Dra-Dye: Drake through Dyer

See below for annotated biographies of American abolitionists and anti-slavery activists. Sources include: Scribner’s Dictionary of American Biography and Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography.


DRAKE, CHARLES DANIEL (April 11, 1811-April 1, 1892), lawyer, jurist, United States senator, from 1861 to 1863 was unsuccessful in his demand for immediate and uncompensated emancipation.

(Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936;  Volume 3 pt. 1 pp. 425-426)

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936;  Volume 3 pt. 1 pp. 425-426:

DRAKE, CHARLES DANIEL (April 11, 1811-April 1, 1892), lawyer, jurist, United States senator,
was the son of Dr. Daniel Drake [q.v.] and Harriet Sisson. The boy received cultural and literary training in his home, supplemented by academic instruction in Kentucky and Cincinnati schools. In 1827 he entered the naval academy at Annapolis where he remained for three years, resigning because of his sudden decision to study law. Arriving at St. Louis in 1834, he entered the practise of law, but was not a recognized leader of the local bar. Following a brief residence in Cincinnati, he returned in 1850 to St. Louis and shortly became active in politics. In the confused and chaotic political situation of the fifties he appeared, successively, as a Whig, a Know-Nothing, and a Democrat. He was elected as a Democrat to fill a vacancy in the legislature in 1859 and served out the term. In the critical campaign of 1860, Drake supported Douglas for president and the proslavery candidate, C. F. Jackson, for governor. He opposed secession but was not active in the spectacular events of the spring and summer of 1861 which culminated in the military defeat and political elimination of the disloyalists and assured the ultimate success of the Unionist cause. Early in the war, however, he became a leader in the attack on slavery as a legalized institution, an issue which to most Missouri leaders had been distinctly secondary to the preservation of the Union. Drake energetically led the radical or "charcoal" wing of the Unionist party, but from 1861 to 1863 was unsuccessful in his demand for immediate and uncompensated emancipation; the conservatives, led by Governor Gamble and supported by Lincoln, maintaining control of the situation. By 1863 the radical faction had become a distinct group, well organized under Drake and with a definite program, including immediate emancipation, a new constitution, and a system of drastic disfranchisement (Proceedings of the Missouri State Convention Held in Jefferson, City, June, 1863). The Radicals increased in strength and were successful in securing the authorization of a constitutional convention. In this body Drake, the vice-president, was easily the most active and conspicuous member. He was the directing force in the formation of the new constitution and the author of the sections dealing with the elective franchise (Journal of the Missouri State Convention, Held at the City of St. Louis, January 6-April10, 1865). He was peculiarly adapted to this position, for, as Carl Schurz wrote, "in politics he was inexorable ... most of the members of his party, especially in the country districts, stood much in awe of him" (Reminiscences, Volume III, 1908, p. 294). So pervasive and masterful was his influence that the adopted constitution became known as the "Drake constitution." The Radicals maintained absolute control of the state from 1865 to 1871, with Drake as their leader.

Never personally popular, he was elected to the United States Senate in 1867 as a recognition and reward for his services to his party. He took his stand with Morton, Wilson, and other extreme Radicals, in enthusiastic support of the Reconstruction measures, which permitted him to give full play to his dogmatism and intolerance. He regarded the wide-spread political and social disorder in the South as a sinister expression of the rebellious spirit in the whites and of a fixed purpose to prevent by violence the operation of the Republican party in the reconstructed states. He acted in accordance with the view that he was "a representative of radical radicalism"; and supported with obvious enthusiasm the Reconstruction legislation of 1867-70 (Congressional Globe, 40 Congress, l Session, pp. 41, 99, 109, 356). He regarded the Civil War as a social conflict, the South as a conquered province, and introduced proposals so radical that even his Republican colleagues refused to support them (Ibid., pp. 2,600, 3,920). In the trial of Johnson and in the consideration of the Fifteenth Amendment, Drake took an active part. In the meantime, his dictatorship of the Radical party in Missouri had been questioned, then successfully challenged, by the election of Carl Schurz [q.v.] to the Senate in 1869, despite Drake's bitter opposition. The factional division thus created between radicals and liberals came to a decisive test in the state campaign of 1870, where a combination of bolting liberals and Democrats triumphantly carried the state, and so amended the constitution as to end the various discriminations. With the passing of his leadership and almost of his party, Drake's position became precarious. He was unwilling and unable to adjust himself to the changed conditions, and realized that the Democrats would shortly regain control of Missouri. He accepted, therefore, from Grant in December 1870 the appointment as chief justice of the United States Court of Claims, and announced his definite withdrawal from politics. He served with distinction until his retirement in 1885. During his latter years Drake abandoned many of his former extreme views.

[Drake's Autobiography, MS., is useful for his early life, but disappointing for his political career. His views on the issues of the Civil War are in Union and Anti-Slavery Speeches (1864). His rise as a leader of the Missouri radicals is traced in the Missouri Democrat, 1863-71. A comprehensive account of that period is T. S. Barclay, Liberal Republican Movement in Missouri, 1865-1871 (1926).]

T.S.B.


DRATON, Daniel, captain of the Pearl, in 1848 attempted to transport and free 76 slaves; arrested and imprisoned. 

(Rodriguez, Junius P., Slavery in the United States: A Social, Political, and Historical Encyclopedia, ABC-CLIO, 2007, p. 51)


DRESSER, Amos, 1812-1904, Peru, Massachusetts, anti-slavery agent, educator, Lane University alumnus.  Worked in Massachusetts and Rhode Island.  Was beaten, tarred and feathered by mob.  Arrested in Nashville, Tennessee, for distributing abolitionist materials and in 1836 he became a successful lecturer for the American Anti-Slavery Society.  He worked for abolitionist leader Henry B. Stanton in Worcester County, Massachusetts.  Wrote Narrative of the Arrest, Lynch Law, and Scourging of Amos Dresser; At Nashville, Tennessee, August, 1835 [1849]. 
 
(Dumond, Dwight Lowell, Antislavery: The Crusade for Freedom in America, University of Michigan Press, 1961, p. 186; Mabee, Carleton. Black Freedom: The Nonviolent Abolitionists from 1830 Through the Civil War. London: Macmillan, 1970, pp. 31-33, 35, 37, 152, 153, 257; Van Broekhoven, 2002, pp. 199-200)


DRESSLER, Horace, died 1877, lawyer, defended fugitive slaves in New York courts.

(Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume II, p. 231).

Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume II, p. 231:

DRESSER, Horace, lawyer, died 27 January, 1877. He was graduated at Union in 1828. Mr. Dresser was one of the first lawyers who spoke in the New York courts in behalf of the negro race, and his best energies were devoted to defending and assisting fugitive slaves. He wrote much on constitutional questions, and published “The Battle Record of the American Rebellion” (New York, 1863), and “Internal Revenue Laws as Amended to July, 1866” (New York, 1866).  Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume II, p. 231.


DREW, Benjamin Jr., Andover, Massachusetts, Massachusetts Abolition Society, Vice-President, 1839-


DREW, Charles, abolitionist, Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, Counsellor, 1835-1836.


DRIGGS, John F., Member of the U.S. House of Representatives, voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery.

(Biographical Dictionary of the U.S. Congress 1774-1927 (1928); Congressional Globe)


DRURY, Asa, abolitionist, Granville, Ohio, American Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1835-39.


DUER, William Alexander, 1780-1858, New York City, New York, jurist, educator.  President of Columbia College.  Officer of the New York City auxiliary of the American colonization Society. 

(Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume II, pp. 245-246; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 3, Pt. 1, p. 488; Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, p. 135)

Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume II, pp. 245-246:

DUER, William Alexander, jurist, born in Rhinebeck, New York, 8 September, 1780; died in New York, 30 May, 1858, studied law in Philadelphia, and with Nathaniel Pendleton in New York. During the quasi war with France in 1798 he obtained the appointment of midshipman in the navy, and served under Decatur. On the adjustment of the French question, he resumed his studies with Pendleton, and was admitted to the bar in 1802. He engaged in business with Edward Livingston, who was then district attorney and mayor of New York, and, after his removal to New Orleans, formed a professional partnership with his brother-in-law, Beverley Robinson. About this time ho contributed to a partisan weekly paper called the “Corrector,” conducted by Dr. Peter Irving in support of Aaron Burr. Mr. Duer shortly afterward joined Livingston at New Orleans, and studied Spanish civil law. He was successful, but, owing to the climate and to his marriage with the daughter of William Denning, a prominent whig of New York, he was induced to resume practice in the latter city. Here he contributed literary articles to the “Morning Chronicle,” the newspaper of his friend Peter Irving. He next opened an office in Rhinebeck, and in 1814 was elected to the state assembly, where he was appointed chairman of a committee on colleges and academies, and succeeded in passing a bill, which is the original of the existing law on the subject of the common-school income. He was also chairman of the committee that arranged the constitutionality of the state law vesting the right of navigation in Livingston and Fulton, and throughout his service bore a prominent pad in promoting canal legislation. He was judge of the supreme court from 1822 till 1829, when he was elected president of Columbia college, where he remained until failing health compelled him to resign in 1842. During his administration he delivered to the senior class a course of lectures on the constitutional jurisprudence of the United States (published in 1833; revised ed., 1856). He delivered a eulogy on President Monroe from the portico of the city hall. After his retirement he resided in Morristown, New Jersey, where he wrote the life of his grandfather, Lord Stirling (published by the Historical society of New Jersey). In 1847 he delivered an address in the college chapel before the literary societies of Columbia, and in 1848 an historical address before the St. Nicholas society, which gives early reminiscences of New York, and describes the scenes connected with the inauguration of President Washington, both of which were published. He was the author of two pamphlets addressed to Cadwallader D. Colden on the “Steam boat Controversy,” and the “Life of William Alexander, Earl of Stirling” (New York, 1847). Appletons’ Cylcopædia of American Biography, 1888.


