Part 14

Ethan Smith was born in Belchertown, Ms., Dec. 19, 1762, and while young, was a soldier for one summer in the Revolutionary war, and was at West Point when the traitor Arnold sold that fortress to the British. Having attended to the preparatory studies, he entered Dartmouth College in 1786, and graduated in 1790. Soon after taking his degree, Mr. Smith was licensed to preach, and spent the first Sabbath of October, 1790, at Haverhill, N. H., where he was first settled in the ministry. In about a year from that time, he was married to Bathsheba Sandford, second daughter of Rev. David Sandford, of Medway, Ms. He remained at Haverhill nine years, and was then dismissed for want of support. He was installed in the ministry at Hopkinton, N. H., March 12, 1800, and continued there about eighteen years, during sixteen of which he was Secretary of the New Hampshire Missionary Society. He was afterwards settled at Hebron, N. Y., about four years; at Poultney, Vt., about five years; at Hanover, Ms., a number of years; and then spent a season as a city missionary in Boston. Occasionally, he has since preached as a supply, but has now retired from the labors of the ministry, and resides with his children. Mr. Smith has always been a laborious, and, in many respects, a very successful minister of Christ. His publications are as follows; namely, 1. A Dissertation on the Prophecies, 2 editions; 2. A View of the Trinity, 2 editions; 3. A View of the Hebrews, 2 editions; 4. Lectures on the Subjects and Mode of Baptism, 2 editions; 5. A Key to the Figurative Language of the Bible; 6. Memoirs of Mrs. Abigail Bailey; 7. A Key to the Revelation, 2 editions; 8. Prophetic Catechism; 9. Two Sermons on Episcopacy; 10. Farewell Sermon at Haverhill, N. H.; 11. First Sermon after Installation at Hopkinton; 12. Two Sermons on the Vain Excuses of Sinners, preached at Washington, N. H.; 13. Sermon on the Moral Perfection of God, preached at Newburyport, Ms.; 14. Sermon on the Daughters of Zion excelling, preached before a Female Cent Society; 15. Sermon on the happy Transition of Saints, preached at the funeral of Mrs. Jemima, consort of Rev. Dr. Harris of Dunbarton; 16. Sermon at the Ordination of Rev. Stephen Martindale, at Tinmouth, Vt.; 17. Sermon at the Ordination of Rev. Harvey Smith, at Weybridge, Vt.

The Genealogy of this branch of the Smith family is as follows; namely, Joseph Smith removed from Wethersfield, Ct., to Hadley, Ms., about the year 1659. He had four sons, who lived to maturity; namely, Joseph, _John_, Jonathan, and Benjamin. _John_ was born 1686, settled in Hadley, and died 1777, aged 91 years. He had five sons, and five daughters. The sons were, John, Abner, father of the late Rev. Abner Smith of Derby, Ct., Daniel, Joseph, who was father of Rev. Eli Smith of Hollis, the late Rev. Amasa Smith, and the late Rev. Dr. John Smith of Bangor, Me., and also _Elijah_. _Elijah_ was born 1723, was married, in 1751, to Sibil, daughter of Daniel Worthington of Colchester, Ct., and had by her six sons and three daughters. He served as Captain in the French war, in 1756, under Gen. William Johnson, in the Regiment of Col. Ephraim Williams. He was deacon of the church in Belchertown, Ms., and died April 21, 1770. He was "a man," says Rev. Mr. Forward, in the Church Records, "of sound judgment, ready utterance, pleasing deportment, and ardent piety." His children were Asa, father of Rev. Asa Smith of Virginia, and Rev. Theophilus Smith of New Canaan, Ct.; Sibil, wife of the late Joseph Bardwell of South Hadley, Ms.; Sarah, wife of the late Elijah Bardwell of Goshen, Ms., and mother of Rev. Horatio Bardwell of Oxford, and of Sarah, wife of the late Rev. Wm. Richards of the India Mission; Elijah, Elisabeth, _Ethan_, Jacob, now deacon of the church in Hadley, and father of Elisabeth, wife of the late Rev. William Hervey of the India Mission, of Esther, wife of Rev. Mr. Dunbar of the Pawnee Mission, of Martha, wife of Rev. O. G. Hubbard of Leominster, Ms., and of Miranda, wife of Rev. P. Belden of Amherst, Ms.; William and Josiah;--all of whom lived until the youngest was 56 years of age, and all had large families of children, and their mother saw of her descendants of the fifth generation, before she died, at the age of 101 years, May 26, 1827.

