JUKES-EDWARDS

A STUDY IN EDUCATION AND HEREDITY

 * * * * *

BY

A. E. WINSHIP, LITT. D. 

 * * * * *

HARRISBURG, PA. :

R. L. Myers & Co. 

1900. 

To HIM

Who, more than any other, has taught us how to afford opportunity forneglected, unfortunate and wayward boys and girls to transformthemselves into industrious, virtuous and upright citizens through themost remarkable institution in the land, WILLIAM R. GEORGE, FOUNDER OF

THE GEORGE JUNIOR REPUBLIC, THIS STUDY IS DEDICATED. 

 R. L. MYERS & CO. , PUBLISHERS OF

 Standard Helps for Teachers, Standard School Books. 

 SEND FOR CATALOGUE. HARRISBURG, PENNA. 

PREFACE. 

Of all the problems which America faces on the land and on the seas, noone is so important as that of making regenerates out of degenerates. The massing of people in large cities, the incoming of vast multitudesfrom the impoverished masses of several European and Asiatic countries, the tendency to interpret liberty as license, the contagious nature ofmoral, as well as of physical, diseases combine to make it of the utmostimportance that American enterprise and moral force find ways and meansfor accomplishing this transformation. The grand results of the movementin New York city inspired by Jacob Riis; the fascinating benevolence ofthe Roycroft Shop in East Aurora, N. Y. ; the marvelous transfiguration ofcharacter--I speak it reverently--at the George Junior Republic, Freeville, N. Y. , added to the College Settlement and kindred effortsmerely indicate what may be accomplished when philanthropy supplementssaying by doing, and when Christianity stands for the beauty ofwholeness and is satisfied with nothing less than the physical, mentaland moral conversions of all classes among the masses at home as well asabroad, in the East as well as in the West. 

A problem is primarily something thrown at us as a challenge for us tosee through it. To solve a problem is to loosen it so that it may belooked into or seen through. Whatever contributes to the loosening of aproblem by throwing light upon the conditions is of value in aiding inits solution, hence the publication of this study of the family ofJonathan Edwards as a contrast to the Jukes. 

A. E. W. 

Somerville, Mass. , _June 1, 1900_. 

TABLE OF CONTENTS. 

 Page. 

 THE JUKES, 7

 A STUDY OF JONATHAN EDWARDS, 15

 THE INHERITANCE AND TRAINING OF MR. EDWARDS, 20

 THE CHILDREN'S START IN LIFE, 29

 MRS. EDWARDS AND HOME TRAINING, 37

 CAPACITY, CHARACTER AND TRAINING, 41

 AARON BURR, 44

 CONTRASTS, 53

 TIMOTHY EDWARDS, 61

 COLONEL WILLIAM EDWARDS, 67

 THE MARY EDWARDS DWIGHT FAMILY, 74

CHAPTER I

THE JUKES

Education is something more than going to school for a few weeks eachyear, is more than knowing how to read and write. It has to do withcharacter, with industry, and with patriotism. Education tends to doaway with vulgarity, pauperism, and crime, tends to prevent disease anddisgrace, and helps to manliness, success and loyalty. 

Ignorance leads to all those things that education tries to do awaywith, and it tends to do away with all the things that education triesto cultivate. It is easy to say these things, and every one knows theyare true, but few realize how much such statements mean. It is not easyto take a view of such matters over a long range of time and experience. 

A boy that leaves school and shifts for himself by blacking boots, selling papers, and "swiping" fruit often appears much smarter than aboy of the same age who is going to school all the time and does not seeso much of the world. A boy of twelve who has lived by his wits is oftenkeener than a boy of the same age who has been well brought up at homeand at school, but such a boy knows about as much and is about as muchof a man at twelve as he will ever be, while the boy that gets aneducation becomes more and more of a man as long as he lives. 

But this might be said a thousand times to every truant, and it wouldhave very little effect, because he thinks that he will be an exception. He never sees beyond his own boyish smartness. Few men and women realizehow true it is that these smart rascally fellows, who persist inremaining in ignorance, are to be the vicious, pauper, criminal classwho are to fill the dens of vice, the poorhouses, and the prisons; whoare to be burglars, highwaymen, and murderers. In place of opinions, itis well sometimes to present facts so clear and definite that theycannot be forgotten. 

R. A. Dugdale, of New York State, began the study of "The Jukes" familyin 1874, and in 1877 in the twentieth annual report of the New YorkPrison Commission he made a statement of the results. [Footnote: G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York, reprinted this study in "The Jukes. "] Thisbrief summary of "the Jukes" is based upon the facts which Mr. Dugdalehas published. 

"The Jukes" is a name given to a large family of degenerates. It is notthe real name of any family, but a general term applied to forty-twodifferent names borne by those in whose veins flows the blood of oneman. The word "jukes" means "to roost. " It refers to the habit of fowlsto have no home, no nest, no coop, preferring to fly into the trees androost away from the places where they belong. The word has also come tomean people who are too indolent and lazy to stand up or sit up, butsprawl out anywhere. "The Jukes" are a family that did not make goodhomes, did not provide themselves with comforts, did not work steadily. They are like hens that fly into the trees to roost. 

The father of "The Jukes" Mr. Dugdale styled "Max. " He was born about1720 of Dutch stock. Had he remained with his home folk in the town andbeen educated, and thrifty like the rest of the boys, he might havegiven the world a very different kind of family from "The Jukes. "

Max was a jolly good fellow and not very bad. He was popular and hecould tell a good story that made everybody laugh. Of course he wasvulgar, such jolly good fellows are usually vulgar. He would not go toschool, because he did not like it. He would not stay in evenings, forhe did not like that. He did not enjoy being talked to, but alwayswanted to talk himself, and to talk to boys who would laugh at hisyarns. He would not work for he did not like it. He wanted to gofishing, hunting, and trapping; so he left home early and took to thewoods. 

Max liked nature. He thought he was lots better than town people becausehe knew more about nature. He found a lovely spot on the border of abeautiful lake in New York State, where the rocks are grand, the waterslovely, the forest glorious. There was never a more charming place inwhich to be good and to love God than this place where Max built hisshanty about 1750. But he did not go there to worship or to be good. Hewent simply to get away from good people, to get where he would not haveto work, and where he would not be preached to, and this beautiful spotbecame a notorious cradle of crime. Nature is lovely, but it makes allthe difference in the world how we know nature and why we love it. 

In 1874 Richard L. Dugdale was employed by the New York PrisonCommission to visit the prisons of the state. In this visit he wassurprised to find criminals in six different prisons whose relativeswere mostly criminals or paupers, and the more surprised to discoverthat these six criminals, under four different names, were all descendedfrom the same family. This led Mr. Dugdale to study their relatives, living and dead. He gave himself up to this work with great zeal, studying the court and prison records, reports of town poorhouses, andthe testimony of old neighbors and employers. He learned the details of540 descendants of Max in five generations. He learned the exact factsabout 169 who married into the family. It is customary to count as ofa family the men who marry into it. He traced in part others, whichcarried the number up to 1, 200 persons of the family of the Jukes. 

The Jukes rarely married foreign-born men or women, so that it may bestyled a distinctively American family. The almost universal traits ofthe family were idleness, ignorance, and vulgarity. They would not work, they could not be made to study, and they loved vulgarity. Thesecharacteristics led to disease and disgrace, to pauperism and crime. They were a disgustingly diseased family as a whole. There were manyimbeciles and many insane. Those of "the Jukes" who tended to pauperismwere rarely criminal, and those who were criminal were rarely paupers. The sick, the weak, and goody-goody ones were almost all paupers; thehealthy, strong ones were criminals. 

It is a well-known fact in sociology that criminals are of threeclasses: First, those who direct crime, the capitalists in crime, whoare rarely arrested, who seldom commit any crime, but inspire men tocrime in various ways. These are intelligent and have to be educated tosome extent. They profit by crime and take slight risks. 

Second, those who commit heroic crimes and find some satisfaction in theskill and daring required. Safe-breaking, train robbery, and some typesof burglary require men of ability and pluck, and those who do thesethings have a species of pride in it. 

Third, those who commit weak and imbecile crimes, which mark the doer asa sneak and a coward. These men rob hen roosts, waylay helpless womenand old men, steal clothing in hallways, and burn buildings. They arealways cowardly about everything they do, and never have the pluck tosteal chickens even until they are half drunk. They often commit murder, but only when they are detected in some sneaking crime and shoot becausethey are too cowardly to face their discoverer. 

Now the Jukes were almost never of the first or second class. They couldnot be criminals that required capital, brains, education or nerve. Eventhe kind of pauperism and crime in which they indulged was particularlydisgraceful. This is inevitably true of all classes of people whocombine idleness, ignorance, and vulgarity. They are not evenrespectable among criminals and paupers. 

There is an honorable pauperism. It is no disgrace to be poor or to bein a poorhouse if there is a good reason for it. One may be manly inpoverty. But the Jukes were never manly or honorable paupers, they wereweaklings among paupers. 

They were a great expense to the state, costing in crime and pauperismmore than $1, 250, 000. Taken as a whole, they not only did not contributeto the world's prosperity, but they cost more than $1, 000 a piece, including all men, women, and children, for pauperism and crime. 

Those who worked did the lowest kind of service and received thesmallest wages. Only twenty of the 1, 200 learned a trade, and ten ofthose learned it in the state prison. Even they were not regularlyemployed. Men who work regularly even at unskilled labor are generallyhonest men and provide for the family. A habit of irregular work is aspecies of mental or moral weakness, or both. A man or woman who willnot stick to a job is morally certain to be a pauper or a criminal. 

One great benefit of going to school, especially of attending regularlyfor eight or ten months each year for nine years or more, is that itestablishes a habit of regularity and persistency in effort. The boy wholeaves school to go to work does not necessarily learn to work steadily, but often quite the reverse. Few who graduate from a grammar school, orwho take the equivalent course in a rural school, fail to be regular intheir habits of effort. This accounts in part for the fact that fewunskilled workmen ever graduated from a grammar school. Scarcely any ofthe Jukes were ever at school any considerable time. Probably no one ofthem ever had so much as a completed rural school education. 

It is very difficult to find anyone who is honest and industrious, pureand prosperous, who has not had a fair education, if he ever had theopportunity, as all children in the United States now have. It is aninteresting fact developed from a study of the Jukes that it is mucheasier to reform a criminal than a pauper. 

Here are a few facts by way of conclusion. On the basis of the factsgathered by Mr. Dugdale, 310 of the 1, 200 were professional paupers, ormore than one in four. These were in poorhouses or its equivalent for2, 300 years. 

Three hundred of the 1, 200, or one in four, died in infancy from lackof good care and good conditions. 

There were fifty women who lived lives of notorious debauchery. 