DUFFIELD, George, abolitionist, Detroit, Michigan, American Anti-Slavery Society, Vice-President, 1834-1835.


DUFFIN, James W., Secretary, Geneva Colored Anti-Slavery Society, founded 1836, New York.

(Sernett, 2002, pp. 64-75)


DUGDALE, Joseph A., abolitionist, Farmington, Ohio, Selma Ohio, American Anti-Slavery Society, Vice-President, 1841-43, Manager, 1843-51.


DUNBAR, Reverend Duncan, 1791-1864, New York, clergyman, abolitionist.  Executive Committee, American Anti-Slavery Society, 1837-1840.

(Goodell, 1852, p. 188; Yellin, Jean Fagan and John C. Van Horne (Eds). The Abolitionist Sisterhood: Women’s Political Culture in Antebellum America. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1994, pp. 39, 43n; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume II, p. 255)

DUNBAR, Reverend Duncan, 1791-1864, New York, clergyman, abolitionist.  Executive Committee, American Anti-Slavery Society, 1837-1840.

(Goodell, 1852, p. 188; Yellin, Jean Fagan and John C. Van Horne (Eds). The Abolitionist Sisterhood: Women’s Political Culture in Antebellum America. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1994, pp. 39, 43n; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume II, p. 255)

Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume II, p. 255:

DUNBAR, Duncan, clergyman, born in the northern highlands of Scotland about 1791; died in New York city, 28 July, 1864. When about twenty years old he removed to Aberdeen and engaged in business, occasionally preaching as a layman. He settled in the province of New Brunswick in 1817, where he became a Baptist, and was immersed in the harbor of St. John, 31 October, 1818. He was soon afterward ordained, removed to the United States in December, 1823, and held pastorates in Philadelphia and elsewhere. Most of his ministry was spent in the McDougal street Baptist church in New York city. He was for twenty years a member of the board of managers of the American and foreign Bible society. See his life by his son-in-law, Reverend Jeremiah Chaplin (New York, 1878). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume II, pp. 255.


DUNBAR, Jane Anna, New York, abolitionist, daughter of Reverend Dunbar.

(Yellin, Jean Fagan and John C. Van Horne (Eds). The Abolitionist Sisterhood: Women’s Political Culture in Antebellum America. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1994, p. 43n40)


DUNCAN, Charles, Monroe County, Ohio, Ohio Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1836-39.


DUNCAN, James, Vevay, Indiana (near Cincinnati), clergyman.  Published influential anti-slavery tract, “A Treatise on Slavery, in which is Shown Forth the Evil of Slaveholding, Both from the Light of Nature and Divine Revelations,” 1824.  Wrote Slaveholders Prayer, published by American Anti-Slavery Society in New York and Cincinnati in 1840.  Opposed gradual emancipation laws.  Said that slavery violated the Constitution.  Advocated for African American citizenship. 

(Dumond, Dwight Lowell, Antislavery: The Crusade for Freedom in America, University of Michigan Press, 1961, pp. 140-141; Sinha, 2016, pp. 176, 224)


DUNCAN, Stephan, Natchez, Mississippi, American Colonization Society, Vice-President, 1836-1841. 

(Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961)


DUNHAM, James H., Pittsfield, Massachusetts, Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, Vice-President, 1838-40.


DUNLAP, William, New York, abolitionist, member of the New York Society for Promoting the Manumission of Slaves, New York, founded 1785.

(Basker, James G., gen. ed. Early American Abolitionists: A Collection of Anti-Slavery Writings, 1760-1820. New York: Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, 2005, pp. 223, 224, 225, 227, 238, 239n4)


DUNLAVY, Francis, Warren County, Ohio, Ohio Anti-Slavery Society, Vice-President, 1835-39.


DUNLOP, William, born Kentucky, went to Ohio in 1796, manumitted his slaves, paid for release of John B. Mahan, who freed fugitive slaves.

(Dumond, Dwight Lowell, Antislavery: The Crusade for Freedom in America, University of Michigan Press, 1961, p. 93)


DUNN, W.W., Massachusetts Abolition Society, Manager, 1850-.


DUPRE, Lewis, author, wrote anti-slavery book, An Admonitionary Picture and a Solemn Warning Principally Addressed to Professing Christians in the Southern States


DURANT, G. W., New York, American Abolition Society.

(Radical Abolitionist, Volume 1, No. 1, New York, August 1855)


DURFEE, Gilbert H., Fall River, Massachusetts, Massachusetts Abolition Society, Vice-President, 1839-40


DURKEE, Charles, c. 1805-1870, Royalton, Vermont, merchant, territorial legislature in Wisconsin, U.S. Congressman, Senator, Territorial Governor of Utah.  Two-term member of the U.S. House of Representatives from the Free Soil Party, serving March 1849 to March 1853.  Republican U.S. Senator from Wisconsin, 1855-1861. 

(Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume II, pp. 272-273; Biographical Dictionary of the U.S. Congress 1774-1927 (1928)

Biography from Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography:

DURKEE, Charles, senator, born in Royalton, Vermont, 5 December, 1807: died in Omaha, Neb. 14 January. 1870. He was educated in his native town and in the Burlington Academy, after which he engaged in business, and later emigrated to the territory of Wisconsin, where he was one of the founders of Southport, now Kenosha. He was a member of the first territorial legislature of Wisconsin, held in Burlington (Iowa and Minnesota being then parts of the territory). In 1847 he was again a member of the territorial legislature, and in 1848 was elected to the first state legislature of Wisconsin. He was elected as a Free-Soiler to Congress, serving from 6 December, 1849, till 3 March, 1853, and was the first distinctive anti-slavery man in Congress from the northwest. In 1855 he was chosen as a Republican to the U. S. Senate from Wisconsin, succeeding Isaac P. Walker. He was a member of the Peace Congress in 1861, and was appointed governor of Utah in 1865, holding that office until failing health compelled him to resign. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume II, pp. 272-273.


DWIGHT, Theodore, 1764-1846, Massachusetts, lawyer, author, editor, poet.  Opposed slavery.  Gave noteworthy anti-slavery speech at Connecticut Society for the Promotion of Freedom, May 8, 1794.  He opposed the tree-fifths clause of the Constitution.  He stated, “Enjoying no rank in the community, and possessing no voice, either in elections or legislation, the slaves are bro’t into existence in the Constitution of the United States, merely to afford opportunity for a few more of their masters, to tyrannize over their liberties.”  Dwight called for immediate abolition of slavery.  His brother was abolitionist Timothy Dwight. 

(American National Biography, 2002, Volume 7, p. 189; Dictionary of American Biography, 1936, Vo. 3, Pt. 1, p. 569; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume V)

Dictionary of American Biography, 1936, Vo. 3, Pt. 1, p. 569:

DWIGHT, THEODORE (December 15, 1764- June 12, 1846); lawyer, author, editor, was born in Northampton, Massachusetts, seventh of the thirteen children of Major Timothy and Mary (Edwards) Dwight, whose first-born was Timothy Dwight [q.v.]. His father was a well-to-do merchant, 1.andowner, and local office-holder; his mother, a daughter of Jonathan Edwards [q. v.], was a woman of remarkable strength of character. Major Timothy Dwight died when Theodore was in his thirteenth year, and the boy was brought up by his mother on the farm in Northampton. When he was about twenty, an injury obliged him to give up farming. He studied law with his uncle, Pierpont Edwards [q.v.], of New Haven, was admitted to the bar in 1787, and began practise at Haddam, Connecticut. In 1791 he moved to Hartford and practised there until 1815. He is reported to have been at one time in the early period of his practise on the point of forming a partnership with his cousin, Aaron Burr, the agreement falling through because of a political dispute. He was married on September 9, 1792, to Abigail, daughter of Richard and Mary (Wright) Alsop of Middletown, Connecticut, and sister of Richard Alsop [q.v.], the poet. Dwight soon acquired a reputation as a competent lawyer, an able writer, and an eloquent speaker. A number of his speeches on various occasions during his years at Hartford have survived. One of the most interesting was delivered May 8, 1794, before the Connecticut Society for the Promotion of Freedom, and is noteworthy as an early arraignment of slavery; it contains passages which resemble utterances of Garrison and Phillips. His political addresses show that he shared with most of his contemporaries the enthusiasm for the French Revolution which later turned to fear and aversion. It was during this same period that he became identified with the group of writers known as the "Connecticut Wits." He was himself the author of much verse, but his poetical effusions are of antiquarian rather than literary interest (Parrington, post). Some of the New Year addresses, however, contributed to the Connecticut Courant and Connecticut Mirror are clever imitations of Hudibras and have been frequently quoted by historians.