_Ethan_, the particular subject of this Sketch, married, as stated, Bathsheba, daughter of the late Rev. David Sanford of Medway, Ms. Their children were Myron, born at Haverhill, N. H., 1794, and died 1818, aged 24; Lyndon Arnold, born at Haverhill, 1795, graduated at D. C., married a daughter of Rev. Dr. Griffin, and is now settled as a physician, in Newark, N. J.; Stephen Sanford, born at Haverhill, 1797, and is now pastor of the Congregational church, Westminster, Ms.; Laura, who died in infancy; Carlos, born in Hopkinton, 1801, graduated at Union College, and is now pastor of the Presbyterian church in Massillon, Ohio; Grace Fletcher, wife of Rev. Job H. Martin, died in Haverhill, Ms., 1840; Sarah Towne, 2nd wife of Rev. J. H. Martin of New York; Harriet, wife of Rev. William H. Sanford of Boylston, Ms.; and Ellen, wife of C. B. Sedgewick, Esq., of Syracuse, died May 23, 1846, aged 33.

The wife of Mr. Smith died in Pompey, N. Y., April 5, 1835, aged 64; he is still living.

REV. ASA RAND OF PETERBOROUGH, N. Y.

Asa Rand was born at Rindge, N. H., August 6, 1783, being the youngest son and ninth child of Col. Daniel and Mrs. Susanna Rand. Daniel Rand was the eldest son of Solomon Rand, of Shrewsbury, Ms., who married a daughter of the Rev. Mr. Dodge of Abington, Ms. Solomon's father also resided in Shrewsbury, and married a daughter of Capt. Keyes of that place; who, in the early settlement of the town, lost his unfinished house by fire, when his two sons, a hired man, and a journeyman joiner perished in the flames. Mrs. Susanna Rand was the only daughter of Daniel Hemmenway, also of Shrewsbury. Col. Rand was one of the early settlers of the town of Rindge, where he ever resided after his marriage, in 1767. He died in 1811, aged 69. The ancestors of both the parents of the subject of this Sketch, it is believed, were emigrants from England; but their genealogy we can trace no farther back with certainty.

After enjoying the usual advantages of a common school, Mr. Rand prepared for college principally at Chesterfield Academy, New Hampshire, under the instruction of Hon. Levi Jackson. He entered the Sophomore Class in September, 1803, and was graduated at Dartmouth College, in 1806. After leaving college, he taught the children of the Hon. Elijah Paine and a few others, at Williamstown, Vt., about nine months; studied theology with Rev. Dr. Burton of Thetford, seven months; and in January, 1808, received the approbation of an association as a preacher of the gospel.

He preached several months in 1808 to the Congregational church and society in Gorham, Me., which were in a state of serious and alarming division. Having received a unanimous invitation from both, he was ordained their minister Jan. 18, 1809; where he was favored with a prosperous and happy ministry during thirteen years. His health, however, was precarious for the greater part of that time, and in June, 1822, he resigned the charge of an affectionate and united people to a successor, believing that his work as a public speaker was done.

In August, 1822, he took the editorial charge of the Christian Mirror, on its first establishment at Portland, Me., Mr. Arthur Shirley being proprietor and publisher. In July, 1825, finding his health still suffering on the sea-coast, he removed to the interior of Massachusetts, and took charge of the new Female Seminary at Brookfield.

In July, 1826, he succeeded Gerard Hallock, as co-editor and co-proprietor with Nathaniel Willis, of the Boston Recorder; Dea. Willis having the charge of the printing and publishing, and Mr. Rand of the editorial department. He was also acting-editor of the Youth's Companion and Education Reporter, published by the same company; each being the earliest paper of its kind established in the country. On leaving the Recorder, in 1831, Mr. Rand continued the Reporter till it was transferred to William C. Woodbridge and united with the Annals of Education. He was also publisher and principal conductor of the Volunteer, a monthly religious magazine; which, at the end of two years, was united with the Evangelical Magazine, at Hartford, Ct.

In April, 1833, Mr. Rand removed to Lowell; where he had a connection with a bookstore and printing office, and the publication of the Lowell Observer, a weekly religious paper, which was subsequently transferred to Mr. Porter, publisher of the N. E. Spectator at Boston.