Four hundred men and women were physically wrecked early by their ownwickedness. 

There were seven murderers. 

Sixty were habitual thieves who spent on the average twelve years eachin lawless depredations. 

There were 130 criminals who were convicted more or less often of crime. 

What a picture this presents! Some slight improvement was apparent whenMr. Dugdale closed his studies. This resulted from evening schools, frommanual training schools, from improved conditions of labor, from thelater methods of treating prisoners. 

CHAPTER II

A STUDY OF JONATHAN EDWARDS

The story of the Jukes as published by Mr. Dugdale has been the textof a multitude of sermons, the theme of numberless addresses, theinspiration of no end of editorials and essays. For twenty years therewas a call for a companion picture. Every preacher, orator, and editorwho presented the story of the Jukes, with its abhorrent features, wanted the facts for a cheery, comforting, convincing contrast. This wasnot to be had for the asking. Several attempts had been made to findthe key to such a study without discovering a person of the requiredprominence, born sufficiently long ago, with the necessary vigor ofintellect and strength of character who established the habit of havinglarge families. 

In 1897 a professional scholarly organization--to which the author hasthe honor to belong--assigned to him, without his knowledge or consent, the duty of preparing an essay upon Jonathan Edwards for the May meetingof 1898. The study then begun led to a search for the facts regardinghis family, and when it came to light that one of Jonathan Edwards'descendants presided over the New York Prison Commission when itemployed Mr. Dugdale to make a study of the Jukes, the appropriatenessof the contrast was more than ever apparent. 

In this study the sources of information are the various genealogies offamilies in which the descendants of Mr. Edwards play a part, varioustown histories and church and college publications, but chiefly thebiographical dictionaries and encyclopaedias in which the records of themen of the family are chronicled. It would be impossible to follow outthe positions occupied by the various members but for the pride theyall feel in recording the fact that they are descendants of JonathanEdwards. A good illustration of this may be had in the currentannouncements of the marvelously popular novel, "Richard Carvel, " inwhich it is always emphasized that Mr. Winston Churchill, the author, is a descendant of Jonathan Edwards. 

Only two Americans established a considerable and permanent reputationin the world of European thought prior to the present century, --BenjaminFranklin and Jonathan Edwards. In 1736, Dr. Isaac Watts published inEngland Mr. Edwards' account of the beginning of the great awakening inthe Connecticut valley. Here more than a century and a half ago, whenthe colonies were small, their future unsuspected and the ability oftheir leaders unrecognized, Jonathan Edwards "erected the standard ofOrthodoxy for enlightened Protestant Europe. " Who can estimate theeloquence of that simple fact? Almost everything of his which waspublished in the colonies was speedily republished in England. Of whatother American philosopher and theologian has this been true? Here area few of the tributes to Mr. Edwards:

_Daniel Webster_: "The Freedom of the Will" by Mr. Edwards is thegreatest achievement of the human intellect. 

_Dr. Chalmers_: The greatest of theologians. 

_Robert Hall_: He was the greatest of the sons of men. 

_Dugald Stewart_: Edwards on the Will never was answered and never willbe answered. 

_Encyclopaedia_: One of the greatest metaphysicians of his age. 

_Edinburgh Review_: One of the acutest and most powerful of reasoners. 

_London Quarterly Review_: His gigantic specimen of theological argumentis as near to perfection as we may expect any human composition toapproach. He unites the sharpness of the scimetar and the strength ofthe battle-axe. 

_Westminster Review_: From the days of Plato there has been no life ofmore simple and imposing grandeur than that of Jonathan Edwards. 

_President McCosh, of Princeton_: The greatest thinker that America hasproduced. 

_Lyman Beecher_: A prince among preachers. In our day there is no manwho comes within a thousand miles of him. 

_Griswold's Prose Writers_: The first man of the world during thesecond quarter of the eighteenth century. 

_Hollister's History of Connecticut_: The most gifted man of theeighteenth century, perhaps the most profound thinker in the world. 

_Moses Coit Tyler_: The most original and acute thinker yet produced inAmerica. 

This is the man whose intellectual life has thrilled in the mentalactivity of more than 1, 400 men and women of the past century and ahalf, and which has not lost its virtue or its power in all these years. 

England and Scotland are not wont to sit at our feet even in this day, and yet they sat at the feet of Jonathan Edwards as in the presence of amaster when he was a mere home missionary, living among the Indians, towhom he preached every Lord's day. 

The birth of fame is always an interesting study. It is easy to play thepart of a rocket if one can sizzle, and flash, and rise suddenly indarkness, but to take one's place among luminaries and shine withpermanent brilliancy is so rare an experience as to present afascinating study. 

Jonathan Edwards was twenty-eight years of age, had been the pastorof a church on the frontier, as Northampton was, for four years withoutany notable experience, when he was invited to preach the annual sermonbefore the association of ministers at Boston. Never since that dayhave Boston and Harvard been more thoroughly the seat of culture andof intellectual power than then. It was a remarkable event for a youngman of twenty-eight to be invited to come from the Western limit ofcivilization and preach the annual sermon before the philosophical, theological, and scholastic masters of the East. This sermon was sopowerful that the association published it. This was his firstappearance in print. So profoundly moved by this effort were thechurches of New England that the clergymen generally gave public thanksto the Head of the Church for raising up so great a teacher andpreacher. Thus was born the fame of Jonathan Edwards. 

It is nearly 170 years since then. Science and invention, enterprise andambition have done great things for America and for Americans. We havemighty universities, libraries, and laboratories, but we have no man whothinks more clearly, writes more logically, speaks more vigorously thandid Jonathan Edwards, and we have never had such a combination of spiritand power in any other American. This mastery is revealing itself invarious ways in hundreds of his descendants to-day, and it has neverceased to do it since his blood gave tonic to the thought and characterof his children and his children's children. 

CHAPTER III

THE INHERITANCE AND TRAINING OF MR. EDWARDS

No man can have the intellectual power, nobility of character, andpersonal grandeur of Jonathan Edwards and transmit it to his children'schildren for a century and a half who has not himself had a greatinheritance. The whole teaching of the culture of animals and plantsleaves no room to question the persistency of character, and this isso grandly exemplified in the descendants of Mr. Edwards that it isinteresting to see what inheritances were focused in him. 

It is not surprising to find that the ancestors of Mr. Edwards werecradled in the intellectual literary activities of the days of QueenElizabeth. The family is of Welsh origin and can be traced as far as1282, when Edward, the conquerer, appeared. His great-great-grandfather, Richard Edwards, who went from Wales to London about 1580, was aclergyman in the Elizabethan period. Those were days which providedtonic for the keenest spirits and brightest minds and professional menprofited most from the influence of Spencer, Bacon, and Shakespeare. 

Among the first men to come to the new colonies in New England wasWilliam, a son of this clergyman, born about 1620, who came to Hartford, where his son Richard, born 1647, the grandfather of Jonathan, was aneminently prosperous merchant. Richard was an only son. The father ofJonathan, Timothy Edwards, was an only son in a family of seven. Aristocracy was at its height in the household of the merchants ofHartford in the middle of the seventeenth century. 

Harvard was America's only college, and it was a great event for a youngman to go from Hartford to Harvard, but this Timothy Edwards did, and hetook all attainable honors, graduating in 1661, taking the degreesof A. B. And A. M. The same day, "an uncommon mark of respect paidextraordinary proficiency in learning. " This brilliant graduate ofHarvard was soon settled over the church at East Windsor, Conn. , wherehe remained sixty-five years as pastor. 

Who can estimate the inheritance which comes to a child of such a pastorwho had been born in a merchant's home. In the four generations whichstood behind Jonathan Edwards were two merchants and two preachers, agrand combination for manly and intellectual power. 

In this pastor's home Jonathan Edwards was born October 5, 1703. Thosewere days in which great men came into the world. There were born withinfifteen years of Jonathan Edwards a wonderful array of thinkers alongreligious and philosophic lines, men who have molded the thought andlives of a multitude of persons. Among these intellectual giants bornwithin fifteen years of Mr. Edwards were John Wesley, George Whitefield, Swedenborg, Voltaire, Rousseau, and Hume. 

In order to appreciate the full significance of Mr. Edwards' legacy tothe world, it is well to study some conditions of his life. It would notbe easy to find a man whose surroundings and training in childhood werebetter than those of Jonathan Edwards. The parsonage on the banks of theConnecticut was a delightful home. His parents and his grandparents wereideal American Christian educated persons. He was prepared for collegeby his father and mother. He was a devout little Christian before he wastwelve years of age. When he was but ten years old he, with two otherlads about his own age, made a booth of branches in a retired spot in aneighboring wood, where the three went daily for a season of prayer. 

He began the study of Latin at six and at twelve had a good preparationfor college in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, all of which had come from homestudy. He not only knew books, but he knew nature and loved her. Fromearly childhood to advanced years this remained true. He entered Yalecollege at twelve years of age. In a letter which he wrote while acollege freshman he speaks of himself as a child. Not many freshmen takethat view of themselves, but a lad of twelve, away from home at collegecould have been little more than a child. 

He was the fifth in a family of eleven children, so that he had no lackof companionship from both older and younger sisters. The older sistershad contributed much to his preparation for college. They were anever-failing source of inspiration. At fourteen he read in a masterlyway "Locke on the Human Understanding. " It took a powerful hold on hismind and greatly affected his life. In a letter to his father he askeda special favor that he might have a copy of "The Art of Thinking, " notbecause it was necessary to his college work, but because he thought itwould be profitable. 

While still in his teens he wrote a series of "Resolutions, " the like ofwhich it would be difficult to duplicate in the case of any other youth. These things are dwelt upon as indicating the way in which every fibreof his being was prepared for the great moral and intellectual legacy heleft his children and his children's children. Here are ten of hisseventy resolutions:

_Resolved_, to do whatever I think to be my duty, and most for the goodand advantage of mankind in general. 

_Resolved_, so to do, whatever difficulties I meet with, how manysoever, and how great soever. 

_Resolved_, to be continually endeavoring to find out some newcontrivance and invention to promote the forementioned things. 

_Resolved_, never to lose one moment of time, but to improve it in themost profitable way I possibly can. 

_Resolved_, to live with all my might while I do live. 

_Resolved_, to be endeavoring to find out fit objects of charity andliberality. 

_Resolved_, never to do anything out of revenge. 

_Resolved_, never to suffer the least motions of anger towardsirrational beings. 

_Resolved_, never to speak evil of any one, so that it shall tend to hisdishonor, more or less, upon no account except for some real good. 

_Resolved_, to maintain the strictest temperance in eating and drinking. 