He was ultra-Federalist in politics, and his views of the opposing party and its doctrines are to be found in his published addresses and in frequent editorial contributions, essays, and verses in the Connecticut Courant and Connecticut Mirror. His journalistic writings are characterized by the scurrility and personal abuse which were so common in American newspapers of the period. In 1806-07 he served for a single session in Congress, in place of John Cotton Smith, resigned; and from 1809 to 1815 was a member of the Council. He was less prominent as an office-holder, however, than as a party worker, pamphleteer, and editor. He was well known throughout New England, his writings were widely quoted, and he corresponded with leading Federalists in other states. In Connecticut he fought all the reforms proposed by the Republicans prior to the War of 1812, and was earnestly opposed to the latter contest. At the same time he had numerous business interests, maintained a law practise, and was active in various local societies. In 1814 he acted as secretary of the Hartford Convention and in 1833 published the journal of that ill-starred gathering together with a review of the steps leading up to the War of 1812. It is an able defense of the Federalist party, although somewhat too polemical for good historical writing, as is also The Character of Thomas Jefferson as Exhibited in his own Writings (1839). In 1815 he moved to Albany, New York, where he founded the Daily Advertiser; but he remained there less than two years. In 1817 he founded the New York Daily Advertiser, and continued in New York City in active management of the paper until 1836, when he returned to Hartford to spend his declining years. His death took place in New York, however, as had that of his wife less than three months earlier.

[W. W. Spooner, Historic Families of America (n.d.), p. 110; Dwight Loomis and J. G. Calhoun, Judicial and Civil History of Connecticut (1895), p. 236; B. W. Dwight, History of the Descendants of John Dwight (1874), I, 227-3 1; V. L. Parrington, in The Connecticut Wits (1926), pp. xxxiii-xxxv, giving a list of Dwight's principal writings; S. G. Goodrich, Recollections of a Lifetime (1856), II, 123; R. J. Purcell, Connecticut in Transition, 1775-1818 (1918), giving an excellent historical setting for Dwight's earlier career; obituary in New York Tribune, June 13, 1846.]

W. A. R.

Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume V:

DWIGHT, Theodore, journalist, born in Northampton, Massachusetts, 15 December, 1764; died in New York city, 12 June, 1846, studied law in New Haven with his cousin, Judge Pierrepont Edwards, and began practice at Haddam, Connecticut, but removed to Hartford in 1791, and became eminent in his profession. He at one time removed to New York to become the law-partner of his cousin, Aaron Burr, but disagreed with the latter's political opinions and returned to Hartford, where he edited the “Courant” and the “Connecticut Mirror,” the organ, in that state, of the Federal party, in which he had become prominent. He was also an active member of a club of young poets known as “the Hartford wits,” and is said to have been a principal contributor to the “Political Greenhouse” and the “Echo.” In 1806 he was chosen to congress to fill the vacancy caused by John Cotton Smith's resignation, serving till 3 March, 1807, and declining a renomination. While in congress he had several sharp passages of wit with John Randolph. He was a member of the state council in 1809-'15, and secretary of the celebrated “Hartford Convention” of 1814. In 1815 he removed to Albany and established the “Daily Advertiser,” but relinquished it after two years, to found the New York “Daily Advertiser,” a journal which he conducted until 1836, when, retiring from active life, he removed to Hartford, but returned to New York three years before his death. Mr. Dwight was a brilliant writer as well as able debater. Although he wrote too much and too rapidly for lasting fame, his political articles were bright and spicy, and his satirical and sketchy “New Year's Verses,” in the “Mirror,” were always looked for with eagerness. Mr. Dwight was a man of unflinching integrity and an outspoken opponent of slavery. In person he was tall and fine-looking. He published a “History of the Hartford Convention” (New York, 1833), and “Character of Thomas Jefferson, as exhibited in his own Writings” (Boston, 1839). The latter is written with a strong Federal bias. An outline of this “Life and Writings” was published by the New York historical society (1846), and a sketch of his character by Dr. Francis appeared subsequently under its auspices. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume V.


DWIGHT, Theodore, 1796-1866, Connecticut, abolitionist, author, reformer, son of Theodore Dwight, 1764-1846. From 1854 to 1858 he worked with George Walter to send Free-Soil settlers to Kansas; together they persuaded about 3,000 persons to emigrate to the new territory.

(Dumond, Dwight Lowell, Antislavery: The Crusade for Freedom in America, University of Michigan Press, 1961, pp. 47, 113; Locke, Mary Stoughton. Anti-Slavery in America from the Introduction of African Slaves to the Prohibition of the Slave Trade (1619-1808). Boston: Ginn & Co., 1901, pp. 93, 103f, 103n, 126, 151, 155, 166, 170, 171, 178, 183; Mason, 2006, pp. 31, 86, 147, 225, 229, 293-294n157; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 3, Pt. 1, p. 570; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Volume 7, p. 195)

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 3, Pt. 1, p. 570:

DWIGHT, THEODORE (March 3, 1796-October 16, 1866), author, educator, was born in Hartford, Connecticut, the son of Theodore [q.v.] and Abigail (Alsop) Dwight. His father was the secretary of the Hartford Convention; his mother was a sister of Richard Alsop [q.v.]. With such parents it was natural that Theodore should be fed from early childhood on unadulterated Federalism and Calvinism and that the diet should be topped off with a four-year course at Yale, where he graduated in 1814, under his uncle Timothy [q.v.], whose memory he revered and whose classroom utterances, taken down in shorthand, he published as President Dwight's Decisions of Questions Discussed by the Senior Class in Yale College in 1813 and 1814 (1833). He had intended to study theology under his uncle, but an attack of scarlet fever followed by a hemorrhage of the lungs made him relinquish his plans and turn to less strenuous employment. He traveled abroad for his health in 1818-19 and in October 1820 went again to England and France for a longer stay. In Paris he engaged with the Reverend Francis Leo in distributing free copies of De Sacy's French New Testament and was arrested for collecting an unlawful number of persons on the streets. He spoke French, Spanish, and Italian well and had a fair command of German, Portuguese, and modern Greek. At home in New York and in Brooklyn, where he lived from 1833 till his death, he taught school, worked on his father's paper, the New York Daily Advertiser, busied himself as author, editor, and translator of English books into Spanish, and engaged in various philanthropic, religious, and educational enterprises. At one time or another he worked for the Protestant Vindicator, the Family Visitor, the Christian Alliance and Family Visitor, the New York Presbyterian, and the Youth's Penny Paper. A venture of his own was Dwight's American Magazine and Family Newspaper, 1845-52. On April 24, 1827, he married Eleanor Boyd of New York. He has the distinction of having introduced vocal music into the New York public schools. From 1854 to 1858 he worked with George Walter to send Free-Soil settlers to Kansas; together they persuaded about 3,000 persons to emigrate to the new territory. His knowledge of the Romance languages, his republicanism, and his de sire to protestantize Catholic countries led him to entertain many political exiles from the Latin countries of Europe and the Americas. Of these guests the most famous was Garibaldi, who intrusted to him his autobiography for publication in the United States.

Dwight's more important books are: A Journal of a Tour in Italy in the Year 1821 (1824); The Northern Traveller, containing the Routes to Niagara, Quebec, and the Springs (1825; 6th ed., 1841); Sketches of Scenery and Manners in the United States (1829); A New Gazetteer of the United States of America (1833, with William Darby [q.v.], Dwight being responsible for New York, New Jersey, and New England); Lessons in Greek (1833, an interesting attempt at a rational method of instruction); The Father's Book, or Suggestions for the Government and Instruction of Young Children on Principles Appropriate to a Christian Country (1834, also published in London), of considerable interest; The School-Master's Friend, with the Committee-Man's Guide: Containing Suggestions on Education, Modes of Teaching and Governing, ... Plans of School Houses, Furniture, Apparatus, Practical Hints, and Anecdotes on Different Systems (1835); Open Covenants, or Nunneries and Popish Seminaries Dangerous to the Morals and Degrading to the Character of a Republican Community (1836); Dictionary of Roots and Derivations (1837); The History of Connecticut (1840); Summer Tours, or Notes of a Traveler through some of the Middle and Northern States (1847, originally published in 1834 as Things as They Are; republished in Glasgow in 1848 as Travels in America); The Roman Republic of 1849 (1851); an edition with much new material of Maria Monk's Awful Disclosures (1855); Life of General Garibaldi, Translated from his Private Papers with the History of his Splendid Exploits in Rome, Lombardy, Sicily, and Naples to the Present Time (1861). Dwight's admiration for Garibaldi, it may be added, was unbounded. During his last years he worked in the New York Customs House. He died from s hock and injuries received in jumping from a moving train in Jersey City.

