USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > Andover > Necrology, 1890-1900 (Andover Theological Seminary) > Part 14
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Rev. Edward P. Blodgett, of Greenwich, Mass. (Class of 1842), writes : “I have known Mr. Leland from our earliest days. Descended from a godly an- cestry, he was trained from early life in the ways of the Lord. His father, a noble man and for many years a deacon in the First Church in Amherst, dedi- cated him to God, the Church, and the Christian ministry. For several years he was an acceptable preacher and successful in the sacred calling. When he retired from the ministry he returned to the old homestead in Amherst, where he spent the remnant of his life, useful in various ways to the church into which he was spiritually born and where he was nursed in his early spiritual life."
He was married, October 8, 1845, to Eliza Tryphena Leland, of Sherborn, Mass., daughter of Capt. Joseph Perry Leland and Tryphena Richardson, who survives him, with three daughters, one of whom is the wife of Rev. William H. Sybrandt, of Troy, N.Y. One daughter died in infancy.
He died of paralysis, at Amherst, Mass., December 16, 1893, in the seventy-third year of his age.
CLASS OF 1845.
Moses Hemmenway Wells.
Son of Rev. Nathaniel Wells and Eunice Hemmenway, and grandson of Rev. Dr. Moses Hemmenway, of Wells, Me .; born in Deerfield, N. H., August 27, 1814; prepared for college at Pembroke (N.H.) Academy; graduated at Dartmouth College, 1839; entered this Seminary in 1839, and graduated in 1845, having been instructor in Phillips Academy, Andover, 1839-40; in Groton (Mass.) Academy (now Lawrence Academy), 1840; in Canandaigua (N. Y.) Acad- emy, 1840-42; and principal at Groton, 1844-45. He was licensed to preach by the Middlesex Union Association, at Harvard, Mass., and ordained at Pittsfield, N. H., November 19, 1845, remaining there eight years. He was principal of Berwick Academy, South Berwick, Me., 1853-55; then resuming the ministry was pastor in Hinsdale, N. H., 1855-65; Lyndon, Vt., 1866-71 ; Lower Waterford, Vt., 1871-78 ; Ascutneyville, Vt., 1880-83 (with residence at Claremont, N.H., from 1878 to 1884) ; Dummerston, Vt., 1884-86. From 1886 he resided at Northfield, Mass., without charge.
While residing in Claremont Mr. Wells was the superintendent of schools for three years. Wherever he was he was an earnest supporter of all good causes. An unostentatious man in thought and life, he always commanded the confidence and love of the people to whom he ministered and the brethren with whom he was associated. He was a deep student in spiritual things and held fast to the truth as it is in Jesus, yet kept abreast in his reading and sympathies with the trend of modern religious thought. Rev. Charles W. Thompson, of Westminster, Vt. (Class of 1860), says of him : " Mr. Wells combined a clear, logical mind of more than average strength with deep and broad sympathies.
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He had a fine and tender grain of sensibility, so that he could come very closely home to those who were his friends, and to them his memory will be very precious. If his toleration of those who held opposing views increased with increasing years, it was from his larger appreciation of the deep spiritual unity of those who love our common Lord." Rev. Theodore J. Clark, of Northfield (Class of 1841), writes : "He loved the work of the ministry, and in his last years often wrote sermons which he never expected to preach. He would fre- quently say, ' If I were to live my life over I would choose the same calling.'" On a statistical blank returned recently he wrote against the item of "present employment " this : "I mean to make it ' my meat to do the will of Him that sent me and to finish his work.'"
Mr. Wells was married, February 22, 1844, to Ann Rebecca Votee, of New York City, daughter of Capt. Charles Votee and Aura Ives. She died April 5, 1855. He married, second, May 1, 1857, Emily Merrill Taylor, of Hinsdale, N.H., daughter of Lewis Taylor and Lois Webster. Of three sons and three daughters, two sons and one daughter have died. One daughter was for several years a teacher in one of the "Mount Holyoke " schools of South Africa.