Yale in the days of Mr. Edwards was not the Yale of the closing year ofthe nineteenth century. It has now 2, 500 students and has had 19, 000graduates. It had a very humble beginning in March, 1702, the yearbefore Mr. Edwards was born. It began with one lone student. The fatherof Jonathan Edwards had been greatly interested in the starting of thecollege. In 1701, Rev. Mr. Russell, of Branford, a graduate of Harvard, as was the senior Edwards, invited to his home ten other Connecticutpastors of whom nine were graduates of Harvard. Each brought from hislibrary some of his most valuable books, and laying them upon Mr. Russell's table, said: "I give these books for the founding of a collegein this colony. " This produced a profound impression upon the clergymenof Connecticut, notably upon the graduates of Harvard. The first yearthe college was nominally located at Saybrook, but as there was onlyone student he lived with the president at Killingworth, now Clinton, nine miles away. 

When Jonathan Edwards, a lad of twelve, entered college, there had been, all told, only about fifty graduates. It was during the time that he wasa student that the college took the name of Yale. The first year he wasthere the college was in three places at the same time because ofdissensions among the students, and the very small class graduated intwo places because neither faction would go to the other place. In allthese agitations Mr. Edwards took no part. He simply devoted himself tohis studies and followed the line of least resistance so far as takingsides in a senseless controversy was concerned. After graduation heremained at Yale two years for post-graduate work, mostly in theology, and then accepted an invitation to preach for the leading Presbyterianchurch in New York City; but after eight months he returned to Yale asa tutor and remained two years. 

At this time he was very severe in discipline, bending every energy tosecuring the right conditions for the most and best work. This is whathe wrote in his diary when he was twenty-one:

"By a sparingness in diet, and eating, as much as may be, what is lightand easy of digestion, I shall doubtless be able to think more clearly, and shall gain time:

1. By lengthening out my life. 

2. Shall need less time for digestion after meals. 

3. Shall be able to study more closely, without injury to my health. 

4. Shall need less time for sleep. 

5. Shall more seldom be troubled with the headache. "

Mr. Edwards was twenty-three years of age when he was ordained atNorthampton as associate pastor with his grandfather Stoddard, then inhis 84th year, and the 54th year of his pastorate. Soon after this Mr. Stoddard died and Mr. Edwards became pastor in full charge and remainedfor twenty-five years. He was a great student and thinker. He rose atfour o'clock and spent thirteen hours a day in his study. It is worthwhile to follow the personal intellectual habits of the man whosedescendants we are to study. When he was ready for the consideration ofa great subject he would set apart a week for it and mounting his horseearly Monday morning would start off for the hills and forests. When hehad thought himself up to a satisfactory intensity he would alight, fasten his horse, go off into the woods and think himself through thatparticular stage of the argument, then he would pin a bit of paper onsome particular place on his coat as a reminder of the conclusion hehad reached. He would then ride on some miles further and repeat theexperience. Not infrequently he would be gone the entire week on athinking expedition, returning with the front of his coat covered withthe scalps of intellectual victories. Without stopping for any domesticsalutations he would go at once to his study and taking off these bitsof paper in the same order in which he had put them on would carefullywrite out his argument. In nothing did Jonathan Edwards stand out soclearly as boy, youth and man as in his sacrifice of every other featureof his life for the attainment of power as a thinker. 

Mr. Edwards has gone into history as a theologian of the most stalwartcharacter. It is undeniable that he preached the most terrific doctrineever uttered by an American leader, but this was only the logical resultof the intellectual projection of his effort to make sacrifices in orderto benefit humanity. As a child he sacrificed everything for health andvirtue that he might have influence, and as a man he knew no other planor purpose in life. His masterpiece is upon the "will" which hedeveloped to the full in himself. 

The greatest religious awakening that the Western world has ever knownwas started in his church at Northampton, not over ecclesiasticaldifferences, or theological discussion but over a question of moralityamong the young people of the town. It had to do with the impropriety ofthe young ladies entertaining their gentlemen friends on Sunday eveningsand especially of their allowing them to remain to such unreasonablehours. And the issue which ultimately drove him from his pastorate, after twenty-five years of service, by an almost unanimous vote wasnot one of ecclesiasticism or theology, but of morals among the youngpeople. He insisted upon vigorous action in relation to the loose andas he thought immoral reading of the youth of the town. As this involvedsome prominent families he had to retire from the pastorate. 

The views of Mr. Edwards on pastoral work reveal the singleness ofpurpose of the man as a student and thinker. He never made pastoralcalls. He had no criticism to make of those pastors who had talent forentertaining people by occasional calls, but as he had no gifts in thatdirection he regarded it advisable to use his time in cultivating suchtalents as he had. Whoever wished to talk with him about personal, moralor religious conditions found in him a profitable counsellor. In hispreaching, which was equal to anything America has ever known, he madeno attempt to win his hearers by tricks of oratory or by emotionalappeals, though he had a most fascinating personality. He was six feetin height, slender in form, with a high, broad forehead, eyes piercingand luminous and a serene countenance. In the pulpit he was graceful, easy, natural and earnest, though he had little action. He rested hisleft elbow on the pulpit and held his manuscript in his left hand whilewith his right he turned the leaves. In him were combined theintellectual and moral vigor which are calculated to make the progenitorof a great family. 

CHAPTER IV

THE CHILDREN'S START IN LIFE

The eleven children of Jonathan Edwards had an unenviable start in lifeso far as their environment was concerned. The oldest was still in herteens when serious trouble arose in the parish at Northampton. Mr. Edwards was pastor at Northampton for twenty-five years, and a morefruitful pastorate or a more glorious ministerial career for a quarterof a century no man could ask. He made that church on the frontier thelargest Protestant church in the world, and it was the most influentialas well as the best known. There began the greatest religious awakeningof modern times. In his church, resulting from his preaching, began arevival which stirred into activity every church in Massachusetts, everychurch in the colonies, and most of the Protestant churches of GreatBritain and Europe. 

After this long and eminently successful pastorate, Mr. Edwardspreached a sermon about the reading and conversation of young peopleupon subjects of questionable propriety, which led to such localexcitement that upon the recommendation of an ecclesiastical councilhe was dismissed by a vote of 200 to 20, and the town voted that hebe not permitted on any occasion to preach or lecture in the church. Mr. Edwards was wholly unprepared financially for this unusualecclesiastical and civic action. He had no other means of earning aliving, so that, until donations began to come in from far and near, Mrs. Edwards, at the age of forty, the mother of eleven children withthe youngest less than a year old, was obliged to take in work for thesupport of the family. After a little time Mr. Edwards secured a smallmission charge in an Indian village where there were twelve white and150 Indian families. Here he remained eight years in quiet until, a fewweeks before his death, he was called to the presidency and pastorate ofPrinceton, then a young and small college. 

The last four years of their life at Northampton were indescribablytrying to the children. Human nature was the same then as now, andeveryone knows how heavily the public dislike of a prominent man bearsupon his children. The conventionalities which keep adults within boundin speech and action are unknown to children, and what the parents saybehind a clergyman's back, children say to his children's face. Thisperiod of childhood social horror ended only by removal to a missionaryparsonage among the Stockbridge Indians, where they lived for eightyears. Their playmates were Indian children and youth. Half the childrenof the family talked the Indian language as well and almost as much asthey did the English language. 

In the years of aspiration these children were away from all societylife and educational institutions, in the home of a poor missionaryfamily among Indians when Indian wars were a reality. When Mr. Edwardsaccepted gratefully this mission church his oldest child, a daughter, was twenty-two, his youngest son was less than a year old. All of theboys and three of the girls were under twelve years of age when theywent to the Indian village, and all but one were under twenty. Whentheir missionary home was broken up five of them were still undertwenty, so that the children's inheritance was not of wealth, ofliterary or scholastic environment, or of cultured or advantageoussociety. Everything tends to show how completely Mr. Edwards' sonsand daughters were left to develop and improve their inheritance ofintellectual, moral, and religious aspiration. 

In these years Mr. Edwards was writing the works which will make himfamous for centuries. One of the daughters married Rev. Aaron Burr, thepresident of Princeton, then a very small institution. Upon the death ofthis son-in-law, Mr. Edwards was chosen to succeed him, but while atPrinceton, before he had fairly entered upon his duties at the college, he died of smallpox. His widowed daughter, who cared for him, died afew days later leaving two children, and his widow, who came for thegrandchildren, soon followed the husband and daughter to the betterland. 

Mr. Edwards died at fifty-six, and his widow a few weeks later. Bothdied away from home, for the family was still among the StockbridgeIndians. The oldest son was but twenty, and there were five childrenyounger than he. The youngest son was eight and the other only thirteen. To make the picture more clear it must be understood that to these sixorphans, under twenty-one, there came at the time of their father's andmother's deaths two little orphans aged four and two respectively, SarahBurr and her brother Aaron. Here was a large family from which fatherand mother, older sister and brother-in-law had been taken almost at asingle blow, with two extra orphans to care for. 

And with all this there was no adequate financial inheritance. Theinventory of Jonathan Edwards' property is interesting. Among the livestock, which included horses and cows, was a slave upon whom a moderatevalue was placed. The slave was named Titus, and he was rated under"quick stock" and not "live stock, " at a value of $150. The silver wasinventoried as a tankard valued at $60, a can and porringer at $47, andvarious other articles valued at $85. The chief material legacy washis library, which was inventoried as consisting of 301 volumes, 536pamphlets, forty-eight maps, thirty unpublished manuscripts and 1, 074manuscript sermons prepared for the printer. It was valued at $415. 

If Jonathan Edwards did not leave a large financial legacy, he didimpart to his children an intellectual capacity and vigor, moralcharacter, and devotion to training which have projected themselvesthrough eight generations without losing the strength and force of theirgreat ancestor. Of the three sons and eight daughters of JonathanEdwards there was not one, nor a husband or wife of one, whose characterand ability, whose purpose and achievement were not a credit to thisgodly man. Of the seventy-five grandchildren, with their husbands andwives, there was but one for whom an apology may be offered, and nearlyevery one was exceptionally strong in scholarship and moral force. 

We have paused long enough on the threshold of the descendants ofJonathan Edwards. We have seen the estimate in which he was held by hiscontemporaries at home and abroad, and by close students of the historyof his times. We have seen what he inherited and by what training and inwhat environment he was developed. We have also seen the terrible strainto which his children were subjected in childhood from lack of schoolprivileges and pleasing social conditions. It remains to be seen whatkind of men and women these children became with childhood disadvantages, but with a grand inheritance and the best of home training. 

Remember the size, ages, and financial condition of the family when thefather died--the sons being aged eight, thirteen and twenty--and thenconsider the fact that the three sons graduated from Princeton, and fiveof the daughters married college graduates, three of them of Yale andone each of Harvard and Princeton. A man might well be content to diewithout lands or gold when eight sons and sons-in-laws were to be men ofsuch capacity, character, and training as are found in this family. 

