USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > Andover > Necrology, 1890-1900 (Andover Theological Seminary) > Part 19
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Mr. Hillard died of heart failure, following pneumonia, at Farmington, Ct., March 1, 1895, in the seventieth year of his age.
Samuel Dana Hosmer.
Son of Zelotes Hosmer and Louisa Lawrence; born in Boston, July 26, 1829; prepared for college at Boston Latin School and (the family removing to Cambridge) the Hopkins Classical School; graduated at Harvard College, 1850; spent the next year in foreign travel in company with his uncle, Rev. Edward A. Lawrence (Class of 1838); took the full course in this Seminary,
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I851-54 ; was licensed to preach, March 7, 1854, by the Suffolk South Associa- tion. He preached a few months for Rev. D. R. Cady (Class of 1845) at West- boro, Mass., and was in the home missionary service at Alexander and Cooper, Me., until December, 1855, when he began pastoral service at Eastport, Me., being ordained there November 11, 1856, and remaining until 1861. His sub- sequent pastorates were at Nantucket, Mass., 1862-72 ; South Natick, Mass., 1873-78; Easton, Mass., 1878-79; Clarendon Hills in Hyde Park, Mass., 1879-82, his labors there resulting in the organization of a church ; Auburn, Mass., 1883-90. From 1890 he resided in Worcester, Mass., often supplying vacant pulpits, and for the six months preceding his death ministering to the Baptist church in North Grafton.
Mr. Hosmer was much interested in antiquarian and historical researches, and contributed valuable papers to the Worcester Society of Antiquity, of which he was an honored member. Besides these he published a centennial sermon at Nantucket in 1865 and a historical sermon preached in the John Eliot Church, South Natick, in 1874. He prepared sketches of the towns of Natick (in connection with Rev. Daniel Wight, Class of 1840) and Auburn for county histories. Rev. Charles M. Southgate (Class of 1870), pastor of Pilgrim Church, Worcester, which Mr. Hosmer attended, writes of him: "The last five gracious years spent in Worcester won him the truest respect and affec- tion, as testified by the impressive tributes paid after his death by the Worces- ter Central Association, the Ministerial Union of the city, the Pilgrim Church, and the Baptist church where he ministered. His intellectual gifts, his noble serenity and strength of soul, guileless nature, and living embodiment of our Lord's beatitudes were too rare, whether singly or in combination, to be over- looked. It would be hard to say whether he was more valued by mature saints or by his enthusiastic Sunday school class of young men. He was an ideal parishioner, discerning with exquisite tact the exact thing the pastor would wish said or done; a faultless church clerk ; a blessed visitor among the sick and sorrowing."
Mr. Hosmer was married, September 15, 1869, to Susan Harris Coleman, of Nantucket, Mass., daughter of Capt. Ebenezer Coleman and Lydia Ray. She survives him, with two daughters.
He died of paralysis of the heart, at Worcester, Mass., January 22, 1895, aged sixty-five years.
CLASS OF 1855.
George Cushing Knapp.
Son of John Knapp and Sally Cushing; born in Lyndon, Vt., October 30, 1823; prepared for college at Burr Seminary, Manchester, Vt .; graduated at Middlebury College, 1852; taught one term in Middlebury Female Seminary ; took the full course in this Seminary, 1852-55; was licensed to preach by the Rutland (Vt.) Association, February 13, 1855. He was ordained as foreign missionary at Rutland, Vt., September 7, 1855, and embarked the following month for his missionary field in Eastern Turkey, where in the service of the American Board he has labored for nearly forty years with conspicuous earnest- ness, energy, and fidelity. For two years he was stationed at Diabekir, after-
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wards at Bitlis. His service was attended at times with special hardships and perils. In 1883 he and his associate, Dr. Raynolds, were attacked while travel- ing by Koords, robbed, beaten, wounded, tied, and thrown into the bushes, as the robbers supposed, to die. From this terrible shock Mr. Knapp never fully recovered, and the missionaries at Bitlis have had their full share of anxiety and trouble in connection with the present period of misrule in that country.