Mr. Wells died at Northfield, Mass., of grip and heart disease, Decem- ber 31, 1893, aged seventy-nine years.
CLASS OF 1846.
Edward Duffield Neill, D.D. (Non-graduate.)
Son of Dr. Henry Neill and Martha Duffield ; born in Philadelphia, Penn., August 9, 1823; prepared for college at the Academy of the University of Pennsylvania, and studied two years in the university ; entered the sophomore class of Amherst College, graduating there in 1842; spent one year, 1843-44, in this Seminary, and continued his theological study under Rev. Albert Barnes and Rev. Dr. Thomas Brainerd (Class of 1831), of Philadelphia. He was a home missionary at Elizabeth, Ill., 1847-49, being licensed to preach by the Galena Presbytery in 1847, and ordained by the same body, April 26, 1848. He organized the First Presbyterian Church in St. Paul, Minn., in 1849, and re- mained its pastor until 1855. He then preached in the upper part of the city and founded a church there, ever since known as the House of Hope, resigning that charge in 1860. Later he connected himself with the Reformed Episcopal Church, and often "held Sunday services and preached in humble temples in out of the way places."
But his ministerial service, earnest and successful as it was, was but a small part of the important work performed by Dr. Neill in and for Minnesota. He arrived in St. Paul a few days after the organization of the Territory in April, 1849, and the first issue of the Pioneer (edited by James M. Goodhue, a Phillips Academy student of 1820) gave notice of his preaching at a school- house. He was foremost in establishing schools in the town, and in 1851 was made territorial superintendent of public instruction. In 1853 he founded the Baldwin School, and later the College of St. Paul, of which he was president, but which was closed before the war. He was chancellor of the University of Minnesota and superintendent of public instruction, 1858-61. He was chaplain of the Ist Minnesota Regiment and hospital chaplain from 1861 to 1864, when he became one of President Lincoln's private secretaries, continuing at the ex-
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ecutive mansion in the same capacity until 1869, when he was sent to Dublin as United States Consul. Two years later he resigned and returned to Minne- sota in order to carry out his purpose, long cherished, of establishing a distinc- tively Christian college. Of this institution, at first called Jesus College, but afterwards Macalester College, with the Baldwin School as the preparatory department, Dr. Neill was president from 1872 to 1884, and afterwards, until his death, professor of History, Literature, and Political Economy.
Dr. Neill devoted much time to historical researches, and published several valuable works : History of Minnesota, Terra Maria, or Threads of Maryland Colonial History, English Colonization of America, Virginia Vetusta, Virginia Carolorum, A Concise History of Minnesota, and others. He contributed largely to the publications of the Minnesota Historical Society, of which he was a prominent member. He was also connected with the New England Historic Genealogical Society and other similar bodies. He received the degree of Doctor of Divinity from Lafayette College in 1866. Rev. Joseph H. Chandler, of St. Paul (Class of 1882), wrote to the Congregationalist : " Breaking away from a rich social circle in Philadelphia, Dr. Neill devoted himself in the beginning of
his ministry to the frontier, and has unselfishly served the city and State which grew up around him to the end of his life. In his work as an author and edu- cator he was more conspicuous than as a preacher, but he never gave up preach- ing, and served various churches in their missionary stage, ministering to them in things temporal and spiritual. By his poverty many have been made rich."
Dr. Neill was married, October 4, 1847, to Nancy Hall, of Snow Hill, Md., daughter of Capt. Richard Hall and Lavinia Hill. She survives him, with three sons and one daughter, the oldest son having died in 1883.
Dr. Neill died of valvular disease of the heart, at St. Paul, Minn., Septem- ber 26, 1893, aged seventy years.
OLASS OF 1847.
James Howard Means, D.D.