They were not merely college graduates, but they were eminent men. One held the position of president of Princeton and one of UnionCollege, four were judges, two were members of the Continental Congress, one was a member of the governor's council in Massachusetts, one was amember of the Massachusetts war commission in the Revolutionary war, one was a state senator, one was president of the Connecticut house ofrepresentatives, three were officers in the Revolutionary war, one was amember of the famous constitutional convention out of which the UnitedStates was born, one was an eminent divine and pastor of the historicNorth church of New Haven, and one was the first grand master of theGrand Lodge of Masons in Connecticut. This by no means exhausts theuseful and honorable official positions occupied by the eight sons andsons-in-law of Jonathan Edwards, and it makes no account of theirwritings, of noted trials that they conducted, but it gives some hint ofthe pace which Mr. Edwards' children set for the succeeding generations. It should be said that the daughters were every way worthy ofdistinguished husbands, and it ought also to be said that the wives ofthe sons were worthy of these men in intellectual force and moralqualities. 

Contrast this group of sixteen men and women with the five sons of Maxand the women with whom they lived. In this group there was not a strainof industry, virtue, or scholarship. They were licentious, ignorant, profane, lacking ambition to keep them out of poverty and crime. They drifted into whatever it was easiest to do or to be. Midday andmidnight, heaven and its opposite, present no sharper contrasts thanthe children and the children-in-law of Jonathan Edwards and of Max. 

The two men were born in rural communities, they both lived on thefrontier; but the one was born in a Christian home, was the son of aclergyman, of a highly educated man who took the highest honors Harvardcould give, was himself highly educated in home, school, and at YaleCollege, always associated with pure-minded, earnest persons, anddevoted his thought and activity to benefiting mankind. 

Max was the opposite of all this. There is no knowledge of his childhoodor of his parentage. He was not bad, as bad men go; he was jolly, couldtell a good story, though they were always off color, could trap unwaryanimals skillfully, was a fairly good shot; but no one was the betterfor anything that he ever said, thought, or did. Jollity, shiftlessness, and lack of purpose in one man have given to the world a family of1, 200, mostly paupers and criminals; while Mr. Edwards, who neveramused any one, who was always chaste, earnest, and noble, has given tothe world a family of more than 1, 400 of the world's noblemen, who havemagnified strength and beauty all over the land, illustrating grandlythese beautiful lines of Lowell:

 "Be noble! and the nobleness that lies In other men, sleeping, but never dead, Will rise in majesty to meet thine own. "

CHAPTER V

MRS. EDWARDS AND HOME TRAINING

Much of the capacity and talent, intensity and character of the morethan 1, 400 of the Edwards family is due to Mrs. Edwards. None of thebrothers or sisters of Jonathan Edwards had families with any suchmarvelous record as his, and to his wife belongs not a little of thecredit. 

At the age of twenty-four Mr. Edwards was married to Sarah Pierrpont, aged seventeen. She had an inheritance even more refined and vigorousthan that of Mr. Edwards. She was descended on her father's side fromthe choicest of the Pierrpont family of England and New England. Herfather was one of the most famous of New Haven clergymen, one of theprincipal founders, and a trustee and lecturer of Yale College. On hermother's side she was a granddaughter of Rev. Thomas Hooker, ofHartford, "the father of the Connecticut churches, " and one of the grandmen in early American history. 

Personally, she was so beautiful and so noble-minded that at the ageof thirteen she was known far and near for her Christian character andexceptional ability. While she was still but thirteen and Mr. Edwardstwenty, he wrote in a purely disinterested way of the remarkable girl:"She is of a wonderful sweetness, calmness, and universal benevolence ofmind. She will sometimes go about from place to place singing sweetly;and seems to be always full of joy and pleasure; and no one knows forwhat. "

Mr. Edwards was desirious of being married when he went to Northamptonas associate pastor with his grandfather, Dr. Stoddard. Miss Pierrpontwas only sixteen years of age, and she declined to be married until shewas seventeen. He insisted, but she persisted in her refusal. 

Mrs. Edwards lived in her children. To her husband came honor and gloryin his lifetime, but to her came denial, toil and care. At eighteen, this young, beautiful, brilliant wife became a mother, and until she wasforty, there was never a period of two years in which a child was notborn to them, and no one of the eleven children died until after thelast child was born. It was a home of little children. Her husband hadno care for the household and she wished him to have none. It was herinsistence that he should have thirteen hours of every twenty-four forhis study. Whatever may have been the contribution of Mr. Edwards to theinheritance of the family, they owed the charming environment of thehome to their mother. 

This was a delightful home, as many persons have testified who knew it. I saw recently the diary of the famous George Whitefield, where he wrotethat he sometimes wondered if it was not the Lord's will that he shouldmarry, that he might thereby be more useful, and that if it was theLord's will that he should marry, he wished to be reconciled thereto, but he did hope that the Lord would send him as a wife such a woman asMrs. Edwards, whom he considered the most beautiful and noble wife fora Christian minister that he had ever known. If there be a more charmingtribute to woman than this, I have not seen it. 

In view of the character of her children and their great success inlife, it may be interesting to know how she brought up the children, ofwhom there were so many, and for which the schools did so little. Thisis the testimony of one who knew of her home life well: "She had anexcellent way of governing her children; she knew how to make themregard and obey her cheerfully. She seldom punished them, and inspeaking to them used gentle and pleasant words. When she had occasionto reprove or rebuke, she would do it in a few words, without warmth andnoise, and with all calmness and gentleness of mind. In her directionsand reproofs of matters of importance, she would address herself to thereason of her children, that they might not only know her inclinationand will, but at the same time be convinced of the reasonableness of it. She had need to speak but once and she was obeyed; murmuring andanswering again were not known among them. In their manners they wereuncommonly respectful to their parents. When their parents came intothe room, they all rose instinctively from their seats and never resumedthem until their parents were seated; and when either parent wasspeaking, no matter with whom they had been conversing, they were allimmediately silent. 

"Quarreling and contention were in her family wholly unknown. Shecarefully observed the first appearance of resentment and ill-will inher young children towards any person whatever, and did not connive atit, but was careful to show her displeasure, and suppress it to theutmost; yet not by angry, wrathful words. 

"Her system of discipline began at a very early age, and it was her ruleto resist the first, as well as every subsequent exhibition of temper ordisobedience in the child, however young, until its will was broughtinto submission to the will of the parents. "

It is needless to say that all this added materially to the goodinheritance of the children. 

CHAPTER VI

CAPACITY, CHARACTER AND TRAINING

In view of what has been learned regarding Jonathan Edwards, hisancestors and his children, his grandchildren might have found someexcuse for presuming upon the capacity and character which theyinherited. In their veins was the blood of famous lines of noble menand women; the blood of Edwards, Stoddard, Pierrpont, and Hooker wasthrilling in their thought and intensifying their character. They hadinherited capacity and character at their best, but they did not presumeupon it. If ever inheritance would justify indifference to training, itwas in the case of the grandchildren of Jonathan Edwards, but they werefar from indifferent to their responsibility. 

It must be understood that the "family of Jonathan Edwards" includes notonly his descendants, but the men who married into the family and whosechildren became descendants of Mr. Edwards. At first this may not seemthe proper interpretation, but there is no other that is legitimate. Inthe case of the "Jukes" Mr. Dugdale includes in the family both the menand the women who married into the family, but in the case of Mr. Edwards there is no call to include the women who thus came into thefamily, and it would have magnified the study needlessly. 

Until quite recently there has been no way to discover the standing ofmarried women in American life except as we know the social, scholastic, and professional position of their husbands. In most families ason-in-law becomes a representative factor of a family. Therefore, whenever the "Edwards family" is spoken of it includes the sons-in-law, but it does not include the daughters-in-law, nor does it go beyondJonathan Edwards to include his brothers and sisters or theirdescendants. 

The "Jukes" had no inherited capacity or training upon which they couldsafely presume. Their only chance lay in nursing every germ of hope bymeans of industry and education, through the discipline of the shop, the training of the schools, and the inspiration of the church. Didthey appreciate this? Far from it. Instead of developing capacity bytraining, not one of the 1, 200 secured even a moderate education, andonly twenty of them ever had a trade, and ten of these learned it in thestate prison. 

On the other hand, although the Edwards family inherited abundantcapacity and character, every child has been educated from earlychildhood. Not all of the college members of the family have beendiscovered, and yet among the men alone I have found 285 graduates and asurprisingly large number of these have supplemented the college coursewith post-graduate or professional study. Just as the "Jukes" haveintensified their degeneracy by neglect, the Edwards family hasmagnified capacity and character by industry and education. 

Among the 285 college graduates of the Edwards family there are thirteenpresidents of colleges and other higher institutions of learning, sixty-five professors of colleges, and many principals of importantacademies and seminaries. Forty-five American and foreign colleges anduniversities have this family among the alumni. From this family havecome presidents for Yale, Princeton, Union, Hamilton, Amherst, theUniversity of California, the University of Tennessee, the famousLitchfield (Conn. ) law school, the Columbia law school, and AndoverTheological Seminary. Among these are such men as President TimothyDwight, Yale, 1794-1817; Theodore Dwight Woolsey, Yale, 1846-71; TimothyDwight, Yale, 1886-97; Jonathan Edwards (Jr. ), Union, 1799-1801; DanielC. Gilman, Johns Hopkins; Merrill E. Gates, Amherst; and Edwards A. Park, Andover. 

CHAPTER VII

AARON BURR

Undoubtedly some readers are already impatient at the delay in dealingwith Aaron Burr. There was a time when it was the fashion to refer toColonel Burr as sufficiently infamous to prove that heredity was of noappreciable value. As a matter of fact it is rather refreshing to haveone upon whom the imagination can play. It simply intensifies the whitelight of the rest of the record. 

Colonel Burr was not a saint after the model presented by his father, the Rev. Dr. Aaron Burr, the godly president of Princeton; by hisgrandfather, Jonathan Edwards; or by at least 1, 394 of the other membersof the family of Mr. Edwards. There is no purpose to give him saintlyenthronement, but it may not be amiss to suggest that the abuse of himhas been overdone. 

Colonel Aaron Burr died at eighty after thirty years of the worsttreatment ever meted out to a man against whom the bitterest enemies andthe most brilliant legal talent could bring no charge that would standin the eyes of the law. I have no purpose to lessen the verdict ofprejudice, for the study of the Edwards family is all the morefascinating because of one such meteor of error. It must be confessed, however, that a study of the last thirty years of Colonel Burr's lifemakes one more exasperated with human nature under a political whip thanwith Colonel Burr's mistake. 