On the restoration of his health, he returned in 1835 to his chosen employment of public preaching. He lectured in the employment of anti-slavery societies in Cumberland county, Maine, and the counties of Hampshire and Hampden, Massachusetts. From September, 1837, he ministered to the Congregational church in Pompey, N. Y., five years; and is now preaching to the Presbyterian church in Peterboro, Madison Co., N. Y.

Mr. Rand was married in November, 1812, to Grata Payson, eldest daughter of Rev. Seth Payson, D. D., of Rindge; who died suddenly at Gorham, April 29, 1818. Feb. 8, 1820, he was married to Clarissa Thorndike, daughter of Nicholas Thorndike, Esq., of Beverly, Ms.; who died at Portland, July 7, 1825. July 6, 1826, he married Mary Coolidge, widow of Elisha Coolidge, merchant, of Boston, and daughter of Rev. John Cushing, D. D., of Ashburnham, Ms. His third wife is still living; also her only son by her first husband, Elisha T. Coolidge, of Cincinnati, O.

The children of Mr. Rand's first wife were three; namely, a son, who died on the day of his birth; Harriet Newell, who united with the church in Lowell, was principal of the female department in Pompey Academy several years, became, in January, 1841, the second wife of Rev. Russell S. Cook, one of the Secretaries of the Am. Tract Society at New York, and died suddenly in February, 1843; William Wilberforce, who was educated at the Public Latin School in Boston, Bowdoin College, and Bangor Theological Seminary. He was four years pastor of the Reformed Dutch Church at Canastota, Madison Co., N. Y., and is now preaching in Maine. He married Marcia S. Dunning, of Brunswick, Me.; of whom, with her two children, it has pleased God to bereave him.

By his second wife Mr. Rand had also three children, who are all living. Thorndike is a clerk in the Suffolk bank, Boston, and married Hannah P. Nourse of Beverly. Charles Asa is clerk in a bookstore at St. Louis, Mo. Anna Thorndike is the wife of John F. Nourse, Principal of Beverly Academy.

While Mr. Rand resided at Gorham, a quarterly religious Magazine was published at Portland, of which David Thurston, Edward Payson, Asa Rand, and Francis Brown were joint conductors. In the "day of small things" among the churches of Maine, it did good. It was published five years, from 1814 to 1818, inclusive.

The publications of Mr. Rand are, a Sermon to Children; a Sermon at the Ordination of Rev. Francis Brown at North Yarmouth, Jan. 11, 1810; a Sermon before the Maine Missionary Society, 1815; two Sermons on Christian Fellowship; "A Word in Season in behalf of the Holy Scriptures," (reviewing Quaker principles;) a pamphlet on the Controversies in the First Church of North Yarmouth; a volume entitled "Familiar Sermons"; a review of Finney's Sermon on making a New Heart, entitled "New Divinity tried"; a "Vindication of the same, in reply to Rev. Dr. Wisner"; and a "Letter to Rev. Dr. Beecher, in relation to his ministerial course in Boston."

HON. OLIVER WENDELL OF BOSTON.

Oliver Wendell was born in Boston, March 5, 1733, [N. S.] His father, Hon. Jacob Wendell, was born in Albany in 1691, and was a descendant of the first of the name and family in America, that has been transmitted to us. Evart Janson Wendell came from Embden[X] to the New Netherlands when possessed by the Dutch, and settled at Beverwyck, the site of Fort Orange, afterward called Albany, on Hudson river. The arms of the family were painted on nine panes of glass in the east window of the ancient church in Albany; namely, a ship riding at her two anchors. By an engraved copy of these arms, in possession of the family, it appears that Evart Janson Wendell was an officer in that church the same year in which New Amsterdam, afterwards called New York, was laid out in small streets eight years before the Dutch garrison at Fort Orange capitulated to the English. The inscription is, _Regerendo Dijakin_, 1656.

Evart J. was the father of John, who was the father of Jacob. This grandson of Evart J., the father of Oliver, was placed, while in his minority, under the care of Mr. John Mico, an eminent merchant in Boston, and was trained up to mercantile business. He afterwards became settled in Boston as a merchant, and was very prosperous. He was highly respected in the town and province; and, among other offices, was repeatedly employed by the government in the negotiation of treaties, and exchange of prisoners, with the Indians. He married Sarah Oliver, the daughter of Dr. James Oliver of Cambridge, and lived in School street, near the Episcopal church. He possessed a handsome estate in Oliver street, where, after the destructive fire of 1760, he built a brick house, (still standing,) in which his son Oliver lived. Since the incorporation of the city, a street leading from Oliver street, and passing by this place, has been named Wendell street. Mr. Wendell had several children. His son Oliver, after finishing his education at Harvard College, entered into mercantile business with his father, from whose experience and counsels he may have derived no less benefit, than from his stock in trade.