Son of James Means and Johanna Howard; born in Boston, Mass., De- cember 13, 1823; prepared for college at Boston Latin School; graduated at Harvard College, 1843; took the full course in this Seminary, 1844-47; was licensed to preach by the Suffolk North Association, meeting in Boston with Rev. Seth Bliss (Class of 1825), April 27, 1847. Soon after graduating he began to assist Rev. John Codman, D.D., an early Visitor and benefactor of the Sem- inary, in the Second Church, Dorchester, Mass. Dr. Codman died in Decem- ber of that year, and Mr. Means was called to succeed him in the pastorate, being ordained July 13, 1848. To this church he ministered with loving fidelity for thirty years, retiring from active service in 1878. He continued to reside in Dorchester, and has been for much of the time in feeble health.
Rev. Dr. James G. Vose, of Providence, R. I. (Class of 1854), writes of him: "The early education of Dr. Means afforded. everything that could be desired in the way of home influence and culture. His training in school, col- lege, and Seminary gave him a thorough equipment for his work. Selected by the venerable Dr. Codman as his associate in the ministry, he was warmly wel- comed by the people and secured their fullest confidence. He was a most
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attractive preacher, a man of literary tastes and accomplishments, yet strong in his advocacy of important truths and doctrines. A small volume of ser- mons, printed in 1865, illustrates the substance and method of his preaching. But the printed page poorly suggests the graces of his person, his peculiar dig- nity, and happy adaptation to every call of public or social life. His prolonged illness and that of his beloved wife made his closing years a period of singular discipline, sustained, however, with increasing evidence of the power of Chris- tian faith, whose triumph grew clearer to the last. We may say of them both that, like the great Captain of our salvation, they were 'made perfect through sufferings.'"
Williams College conferred upon him the degree of Doctor of Divinity in 1874. He was a corporate member of the American Board, president of the trustees of Armenia College in Turkey and of Bradford (Mass.) Academy, a trustee of the Perkins Institution for the Blind, secretary of the Boston City Missionary Society, and filled other positions of Christian service. Besides the volume mentioned by Dr. Vose, he published a historical discourse delivered at the seventieth anniversary of his church in 1878.
Dr. Means was married, June 6, 1849, to Charlotte Abigail Johnson, of Boston, daughter of Samuel Johnson, Esq., and Charlotte Abigail Howe. She died October 28, 1893. Their four children survive, one of the sons, Rev. Frederic H. Means, being pastor of the church in Windham, Conn.
Dr. Means died of gradual paralysis, at Dorchester, Mass., April 13, 1894, aged seventy years.
CLASS OF 1847.
Josiah Merrill. (Resident Licentiate.)
Son of Rev. Josiah Goodhue Merrill and Harriet Jones; born in Otis- field, Me., January 31, 1819; prepared for college at Gorham. (Me.) Academy ; graduated at Dartmouth College, 1841; took his theological course at Bangor Seminary, graduating in 1844. Having taught in Putney (Vt.) Academy, in 1841 and 1842, he was licensed by the Penobscot (Me.) Association, in Septem- ber, 1843. He preached for two years in Eastport, Me .; was in Andover as a resident licentiate in 1847; and was ordained, February 29, 1848, at White River Village, in Hartford, Vt., where he remained nine years. He was pastor at Wiscasset, Me., 1857-64; and afterwards supplied the church at South Franklin, Mass., 1867-77, having his residence at Cambridge and at Auburn- dale. He was acting pastor at Dummerston, Vt., 1880-83, and at Troy, N. H., 1883-91. He afterwards resided in Newton Centre, Mass., and (from 1893) in Lynn, Mass.
Resolutions adopted by the Society of Christian Endeavor at Troy, N. H., bear witness to "his unselfish life, his gentleness, his purity of thought and utterance, his kind acts, and his earnest appeals to a higher and better life. In him was exemplified the highest type of the devoted pastor and Christian gentleman."
Mr. Merrill was married, August 23, 1848, to Philomedia Henrietta Con- verse, of Portland, Me., daughter of Adolphus Bowles Converse and Pamelia Day. She died November 6, 1869. Of seven children, five are now living.