His classmate at Andover, Rev. Dr. E. E. Strong, editorial secretary of the American Board, sends the following : " During our Seminary course Mr. Knapp seemed to have received a special quickening of all his powers, spiritual and in- tellectual, in connection with his decision to enter upon foreign missionary work. The new consecration which he made of himself affected his whole life. He went joyously to his missionary work in Turkey, and after years of patient and self-denying toil he won the hearts of the people by his loving and godly life. A remarkable testimony to his worth is the fact that when he died the Gregorian Armenians asked that his body might be buried in one of their churches or mon- asteries. Those who at his coming rejected and even stoned him flocked to his funeral in great numbers, while three Gregorian priests in their full robes, in connection with their choristers, asked the privilege of participating in the serv- ices. The honors paid him by the Armenians were unparalleled. They closed all their shops on the day of his funeral and their schools for three days. This was the voluntary testimony of a large city to the blameless life of Mr. Knapp."
He was married, September 6, 1855, to Alzina Maria Churchill, of Hubbard- ton, Vt., daughter of Samuel S. Churchill and Mary Richardson. She survives him, with two sons and two daughters. Rev. George P. Knapp, a graduate of Harvard College and Hartford Seminary, and one of the daughters, a graduate of Mt. Holyoke College, are missionaries at Bitlis. Two children died in infancy.
Mr. Knapp died of apoplexy, at Bitlis, Turkey, March 12, 1895, aged sev- enty-one years.
Mason Moore.
Son of Ariel Moore and Electa Lyon; born in Sheffield, Ohio, February 28, 1822; prepared for college at Williston Seminary; graduated at Amherst Col- lege, 1852; studied one year in Bangor Seminary, and two years in this Sem- inary, 1853-55; licensed to preach by the Derry (N. H.) Association, February 6, 1855; began preaching at once after graduation in Lee, N. H., and remained there until 1869, although not ordained until December 3, 1867, a church being organized there on the same day. He afterwards preached at Northville, N. Y., Harrisville, N. Y., and Worcester, Vt., 1872-73; resided with his sister at Sara- toga Springs, N. Y,, until 1877, when he removed to Plymouth, Vt., supplying the church there, 1877-79, and continuing to reside there afterwards, devoting himself principally to farming.
Mr. Moore was a nephew of Mary Lyon, and his sister, Abigail Moore, was associated with Miss Lyon many years at Mt. Holyoke Seminary, afterwards becoming the wife of Rev. Ebenezer Burgess (Class of 1837) and dying in the missionary service in India. Prof. Jeremiah Smith, LL.D., of the Law School of Harvard University, writes of him: " I knew Mr. Moore intimately, having been a resident of Lee during the greater part of his ministry there. I was too
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old to be one of his scholars, but was one of his parishioners. Mr. Moore was one of the two best men I have ever known. He was singularly shy and retir- ing, but willing to go anywhere and do anything if there was a reasonable pros- pect of rendering service to his fellow men. The aspect of the field at Lee when he came there was discouraging. Very few clergymen would have continued long enough to build up a good congregation and a living church, but Mr. Moore had the faith and the patience to remain there until matters were in a good train. That town owes him a great deal. He was a man of very fair ability. While he was not, as a preacher, popular with the mass, it should be said that those who liked his sermons best were among his best educated and most intellectual hearers."
Mr. Moore died of pneumonia, at Plymouth, Vt., December 13, 1893, in his seventy-second year. He was never married.
CLASS OF 1857.
Alpheus Sanford Nickerson.
Son of Capt. Theophilus Nickerson and Mary Sanford; born in South Dennis, Mass., April 29, 1831 ; prepared for college at Phillips Academy, An- dover ; graduated at Amherst College, 1854; took the full course in this Sem- inary, 1854-57; licensed to preach by the Middlesex South Association, at Framingham, January 13, 1857; ordained at North Woburn, Mass., February 2, 1858; acting pastor there, 1857-58; pastor afterwards of Unitarian churches : Chelsea, 1859-64; Sterling, 1864-69; Melrose, 1869-70; Plymouth (Universal- ist Society), 1871-73; Newport, N. H., 1874-76; Charlestown, N. H., 1876-78 ; Boston (without charge), 1878-83; Warwick, Mass., 1883-85; residing in Cam- bridge from 1887, but supplying at Winthrop, 1890.