[B. W. Dwight, The History of the Descendants of John Dwight of Dedham, Massachusetts (1874); F. B. Dexter, Biography Sketches Graduates Yale College, Volume VI (1912).]

G.H.G.

Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume V. :

DWIGHT, Theodore, author, born in Hartford, Connecticut, 3 March, 1796; died in Brooklyn, New York, 16 October, 1866, was graduated at Yale in 1814, and began to study theology with his uncle, President Dwight, but illness forced him to abandon it in 1818, and he visited Europe for his health. He removed to Brooklyn in 1833, and engaged in various public and philanthropic enterprises, becoming a director of many religious and educational societies, and being active from 1826 till 1854 in multiplying and perfecting Sunday-schools. In 1854-'8 he engaged with George Walter in a systematic effort to send free-soil settlers to Kansas, and it is estimated that, directly or indirectly, they induced 9,000 persons to go thither. Mr. Dwight was a prolific writer, and at various times was on the editorial staff of the New York “Daily Advertiser,” his father's paper, the “American Magazine,” the “Family Visitor,” the “Protestant Vindicator,” the “Christian Alliance,” the “Israelite Indeed,” and the “New York Presbyterian,” of which he was at one time chief editor and publisher. In his later years he was employed in the New York custom-house. Mr. Dwight was familiar with six or eight languages. At the time of his death, which was the result of a railroad accident, he was translating educational works into Spanish, for introduction into the Spanish-American countries. He published “A Tour in Italy in 1821” (New York, 1824); “New Gazetteer of the United States,” with William Darby (Hartford, 1833); “President Dwight's Decisions of Questions discussed by the Senior Class in Yale College in 1813-'4” (New York, 1833); “History of Connecticut” and “The Northern Traveller” (1841); “Summer Tour of New England” (1847); “The Roman Republic of 1849” (1851); “The Kansas War; or the Exploits of Chivalry in the 19th Century” (1859); and the “Autobiography of General Garibaldi,” edited (1859). He was also the author of numerous educational works. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume V.


DWIGHT, Timothy, 1752-1817, New Haven, Connecticut, anti-slavery writer, educator, clergyman.  Pastor, Congregational Church at Greenfield Hill.  President of Yale, 1795-1817.  Member of the American Colonization Society Committee in New Haven.  Condemned slavery and its brutality in his writings and poetry.  Wrote Greenfield Hill against slavery.  In 1790, Dwight co-founded the Connecticut Society for the Promotion of Freedom and Relief of Persons Unlawfully Held in Bondage. 

(Dumond, Dwight Lowell, Antislavery: The Crusade for Freedom in America, University of Michigan Press, 1961, pp. 77, 87; Mason, 2006, pp. 52, 102, 220, 266nn80-81; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume II, pp. 281-282; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 3 pt. 1 pp. 573-577; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Volume 7, p. 192;  National Portrait Gallery of Distinguished Americans, Volume 1; Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, p. 86)


Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 3 pt. 1 pp. 573-577:

DWIGHT, TIMOTHY (May 14, 1752-January 11, 1817), Congregational divine, author, president of Yale College from 1795 to 1817, and throughout these years the dominant figure in the established order of Connecticut, was born in Northampton, Massachusetts, a descendant of John Dwight who came from Dedham, England, in 1635 and settled in Dedham, Massachusetts. His father, Major Timothy, was a successful merchant and the proprietor of a considerable estate. Some light is thrown on his character by the fact that although a graduate of Yale and destined for the law, he "had such extreme sensibility to the beauty and sweetness of always doing right, ... and regarded the legal profession as so full of temptations to doing wrong, in great degrees or small," that he preferred not to be a lawyer (Benjamin W. Dwight, History of the Descendants of John Dwight of Dedham, Massachusetts, 1874, I, 130). His conscientiousness was indirectly the cause of his death. As judge of probate he had sworn fealty to the Crown, and therefore felt himself debarred from taking any part in the Revolution. To escape the situation to which his scruples gave rise, he bought part of a Crown grant to his deceased brother-in-law, Phineas Lyman, in West Florida, and, with the latter's widow and children and two of his own sons, in 1776 he went to take possession of it. In this unhealthful region he died June 10, 1777, although news of the fact did not reach his family in Northampton until a year later. Six feet and four inches tall and well proportioned, he was by actual test as strong as an ox. In contrast, his wife, Mary, daughter of Jonathan Edwards, was so petite that, according to tradition, he could hold her at arm's length on the palm of his hand. She bore him thirteen children, of whom Timothy was the first-born.

Mary Edwards Dwight was a woman of remarkable character and mental ability. At her death Timothy said that he owed all that he was to her, although in this statement he was not quite fair to his father to whom some of his spiritual traits, as well as his physical stature, may certainly be attributed. She was but seventeen years old at his birth, but almost from the cradle she proceeded to educate him according to ideas of her own. He early displayed a tenacious memory, acquisitiveness, and determination. He learned the alphabet in one lesson, and by the time he was four he was reading the Bible with ease and correctness. When he was six years old he was sent to grammar school, where, contrary to the wishes of his father, who thought him too young, and without the knowledge of his master, he acquired familiarity with Latin by studying the books of the other boys while they were at play. Had the school not been discontinued, he would have been ready for college at the age of eight. His mother continued his instruction, which was supplemented by a short period of schooling under Reverend Enoch Huntington of Middletown, Connecticut, and at thirteen he entered Yale, having already done much of the work of the first two college years. He graduated in 1769, sharing highest honors with Nathan Strong, and at once became principal of the Hopkins Grammar School, New Haven, returning to Yale in 1771 to remain six years as tutor.

During the first half of his college course he seems to have been guilty of some of the ordinary frailties of humanity, card playing especially, but having reached the mature age of fifteen, he was converted to a more serious view of life, and his native ambition to make a conquest of all knowledge took full possession of him. A resolve to devote fourteen hours a day to study was rigorously kept, and although the college schedule began at 5:30 winters, and at 4:30 summers, he was up an hour earlier reading by candle light. He thus laid the foundation for an affection of the eyes, which subjected him to suffering and limitation for the remainder of his life. While a tutor, in order not to have to take time for exercise, he reduced his eating until his dinners consisted of twelve mouthfuls, asceticism which resulted in a physical breakdown. He recuperated by walking upward of 2,000 miles and riding on horseback 3,000 more, thus beginning the peregrinations and observations, the fruits of which appeared later in records of much value. In 1774 he united with the college church, and soon gave up his original intention to become a lawyer, and turned to theology. The conventional subjects of the day were not his only interest, however. He made a study of sacred music and wrote several anthems. With his fellow tutors, Joseph Howe and John Trumbull, he developed an interest in literature, composition, and oratory at Yale, and sought to broaden its curriculum. Upon receiving his master's degree in 1772 he delivered A Dissertation on the History, Eloquence, and Poetry of the Bible which was published that same year. To this literary interest at Yale may be traced the origin of the school known as the "Connecticut" or "Hartford Wits," of which Dwight was one of the most prolific members-a school devoted to the cultivation of belles-lettres, and ambitious to give to America a worthy body of poetry. As a tutor he was noted for his skill as an administrator and was extraordinarily popular. When in 1777 Naphtali Daggett resigned as president pro-tem, the students wanted Dwight appointed president. That others also had him in mind is revealed by the appointee, Dr. Stiles, who records: '' I have heard of but one Gentleman that disapproves the Choice ... and he is Hon. Colonel Davenport of Stanford a Gent. of Learning & great Merit. He says the Corporation have clone wrong in electing me; they should have chosen Mr. Tutor Dwight" (F. B. Dexter, The Literary Diary of Ezra Stiles, 1901, II, 231). Before leaving Yale Dwight broke an old tradition by marrying while a tutor, taking for his wife, March 3, 1777, Mary, daughter of Benjamin Woolsey.

His resignation, September 1777, was due to the war. The preceding June he had been licensed to preach by a committee of the Northern Association of Massachusetts, and on October 6, Congress appointed him chaplain of General S. H. Parson's Connecticut Continental Brigade, and he soon joined the army at West Point. He threw himself into the work of instructing and inspiring the soldiery with his characteristic vigor, and according to tradition with notable practical results. He also wrote patriotic songs which became popular in the army, among them " Columbia, Columbia, to glory arise."