At forty-nine Aaron Burr was one of the most brilliant, most admired, and beloved men in the United States. For thirty years his had been acareer with few American parallels. He had but one real and intenseenemy, and that man had hated him all those years. Alexander Hamiltonhad never missed an opportunity to vilify Mr. Burr, and his attack hadnever been resented. Calmly had Aaron Burr pursued his upward and onwardcourse, simply smiling at the vituperation of Hamilton. Could those twomen have agreed, they would have been the greatest leaders any nationever had. Their hatred was as expensive as was that of Blaine andConklin in after years. 

Every age must have a political scapegoat, one upon whose head isplaced symbolically the sins of the period, and after he is sent intothe wilderness of obscurity it becomes a social and political crime tobefriend him. There have been several such in our country's history, andthere will be others. Aaron Burr suffered more than any other simplybecause the glory from which he departed was greater. 

On March 2, 1805, Aaron Burr, vice-president of the United States, and president of the senate, retired from the chair two days beforehis term expired. He made a farewell address, which produced a greaterimpression upon that body than any other words ever spoken there. Everysenator was weeping, and for a long time no one could leave his seat orpropose any business. It was a sight for the nation to look upon andwonder. For fourteen years he had been one of the most conspicuousmembers of that body. 

Aaron Burr's ultimate ruin was wrought by his colonization experiment inLouisiana. In popular opinion, there was something traitorous in thatunsuccessful venture of his. In 1805 Mr. Burr paid $50, 000 for 400, 000acres of land which had been purchased of Spain in 1800, before itpassed to France and then to the United States in 1803. Of the motive ofColonel Burr we must always be ignorant; that he was not guilty of anycrime in connection therewith we are certain, for the highest tribunalof the land acquitted him. President Jefferson and the entire politicalforce of the administration were bent upon his conviction, but ChiefJustice Marshall, as capable, honorable, and incorruptible a jurist asthe country has known, would not have it so. Unfortunately, thebrilliant arraignment by William Wirt was printed and read for half acentury, while the calm rulings of Chief Justice Marshall never wentbeyond the court room. 

Why did a man of his capabilities, upon retirement from thevice-presidency, attempt, at fifty years of age to start life anew undersuch unpromising conditions? Because he was suddenly politically andprofessionally ruined. Ruined because he had killed Alexander Hamiltonin a duel. Why did he do it? It is a long story. 

To make it intelligent, his life must be reviewed. After a brilliantmilitary career, which began when he was nineteen and left him anheroic colonel, he studied law and practiced in Albany. At the ageof twenty-eight he was a leader in the New York legislature, and waschairman of the most important committees, always with the people, against the aristocracy--an unpardonable mistake in those times. At thirty-four he was attorney-general of the state, and his greatdecisions were accepted by all other states. At thirty-four heestablished the Manhattan bank of New York city. He was the only manwith the ability or courage to find a way to establish a bank for thepeople, and the solidity of that institution for a hundred years is anall-sufficient vindication of his plan. At thirty-five he was appointedand confirmed as a supreme court judge of New York state, but hedeclined the honor, and was the same year elected to the United Statessenate. He was re-elected, serving in all fourteen years. 

At the second presidential election Senator Burr received one vote inthe electoral college, at the third he received thirty, and in thefourth received seventy-three. Jefferson also received seventy-three andthe election was thrown into the house. This was in 1800 and Mr. Burrwas forty-years of age. The choice lay with New York, which could becarried by no man but Aaron Burr. 

Alexander Hamilton was the leader of the Federalists. He also was ofNew York. It was a battle of the giants. These two men measured swords. The presidency of the United States was the prize both parties--theFederalists and the Democrats--were seeking. New York had always beenwith the Federalists. In this great struggle it went against Hamiltonand for Burr. This ended the political career of Hamilton, and wouldhave done so had he lived longer. He was one of America's greateststatesmen, but one of the poorest politicians. No one could get alongwith him but Washington, and when he died the political end of Hamiltoncame. 

Jefferson and Burr each received seventy-three votes for president, andAdams received sixty-five. New York had twelve votes, so that if shehad remained with the Federalist candidate Adams, he would have won, seventy-seven to sixty-one. This defeat angered Hamilton beyondendurance. He and Burr had been deadly rivals for thirty years, firstfor the love of woman, then for military preferment, and later in thepolitical arena. When Burr established the Manhattan bank, Hamilton'sbrother-in-law, inspired by Hamilton, attacked Burr's motive, with theresult of a duel in which neither was harmed. 

Notwithstanding Hamilton's greatness, he was always in trouble with menand women. He never ceased his abuse of Burr, whose election as senatorangered him. Later, when Burr was the choice of congress as minister toParis, backed especially by Madison and Monroe, Hamilton succeeded incompassing his defeat. Again, when Adams had decided upon some importantappointment for Burr, Hamilton succeeded in defeating him. This madeBurr's promotion to the vice-presidency and his own downfall the moreexasperating to Hamilton. 

Four years passed. Burr won high honor as president of the senate, and the party nominated him for governor of New York with practicalunanimity. This was too much for Hamilton, who had nothing to lose byindulging his enmity to the full. The campaign against Burr was one ofthe basest on record. It was one of vilification. Being vice-president, he was at a disadvantage when it came to conducting the campaign, and hewas defeated. 

There were many features of this campaign that were peculiarly annoyingto Burr, and for the second time in his life he resorted to the duel, and Hamilton was killed. Had Burr died in that hour, history would havea different place for him as well as for Hamilton, but in his deathHamilton was glorified. The most preposterous stories, such as hisfiring into the air, were invented and believed. The time and theconditions were as bad as they could be for Burr. The North nevercondoned a duel that ended fatally, and then less than ever. I have noword of apology to offer for the duel. It was weakness, as it always is, and from it came all the ills that befell Aaron Burr. 

Censure him all you choose, and then look at the conditions of hischildhood and wonder that he lived to fifty years of age before the lackof early care brought forth its fruit. Aaron Burr received as good anintellectual and moral legacy as any one of the 1, 400 of the Edwardsfamily. His father and mother, grandfather and grandmother would havegiven him as good an environment and training as any one of themenjoyed, but--his father died before he was two years old, and hismother, grandfather, and grandmother died when he was two years old, andhe and his sister, four years old, went to live with his oldest uncle, Timothy Edwards, who was only twenty. This uncle was also bringing uptwo younger brothers aged eight and thirteen, and three young sisters. While Timothy Edwards made an eminently worthy citizen and reared afamily of noble sons and daughters, he was not prepared at nineteen tosupport so many younger children and give a two-year-old boy theattention that he needed. 

At twelve years of age Aaron Burr went to college, and after this timehe never had even the apology of a home, indeed he never had a home suchas his nature demanded. There are three pictures of the child whichsatisfy me that the right training would have enabled Aaron Burr to gointo history as the noblest Roman of them all. 

At four years of age he was at school, where the treatment was so severethat he ran away from school and home and could not be found for threedays. 

At seven years of age he was up in a cherry tree when a very prim anddisagreeable spinster came to call, and he indulged in the childishluxury of throwing cherries at her. She sought "Uncle Timothy, " whotook the seven-year-old child into the house, gave him a long and severelecture, offered a long prayer of warning, and then "licked me like asack. "

At ten years of age he ran away from the severity of his uncle, and wentto New York and shipped as cabin boy. His uncle followed him, and whenthe little fellow saw him he went to the top of the masthead and refusedto come down until his uncle agreed not to punish him. It is easy to seethat his uncle aroused in him all the characteristics that should havebeen calmed, and gave him none of that care which father or mother wouldhave provided him. 

At twelve he entered Princeton, and graduated with honors at sixteen. College life had its temptations, but he conducted himself with unusualdecorum, and upon graduation went to study with an eminent clergyman. Apparently he expected to enter the ministry, but the theology of Dr. Bellamy did not commend itself to him, and even less did the spirit withwhich the theologian met his queries, so that for the remaining sixtyodd years of life he would not talk about theology. Here was a brilliantlad, fresh from college, with the inheritance of Burr and Edwards, whomight have been led into a glorious career, but was instead repelled, and went back to his uncle's home, with no profession and no plan forlife, with no one to advise him. 

The battle of Bunker hill aroused Burr to patriotic purpose, and, thoughbut nineteen, he started for Cambridge to enlist. He was stricken withfever, however, and before he was recovered he heard of Arnold'sproposed expedition to Quebec, and, though he had better be in bed, hetook his musket and walked to Newburyport, 30 miles, in season to shipwith the troops. Two men were there ahead of him awaiting his arrivalwith instructions from his uncle to bring him back to New Jersey. Thiswas too much for young Burr, who did not recognize the right of hisuncle to interfere, and he expressed his mind so vigorously as tocommand the admiration of the soldiers and arouse the fears of the twomessengers, who returned without him. This was the last of his uncle'sinterference. Who that reads of the childhood life of this orphan canwonder that he lacked patience under the severe reverse of politicalfortune at fifty years of age? That he is the one illustrious exceptionamong the 1, 400 need cause no surprise. 

CHAPTER VIII

CONTRASTS

It has already been emphasized that the Jukes always mingled blood oftheir own quality in their descendants, and that the Edwards family hasinvariably chosen blood of the same general tone and force. Who canthink for a moment that the Jukes would have remained on so low a levelif the Edwards blood had been mixed with theirs, or that the Edwardswould have retained their intellectual supremacy if they had marriedinto the Jukes. The fact is that in 150 years the Jukes never did minglefirst-class blood with their own, and the Edwards family has not in 150years degenerated through marriage. 

It is pre-eminently true that a mighty intellectual and moral forcedoes plough the channel of its thought and character through manygenerations. It would be well for any doubter to study the records ofthoroughbreds in the animal world. The highest record ever made for milkand butter was by an animal of no family, and she was valuable only forwhat she could earn. None of her power went to her offspring. She wassimply a high-toned freak, but an animal with a clean pedigree back tosome great progenitor is valuable independently of individual earningqualities. 

No more would any one claim that the Jukes would not have been immenselyimproved by education and environment, or that the Edwards family couldhave maintained its record without education, training, and environment. The facts show that the Jukes first, last, and all the time neglectedthese advantages, and that the Edwards family, with all itsintermarrying, has never neglected them. 

The Jukes were notorious law breakers, while the Edwards family hasfurnished practically no lawbreakers, and a great array of more than 100lawyers, thirty judges, and the most eminent law professor probably inthe country. James Bryce in his comments upon America places one of thisfamily at the head of legal learning on this continent. This wasTheodore William Dwight, LL. D. , born in New Haven, July 18, 1822;graduated from Hamilton College, 1840; professor there 1842-58. In 1858he went to Columbia College, organized the law school and was itspresident for thirty-three years. 