Mr. Nickerson's sermon before the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Com- pany in 1860 was published. His Seminary classmate, Rev. Edward C. Guild, writes : "My recollections of Mr. Nickerson are kindly. His character was upright and pure, and his Christian purpose sound and strong." Hon. Charles P. Rugg, of New Bedford, secretary of his college class, writes of Mr. Nicker- son : " He was a quiet man, doing his professional work in an unostentatious way. He sought to do good rather than to be popular. He had various fields of labor, and in all won for himself a good name for good deeds."
Mr. Nickerson was married, October 28, 1858, to Jeannie Humphrey, of Boston, daughter of William Humphrey and Eunice Endicott. She died De- cember 8, 1875. Their youngest son graduated at Harvard College and studied in the Harvard Divinity School, but died before completing his studies. One son and two daughters survive.
Mr. Nickerson died of paralysis, at South Dennis, Mass., August 17, 1894, aged sixty-three years.
OLASS OF 1858.
William Wheeler Parker.
Son of Ebenezer Parker and Hannah Merriam ; born in Princeton, Mass., March 2, 1824; converted while a clerk in Worcester, he determined to enter the ministry and prepared for college at Monson Academy, but when ready to
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enter Amherst College was compelled by the failure of his health to relinquish his plan; was engaged in work (as an overseer) in the Lancaster Mills at Clin- ton, Mass., for about nine years; then resumed his studies at Monson Acad- emy and entered Andover Seminary, taking the full course, 1855-58; was licensed to preach by the Middlesex South Association at Framingham, Mass., December 29, 1857. He was ordained at York, Me., December 28, 1858, and was pastor there until 1861 : subsequently at East Cambridge, Mass., 1861-64 ; at Groton, Mass., 1865-68; at Williamsburg, Mass., 1869-73; at West Boylston, Mass., 1873-77. He continued to reside in West Boylston afterwards, but had short terms of pastoral service at Milton (First Church), 1878-80; Holden, 1882-85; Wayland, 1885-87; Pigeon Cove, 1888-89; Harwichport, 1889-90; West Newbury (First Church), 1891-92; Oakham, 1893 to the time of his death.
Mr. Parker, though of quiet, simple ways, was personally a most genial and lovable man, and as a Christian worker remarkably earnest and faithful, from the early years at Clinton when as a factory overseer he led many to Christ to his last moment when in making a pastoral call he suddenly died. Rev. Dr. George H. Gould, of Worcester (Class of 1853), writes of him : " Brother Parker was one of the noblest men I ever knew. His character was manly and true from center to circumference. During our student days together [at Monson Academy] he was incarnated ' sweetness and light.' He was unselfish, generous, guileless, magnanimous in his estimate of others, with- out a trace of pettiness or self-seeking in his whole nature. Everybody loved Parker. He was a diligent and capable scholar, and would have made his mark in college had he been permitted to enter. As a minister he 'commended himself to every man's conscience ' as a true man of God, full of faith and of the Holy Ghost." Rev. Perley B. Davis, of Dorchester (Class of 1861), says of him : " He had a passion for preaching. He enjoyed nothing so much as to proclaim the gospel. He labored to bring men to Christ, and in this was re- markably successful. His life was full of good deeds. His benefactions, though unheralded, were numerous. His memory is tenderly enshrined in the hearts of very many. He died with his armor on, exchanging it, I believe, for a crown set with many gems."
Mr. Parker was married, August 24, 1847, to Emily Walker, of Holden, Mass., daughter of Joel Walker and Diodamia Stone, who survives him.
Mr. Parker died of heart disease, at Oakham, Mass., September 22, 1894, aged seventy years.