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His eldest son, a graduate of Harvard College, is in the Customs Service in the Chinese Empire.
Mr. Merrill died of exhaustion following an acute attack of jaundice, at Lynn, Mass., March 10, 1894, aged seventy-five years.
CLASS OF 1850.
Benjamin Judkins.
Son of Benjamin Judkins and Abby Fuller; born in Boston, May 28, 1820; prepared for college at Leicester (Mass.) Academy ; graduated at Harvard Col- lege, 1848; studied two years in this Seminary, 1848-50. He was ordained at Nantucket, Mass., April 1, 1851, and continued as pastor there till 1855; was the first pastor of the First Church, Somerville, 1856-58; of the Presbyterian church, Allentown, Penn., 1859-62; at Clinton, Mass., 1862-67 ; Keokuk, Io., 1868-70. In the latter year he was confirmed in the Protestant Episcopal Church at Keokuk ; was ordained deacon, December 7, 1870, by Bishop Hunt- ington, at Jordan, N.Y .; ordained priest by the same, at Windsor, Conn., July 10, 1871. After ten years' service as rector of Grace Church there ill health compelled him to leave active ministerial labor, and purchasing a farm in West Dedham, Mass., he resided there, without pastoral charge but often preaching, until 1890, with the exception of two years, 1886-88, when he was rector of Trinity Church, Concord, Mass. Since 1890 he has resided with his son at Houghton, Mich., where he assisted in the editorial management of the Gazette published there.
" He was a perfectly conscientious and devoted Christian, a broad and lib- eral churchman, a man who did good whenever and wherever he could possibly find an opportunity. Wherever his voice was heard there love sprang up for the speaker. With magnetic power he enchained his hearers, and every word uttered in those thrilling tones went from his heart to find a lodgment in the hearts of those who listened."
He was married, September 24, 1850, to Sarah Morrill Mitchell, of Boston, daughter of Phinehas Mitchell and Sarah Morrill. She survives him, with one son and two daughters, one daughter having deceased.
He died of a complication of diseases, at Houghton, Mich., February 26, 1894, in his seventy-fourth year.
CLASS OF 1853.
Thomas Morong.
Son of Thomas Morong and Jane Catherine Travers; born in Cahawba, Ala., April 15, 1827; came to Massachusetts when fourteen years old; prepared for college at Warren Academy, Woburn, Mass .; graduated at Amherst Col- lege, 1848; studied law in Harvard Law School, and with Hon. George W. Warren, Charlestown, 1849-50; took the full course in this Seminary, 1850-53; was licensed to preach by the Woburn Association, March 15, 1853; studied here as resident licentiate, 1853-54. He was ordained at Pepperell, Mass., April 12, 1854, and remained there one year. He was subsequently pastor at Iowa City, Io., 1856-58; Webster, Mass. (stated supply), 1859; Globe Vil-
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lage, Southbridge, Mass., 1860-63; Lanesville, Mass., 1863-68; First Church, Ipswich, Mass., 1868-75; Ashland, Mass., 1876-88. In 1888 he visited South America under the auspices of the Torrey Botanical Club, and made a large collection of plants (mostly in Paraguay) for Smithsonian Institute and Colum- bia College, a full enumeration of which he published in the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences. Returning in December, 1890, he was curator of the Herbarium of Columbia College, New York, until his death. He de- livered lectures, also, on botany in Barnard College, in the Brooklyn Institute, and at the Summer School, Cold Spring, L. I.
An Ipswich parishioner says of him: "Mr. Morong was not a man of one idea. He was many-sided. This gave variety in his written and spoken addresses and made his conversation both entertaining and instructive. His love for nature in its varying aspects was most attractive. In a series of dis- courses, enriched by his botanical knowledge, he easily led the hearer up from nature to nature's God." Rev. Dr. H. J. Patrick, of West Newton, whose name follows that of Mr. Morong in both the Amherst and Andover cata- logues, writes : "He always bore himself with a natural courtesy, which may have come from his Southern birth. He was a bright man, quick and pithy in conversation, an original writer, a fine scholar, especially in the lan- guages, and an observant lover of nature. I remember meeting him in Bos- ton once, when he was pastor in Ashland, and he opened his heart to me, revealing the burden of his anxiety for the spiritual welfare of his young peo- ple." In addition to botanical publications and articles he published The Great Destroyer, a temperance tract, The Beneficence of Pain, and several sermons.