Mr. Wendell possessed a rare combination of talents and virtues, alike adapted to the offices of public and of private life. Mild in temper, benevolent in disposition, upright in principle, and resolute in action, he was conciliatory in address, and exemplary in life; and uniformly had the esteem and confidence of his friends and of the community. He was in the consultations of the early patriots of the American Revolution, and contributed to the acquisition and maintenance of the liberty and independence of the Commonwealth and country. After the Constitution was settled, he was often a member of the Senate, and of the Council, in the government of the Commonwealth. During his public life, he was Judge of Probate for the county of Suffolk; President of Union Bank; a Fellow of the Corporation of Harvard College; President of the Society for propagating the Gospel among the Indians and others in North America; and a Trustee of Phillips Academy, Andover. Retiring from the city, he spent several of his last years in Cambridge, where he died, January 15, 1818, aged 85.

The evening of his days was serene and tranquil. While conscious of uprightness, he relied not on his integrity as meritorious, but founded his hope of future happiness on the propitiation made for sin by Jesus Christ; this hope was a steadfast anchor to his soul. Religious contemplation, and devotional exercises, habitual to him in public and active life, were cherished by him in secrecy and the stillness of retirement. Easy and gentle, at last, was his descent to the grave, and the observer might "see in what peace a Christian can die." His remains were deposited in the family tomb, in the Chapel burial-ground in Boston.

To the public notice of his death was annexed the following sketch of his character, written in the Council Chamber at the State House, on the reception of the intelligence of his death, by a highly respected friend,[Y] who, by long intercourse with him in public and private life, was a competent judge of his character. "In all relations of life, as a man, citizen, and magistrate, Judge Wendell was distinguished for uncommon urbanity of manners, and unimpeached integrity of conduct. During the course of a long life he had been successively called to fill many high and responsible offices. The punctuality and precision with which he fulfilled all the duties connected with them, were highly exemplary. Full of years, he has descended to the grave regretted and beloved by all who knew him; happy in the consciousness of a life well spent, and rejoicing in the prospect of felicity in a future state, of which a firm faith in his Redeemer gave him the assurance."

Judge Wendell married, in 1762, Mary, a daughter of Edward Jackson, who graduated at H. C. 1726, married Dorothy Quincy, and was a merchant of Boston. He was the son of Jonathan, who was a brazier and nail-maker, and married Mary Salter, March 26, 1700, lived in Boston, and left an estate of about £30,000. He was the son of Jonathan, who married Elizabeth---- and settled in Boston. He was born in England, and was the son of Edward, born in 1602, who emigrated from White Chapel, a parish in London, to this country about 1642, took the freeman's oath, May, 1645, and in 1646 purchased of Gov. Bradstreet a farm of 500 acres of land in that part of Cambridge which is now Newton, for £140. For his second wife he married March 14, 1648, Elisabeth Oliver, widow of Rev. John Oliver, the first minister of Rumney Marsh, (Chelsea,) and daughter of John Newgate of Boston. He was one of the most respectable men of the Colony, and was much engaged in public life. He died July 17, 1681, aged 79. Judge Wendell had several children, most of whom died young. Oliver and Edward never married, and have deceased. Sarah married the Rev. Dr. Abiel Holmes of Cambridge, by whom she had five children; namely, Mary Jackson, who married Usher Parsons, M. D., of Providence, R. I.; Ann Susan, who married Rev. Charles W. Upham of Salem; Sarah Lathrop, who died 1812, aged 6 years; Oliver Wendell, M. D., of Boston, who married Amelia Lee Jackson, daughter of Hon. Charles Jackson of Boston; and John, an Attorney at law, living in Cambridge.

For the above facts we are indebted principally to the late Rev. Dr. Holmes of Cambridge, and Francis Jackson, Esq., of Boston.

HON. JONATHAN LAW, GOVERNOR OF CONNECTICUT.

[The facts in this Memoir were obtained through the obliging instrumentality of Prof. Kingsley of Yale College.]