OLASS OF 1859.
Austin Hazen.
Son of Rev. Austin Hazen and Lucia Washburn (who was daughter of Rev. Azel Washburn) ; born in Hartford, Vt., February 14, 1835; prepared for college at St. Johnsbury (Vt.) Academy; graduated at the University of Ver- mont, 1855; instructor in Barre (Vt.) Academy, 1855-56; took the full course in this Seminary, 1856-59; licensed by the Salem Association, February 8, 1859; ordained pastor of the church in Norwich, Vt., March 29, 1860, remaining there until 1864. He spent the remainder of his life in most faithful service in two adja- cent towns - Jericho Centre, Vt., 1864-84, and Richmond, 1875-95, having for
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nearly ten years the charge of both churches. He published in 1891 a centen- nial sermon preached at Jericho Centre.
Mr. Hazen was a brother of Rev. Allen Hazen (Class of 1845), Rev. Wil- liam S. Hazen (Class of 1863), and Rev. Dr. Azel W. Hazen (Class of 1868). His cousin, Rev. Dr. Henry A. Hazen (Class of 1857), sends the following tribute : " Austin Hazen was of a ministerial family. He was one of five brothers, four of whom were ministers, while his older sister was the wife of Rev. David T. Stoddard (Class of 1842), of blessed memory as a missionary to the Nestorians. His own loyalty to his high calling and his influence in his home are shown by the fact that his seven sons are all college men -four of them in the ministry, or in preparation for it, while the two younger ones, still in college, may follow the same path. Mr. Hazen ranked high as a scholar, and as a man was honored and beloved by all who knew him well. He loved the truth as he had been taught, and was faithful to his convictions, but an enemy he could not have had. A modest man, diligent and wise in his pas- toral work, he has left a record in the hearts of his people in which any man might rejoice. His end has come, in a providence to us dark and mysterious, but he was ready for the Master's call, and sleeps well."
Mr. Hazen was married, February 12, 1862, to Mary Jane Carlton, of Barre, Vt., daughter of David Carlton and Mary Wheeler. She died April 12, 1880, and he married, second, June 1, 1881, Almira Farrington Elliot, of Jericho Centre, daughter of Dea. Ezra Elliot and Eliza Hall. She survives him, with seven sons, a daughter having died in infancy. All the sons, as intimated above by Dr. Hazen, are graduates of, or at present students in, the University of Vermont. Four of them are graduates of, or students in, Hartford Semi- nary. Rev. Carleton Hazen is pastor in Rochester, Vt., and Austin Hazen, Jr., is studying in Germany.
Mr. Hazen sailed with his wife and brother from New York for Genoa, on the steamer Werra, for a vacation tour. A cablegram received from Gibraltar by Dr. Azel W. Hazen as this Necrology goes to press tells all that is yet known of his death: " Austin buried at sea." His age was sixty years.
John Haskell Shedd, D.D.
Son of Rev. Henry Shedd (Class of 1829) and Mary Gerrish; born in Mt. Gilead, Ohio, July 9, 1833; prepared for college at Marysville (Ohio) Academy, took his freshman year at Ohio Wesleyan University, and graduated at Marietta College, 1856; studied in Lane Theological Seminary, 1856-58, and graduated from this Seminary, 1859; licensed to preach by Marion (Ohio) Presbytery, April 7, 1858; ordained by the Presbytery of Franklin, at Mt. Gilead, Ohio, as foreign missionary, August 3, 1859; embarked for Persia in the same month under appointment of the American Board, and has been since connected with the Nestorian Mission. He visited this country in 1870 and remained until 1878, laboring in behalf of foreign missions, and, 1872-78, for the higher education of the freedmen, as professor in Biddle University, North Carolina. After his return to Persia he was president of Oroomiah College and Theo- logical Seminary. He received the degree of Doctor of Divinity from Marietta College in 1878.