The death of his father and the necessity of taking charge of the family affairs in Northampton, compelled him to resign, January 28, 1779 (F. B. Heitman, Historical Register of Officers of the Continental Army, 19r4). The next five years spent in this Massachusetts town were full of strenuous and varied labors. He ran two large farms, constantly supplied churches, and established a school for both sexes which attracted so many students that he had t0 employ two assistants. He also became prominent in political affairs, representing his town in county conventions and in 1781 and 1782 in the state legislature, where his activities won him such favor that his friends wished to nominate him for the Continental Congress. Had he been willing to abandon the ministry for public life, he would undoubtedly have risen high. Calls came to him to settle over churches in the vicinity of Boston, which he declined. Connecticut attracted him more, and on July 20, 1783, he accepted an invitation to the pastorate of the Congregational church at Greenfield Hill, where on November 5, he was ordained.

During his twelve years here his fame as an educator, preacher, author, and man of affairs spread. Again he established a school for both sexes to which, in addition to many other enterprises, he gave six hours a day. It became widely and justly celebrated, drawing its students from the Middle and Southern states as well as from New England. Approximately a thousand pupils were educated by him, many of them in all the studies of the college curriculum. Among the clergy his learning and force of character speedily gave him leadership. In 1785 The Conquest of Canaan, written several years before, was published, the first epic poem, according to the author, to appear in America. It consists of eleven books in rhymed pentameters, and was an audacious attempt to give the New World an epic such as the Iliad was to Greece, and the Aeneid, to Rome. The Bible story is told with such changes as suited the writer's purpose, and interjected are allusions to contemporary characters and events. It is unbearably tedious to the modern reader, but increased Dwight's prestige, was republished in England in 1788, and was charitably reviewed by Cowper in the Analytical Review (III, 1789, 531). A second ambitious work, Greenfield Hill, appeared in 1794. In form imitative of eighteenth-century English poets, it describes the scenery, history, and social conditions of the country, and has the patriotic purpose of contributing to the moral improvement of the author's countrymen and of demonstrating to Europeans that America offers the makings for a native poetry of interest and excellence. A rigid Calvinist and a stanch Federalist, Dwight exerted all his personal influence, intellectual equipment, and literary ability against the rising tide of democracy and infidelity, the two being in his mind synonymous; a warfare which he was to continue with a stubborn closed-mindedness for the remainder of his life. He took up the weapon of satire and published, The Triumph of Infidelity, a Poem (1788), dedicated to "Mons. de Voltaire," in which he uncorks vials of abuse. Satire was not one of Dwight's gifts. "Probably there can now be left for us on this planet few spectacles more provocative of the melancholy and pallid form of mirth, than that presented by those laborious efforts of the Reverend Timothy Dwight to be facetious at the expense of David Hume, or to slay the dreadful Monsieur de Voltaire in a duel of irony" (Moses Coit Tyler, Three Men of Letters, 1895, p. 92). His own religious, social, and political views are set forth in sermons and addresses, among which are: A Discourse on the Genuineness, and Authenticity of the New Testament (1794); The True Means of Establishing Public Happiness (n.d.), delivered July 7, 1795; The Nature, and Danger, of Infidel Philosophy (1798); The Duty of Americans, at the Present Crisis (1798), and in Fast Day discourses delivered in 1812. At the request of the citizens of New Haven, on February 22, 1800, he gave an address on Washington, with whom he had personal acquaintance, which was published that same year under the title: Discourse ... on the Character of George Washington, Esq. After the duel between his cousin, Aaron Burr, and Hamilton he preached a sermon on the Folly, Guilt, and Mischiefs of Duelling (1805).

The height of his ambition was perhaps achieved when on June 25, 1795, a few weeks after the sudden death of Ezra Stiles, Dwight, having just declined a call to the presidency of Union College, was elected president of Yale. That he was ambitious for position and power he himself confessed shortly before his death "Particularly," he says, "I have coveted reputation, and influence, to a degree which I am unable to justify." (Sereno E. Dwight's Memoir prefixed to T. Dwight's Theology, p. xliii). President Stiles, who had an extreme dislike for Dwight, accusing him of decoying students from Yale for his schools, and suspecting him of trying to undermine him in his own position, also states: "He meditates great Things & nothing but great things will serve him-& every Thing that comes in the Way of his preferment must fall before him. Aut Cresar, aut null us" (Dexter, ante, II, 531). For more than twenty-one years he administered the college with great ability, exerted an influence over the students such as few presidents achieve, instructed the senior class in rhetoric, logic, metaphysics, and ethics, acted as professor of theology, supplied the college pulpit, gave counsel of weight in the affairs of state, and was altogether the most conspicuous figure in New England. The unregenerate dubbed him "Pope Dwight," while the children of the elect were taught to regard him as second only to St. Paul.

His real greatness has been questioned. Even some of his contemporaries had difficulty in accounting for the exalted place he held in public regard. An admirer, S. G. Goodrich, admits that his greatness was not that of genius and that he was only a man of large common sense and a large heart, inspired by high moral principles, a " Yankee, Christian gentleman-nothing more nothing less" (Recollections of a Lifetime, 1856, I, 355). Unquestionably he had serious limitations. His outlook was narrow; his views of life, his political and social doctrines, all his judgments and all that he wrote, were determined or colored by his theological system. He had a little of the bigotry and uncharitableness of Puritanism at its worst. His literary work was without originality, and of all his poetry, so laboriously constructed, the only bit now generally known is the hymn, "I love thy Kingdom, Lord." Theologically he belonged to the school of his grandfather, Jonathan Edwards, but here he displayed some independence. His views are set forth in a series of sermons, repeated every four years at Yale, that all the students might hear them, and published after his death, Theology, Explained and Defended (5 volumes, 1818-19), popular in America and abroad. (For analysis of his system, see Williston Walker, A History of the Congregational Churches in the United States, 1894, pp. 301-03). His one work which is likely to survive is Travels in New England and New York (1821-22), in four sizable volumes, written to record how " New England appeared, or to my own eye would have appeared, eighty or a hundred years before," and to refute foreign misrepresentations of America. It is an astonishingly varied collection of descriptions of natural scenery, agricultural, political, religious, and social conditions, including historical, biographical, and statistical information, and is interlarded with shrewd practical comments.

"On account of his noble person," Goodrich was persuaded, "the perfection of the visible man -he exercised a power in his day and generation somewhat beyond the natural scope of his mental endowments" (ante, I, 353). In appearance "he was about six feet in height, and of a full, round, manly form. His head was modeled rather for beauty than craniological display .... Dr. Dwight had, in fact, no bumps: I have never seen a smoother, rounder pate than his, which being slightly bald and close shorn, was easily examined. He had, however, a noble aspect-a full forehead and piercing black eyes though partly covered up with large spectacles in a tortoiseshell frame .... His voice was one of the finest I have ever heard from the pulpit-clear, hearty, sympathetic-and entering into the soul like the middle notes of an organ" (Ibid., I, 348-49). Dwight's reputation and influence, however, were not due to his looks and manner alone. They are to be attributed in part to his mental equipment. He had a tenacious memory, a wide range of interests, and capacity for keen and minute observation. His mind was stored with a wealth of information on the most diverse subjects. He could talk intelligently with men in almost every walk of life, and frequently demonstrated that he knew how to do a job better than those whose business it was. Forced, because of the condition of his eyes, to depend upon amanuenses, such was his power of concentration that he could dictate to several at one time, turning from one to the other and unaided beginning where he had stopped. With all else he also had sound judgment and common sense. In certain aspects of character, moreover, he was great. However open to criticism his social and political views, he displayed a noble devotion to his country's interests, and no one ever doubted his religious integrity. He had disciplined himself to inflexible conformity to duty, and his industry, perseverance, and self-command came well up 0 to the height of human possibilities. Anyone who could accomplish what he did, so handicapped as to be unable to use his eyes for close work for but a short time each day, forced often to get up in the night and walk miles to gain relief from intense pain, compelled to compose both prose and poetry through dictation, and finally keep on his way with fortitude through slow death from cancer, had in him the stuff that compels admiration. By all, too, he was conceded to have been a great teach er. He probably came nearer to exemplifying what the name Mark Hopkins symbolizes than did Hopkins himself. He not only inspired the interest of his students in the studies he taught, but he made his class-work a means of enriching them out of his own great stock of general knowledge, so that to be under him alone was a liberal education. As a college president he had qualities which would have given him high rank in any generation, and from his administration Yale dates her modern era. He made the faculty in cooperation with the president a part of the college government; abolished obsolete customs and methods of discipline; gathered about him able instructors; encouraged the teaching of science; established a medical department, and contemplated the establishment of theological and law departments. His interest in the extension of education and religion led him to give much thought and labor to the founding of institutions which have had permanence and wide influence. He was one of the projectors of Andover Theological Seminary; of the Missionary Society of Connecticut; and of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. His whole life in fact was devoted to great interests, and if he was the personification of the "venerable status quo," an exemplifier of Connecticut Puritanism, he was also the personification of all that was finest in it.

