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Page 17
Prison reform has found its leading advocates in this family.
Wilberforce's best American friend was of this fold, and Garibaldi
valued one of the family above all other American supporters.
Whatever the Jukes stand for, the Edwards family does not. Whatever
weakness the Jukes represent finds its antidote in the Edwards family,
which has cost the country nothing in pauperism, in crime, in hospital
or asylum service. On the contrary, it represents the highest usefulness
in invention, manufacture, commerce, founding of asylums and hospitals,
establishing and developing missions, projecting and energizing the best
philanthropies.
CHAPTER IX
TIMOTHY EDWARDS
To make more clear, if possible, the persistence of intellectual
activity and moral virtue, let us study samples of the family. Take for
instance the eldest son, Timothy. He was a member of and leader in the
famous Massachusetts council of war in the Revolution, a colonel in the
militia, 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 in
New England, New York, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Ohio. From his
descendants a Connecticut town, Chaplin, is named; Newark, Ohio, had a
long-time principal, Jonathan E. Chaplin; Andover Theological Seminary
had one of its most famous treasurers, Samuel Farrar; the American board
of missions had one of its grandest leaders and secretaries, Dr. Elias
Cornelius; the American Baptist Missionary Union had one of its eminent
secretaries, Dr. Solomon Peck; the American Missionary Association had
as its great treasurer, W.E. Whiting; the famous young ladies' seminary
of Lenox, Mass., had for thirty years its great principal, Elizabeth
Sedgwick; Boston had a prominent lawyer, a graduate of Harvard, William
Minot; St. Louis had a leading lawyer, William D. Sedgwick; Antietam had
in the list of killed the gallant Major Sedgwick; San Francisco recorded
among her distinguished sons the long-time superintendent of the Pacific
mail steamship company; the United States navy counted as one of her
able officers a surgeon, Dr. George Hopkins; Amherst had as her most
famous instructor Professor W.S. Tyler, D.D., LL.D., at the head of the
Greek department for half a century; she also has the present brilliant
professor of biology, John M. Tyler; Sheridan had as a brilliant colonel
in the grand ride of the Shenandoah Colonel M.W. Tyler; invention claims
the discoverer of the Turbine wheel, W.W. Tyler; Knox College has
claimed as a leader at one time, as has Smith at another, Professor
Henry 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 father
was thirty-five and the mother twenty-eight. He was but twenty years
old when the father and mother died and the care of the family devolved
upon him. He had graduated from Princeton the previous year but the
responsibility of a large family prevented his entering upon
professional life. Two years after the death of his father he married
and removed to Elizabethtown, N.J., where he resided for ten years. In
1770 he returned to Stockbridge, Mass. Berkshire county was still on the
frontier and was sparsely settled. The store which Mr. Edwards opened
in 1770 was the first in the county. The settlers raised wheat on the
newly cleared land. This Mr. Edwards bought and sent to New York,
bringing back goods in return. In five years he became the most
prosperous man in the county, buying and clearing a very large farm on
which he employed as many as fifty men in the busy season.
The outbreak of the Revolutionary struggle was a most inopportune time
for Timothy Edwards; but for that he would have become one of the
wealthiest men of his day. All business was suspended and he gave
himself to his country's cause with intense devotion. He was at once
appointed on a commission with General Schuyler to treat with the
Indians; was appointed commissary to look after the supply of the army
with provisions. From 1777 to 1780 he was a leader in the Legislature of
Massachusetts; was elected to the Continental Congress with John Hancock
and John Adams; was a colonel in the Massachusetts militia and a judge
of probate. When the war broke out Timothy Edwards was worth $20,000,
which he had accumulated in addition to all his other burdens. When the
war 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 when
the government was in great straits he took $5,000 of money that was as
good as gold and let the government have it, taking in return money that
was of slight value. He also took fifty tons of flour to Springfield
and let the government have it for paper money at par. There were no
greater heroes in the Revolutionary war than such men as Timothy
Edwards. He was nearly fifty years old when the war closed and he
found himself the father of thirteen children and without property or
business. Full of courage and enterprise he succeeded in supporting his
family in comfort and in regaining a substantial property before his
death, which occurred in the midst of the next war, October 27, 1813.
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