David Humphreys was born in Derby, Connecticut, in 1753, served honorably during the Revolution, and had the distinction of being Washington’s aid-de-camp. He also held, after the war, the position of secretary to the commissioners--Franklin, Jefferson, and Adams--appointed to negotiate treaties of commerce with various European powers. Joel Barlow is perhaps the best known of any of the Wits, and but a small portion of his career was passed in Hartford. He took up his residence in our town in 1782, just after leaving the army. He was then engaged in writing his best known poem, the epic _Vision of Columbus_, but he did much other literary work, and was also the editor of a weekly newspaper, called _The American Mercury_, for which he wrote many essays, said to be the precursors of the modern editorial. In 1787, he completed the _Vision of Columbus_, and it was published by subscription and dedicated to Louis XVI., King of France. During the next year, 1788, Barlow left Hartford to go abroad; he remained in Europe for seventeen years, and when he returned took up his residence in Washington. Finally, going abroad as Ambassador to France, he died in Poland, while following Napoleon then engaged in his Russian campaign. Richard Alsop and Theodore Dwight, Senior, were admitted into the coterie of the Hartford Wits, and wrote much of the _Echo_, and a few lines in this series were also contributed by Drs. Mason F. Cogswell and Elihu H. Smith. The _Echo_ was a sort of Yankee _Dunciad_. It contained many local allusions, as to the Blue Laws, the Windham Frogs, etc., and was also the vehicle of much political satire on the Democrats. Theodore Dwight, one of the Echo poets, was editor of the _Connecticut Mirror_, and also secretary of the famous Hartford Convention.