[F. B. Dexter, Biography Sketches Graduates Yale College, Volume III (1903) gives list of publications and a copious bibliography. See also Dexter, Sketch of the History of Yale University (1887). and "Student Life at Yale under the first President Dwight" in Proc. American Antiquarian Society, October 1917; W. B. Sprague, "Life of Timothy Dwight" in Jared Sparks, The Library of American Biography, 2 series, IV (1845), 225-364; Henry A. Beers, The Connecticut Wits and Other Essays (1920); Vernon L. Parrington, The Connecticut Wits (1926), and Main Currents in American Thought: The Colonial Mind (1927); Cambridge History of American Lit., volumes I and II (1917-18); M.A. DeWolfe Howe, Classic Shades (1928); R. J. Purcell, Connecticut in Transition (19 18); Frank H. Foster, A Genetic History of the New England Theology (1907); A. P. Stokes, Memorials of Eminent Yale Men (1914), esp. Volume I; J.B. Reynolds, S. H. Fisher, H. B. Wright, Two Centuries of Christian Activity at Yale (1901).]

H.E.S.

Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume II, pp. 281-282:

DWIGHT, Timothy, educator, born in Northampton, Massachusetts, 14 May, 1752; died in New Haven, Connecticut, 11 January, 1817. He was the great-grandson of Nathaniel, who was brother to Captain Henry Dwight, of Hatfield (see DWIGHT, JOSEPH). His father, Major Timothy Dwight (Yale, 1744), was a lawyer by education, and became a prosperous merchant of Northampton; his mother was Mary, third daughter of the Reverend Jonathan Edwards, a lady of great mental ability and force of character. During the boy's earlier years she devoted herself to his education. At twelve he was sent to the Reverend Enoch Huntingdon's school in Middletown, where he was fitted for college, matriculating at Yale in 1765. He was graduated in 1769, having but one rival in scholarship, Nathan Strong. After leaving college he was principal of the Hopkins grammar-school in New Haven for two years. In the autumn of 1771 he was given the post of tutor in his alma mater, and in the same year began his ambitious epic, “The Conquest of Canaan.” He was made M. A. in 1772, and on taking his degree delivered a dissertation on the “History, Eloquence, and Poetry of the Bible,” which attracted much attention. While a tutor, he studied law, with the intention of adopting it as a profession; but in 1777, there being a great dearth of chaplains in the Continental army, he was licensed to preach, and soon afterward became chaplain in Parsons's brigade, of the Connecticut line. While holding this office he wrote several stirring patriotic songs, one of which, “Columbia,” became a general favorite. His father's sudden death in 1778 recalled him to the care of his widowed mother and her family, with whom he remained at Northampton, Massachusetts, five years, tilling the farm and preaching occasionally in the neighboring churches. He also kept a day-school for both sexes, in which Joel Barlow, the poet, was a teacher; and after the capture of New Haven by the British he had under his care several of the students of Yale. In 1782 he was a member of the Massachusetts legislature, but refused a nomination to congress. Receiving a call from the church at Greenfield Hill, a beautiful rural parish in Fairfield, Connecticut, he removed thither in 1783; and shortly afterward he established an academy, which soon acquired a national reputation, students being attracted from all parts of the country and from the West Indies. In this school Dr. Dwight became the pioneer of higher education for women, assigning his female students the same advanced studies as those pursued by the boys, and earnestly advocating the practice. The College of New Jersey gave him the degree of S. T. D. in 1787, and Harvard that of LL. D. in 1810. In 1799 he declined a call from the Dutch Reformed church at Albany. During this period he proposed and agitated, until he secured, the union of the Congregational and Presbyterian churches of New England. In 1795, on the death of Dr. Stiles, he was called to the presidency of Yale college, an office which he held until his death in 1817. On this long and successful administration of the affairs of Yale college Dr. Dwight's claims to distinction largely rest. When he assumed control there were but 110 students; the curriculum was still narrow and pedantic; the freshmen were in bondage to the upper-class men, and they in turn to the faculty. President Dwight abolished the primary-school system, and established among the class-men, and between them and the faculty, such rules as are usually observed by gentlemen in social intercourse. He introduced the study of oratory into the curriculum, and himself gave lectures on style and composition. He also abolished the system of fines for petty offences. At his death the number of students had increased to 313. In politics he was a federalist of the Hamilton school, and he earnestly deprecated the introduction of French ideas of education. His published works fill thirteen large octavo volumes, and his unpublished manuscripts would fill almost as many more. While he was a tutor in college, imprudence in the use of his eyes had so weakened them that he could use them neither for study nor writing, and he was afterward obliged to employ an amanuensis very frequently. His most ambitious work was his epic, The Conquest of Canaan.” A critic, writing in the “North American Review” (vii., 347), said its author had invented a medium between absolute barbarism and modern refinement. “There is little that is really distinctive, little that is truly oriental, about any of his persons or scenes…. It is occasionally animated, and in description sometimes picturesque and poetical.” His pastoral poem, “Greenfield Hill” (1794), in which was introduced a vivid description of the burning of Fairfield by the British in 1779, was much more popular. In 1800 he revised Watts's Psalms, adding translations of his own, and a selection of hymns, both of which were adopted by the general assembly of the Presbyterian church. The best known of these is the version of the 137th Psalm, beginning, “I love thy kingdom, Lord, the house of thine abode.” His “Travels in New England and New York” (4 vols., New Haven, 1821; London, 1823) was pronounced by Robert Southey the most important of his works. His “Theology Explained and Defended in a Course of 173 Sermons” (5 vols., Middletown, Connecticut, 1818; London, 1819; new ed., with memoir by his son, Reverend Sereno E. Dwight, New York, 1846) has gone through a score of editions in this country and at least one hundred abroad, and on it rests his reputation as a theologian. Besides these works and numerous discourses he published “America, a Poem” (1772; “The Genuineness and Authenticity of the New Testament” (1793); “Triumph of Infidelity, a Satire” (1797); “Discourse on the Character of Washington” (1800); “Observations on Language” (1816); and “Essay on Light” (1816). See, besides, the memoir by his son, and the life in vol. xiv. of Sparks's “American Biography,” by Reverend William B. Sprague. Dr. Dwight married, in March, 1777, Mary, daughter of Benjamin Woolsey, of Long Island, who bore him eight sons. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume II, pp. 281-282.

Biography from National Portrait Gallery of Distinguished Americans:

This eminent divine was born of reputable parents, in Northampton, Massachusetts, in the year 1752. His mother was a daughter of the celebrated metaphysician and theologian, President Edwards, and is said to have inherited much of the uncommon powers of her father. She early perceived the promise of superior genius in her son, and cherished its progressive developments with all a mother’s fondness. His advancement in learning, while almost in his infancy, was wonderfully rapid; and we are told by his biographers, that at the age of six years he studied through Lilly’s Latin grammar twice, without the knowledge of his father. When he had just passed his thirteenth year, he was admitted a member of Yale college, and he went through his collegiate course with great credit. Immediately after graduating, he opened a grammar school in New Haven, which he continued for two years, when he was chosen a tutor in the college. During the period he was occupied with his school, he made a regular division of his time, devoting six hours of the day to his pupils, and eight hours to his private studies. He was for six years a tutor in the college, and was a laborious and successful teacher. So popular was he with the students, that on his resignation, and when only twenty-five years of age, a petition was presented by them to the corporation of the college, soliciting his appointment to the presidency. In directing his private studies at this time, he turned his attention more particularly to rhetoric and belles lettres, which had been but little cultivated in our seminaries previous to the revolution, and his early productions in prose and verse, in conjunction with those of Trumbull, Humphreys, and Barlow, formed an era in American literature.

In 1771 he commenced writing the “Conquest of Canaan,” a regular epic poem, which employed his leisure hours until 1774, when it was completed. On receiving the degree of Master of Arts, in 1772, he pronounced an oration on the history, eloquence, and poetry of the Bible, which was published in this country and in England. In order to economize his time at this period, and to avoid the necessity of exercise, he restricted himself to certain abstemious rules in diet, which, in the end, greatly impaired his health, and he was at length reluctantly compelled to lay aside his books. His physician recommended the daily use of severe bodily exercise, which he had endeavored to forego, and it is said, that during a twelvemonth he walked and rode upwards of five thousand miles, besides resuming, no doubt, that good old system of living to which he had been accustomed. The result, in a short time, was the complete restoration of his health, which continued good for the ensuing forty years of his life, and until he was attacked by his last illness.