Some of the most eminent official city attorneys of Philadelphia, NewYork and Chicago have been found in this family. Ex-Governor Hoadley, ofOhio, a descendant of Jonathan Edwards, is now the head of perhaps theleading law firm of New York City or of the country. When one studiesthe legal side of the family it seems as though they were instinctivelyand chiefly lawyers and judges. It simply means that whatever theEdwards family has done it has done ably and nobly. There is no greatertest of intellectual majesty than that which the practice of law putsupon a man. When James Bryce pays his grand tribute to Dr. Theodore W. Dwight, president of Columbia College law school, it signifies moreintellectually than to have said that he was president of the UnitedStates. 

None of the Jukes had the equivalent of a common school education, whilethere are few of the Edwards family that have not had more than that. Few were satisfied with less than academy or seminary if they did notgo to college. There is not a leading college in the country in whichtheir names are not to be found recorded. They have not only furnishedthirteen college presidents and a hundred and more professors, but theyhave founded many important academies and seminaries in New Haven andBrooklyn, all through the New England states, and in the Middle, Western, and Southern states. They have contributed liberally to collegeendowments. One gave a quarter of a million as an endowment for Yale. 

In Yale alone have been more than 120 graduates. Among these are nearlytwenty Dwights, nearly as many Edwards, seven Woolseys, eight Porters, five Johnsons, four Ingersolls, and several of most of the followingnames: Chapin, Winthrop, Shoemaker, Hoadley, Lewis, Mathers, Reeve, Rowland, Carmalt, Devereaux, Weston, Heermance, Whitney, Blake, Collier, Scarborough, Yardley, Gilman, Raymond, Wood, Morgan, Bacon, Ward, Foote, Cornelius, Shepards, Bristed, Wickerham, Doubleday, VanVolkenberg, Robbins, Tyler, Miller, Lyman, Pierpont, and Churchill, theauthor of "Richard Carvel, " is a recent graduate. In Amherst at one timethere were of this family President Gates and Professors Mather, Tyler, and Todd. Wherever found they are leaders even in college faculties. Those who know what Gates, Mather, Tyler, and Todd have stood for aspresident and professors of Amherst will appreciate what JonathanEdwards' blood has done for this college. 

Of the Jukes, 440 were more or less viciously diseased. The Edwardsfamily was healthy and long lived. Of the eleven children of Mr. AndMrs. Edwards, four lived to be more than seventy years ofage, --seventy-three, seventy-five, seventy-seven and seventy-nine, --andthree others were fifty, fifty-six, and sixty-three. Only one diedunmarried, none died in childhood. The record for health and longevitycontinues through every generation. They have also done much toalleviate the sufferings of mankind. There have been sixty physicians, all marked men. Dr. Richard Smith Dewey was an eminent surgeon in theFranco-Prussian war, having charge of the Prussian hospital at HesseCassel. Dr. Sereno Edwards Dwight was a physician and surgeon in theBritish regular army. The physicians of the family have had importantconnection with insane asylums and hospitals. The legislative actionof New York, by which the first insane asylum of the state was built, was largely the result of a physician of this family. The medicalsuperintendent of the Illinois state insane asylum was another of thefamily. Eminent names in the medical annals of San Francisco, Chicago, Detroit, New York, Boston, and other cities can be traced to JonathanEdwards. 

The Jukes neglected all religious privileges, defied and antagonized thechurch and all that it stands for, while the Edwards family has morethan a 100 clergymen, missionaries, and theological professors, manyof the most eminent in the country's history. America has had no morebrilliant preachers and theologians than some of those that bear thenames of Edwards, Dwight, Woolsey, Park, Ingersoll. There have beenno more noted missionaries than this family has sent for faithful andsuccessful work in Asia Minor, India, Africa, China, Hawaii, and theSouth Sea islands. Dwight's famous five volumes on theology are aproduct of a worthy descendant of Jonathan Edwards. Edwards A. Park, thelongtime head of Andover theological seminary, whose vigor of thought, keenness of logic, and pulpit power are unsurpassed, was a descendantof Mr. Edwards. The family has furnished several army chaplains and oneeminent chaplain of the United States senate. They have made manychurches prominent for the vigor of their pulpit utterances. The famousSecond church, Portland, Park street church of Boston, and many in NewHaven and other Connecticut cities and towns as well as many churches inthe Middle and Western States owe much to the descendants of Mr. Edwards. 

Not one of the Jukes was ever elected to a public office, while morethan eighty of the family of Jonathan Edwards have been especiallyhonored. Legislatures in all sections of the country, governor'scouncils, state treasuries, and other elective offices have been filledby these men. They have been mayors of New Haven, Cleveland, and Troy;governors of Connecticut, Ohio, and South Carolina; they have beenprominent in the Continental congress, in the constitutional conventionsof Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Ohio, Illinois, and Wisconsin. They have represented the United States at several foreign courts;several have been members of congress; three have been United Statessenators, and one vice-president of the United States. 

The Jukes lacked the physical and moral courage, as well as thepatriotic purpose, to enlist, but there were seventy-five officers inthe army and navy from the family of Mr. Edwards. This family has beenprominent as officers, chaplains, or surgeons, in the army and navy inthe three great wars. In the Civil war they were at Shiloh, New Orleans, and with the Red river expedition, at Fort Fisher and Newbern, at BigBethel, Antietam, and Gettysburg, on Lookout mountain with Hooker, withSheridan in the Shenandoah, and were on the march to the sea withSherman. 

One spinster of the family residing in Detroit expressed much regretthat she had no husband. The reason she gave, however, was highlycomplimentary to the sterner sex, --because she had no husband to send tothe Civil war. Having none, she paid the regulation bounty and had a manin the service of her country for three years in lieu of the husband shewould have sent if she had had one. 

The Jukes were as far removed as possible from literature. They not onlynever created any, but they never read anything that could by anystretch of the imagination be styled good reading. In the Edwards familysome sixty have attained prominence in authorship or editorial life. "Richard Carvel, " is by Mr. Winston Churchill, a descendant of Mr. Edwards, and I have found 135 books of merit written by the family. Eighteen considerable journals and periodicals have been edited andseveral important ones founded by the Edwards family. 

The Jukes did not wander far from the haunts of Max. They stagnated likethe motionless pool, while the Edwards family is a prominent factor inthe mercantile, industrial, and professional life of thirty-three statesof the union and in several foreign countries, in ninety-two Americanand many foreign cities. They have been pre-eminently directors of men. The Pacific steamship line and fifteen American railway systems havehad as president, superintendent, or otherwise active in the managementone of this family. Many large banks, banking houses, and insurancecompanies have been directed by them. They have been owners orsuperintendents of large coal mines in Pennsylvania and West Virginia, of large iron plants and vast oil interests in Pennsylvania, and ofsilver mines in Nevada. There is scarcely any great American industrythat has not had one of this family among its chief promoters. EliWhitney of cotton-gin fame married a granddaughter of Jonathan Edwards. 

Prison reform has found its leading advocates in this family. Wilberforce's best American friend was of this fold, and Garibaldivalued one of the family above all other American supporters. 

Whatever the Jukes stand for, the Edwards family does not. Whateverweakness the Jukes represent finds its antidote in the Edwards family, which has cost the country nothing in pauperism, in crime, in hospitalor asylum service. On the contrary, it represents the highest usefulnessin invention, manufacture, commerce, founding of asylums and hospitals, establishing and developing missions, projecting and energizing the bestphilanthropies. 

CHAPTER IX

TIMOTHY EDWARDS

To make more clear, if possible, the persistence of intellectualactivity and moral virtue, let us study samples of the family. Take forinstance the eldest son, Timothy. He was a member of and leader in thefamous Massachusetts council of war in the Revolution, a colonel in themilitia, and a judge. His descendants have been leaders in Binghamton, Pittsburg, Indianapolis, Bangor, St. Louis, Northampton, New Bedford, San Francisco, New York, New Haven, and many other cities and towns inNew England, New York, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Ohio. From hisdescendants a Connecticut town, Chaplin, is named; Newark, Ohio, had along-time principal, Jonathan E. Chaplin; Andover Theological Seminaryhad one of its most famous treasurers, Samuel Farrar; the American boardof missions had one of its grandest leaders and secretaries, Dr. EliasCornelius; the American Baptist Missionary Union had one of its eminentsecretaries, Dr. Solomon Peck; the American Missionary Association hadas its great treasurer, W. E. Whiting; the famous young ladies' seminaryof Lenox, Mass. , had for thirty years its great principal, ElizabethSedgwick; Boston had a prominent lawyer, a graduate of Harvard, WilliamMinot; St. Louis had a leading lawyer, William D. Sedgwick; Antietam hadin the list of killed the gallant Major Sedgwick; San Francisco recordedamong her distinguished sons the long-time superintendent of the Pacificmail steamship company; the United States navy counted as one of herable officers a surgeon, Dr. George Hopkins; Amherst had as her mostfamous instructor Professor W. S. Tyler, D. D. , LL. D. , at the head of theGreek department for half a century; she also has the present brilliantprofessor of biology, John M. Tyler; Sheridan had as a brilliant colonelin the grand ride of the Shenandoah Colonel M. W. Tyler; invention claimsthe discoverer of the Turbine wheel, W. W. Tyler; Knox College hasclaimed as a leader at one time, as has Smith at another, ProfessorHenry H. Tyler. 

A detailed study of the family of the eldest son is suggestive. He was the sixth child, born in Northampton, 1738, when the fatherwas thirty-five and the mother twenty-eight. He was but twenty yearsold when the father and mother died and the care of the family devolvedupon him. He had graduated from Princeton the previous year but theresponsibility of a large family prevented his entering uponprofessional life. Two years after the death of his father he marriedand removed to Elizabethtown, N. J. , where he resided for ten years. In1770 he returned to Stockbridge, Mass. Berkshire county was still on thefrontier and was sparsely settled. The store which Mr. Edwards openedin 1770 was the first in the county. The settlers raised wheat on thenewly cleared land. This Mr. Edwards bought and sent to New York, bringing back goods in return. In five years he became the mostprosperous man in the county, buying and clearing a very large farm onwhich he employed as many as fifty men in the busy season. 

The outbreak of the Revolutionary struggle was a most inopportune timefor Timothy Edwards; but for that he would have become one of thewealthiest men of his day. All business was suspended and he gavehimself to his country's cause with intense devotion. He was at onceappointed on a commission with General Schuyler to treat with theIndians; was appointed commissary to look after the supply of the armywith provisions. From 1777 to 1780 he was a leader in the Legislature ofMassachusetts; was elected to the Continental Congress with John Hancockand John Adams; was a colonel in the Massachusetts militia and a judgeof probate. When the war broke out Timothy Edwards was worth $20, 000, which he had accumulated in addition to all his other burdens. When thewar closed he had nothing, and was $3, 000 in debt to New York merchants. To understand what sacrifices he made it must be understood that whenthe government was in great straits he took $5, 000 of money that was asgood as gold and let the government have it, taking in return money thatwas of slight value. He also took fifty tons of flour to Springfieldand let the government have it for paper money at par. There were nogreater heroes in the Revolutionary war than such men as TimothyEdwards. He was nearly fifty years old when the war closed and hefound himself the father of thirteen children and without property orbusiness. Full of courage and enterprise he succeeded in supporting hisfamily in comfort and in regaining a substantial property before hisdeath, which occurred in the midst of the next war, October 27, 1813. 

