Woodstock: An historical sketchBowen, Clarence Winthrop
History
Woodstock: An historical sketch
Bowen, Clarence Winthrop
Woodstock (Conn. : Town) -- History
Citizens of Woodstock, listen while I call the roll of some of the
distinguished men who have lived or were born in the town. Of the
first settlers was Col. John Chandler, probably the most distinguished
citizen that Woodstock had during its first century, the man who made
Woodstock known and respected throughout New England. His descendants
include the Rev. Thomas Bradbury Chandler, D.D., Winthrop Chandler, the
artist, the Hon. John Church Chandler, Judge John Winthrop Chandler,
and others, who have been prominent in Woodstock and throughout the
country. No one of the first settlers was more distinguished than
Edward Morris, who died three years after the town was settled. His
family was prominent in the history of old Roxbury, and all through
the last century in Woodstock. Commodore Charles Morris, a native[101]
of Woodstock and well known in the War of 1812, and his son, Commodore
George N. Morris, Commander in the Civil War of the United States
sloop-of-war _Cumberland_ in Hampton Roads, belong to the same family,
as well as the Hon. J. F. Morris, of Hartford, whom I am sure we are
glad to welcome as our presiding officer to-day. John Marcy, a first
settler, was the ancestor of Hon. William Leonard Marcy, Governor
of the State of New York, Secretary of War under President Polk and
Secretary of State under President Pierce. Abiel Holmes,[102] D.D.,
LL.D., author of "Annals of America," and his father, Dr. David Holmes,
a surgeon in the French and Revolutionary wars, were born in Woodstock,
and were descended from John Holmes, a first settler. Abiel Holmes'
son, Oliver Wendell Holmes, though not born in Woodstock, will be
remembered, I am sure, for the beautiful tribute he paid his ancestors
in the poem he read in this very park in 1877. The name of Morse has
always been identified with Woodstock. Deacon Jedediah Morse held about
all the offices in town that he could lawfully hold, and was deacon
of the First Church for forty-three years. His son, the Rev. Jedediah
Morse, D.D., a graduate of Yale College and the father of American
geography, was also born in Woodstock. His grandson was Prof. Samuel
F. B. Morse, who was more widely known as the inventor of the electric
telegraph. Another Woodstock boy was General William Eaton[103] who ran
away, from home at the age of sixteen to enter the Revolutionary War,
and was distinguished during the first years of the century as the
protector of American commerce in the Mediterranean. Amasa Walker, too,
was born in Woodstock, the father of political economy in this country,
or better still, the father of Gen. Francis A. Walker, the respected
President of the School of Technology in Boston. Another honored name
in Woodstock is that of Williams, including Samuel Williams, Sr., the
Commissioner of Roxbury in the settlement of New Roxbury, the Rev.
Stephen Williams, the first pastor of the church at West Parish, and
Jared W. Williams, the Governor of Vermont and a native of this town.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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