The third son of Marshal Return, and grandson of Marshal Richard, was Richard Waite, third of the name, born Oct. 21, 1693, and married to Mary, daughter of John Barnes, in 1722. He was a resident of Middleboro, in 1715; Taunton, in 1718, and afterward of Plymouth, save for a short time, when he purchased a residence on Leverett's Lane, paying for the same L3,700, owning also other property on Cornhill. He conducted a profitable business as a merchant in the coasting trade, and was himself for many years captain of a vessel plying between Plymouth and New London. He had eleven children, three sons and eight daughters. Of these Richard, the fourth of the name, was born in Plymouth, Oct. 6, 1745. Members of the family having previously gone to Vermont (giving a name to Waitsfield), Richard, after a brief residence in Boston, removed to that state, settling at Bennington, and from there went to the pioneer region in the "Black River Country" in New York, settling at Champion. He married Submit Thomas, at Hardwick, Mass., in 1747, and had nine children, four of them sons. Of these, James, born at Bennington, Vt., May 13, 1789, married at Dummerston, Vt., Esther L. Coughlan, who was the daughter of an Irish gentleman, and a woman of fine culture and great personal attractions. He spent the chief part of his life upon the estate in Champion occupied by his father. Of his seven children, one, Rev. Hiram Henry Waite, M. A., born Aug. 13, 1816, lately pastor of the Waverly Congregationalist Church, Jersey City, N. J., and now of the Congregationalist Church, Madison, N. Y., is well known among Congregational clergymen as an able, faithful, and successful minister, his services, wherever he has labored, having been signally blessed in every way. He married in 1843 S. Maria Randall at Antwerp, N. Y., by whom he has now living three daughters and one son, Henry Randall Waite, Ph. D., of West Newton, Mass., who is prominent among the younger representatives of this ancient New England family. On the maternal side his descent is traced from the Randalls and Carpenters of New Hampshire, stocks from which have sprung many notable men. Both his paternal and maternal grandfathers were soldiers in the war of 1812; his ancestors were also active participants in the war of the Revolution, and at a still earlier date, as we have seen, participants in the wars with the Narragansetts and other Indian tribes. To his Puritan ancestry we may trace his sturdy independence, his originality, and persevering industry; while to his Celtic progenitors may be due something of his generous and genial nature. He graduated in 1868, at Hamilton College, with an excellent reputation as a scholar and thinker; and in the same year became one of the editors of the Utica _Morning Herald_, where his abilities as a critical and literary writer soon gained recognition. Subsequently he studied theology at Union Theological Seminary in the city of New York, and in 1872 visited Europe.