It was not an easy thing to educate children in those times. When theRevolutionary war broke out his oldest child was but thirteen, and whenit ended he had ten children under twenty-one. There were only threebooks in the schools at Stockbridge during the war, Dilworth's SpellingBook and Arithmetic and the Book of Psalms. From these the children ofTimothy Edwards received their education and that it was a good trainingsubsequent events show. 

The first born, a daughter, married Benjamin Chaplin, Jr. , a graduate ofYale (1778), and for her second husband Capt. Dan Tyler, of Brookline, Ct. , a graduate of Harvard. Her second child, Edward, became Registerof Probate. Jonathan, the second born, had several children who becameprominent in professional and business life. Phoebe married Rev. AsahelHooker, an eminent graduate of Yale, and for her second husband Rev. Samuel Farrer, a graduate of Harvard, and for many years treasurer andfinancial agent of Andover Theological Seminary. Her children were notedmen and women, graduates of Yale and Dartmouth, clergymen, theologicalprofessors, secretary of the American Board of Foreign Missions, andsecretary American Baptist Missionary Union, prominent teachers andauthors. 

Rhoda Edwards, another of Timothy's daughters, married Col. JosiahDwight, of Springfield. Among their fifteen children and theirdescendants are the founder of a famous young ladies' school at Lenox;an author of "Spanish Conquest of America, " and five other considerableworks; clerk of supreme court of Massachusetts; a Boston lawyer, graduate of Harvard; an eminent linguist and graduate of Harvard; musicteacher in New York City, educated in Germany; St. Louis lawyer, graduate of Harvard college and law school, who studied in Germany;major in Civil war, wounded at Antietam; hospital nurse in Civil war;graduate of Yale; graduate of Cambridge, Eng. , and author of "Five Yearsin an English University;" a graduate of Amherst and Andover, andmissionary in Southern India; lawyer in Springfield; eminent teacher atNorthampton; leading physician at Northampton; leading physician at NewBedford; supt. Pacific Mail Steamship Company; merchant in New York;insurance manager, New York; author of "Greece and Roman Mythology, " andfive other important works; supt. Cincinnati, Hamilton & Dayton R. R. ; aNew York lawyer and graduate of Yale; author of "History of Virginia, "and two other works; graduate Dartmouth and Andover; assistant surgeonU. S. Navy; and an officer in Civil war, who fought in thirty battles. 

Mary Edwards, another daughter of Timothy, married Mason Whiting, District Attorney of New York, and member of New York Legislature. Inthis family of eight children and their descendants are an authoress; acolonel in Civil war; treasurer American Missionary Association; Rev. W. S. Tyler, D. D. , LL. D. , a graduate of Amherst and Andover, professorof Greek for fifty years at Amherst; Col. Mason Whiting Tyler, graduateof Amherst, gallant soldier in Civil war; Wm. W. Tyler, graduate ofAmherst, manufacturer of famous Turbine Water Wheels; Henry MatherTyler, graduate of Amherst, professor of Greek at Knox College, pastorat Galesburg, Fitchburg and Worcester, and professor of Greek at SmithCollege; John Mason Tyler, graduate of Amherst and Union TheologicalSeminary, studied at Gothenburg and Leipsic, professor of Biology atAmherst and eminent lecturer. 

To William Edwards, another son of Timothy, oldest son of JonathanEdwards, an entire chapter will be given. 

CHAPTER X

COLONEL WILLIAM EDWARDS

Fascinating is the story of Colonel William Edwards, grandson ofJonathan Edwards, the inventor of the process of tanning by which theleather industry of the world was revolutionized. In no respect did theintellectual and moral inheritance show itself more clearly than in therecuperative force of the family of Colonel Edwards. 

Attention has already been called to the remarkable way in whichthe father, Timothy Edwards, re-established himself and educatedhis large family after his great financial reverses in the period ofthe Revolutionary war, but the story of Colonel William Edwards iseven a more striking illustration of this same power. He was born atElizabeth, New Jersey, November 11, 1770. He was a mere child during theRevolutionary struggle. Before he was two years old the father removedto Stockbridge, Mass. , and the boy grew up in as thoroughly a ruralcommunity as could be found. The school privileges were very meagre. No books were printed in the American colonies because of Britishprohibition. From early childhood he had to work, first as his mother'sassistant, tending the children and doing all kinds of household worksuch as a handy boy can do. As soon as he could sit on a horse he rodefor light ploughing and by the time he was ten was driving oxen forheavy ploughing and teaming. 

William Edwards was only thirteen when he was put out as anapprentice to a tanner in Elizabethtown, N. J. To reach this place thelad had to ride horseback to the Hudson river, about thirty miles, makearrangements to have the horse taken back, and take passage on a WestIndies cattle brig to New York. It took him a week to get to New York. He then took the ferry for Elizabethtown. 

When young Edwards began life as a tanner it took twelve months forthe tanning of hides. This was by far the most extensive tannery inAmerica. It had a capacity of 1, 500 sides. The only "improvement" thenknown--1784--was the use of a wooden plug in the lime vats and waterpools to let off the contents into the brook. The bark was ground byhorse power. There was a curb fifteen feet in diameter, made ofthree-inch plank, with a rim fifteen inches high. Within this was astone wheel with many hollows and the wooden wheel with long pegs. Twohorses turned these wheels which would grind half a cord of bark in aday of twelve hours. The first year William was at work grinding bark. All the pay received for the year's work was the knowledge gained of theart of grinding bark, very poor board (no clothing, no money), and theprivilege of tanning for himself three sheep skins. The fourth halfyear he received his first money, $2. 50 a month, which was paid out offriendliness for the Edwards family. 

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 hisplant for $700 on long credit. After years of great struggle hesucceeded in business and developed the process by which instead ofemploying one hand for every one hundred sides he could tan 40, 000 withtwenty lads and the cost was reduced from twelve cents a pound to fourcents. The quality was improved even more than the cost was reduced. When the war of 1812 broke out he had practically the only importanttannery in the United States, but the war scare and attendant evils ledto his failure in 1815. He was now 45 years old with a wife and ninechildren. He went to work in a factory for day wages to keep his familysupplied with the necessities of life. By some misunderstanding and acombination of law suits his patents were lost to him. 

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

The chief interest in Colonel Edwards centers in his children. When hisfailure came there were nine children, five boys and four girls. Theyoungest was a few months old and the eldest 19. Seven of them wereunder 12 years of age. In the first four years of their reverses twoothers were born, so that his large family had their preparation andstart in life in the years of struggle. Nevertheless they took theirplaces among the prosperous members of the Edwards family. The eldestson, William W. Edwards, was one of the eminently successful men of NewYork. He lived to be 80 years old and his life was fully occupied withgood work. He was engaged in the straw goods business in New York;helped to develop the insurance business to large proportions; organizedthe Dime Savings Bank of Brooklyn, of which he was treasurer andcashier. He was one of the founders of the American Tract Society and ofthe New York Mercantile Library. He was a member of the Statelegislature for several terms. 

Henry Edwards was one of Boston's most eminent merchants and a mostuseful man. He had the only strictly wholesale silk house in Boston fornearly half a century. He was born in Northampton, 1798. At the age offifteen he entered the employ of a prominent Boston importing house andbegan 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 aborn trader. His brother in New York knowing that twist buttons werescarce in that city suggested that Henry buy up all there were in Bostonbefore the dealers discovered the fact that they were scarce in New Yorkand send them on to him. They cleared $500 in a few weeks. He was anearnest student. Not having had the advantages of an education he madeup for it by studying evenings. They imported their silks from Francewhich led him to study French until he was accomplished in the art ofreading and speaking the French language. It is rather remarkable thatlearning the language in this way, he was able to go to France andout-rank most foreigners in Parisian society. An Edwards did notabsolutely need the college and the university in order to be eminentlyscholarly in any special line. 

At the age of twenty-five he went into business as the seniorpartner of the house of Edwards & Stoddard on State street, Boston. Itwas 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 andremained there many years. They did a highly profitable business fornearly fifty years. He received much social attention while in Paris. General Lafayette was specially friendly, and the families visitedfrequently. He was also highly honored in Boston, where he was a memberof 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 theMassachusetts legislature and received several important appointmentsof trust and honor from Governor John A. Andrew and President Lincoln. Boston had few men in his day who were more prosperous or more highlyhonored. 

Ogden E. Edwards was for several years at the head of one of the largestleather houses of New York City, eminently prosperous and of greatservice to the public. Alfred Edwards was founder and senior partnerin one of the largest wholesale dry goods houses of New York for fiftyyears, known as Alfred Edwards & Co. Amory was for many years a memberof the firm of Alfred Edwards & Co. He was also United States Consul atBuenos 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 ofNorth America, " and also of an important work on "Shaksper norShakespeare. " Richard C. Edwards was also a member of the firm of AlfredEdwards & Co. And shared the prosperity of the house with his brother. 

Rebecca T. Edwards, the eldest daughter, married Benjamin Curtis, awealthy merchant in business in New York and Paris. She was married inParis and General Lafayette gave her away in place of her father. SarahH. Edwards married Rev. John N. Lewis, a successful clergyman. ElizabethT. Edwards married Henry Rowland, an eminently successful and usefulcitizen of New York, whose children, like himself, have been honored inmany ways. 

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

The ten children of Colonel Edwards lived to great age, and each of thesons was eminently successful in business, and all were highly esteemed. Each of the daughters married men eminent in commercial or professionallife. None of them were privileged to receive a liberal educationbecause of the great financial reverses that came to the father in theiryouth, but every one of them was closely identified with educationalinstitutions 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 JonathanEdwards, it is worth while to study the family of one of the daughters. Mary, the fourth child born at Northampton (1734), was married at theage of 16 to Timothy Dwight, born in Vermont (1726) and graduated fromYale in 1744. 