Jonathan Law, Governor of the Colony of Connecticut, descended from Richard Law, who came from England in the year 1640, and was one of the first settlers in the town of Stamford, Ct., in 1641. He left one son, Richard, who afterwards moved to Milford in that State, where his son Jonathan, his only son and the subject of this Memoir, was born, Aug. 6, 1674. His mother was Sarah, daughter of George Clark, Sen., a planter. He was educated at Harvard College, then the only Academical Institution in New England, and received his degree of Bachelor of Arts in 1695. The law was the profession which he selected, and after passing through the course of studies usual at that period, he was admitted to the bar, and fixed his residence in his native town in 1698. He soon became distinguished as a lawyer and an advocate, and after a few years was made Chief-Judge of New Haven County Court. This office he held for five years, and in May, 1715, he was transferred to the Bench of the Superior Court of the Colony, as one of the Associate Judges, where he continued, with the exception of one year, till 1725. At the annual election in 1717, he was chosen an Assistant, an office of great trust and importance, being ex officio a Legislator, a member of the Governor's Council, and a judicial Magistrate throughout the Colony. This station he resigned in 1725, on his election to the office of Lieutenant-Governor, and the same year he was appointed by the General Assembly CHIEF-JUSTICE of the Superior Court, both which offices he held until the year 1742; when he was elected Governor, and continued in that office until his death, which, after a short and painful sickness of three days, occurred at Milford, Nov. 6, 1750, at the age of 76 years. He left seven sons and a widow, his fifth wife.

A funeral Oration in Latin was delivered on the occasion in the chapel of Yale College, by Mr. Stiles, then senior Tutor in that Institution, and afterwards its distinguished President. It portrays in the most glowing colors, the mild virtues of his private life, and the singular success of his public administration.

During this period, there was a time when religious dissensions, which originated in the excessive zeal of itinerant preachers, had made their way into sober and regular ecclesiastical communities, by which means they were greatly disturbed, and the Colony was convulsed almost to its centre.

Early in the eighteenth century, a wonderful attention to religion had been excited in various parts of Connecticut. It seems to have been a genuine revival, not unmingled, perhaps, with some slight alloy of enthusiasm. Soon after this the celebrated Mr. Whitefield, whose sincere and honest piety Cowper has immortalized in the most glowing colors, whose eloquence vanquished on one occasion even Franklin's philosophical caution, after preaching with the greatest applause and effect, at the South, came to New England at the pressing invitations of the clergymen of Boston. On his return, he passed through Connecticut, where the people crowded to hear him, and sunk under the weight of his powerful Christian eloquence. His example seems to have been followed by others of weaker intellect and less judgment; by men, who mistook the illusions of their own minds, for the operations of the Holy Spirit. There was particularly a Mr. Davenport of Long Island, who had been a sound and faithful minister, but, unfortunately, partook of the same spirit, and by his precepts and example, encouraged the wildest extravagances of sentiment and conduct. Some of the "New Lights," (as they were called,) boldly proclaimed their intimate communion with the Almighty, in raptures, ecstacies, trances, and visions. A few of the clergy were not free from these errors, and forsook their own charge to labor in the vineyards of others. In some counties, lay-preachers sprang up, who pretended to divine impulses and inward impressions, and professed a supernatural power of discerning between those that were converted, and those that were not. Confusion prevailed at their meetings, and instead of checking these unseemly disorders, the leaders labored to increase and extend them. Such excesses threw a shade on real piety, and threatened to subvert the foundations of pure and genuine Christianity throughout the Colony. The Legislature, between whom and the church there was then a much closer connection than at this day, in consequence of the numerous applications made to them for their interference and protection, enacted laws, the severity of which was not justifiable, but may, in some measure, be palliated when we consider the magnitude of the evil. A heated zeal and a misguided conscience, rather, perhaps, than a contempt of the authority of government, gave rise in some counties to loud murmurs and great dissatisfaction.

Governor Law, although an ardent friend of the gospel system in its original purity, opposed with all the energy he possessed, this wild spirit of fanaticism. To him was its suppression, in no small degree, to be attributed. With the skill of an experienced pilot, he kept his eye always fixed on the star of civil and religious liberty, and steered the political bark unhurt, amidst the dangers that surrounded it. It was to these troubles that President Stiles alluded in the Eulogy before spoken of, when, after paying a just compliment to his predecessors, he adds:

"_Sed gloria Conservandæ reipublicæ ac perite per procellas intestinas periculosissimasque confusiones fortiter et clementer administrandæ sit soli sapienti et illustrissimo_ LAW."