In 1777 the different classes in the college were separated on account of the war, and he repaired, with his class, to Weathersfield, in Connecticut, where he remained from May to September. During this summer he was licensed to preach as a Congregational minister. In September he was nominated a chaplain in the army, and immediately joined the brigade of General Parsons, in the Massachusetts line. While in the army he wrote several patriotic songs, which were much admired and widely circulated.

In 1778 he received the melancholy tidings of the death of his father, upon which he resigned his situation in the army, and returned to Northampton, to assist his widowed mother in the education and support of her family. Here he remained about five years, laboring on the farm during the week, and preaching every Sabbath in one of the neighboring towns, besides establishing a school, which was largely patronized. During this period he was twice elected a member of the legislature of Massachusetts.

In 1783 he was ordained a minister in the parish of Greenfield, in Connecticut. Besides attending to his parochial duties, he also opened an academy here, which soon acquired a reputation then unequalled in our country; and in the course of twelve years, he taught more than one thousand scholars in the various branches of English and classical literature. During his residence at Greenfield he published the “Conquest of Canaan,” for which, at the close of the war, he had obtained a list of three thousand subscribers. He however withheld its publication at that time, and now printed it at his own expense. It was shortly afterwards republished in England, and received the approbation of Darwin and Cowper, the former, particularly, commending the smoothness and melody of the versification. There are many splendid passages in this poem, and if it was not popular with all classes of readers, something may, doubtless, be attributed to the theme; and although the author himself declared in after life that “it was too great an undertaking for inexperienced years,” still, it must be considered an extraordinary production for a youth of twenty-two.”

In 1794 he published his poem entitled “Greenfield Hill,” named after the beautiful spot where he resided.

In 1795 he was elected president of Yale college, on the death of President Styles. On his accession to this office, he found the college in a depressed state, owing to the want of funds and other causes; but his distinguished reputation as an instructer brought to it a great increase of students, and he soon succeeded in establishing two new professorships, and in greatly extending the library and philosophical apparatus. He not only enlarged the sphere of instruction, but changed the whole system of government of the college, while he reformed the modes and elevated the tone of education, directing the students to a loftier aim in literary and moral improvement. The effects were soon abundantly visible, and Yale college has ever since ranked with the first institutions of learning in our country. During the twenty-one years he presided over it, a greater number of students were educated there than in any other similar institution.

In 1796 he commenced a regular course of travelling through New England and the state of New York, which he continued during the spring and fall vacations in each succeeding year, until a short time before his death. In these excursions, undertaken principally for the purposes of health, and of relaxation from his sedentary duties in the college, he was in the habit of making brief notes, upon the spot, of every thing interesting which he saw or heard, for the immediate gratification of his family; and these notes were afterwards written out by him, or to his dictation, by an amanuensis, and have been published since his death, under the title of “Travels in New England and New York,” in four volumes octavo. This work contains a mass of useful and interesting information upon a great variety of topics, with amusing anecdotes and graphic sketches of scenery and character. A most valuable portion of it is its historical notices of the origin and customs of the aborigines of our country. He also left behind him, ready for the press, a complete system of divinity, contained in one hundred and seventy-three discourses or lectures, which formed his course in the college as professor of theology, and which have been published, both in England and this country, under the title of “Theology Explained and Defended.” He continued the active performance of his duties until near the close of his life, and heard the recitation of a theological class a week before his death. During his illness, which continued about two years, he occasionally occupied himself in poetical composition, to divert his mind from his painful sufferings. Four days previous to his death, he performed the last of his literary and earthly labors; and as he laid his manuscript aside, which was a theological dissertation, he said to his family, “I have now finished.” He died at his residence in New Haven, January 11th, 1817, after severe and repeated attacks of his disease, the character of which, it is said, was not well understood.

In this brief sketch, it is not to be expected that full justice can be done to the character of President DWIGHT. We shall endeavor, however, to present our own views of it, derived from personal knowledge, and the observations of others, who have written his biography. As poetry did not form the business of his life, but was written merely as a mode of literary relaxation, there have been those among us who surpassed him in this department of literature, and as a poet, therefore, we do not ask for him the highest meed of praise. His mind, perhaps, was too logical and argumentative, his train of thought too methodical, and his memory too retentive of facts and details, and too much engrossed with them, to leave room for the display of that brilliant fancy which the highest flights of poetry require. His stronger mental powers he had subjected to a severe discipline from early youth, and we suspect that the philosophy of Bacon and Locke had always more charms for him than the music of the Doric reed. Still, some of his smaller poetical pieces are extremely beautiful.

But the fame of Dr. DWIGHT was not built upon his poetry, and does not rest upon it. As an instructer, he stood pre-eminent among his contemporaries, from the opening of his grammar school in New Haven, while a mere youth, to the close of his career as president of Yale college. He early made innovations upon previous methods of instruction, which were dictated by his powerful and original genius, and they were attended with signal success, as many who now occupy high places amongst us can bear witness. The art of the pedagogue, under his hands, expanded into a noble vocation, which commanded respect and veneration, and elevated science and literature in our country to a rank which, before his time, they had not attained. Over his pupils he exercised an unbounded influence, which was cemented in affection; and his unwearied efforts at all times were, to pour into their minds that ripe knowledge, which it had been the whole business of his life to treasure up from study, meditation, and a familiar intercourse with the world. He was versed in almost every subject of science and art, and besides his own peculiar and professional studies, he had acquired inexhaustible treasures in natural philosophy, chemistry, history, geography, statistics, philology, husbandry, and domestic economy; and which were so methodically arranged in his mind, as to be always at command, and when he became animated in discourse, were poured forth from his lips in a perpetual stream of knowledge arid wisdom.

Dr. DWIGHT’S colloquial powers were very great, and no one who had the pleasure of listening to his conversation ever failed to be impressed with a high opinion of his great attainments, and a profound respect for his character, which was heightened by his polished and courteous address. To strangers he was urbane and affable, and among the friends of his fireside, he intermingled, in his social converse, flashes of wit with practical wisdom, the utile cum dulci, in the most fascinating degree. His temper was ardent, but his heart was full of kindness, and probably no husband, father, or friend, was ever more beloved than he was by those to whom he stood in these relations. To them his loss was irreparable, and a whole community sympathized in their sorrows. His memory was a storehouse of anecdotes upon all subjects, which he had been industriously collecting from books, and a long and attentive observation of mankind; and little of what he had once learned was afterwards forgotten. Hence his society was greatly courted, and the attentions which he uniformly received from all classes of his fellow citizens, were richly repaid by the instruction and pleasure which his conversation afforded.

As a theologian he stood at the head of his profession, at the time of his death, and was inferior in learning to none of his predecessors, if we except, perhaps, his maternal grandfather, President Edwards. As a proof of the correctness of this high praise, we confidently refer to his voluminous theological works, and the criticisms which have been pronounced upon them, both at home and abroad. He was an eloquent preacher, and although his discourses were addressed to the understanding rather than the passions of his hearers, who were statedly the members of the college, yet, when the subject admitted of oratorical display, he showed himself equal to the highest efforts of the art. His sublime conceptions of the Deity, especially of the divine attributes of love and mercy, on which he delighted to dwell, when embodied in his powerful and impressive language, were only second to those of the great English epic poet; while in touches of pathos, particularly in his funeral discourses, or over the premature grave of youthful genius, he opened a direct and easy avenue to the stoutest heart, and his appeals were irresistible. His voice was clear, distinct, and loud, and its inflections, although few, were musical and agreeable; the only defect in his elocution was, too marked and frequent an emphasis, and too little variety in his tones; but his manner was dignified, earnest, and impressive, evincing sincere and ardent piety, and a feeling heart. The effect of his eloquence was enhanced by his fine personal appearance, graceful gestures, and an eye of fire.

In his intercourse with his fellow men and his “walk with God,” he was every thing which the most devout Christian or rigid moralist could desire; and when he expired, our country was bereaved of a great and good man, and learning and religion sustained a loss not easily to be supplied.

Source: National Portrait Gallery of Distinguished Americans, 1839, Volume 1.


DYER, Charles Volney, Dr., 1808-1878, abolitionist, jurist.  Co-founded Chicago chapter of the American Anti-Slavery Society in 1838 with Philo Carpenter.  Station master on the Underground Railroad.  Gubernatorial candidate with Liberty Party in 1848. 

(Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume II, p. 285; Campbell, 2009)

Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume II, p. 285:

DYER, Charles Volney, Abolitionist, born in Clarendon, Vt., 12 June, 1808; died at Lake View, near Chicago, 24 April, 1878. He was graduated at the medical department of Middlebury college in 1830, and began practice in Newark, New Jersey, in 1831, but removed in 1835 to Chicago, and soon became acting surgeon in Fort Dearborn. He was successful in his practice and business adventures, retiring from the former in 1854, and becoming agent for the “underground railroad” in Chicago. One instance illustrates the courage of Dr. Dyer: In 1846 a fugitive from Kentucky was caught in Chicago by his master and an armed posse, bound tightly with ropes, and guarded while a man went for a blacksmith to rivet the manacles that were to be put upon him. Dr. Dyer, hearing of the arrest, went hurriedly to the Mansion house and to the room where the victim was confined, burst open the door, cut the cords, and told the fugitive to go, which he did before his captors recovered from their surprise and bewilderment at such unexpected and summary proceedings. A bully, with brandishing Bowie-knife, rushed toward the doctor, who stood his ground and knocked down his assailant with his cane. Sympathizing friends subsequently presented the doctor a gold-headed hickory cane of gigantic proportions, appropriately inscribed, which is now in the library of the Chicago historical society. At an anti-slavery convention in 1846 at Chicago, Dr. Dyer was chairman of the committee for establishing the “National Era” at Washington, an organ of the Abolition party, established 7 January, 1847. Dr. Dyer had a genial nature, which manifested itself in ready witticisms and pleasant conversation, except when he chanced to come in contact with shams, impostors, or hypocrites, for which he had a most profound contempt and abundant words to express his detestation. In recognition of Dr. Dyer's sterling integrity and the great service he had rendered the cause of anti-slavery. President Lincoln, who knew him well, appointed him in 1863 judge of the mixed court at Sierra Leone, for the suppression of the slave-trade, after which appointment he passed two years travelling in Europe. Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888.


DYER, LOUIS (September 30, 1851-July 20, 1908), classical scholar, writer, and lecturer, was prominent in the anti-slavery movement and active in the work of the "Underground Railroad."

(Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 3 pt. 1 pp. 582-584)

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 3 pt. 1 pp. 582-584:

DYER, LOUIS (September 30, 1851-July 20, 1908), classical scholar, writer, and lecturer, was born in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Charles Volney Dyer, M.D., and Louisa Maria (Gifford) Dyer. His father was descended from William and Mary Dyer [q.v.], who came from Somersetshire to Boston in 1635, became adherents of Mrs. Hutchinson, and were driven from Massachusetts Bay to Rhode Island, where they joined the Society of Friends. Charles Dyer practised medicine in Newark, New Jersey, in New York, and in Chicago, and was prominent in the anti-slavery movement and active in the work of the "Underground Railroad." In 1862 President Lincoln appointed him judge for the United States in the Anglo-American Mixed Court at Sierra Leone. Louis Dyer's independent habit of thinking, his quiet and efficient friendliness, and his interest in social problems, undoubtedly derived from these antecedents. Educated by private tutors in Geneva and near Lyons, he entered first the University of Chicago (1867), then the University of Munich, and finally the sophomore class at Harvard (September 1871). Older than mo st undergraduates, and matured by extensive travel, he was none the less liked by his classmates, and interested himself in many college activities. At graduation (June 1874) he obtained highest honors in classics. Entering Balliol College, Oxford, in the autumn of 1874, he won the Taylorian Scholarship for proficiency in Italian, and studied there until February 1877, when the illness of his father required his return to Chicago. He became tutor in Greek at Harvard, and in 1881 assistant professor of Greek, a post which he held until June 1887. During this period he published: A Consideration of the Use of Form in Teaching (1881); The Greek Question and Answer (1884); and an excellent edition of Plato's Apology and Crito (1886). After 1887 his life was spent mostly in Oxford, where he had been given the B.A. degree in 1878. In December 1889, he returned to Boston to deliver eight lectures in the Lowell Institute course, late r published under the title Studies of the Gods in Greece at Certain Sanctuaries Recently Excavated (1891).

In 1893 he was made master of arts at Oxford, and appointed lecturer in German and French at Balliol; he was examiner of schools for the Oxford and Cambridge Schools Examination Committee. In 1893 he published An Introduction to the Study of Political Economy, translated from the Italian of Luigi Cossa. During the year 1895-96 he was acting professor of Greek at Cornell University, and in 1899 he delivered three lectures on Machiavelli before the Royal Institution of Great Britain, la ter published as Machiavelli and the Modern State (1904). In 1899 also he contributed to Nates and Queries for Somerset and Dorset a series of notes on the career of his ancestor, under the title, "William Dyer [q.v.], who came from Somersetshire to Boston in 1635, became adherents of Mrs. Hutchinson, and were driven from Massachusetts Bay to Rhode Island, where they joined the Society of Friends. Charles Dyer practised medicine in Newark, New Jersey, in New York, and in Chicago, and was prominent in the anti-slavery movement and active in the work of the "Underground Railroad." In 1862 President Lincoln appointed him judge for the United States in the Anglo-American Mixed Court at Sierra Leone. Louis Dyer's independent habit of thinking, his quiet and efficient friendliness, and his interest in social problems, undoubtedly derived from these antecedents. Educated by private tutors in Geneva and near Lyons, he entered first the University of Chicago (1867), then the University of Munich, and finally the sophomore class at Harvard (September 1871). Older than most undergraduates, and matured by extensive travel, he was none the less liked by his classmates, and interested himself in many college activities. At graduation (June 1874) he obtained highest honors in classics. Entering Balliol College, Oxford, in the autumn of 1874, he won the Taylorian Scholarship for proficiency in Italian, and studied there until February 1877, when the illness of his father required his return to Chicago. He became tutor in Greek at Harvard, and in 1881 assistant professor of Greek, a post which he held until June 1887. During this period he published: A Consideration of the Use of Form in Teaching (188r); The Greek Question and Answer (1884); and an excellent edition of Plato's Apology and Crito (1886). After 1887 his life was spent mostly in Oxford, where he had been given the B.A. degree in 1878. In December 1889, he returned to Boston to deliver eight lectures in the Lowell Institute course, later published under the title Studies of the Gods in Greece at Certain Sanctuaries Recently Excavated (1891).

In 1893 he was made master of arts at Oxford, and appointed lecturer in German and French at Balliol; he was examiner of schools for the Oxford and Cambridge Schools Examination Committee. In 1893 he published An Introduction to the Study of Political Economy, translated from the Italian of Luigi Cossa. During the year 1895-96 he was acting professor of Greek at Cornell University, and in 1899 he delivered three lectures on Machiavelli before the Royal Institution of Great Britain, later published as Machiavelli and the Modern State (1904). In 1899 also he contributed to Nates and Queries for Somerset and Dorset a series of notes on the career of his ancestor, under the title, "William Dyer, a Somerset Royalist in New England." Returning to the United States, he delivered in 1900 the Hearst Lectures on Greek art in the University of California, visiting, in the next year, many of the American universities, where he lectured on Mycene and Cnossus. Oxford as it is, published in 1902, was a small but useful volume for the guidance of Rhodes scholars. In 1904 he became a member of a committee of the Oxford Congregation interested in the maintenance of Greek as a compulsory requirement in the university. At the same time he engaged in the work of promoting the Egypt Exploration Fund, which was to yield papyri of inestimable worth, and he was also a prominent member of the council of the Hellenic Society. In all these enterprises his activities were untiring and fruitful. He married, in London (November 23, 1889), Margaret Anne Macmillan, daughter of the publisher, Alexander Macmillan. In June 1890, he purchased Sunbury Lodge, which thereafter became known in Oxford as a center from which radiated kindness, hospitality, and helpfulness, "one of the first places to which cultivated American visitors in England turned, and where they met sympathetic Oxford colleagues." There he was the recognized intermediary between the university and the young American students who began to flock to Oxford under the Rhodes Foundation.

As a classical scholar, Dyer had read widely and with fine appreciation the literatures of Greece and Rome, and his exposition of them was enriched by illustrations from many modern writers of different tongues. His work as a teacher was sound and enduring. He contributed many reviews, letters, and articles to the Nation (New York), A thenceu1n, Classical Review, Journal of Hellenic Studies, and Harvard Studies in Classical Philology; he preferred, however, to sacrifice further achievement as a scholar to the making of human contacts at Oxford, and his diversity of interests, the warmth of his enthusiasm for the young student's development, his devotion to social work connected with his church or with the succor of neglected children, drew friends to him wherever he went. Domestic affliction, which would have distracted lesser men, never closed his door to the service of others. Gifted with a wide knowledge of men and things, with a joyous wit and humor, and sweetness of disposition, he possess ed a charm that few or none could resist.

[Ninth Report of the Class Secretary of the Class of 1874, Harvard University (1909), pp. 34-37; Harvard College Class of 1874, Fiftieth Anniversary, Eleventh Report (1924), pp. 91-95; Educational Review, September 1908; Nation (New York), July 23, October 15, 1908; London Times, July 21, 1908.]

C. B. G.



Sources:
Dictionary of American Biography, Volumes I-X, Edited by Dumas Malone, New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1930.

Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, Volumes I-VI, Edited by James Grant Wilson & John Fiske, New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1888-1889.