It is interesting to find a daughter of Jonathan Edwards marrying a Yalegraduate, who "had such extreme sensibility to the beauty and sweetnessof always doing right, and such a love of peace, and regarded the legalprofession as so full of temptations to do wrong, in great degree andsmall" that he persistently refused to study law, though it had been hisfather's great desire. The conscientiousness of Major Dwight is wellillustrated by this incident. There was a lottery in the interest ofPrinceton college, authorized by the legislature of New Jersey, andDwight was sent twenty tickets for sale. He returned them, but the timerequired for the mail in those days was so long that they did not reachthe destination until after the drawing. Major Dwight was notified thatone of his twenty tickets had drawn $20, 000 and all but one ticket haddrawn some prize. Major Dwight paid for the one blank ticket and wouldnot take a cent of the large prize money. This was worthy a son-in-lawof Mr. Edwards, the progenitor of a family of mighty men. 

Major Dwight was a merchant in Northampton, a selectman, judge ofprobate for sixteen years and was for several years a member of thelegislature. At the time of his death, 1778, he was possessed of 3, 000acres 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 butfive painted houses in Northampton and but two were carpeted. Of thefourteen children, thirteen grew up, and twelve were married; and theirentire family adds greatly to the glory of the family of JonathanEdwards. The oldest son, Dr. Timothy Dwight, president of Yale, saidwith 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 andintellectual vigor. She was but seventeen when her first child was bornand was the mother of fourteen children at forty-two. 

The first-born, President Timothy Dwight, S. T. D. , LL. D. , born 1752, wasone of the most eminent of Americans. He learned his alphabet at asingle sitting while a mere child, and at four knew the catechism byheart. He graduated from Yale at seventeen; taught the Hopkins schoolin New Haven at seventeen and eighteen; was tutor in Yale from nineteento twenty-five years of age; wrote the "Conquest of Canada, " which wasreprinted in London, at nineteen. This work was dedicated to GeorgeWashington by permission. At twenty-three, he was in the fore frontof the advocates of independence. At twenty-two, General Washingtonappointed him a chaplain in the army, and personally requested that heaccept. His widow received $350 a year pension because of this service. He was a member of the Massachusetts legislature and secured animportant grant to Harvard university. He was offered a professorshipat Harvard and could have gone to Congress without opposition, buthe declined both, and at thirty-two accepted a country pastorate atGreenfield Hill, Connecticut. He remained there twenty-two years. Hissalary 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 wassaid to be the largest ministerial salary in New England. At forty-threehe was called from the country parish to the presidency of Yale. Hissalary as president was $334. Later he had $500, from which he paid $150for two amanuenses which he required because his sight had failed him. He published fourteen important works. He was largely instrumental inorganizing the American Board of Commissioners of Foreign Missions; theAmerican Missionary Society and the American Bible Society. To him islargely due the establishment of theological seminaries in the country. For forty-six years he taught every year either in a public or privateschool or college, and all but one year of that time he preached everyweek and almost invariably he prepared a new sermon. When he died, froma cancer at sixty-five, the children insisted that the estate should befor the mother during her lifetime, and when she died there was foundto 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 morethan forty years. He endowed the "Dwight Professorship of DidacticTheology in Yale, " which was named for him. There were nine children, grandchildren of President Dwight by his eldest son. Of these theeldest, also Timothy, was the leading paper manufacturer in the trustmill headquarters at Chicago, and his six children were enterprising andsuccessful business men in Illinois and Wisconsin. John William Dwightwas one of the leading manufacturers of chemicals in Connecticut. EdwardStrong Dwight, of Yale, 1838, and of Theological Seminary, Yale, was formany 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 tothe family of President Dwight. Benjamin Woolsey Dwight, M. D. , anotherson of the President of Yale, was a graduate of Yale and treasurer ofHamilton college for nineteen years. Among his descendants are RichardSmith 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. AlsoElliott Anthony, of Hamilton, 1850; Chicago lawyer; city attorney; amember of the Illinois Constitutional Convention in 1862 and again in1870; founder of the Law Institute, Chicago, and for several years thepresident. Also Edward Woolsey Dwight, who was a leading citizen andlegislator of Wisconsin. 

It is impracticable to give the record of many of the distinguishedmembers of such a family, but a brief notice of a few will give someidea of the standard of the family. 

Benj. Woodbridge Dwight, Ph. D. , b. 1816, g. Hamilton 1835, YaleTheological Seminary, professor in Hamilton; founded CentralPresbyterian church, Joliet, Ill. ; established "Dwight's High School, "Brooklyn; editor-in-chief of "The Interior" of Chicago, which he ownedand edited; contributor to many magazines; author of several scholarlyworks; had the first preparatory school which placed German on a levelwith Greek in importance, and founded a large preparatory boardingschool at Clinton, N. Y. He was a man of rare ability, character andsuccess. 

Prof. Theodore William Dwight, LL. D. , b. 1822, g. Hamilton 1840, g. YaleLaw S. ; professor Hamilton College sixteen years; dean of ColumbiaCollege Law S. From 1858 to 1892. James Brice of England placed him atthe head of legal learning in the United States and said: "It would beworth an English student's while to cross the Atlantic to attend hiscourse. " Another eminent English lawyer, A. V. Dicey, in "LegalEducation" wrote of him as "the greatest living American teacher oflaw. " He gave a course of lectures each year at Cornell; was a member ofthe N. Y. Constitutional Convention in 1867; was a member of the famouscommittee of seventy in N. Y. City that exposed the Tweed ring; waspresident of the New York Prison Association and presided when Mr. Dugdale was employed to study the Jukes; associate editor "American LawRegister;" was legal editor of "Johnson's Encyclopędia, " and made manyimportant contributions to the legal literature of the country. Therehave 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 greatgrandson of Jonathan Edwards; g. Yale 1820; studied at PrincetonTheological Seminary and g. At Yale L. S. ; studied in Germanuniversities; professor in Yale twenty-two years; president of Yale1846-1871. 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 theEvangelical Alliance held in N. Y. City 1873, the leading American on theCommittee for the Revision of the Bible. After resigning the presidencyhe continued to lecture at Yale until his death, 1889. There was no moreeminent American in unofficial life from 1840 to 1890 than he. PresidentHayes once said that he was greatly perplexed at one time as to the lineof public policy which he should pursue until it occurred to him thatPresident Woolsey was the one American on whose judgment he could rely, and after consulting him his course was entirely clear and his actionwise. He was the author of several valuable and standard works. Yale'sfirst great advance was in the time of President Timothy Dwight, itssecond was in the administration of President Theodore Dwight Woolsey. When he became president the classes about doubled in size. Heintroduced new departments at once and endowments came in, such as hadnever 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 aradically different pace. Yale and American thought owe much toPresident Woolsey. He wrote many scholarly works. 

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

President Timothy Dwight, D. D. , LL. D. , b. 1828, g. Yale 1849, g. YaleTheological School, studied at Bonn and Berlin in Germany; was professorat Yale and president from 1886 to 1897. He has been an eminent Americanscholar for half a century. If there were but two or three such men ina 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 NewEnglander. " It is a singular fact that the three great advances whichYale 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 thenumber of students had risen to 1365 and the sixth year to 1784. Thegifts to Yale in each of the fifteen years of his administration werefabulous as compared with any past experiences, often above $350, 000. 

President Sereno Edwards Dwight, D. D. , g. Yale 1803, practiced law inNew 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 boardingschool in New Haven. Among his students were the two boys who afterwardsmade the famous Andrews & Stoddard's Latin Grammar. His literary workwas extensive and valuable. Standing by himself he would shed lustreupon the names he bore, Edwards and Dwight. He was a tutor in Yale andwas 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, whichhe declined. He was one of the religious leaders of America for manyyears. 

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

Theodore Dwight, 2d, b. 1796, g. Yale 1814, eminent scholar, imprisonedin Paris for distributing the New Testament gratis in the streets; spokeseven languages; was the warmest American friend of Garibaldi and wasauthorized by him to edit his works in this country; was directorN. Y. Asylum for the Blind, and of the N. Y. Public School Assn. ; wasinstrumental in having music introduced into the schools of N. Y. City;was prominent in religious and philanthropic as well as educationalwork. 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. Heedited at various times "The N. Y. Daily Advertiser, " "The Youths PennyPaper, " "The American Magazine, " "The Family Visitor, " "The N. Y. Presbyterian, " "The Christian Alliance, " and wrote several successfultext-books and many literary and historical works. He was a leader inthe noblest sense of the term. 

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

Henry E. Dwight, M. D. , b. 1832, g. Yale 1852, g. Andover TheologicalSeminary 1857, studied in Germany and France and was an eminentphysician in Philadelphia. Rev. S. G. Dwight, g. Union TheologicalSeminary, 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 otherphilanthropic movements. 

Thomas B. Dwight, b. 1857, g. Yale, district attorney of Philadelphiaand 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 ReserveCollege; supreme court judge; president Democratic convention thatnominated 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 waterworks. 

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 HopkinsUniversity, 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; NewYork lawyer. 

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

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

Charles F. Johnson, graduated from Yale; professor United States NavalAcademy, 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 Yorksenate and a successful practitioner. 

Imperfectly as these names represent the achievements of the descendantsof Mary Edwards Dwight they do hint strongly at the vigor, character andscholarship for which the family of Jonathan Edwards stands in Americanlife. 

There is another large family of Dwights, direct descendants of JonathanEdwards, through his granddaughter, Rhoda Edwards, but these are not, ofcourse, included in this list of Mary's descendants. Many of these areeminent men, and reference is here made to their omission, lest some oneshould 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 thesechapters were in type when it appeared that this undiscovered remainderwas a most important branch of the family. 

Congressman R. W. Taylor, of Ohio, chairman of the committee to passupon the case of Mr. Roberts of Utah, is a descendant of JonathanEdwards through John Eliot Woodbridge. His masterly treatment of thecase is recognized throughout the country. Here is what the "DetroitFree Press" said of him at the time of the investigation:

"In appearance he is not of the robust order of statesmen. With fairface, shoulders that he has always permitted to droop, indispensableeyeglasses, and hands that nine women out of ten would envy, modestdemeanor, and kindly instincts, he is among the last of men that acasual observer would pick as fitting leaders where nerve, aggressiveness, and fearless determination must be joined with anability 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 outwardappearance. It concealed muscles of steel and a will that had only to beright in order to be invincible. He was the peer of any amateur baseballcatcher in his day, and held the same enviable place as a student of theclassics. He was the strong man for the D. K. E. Initiations, and took thesame rank in all scholastic competitions. "

Dr. Timothy Woodbridge, of Youngstown, was a graduate of the medicalcollege of Philadelphia, and was one of the eminent physicians ofEastern Ohio. His grandson, Benjamin Warner Wells, of Chicago, was agraduate of Annapolis naval academy. He was Admiral Schley's flagsecretary in the engagement at Santiago. Dr. John Eliot Woodbridge, Cleveland, is an eminent specialist in typhoid fever cases. RobertWalker Taylor was comptroller of the United States treasury for fifteenyears.