.T.D. all before he was fifty years of age. President of the Evangelical Alliance held in N.Y. City 1873, the leading American on the Committee for the Revision of the Bible. After resigning the presidency he continued to lecture at Yale until his death, 1889. There was no more eminent American in unofficial life from 1840 to 1890 than he. President Hayes once said that he was greatly perplexed at one time as to the line of public policy which he should pursue until it occurred to him that President Woolsey was the one American on whose judgment he could rely, and after consulting him his course was entirely clear and his action wise. He was the author of several valuable and standard works. Yale's first great advance was in the time of President Timothy Dwight, its second was in the administration of President Theodore Dwight Woolsey. When he became president the classes about doubled in size. He introduced new departments at once and endowments came in, such as had never been considered possible. The tuition was raised from $33 to $90; the salaries were greatly increased, graduate courses were introduced; many new buildings were erected and everything went forward at a radically different pace. Yale and American thought owe much to President Woolsey. He wrote many scholarly works.

There were thirteen children born to President Woolsey. Of these, one daughter married Rev. Edgar Laing Heermance, a graduate of Yale and a useful and talented man; one of the sons, Theodore Salisbury, was a graduate of Yale, and professor of International Law at Yale.

President Timothy Dwight, D.D., LL.D., b. 1828, g. Yale 1849, g. Yale Theological School, studied at Bonn and Berlin in Germany; was professor at Yale and president from 1886 to 1897. He has been an eminent American scholar for half a century. If there were but two or three such men in a family it would make it memorable. Yale gave him the degree of D.D., and both Harvard and Princeton that of LL.D. He was editor of "The New Englander." It is a singular fact that the three great advances which Yale has made have been in the times of the two Dwights and of Woolsey, all descendants of Jonathan Edwards. By the end of his third year the number of students had risen to 1365 and the sixth year to 1784. The gifts to Yale in each of the fifteen years of his administration were fabulous as compared with any past experiences, often above $350,000.

President Sereno Edwards Dwight, D.D., g. Yale 1803, practiced law in New Haven; author of important books which were republished in England; became a clergyman at the age of twenty-nine; pastor of Park St. Church, Boston; was chaplain of the U.S. Senate; established successful boarding school in New Haven. Among his students were the two boys who afterwards made the famous Andrews & Stoddard's Latin Grammar. His literary work was extensive and valuable. Standing by himself he would shed lustre upon the names he bore, Edwards and Dwight. He was a tutor in Yale and was third president of Hamilton College.

William Theodore Dwight, D.D., b. 1795, g. Yale 1813, tutor at Yale, practiced law in Philadelphia; became a clergyman; pastor in Portland; overseer of Bowdoin College. He was offered three professorships, which he declined. He was one of the religious leaders of America for many years.

Hon. Theodore Dwight, b. 1764, lawyer. Editor "The Connecticut Mirror" and "The Hartford Courant;" member of Congress, where he won honors by successfully combating the famous John Randolph; secretary of the famous Hartford Convention; established and edited 1815-17 the "Albany Daily Advertiser;" established and edited the "New York Daily Advertiser" 1817-36; wrote "Life of Thomas Jefferson," and many other works of importance. There were few men in his day who occupied a position of such influence.

Theodore Dwight, 2d, b. 1796, g. Yale 1814, eminent scholar, imprisoned in Paris for distributing the New Testament gratis in the streets; spoke seven languages; was the warmest American friend of Garibaldi and was authorized by him to edit his works in this country; was director N.Y. Asylum for the Blind, and of the N.Y. Public School Assn.; was instrumental in having music introduced into the schools of N.Y. City; was prominent in religious and philanthropic as well as educational work. In the Kansas crisis he induced 3,000 settlers to go to Kansas, and indirectly caused nearly 10,000 to go at that critical time. He edited at various times "The N.Y. Daily Advertiser," "The Youths Penny Paper," "The American Magazine," "The Family Visitor," "The N.Y. Presbyterian," "The Christian Alliance," and wrote several successful text-books and many literary and historical works. He was a leader in the noblest sense of the term.

Nathaniel Dwight, M.D., b. 1770, surgeon in United States Army, practiced medicine in Providence; prepared the first school geography ever published in the United States; wrote many historical works; original advocate of special institutional care for the insane. After eleven years of ardent championship he saw the first insane retreat established.

Henry E. Dwight, M.D., b. 1832, g. Yale 1852, g. Andover Theological Seminary 1857, studied in Germany and France and was an eminent physician in Philadelphia. Rev. S.G. Dwight, g. Union Theological Seminary, and was a missionary in the Sandwich Islands.

Here are a few who can only be named: John W. Dwight, b. 1820, g. Yale, eminent divine and trustee of Amherst College for many years.

Mrs. Rensselaer Nicol, of New Haven, a leader in prison reform and other philanthropic movements.

Thomas B. Dwight, b. 1857, g. Yale, district attorney of Philadelphia and eminent lawyer.

Sereno E. Dwight, surgeon in British army.

James A. Dwight, b. 1855, in United States navy.

Samuel H. Stunner was with Sherman in his march to the sea.

Mrs. R.H. Perkins, b. 1819, eminent teacher, principal Duffield school, Detroit.

William H. Sumner, officer in U.S. regular army.

Thomas Berry, banker in Cleveland.