He was married, August 24, 1848, to Mary Lamson Bennett, of Woburn, Mass., daughter of Rev. Joseph Bennett (Class of 1821) and Mary Lamson. She died March 20, 1893. He had two sons : one, a graduate of Amherst and of Harvard Medical School, is a physician in Boston; the other, a graduate of Harvard Dental School, died in South America in 1876.
Mr. Morong died in Boston, of consumption, April 26, 1894, aged sixty- seven years.
CLASS OF 1855.
Julius Yale Leonard.
Son of Louis Gigget Leonard and Hannah Royce ; born in Berkshire, N. Y., June 12, 1827; prepared for college at Berkshire High School and Cortland Academy, Homer, N.Y .; graduated at Yale College, 1851; taught in Crom- well (Conn.) Academy, 1851-52; studied at Yale Divinity School, 1852-54 ; at this Seminary, 1854-55; licensed to preach by New Haven Central Association, July 12, 1854; taught in Binghamton (N. Y.) Academy, 1856-57. Appointed by the American Board as missionary to Turkey, he took a course of lectures at Yale Medical College; was ordained at New Haven, Conn., June 14, 1857, and sailed from Boston on the bark Henry Hill in the following month. He labored with marked fidelity and devotion in the Turkish field for twenty-three years, first at Cesarea, 1857-60, and afterwards at Marsovan. Visiting this country in 1880 in enfeebled health - in part the result of injuries received the year before when attacked and beaten by Circassian robbers-he was never able to return to his chosen missionary service. He afterwards made his home
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at New Haven, although often compelled to make long sojourns in Northern sanitariums or to spend the winter in the South. While in New Haven he was a member of the New Haven Colony Historical Society and of the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Rev. A. H. Carrier, D.D., of Santa Barbara, Cal. (Class of 1856), writes : " As Mr. Leonard's classmate and roommate at Yale I can speak familiarly and heartily of him. He was a man with a conscience, with a reverence for things that are best - a foreordained minister or missionary. I never knew him to violate his high sense of duty. . .. Years passed before I saw him again. Then we met unexpectedly at Saratoga. His raven hair had become white as snow. But the missionary had clearly been what the college life foretokened. He came back with such harvest memories as might be expected from his seed- sowing. Like the Apostle Paul in adjacent fields he recounted with grateful heart what he had been permitted to do and to suffer for the Master's sake."
Mr. Leonard's Seminary classmate, Rev. E. E. Strong, D.D., of the Amer- ican Board, says of him : " He was a man of devoted piety and true consecration to the Master's service. His missionary spirit, manifested during his Seminary course, seemed to increase in strength even after the state of his health forbade his return to the mission field. For years he endured hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ, carrying the message of the gospel to the towns and villages of the regions about Marsovan, delighting in his work and greatly blessed therein by the Master whom he served."
He married, June 16, 1857, Amelia Augusta Gilbert, of Hamden, Conn., daughter of Gibbs Gilbert and Amelia Heaton, who survives him.
He died of congestion of the lungs, at Clifton Springs, N. Y., October 29, 1893, aged sixty-six years.
CLASS OF 1858.
Edward Payson Thwing, M.D.