General Robert Montgomery, of Pennsylvania.

O.H. Kennedy, officer in U.S. navy.

Fenton Rockwell, judge advocate and provost judge in New Orleans; officer in Civil war, and in many important battles.

William R. Dwight, New York banker.

George S. Dwight, large railroad contractor.

William Allerton, leather merchant in Boston.

Mrs. Egbert C. Smyth, wife of the dean of Andover Theological Seminary.

Rossiter W. Raymond, eminent specialist, author, and lecturer.

W.M. Bell, manufacturer, Allegheny.

Colonel A.S.M. Morgan, U.S.A.

J.E. Jacobs, insurance manager, Chicago.

E.S. Churchill, Portland, Me., merchant.

W.D. Bell, manufacturer, Philadelphia.

George Collier, rich St. Louis banker.

E.A. Hitchcock, tea merchant, Hong Kong.

M.D. Collier, graduated from Yale; St. Louis lawyer.

H.R. Bell, Chicago physician.

D.W. Bell, Pittsburg lawyer.

A.S. Bell, Pittsburg lawyer.

George Hoadley, born in 1781; graduated from Yale; mayor New Haven; eight times mayor of Cleveland.

W.W. Hoadley, born in 1814; Cincinnati banker.

Dr. T.F. Pomeroy, Detroit.

General J.H. Bates, U.S.A.; Ohio state senate.

Governor George Hoadley, born in 1826; graduated from Western Reserve College; supreme court judge; president Democratic convention that nominated General Hancock for the presidency.

Major W.W. Winthrop of the Civil war; graduated from Tale.

Major W.T. Johnson, graduated from Yale; killed at battle of Big Bethel.

Theodore Weston, graduated from Yale; civil engineer of Croton water works.

J.M. Woolsey, born in 1796; graduated from Yale; capitalist, Cleveland.

Sarah C. Woolsey is "Susan Coolidge."

Mrs. Daniel C. Grilman, wife of the president of Johns Hopkins University, and formerly president of University of California.

Samuel Carmalt, wealthy land owner in Pennsylvania.

Dr. W.W. Woolsey, born in 1831; graduated from Yale; physician, Dubuque, Ia.

T.B. Woolsey, flour merchant, New York.

Samuel W. Johnson, graduated from Princeton and Harvard law school; New York lawyer.

Woolsey Johnson, M.D., graduated from Princeton and New York Medical College; physician, New York.

Theodore S. Woolsey, graduated from Yale; professor in Yale.

Charles F. Johnson, graduated from Yale; professor United States Naval Academy, Annapolis.

W.W. Johnson, graduated from Yale; professor Kenyon College.

J.H. Rathburn, lawyer, Utica.

J.O. Pease, merchant, Philadelphia.

A.S. Dwight, lieutenant U.S.A.; killed at Petersburg.

George P.B. Dwight, New York custom house.

Henry E. Dwight, born in 1813; Southern planter.

Theodore Woolsey Porter, b. 1799, g. Yale 1819, eminent teacher; principal of Washington Institute, New York City.

Timothy Dwight Porter, M.D., b. 1797, g. Yale 1816, was in the New York senate and a successful practitioner.

Imperfectly as these names represent the achievements of the descendants of Mary Edwards Dwight they do hint strongly at the vigor, character and scholarship for which the family of Jonathan Edwards stands in American life.

There is another large family of Dwights, direct descendants of Jonathan Edwards, through his granddaughter, Rhoda Edwards, but these are not, of course, included in this list of Mary's descendants. Many of these are eminent men, and reference is here made to their omission, lest some one should think the facts regarding them were not gathered.

A MODERN INSTANCE

It was known that John Eliot Woodbridge removed to Youngstown, O., about one hundred years ago, but no trace of him was found until these chapters were in type when it appeared that this undiscovered remainder was a most important branch of the family.

Congressman R.W. Taylor, of Ohio, chairman of the committee to pass upon the case of Mr. Roberts of Utah, is a descendant of Jonathan Edwards through John Eliot Woodbridge. His masterly treatment of the case is recognized throughout the country. Here is what the "Detroit Free Press" said of him at the time of the investigation:

"In appearance he is not of the robust order of statesmen. With fair face, shoulders that he has always permitted to droop, indispensable eyeglasses, and hands that nine women out of ten would envy, modest demeanor, and kindly instincts, he is among the last of men that a casual observer would pick as fitting leaders where nerve, aggressiveness, and fearless determination must be joined with an ability to give and take in legal controversy.

"But this passing judgment would be at widest variance with the truth. College mates of Taylor will recall the deceptiveness of this outward appearance. It concealed muscles of steel and a will that had only to be right in order to be invincible. He was the peer of any amateur baseball catcher in his day, and held the same enviable place as a student of the classics. He was the strong man for the D.K.E. initiations, and took the same rank in all scholastic competitions."

Dr. Timothy Woodbridge, of Youngstown, was a graduate of the medical college of Philadelphia, and was one of the eminent physicians of Eastern Ohio. His grandson, Benjamin Warner Wells, of Chicago, was a graduate of Annapolis naval academy. He was Admiral Schley's flag secretary in the engagement at Santiago. Dr. John Eliot Woodbridge, Cleveland, is an eminent specialist in typhoid fever cases. Robert Walker Taylor was comptroller of the United States treasury for fifteen years.

THE END