Son of Dea. Thomas Thwing and Grace Welch Barnes; born in Ware, Mass., August 25, 1830; prepared for college at Monson (Mass.) Academy ; graduated at Harvard College, 1855; took the full course in this Seminary, 1855-58. He was licensed to preach in December, 1857, and was ordained, September 22, 1858, as pastor of the St. Lawrence Street Church, Portland, Me., remaining there four years; pastor at Quincy, Mass., 1862-67; without charge, residing in Boston and Chelsea, 1867-69; acting pastor of Second Church (Saccarappa), Westbrook, Me., 1869-71 ; without charge, Portland, Me., 1871-74; acting pastor, Church of the Covenant, Brooklyn, N. Y., 1876-79; of the Reformed Church, Peekskill, N. Y., 1881; of the First Identity Church, Brooklyn, 1884; of St. Matthew's Lutheran Church, Brooklyn, 1885-86. Be- sides these and many other occasional pastoral labors, he spent much time in giving instruction and lectures in elocution and rhetoric to private classes and in various institutions : Gorham (Me.) Academy, 1870-74; Tabernacle Lay College, Brooklyn, 1874-78; Female College, Kent's Hill, Me .; Oxford Nor- mal Institute, South Paris, Me .; the Little Blue School, Farmington, Me .; Dr. Cullis's Faith Training College, Boston; Bethany Institute, New York ; Rutgers College Seminary, New York City, etc.
He received in 1883, after a special course of study in connection with the
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Illinois Wesleyan University, the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy. He was also much interested in psychic phenomena, and with others organized the New York Anthropological Society, of which he was president for four years. Later he took a course of medical study at the Long Island College Hospital, grad- uating in 1886. He was a member of the New York Academy of Sciences, the King's County Medical Society, the Long Island Historical Society, and a large number of other historical and scientific bodies in this country and abroad. The following list of his publications is given in the memorial prepared by his children : Bible Sketches, Leaves from a Tourist's Journal, Biographies of his Father and of his Mother, Facts about Tobacco, The Preacher's Cabinet, Drill Book in Vocal Culture and Gesture, Outdoor Life in Europe, The Persian Queen, Handbook of Anthropology, Windows of Character, The King in His Beauty, Rambles from Russia to Spain, Ex Oriente. Besides these he published numer- ous sermons, lectures, and tracts, and contributed voluminously to religious and local journals.
Dr. Thwing made seven different tours in Europe, sometimes supplying for several months Tolmer's Square Church, London, attending scientific meetings and gathering material for articles and lectures. In 1889, accompanied by his wife, he made an extended tour in Japan, China, and India, visiting missions and doing missionary work. They went again in 1892, and never returned. Parting with their son and daughter, who were assigned to an inland station, they went to Canton, and there remained in abundant labors until their death. Dr. Thwing was associated with Dr. Kerr, the veteran medical missionary of Canton, in the establishment of a free asylum for the poor insane of China, a project he did not live to see completed.
Rev. William J. Batt, of the Concord Reformatory, writes warmly of his classmate, and calls attention to the closing words of Dr. Thwing at the reunion of the class in 1888: "The line is growing slender, brothers. One after another is dropping out of the ranks. We are all looking at life's work in the light of the setting sun. What chequered scenes we have passed through since we stood here in 1858 on the threshold of that blessed ministry we must all close so soon."
Dr. Thwing was married, December 28, 1859, to Susan Maria Waite, of Portland, Me., daughter of Deacon Edward Waite and Mary Hastings Mills. She died in Canton, June 18, 1893. Of ten children, five died in early child- hood; three sons and two daughters are living; one son is a medical missionary in Alaska, and a son and daughter missionaries of the Presbyterian Board in China.
Dr. Thwing died of typhoid fever, in Canton, China, May 9, 1893, in his sixty-third year.
CLASS OF 1859.
Henry Jackson Richardson.
Son of Daniel Richardson and Olive Berry Perkins; born in Middleton, Mass., June 23, 1829; prepared for college at Phillips Academy, Andover ; graduated at Amherst College, 1855; taught in Topsfield (Mass.) Academy, 1855-56, as also in the sunimer term of 1857; took the full course in this Semi- nary, 1856-59; licensed to preach by Essex South Association, March I, 1859.
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