Rev. Dr. Benjamin Labaree, his classmate at Andover and associate in the
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mission field, now one of the secretaries of the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions in New York, sends this tribute : "Dr. Shedd joined our class in its senior year. In his brief association with us he made the impression of a man superior in his intellectual endowments, eloquent in public address, and ruled by deep convictions of Christian duty, an estimate fully sustained by his subse- quent career. He brought to his life service untiring energy of body and mind. He believed, however, in hard work, and was destined to wear out an excep- tionally rugged constitution at a comparatively early age. Whether in hard pioneer duty in the Kurdish Mountains, or at the head of the Missionary Col- lege, or as an organizer and superintendent of native churches, he was inces- santly active, resourceful, self-sacrificing to the last degree, inspiring others by his unfaltering faith in God and His truth, and winning by his devotion and sym- pathetic interest the confidence and affection of the people for whose spiritual elevation he toiled. His broad and comprehensive leadership, adorned by his consistent, transparent piety, have established for him an honored and enduring place in the history of the Church of Christ in Persia."
Rev. Dr. William Hayes Ward, editor of the New York Independent, an- other classmate, writes : "Dr. Shedd was my classmate and room-mate at An- dover. I had for him the highest admiration as a man and respected him as a sound scholar. I regarded him then as a man who would achieve distinction as well as usefulness in the Christian ministry. There were then a large num- ber of us who were expecting to go as foreign missionaries, and we held our weekly meetings, at which David Scudder, who went to India; Amherst Lord Thompson, who died after six months' service in Oroomiah; and Goss, who went to Turkey, besides others, living and dead, were regular attendants. The consulting physician of the board would not permit consent to my wife's going, and that prevented me from being a companion of my room-mate, Shedd, and my other friends, Thompson and Labaree, in the Persian mission. But I have followed their life's service with deep interest, and the manly, devoted, practical Christian life and work of Dr. Shedd has commanded my unbounded respect."
Dr. Shedd was married, July 28, 1859, to Sarah Jane Dawes, of Marietta, Ohio, daughter of Hon. Henry Dawes and Sarah Cutler, a great-granddaughter of Dr. Manasseh Cutler, of Massachusetts, the influential promoter of the early settlement and institutions of Ohio. She survives him, with four sons. One is a missionary teacher in Oroomiah, one is professor of Physics in Marietta College, and a third is studying theology at Princeton. Two sons and two daughters died in childhood.
Dr. Shedd died of chronic diarrhea, at Oroomiah, Persia, April 12, 1895, in the sixty-second year of his age.
CLASS OF 1860.
John Quincy Bittinger.
Son of Joseph Bittinger and Lydia Bair; born in Berwick, Pa., March 20, 1831 ; prepared for college at Phillips Academy, Andover ; graduated at Dart- mouth College, 1857; took the full course in this Seminary, 1857-60; licensed to preach by the White River (Vt.) Association, January 10, 1860; ordained at Yarmouth, Me., October 25, 1860; pastor of Central Church there, 1860-64 ;
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pastor of First Church, St. Albans, Vt., 1864-67; acting pastor of Broadway Church, Norwich, Ct., 1867-68 ; at Hartland, Vt., 1869-73; pastor at Haver- hill, N. H., 1874-86; continued to reside at Haverhill, in feeble health, until his death.
He was editor of the New Hampshire Journal, 1886-88, and contributed valuable articles to the North American Review, the Bibliotheca Sacra, the An- dover Review, and other periodicals. He published a History of Haverhill, N. H., and A Plea for the Sabbath and for Man, both of which, each in its own line, were works of great ability and research. He also published several memorial addresses. Rev. C. E. Milliken, of Swanzey, N. H., his college and Seminary classmate, and room-mate at Andover during the whole course, writes of him : " Mr. Bittinger was open, frank, and companionable in his social nature. As a student he was thorough and profound, quick to discern a flaw in argument, tracing it to its results to show its truth or falsity. At the same time he was appreciative. He was an admirer of our three principal instructors at Andover - Park, Phelps, and Shedd -often analyzing and contrasting their widely dif- ferent types of mind. He not unfrequently disagreed with some of their posi- tions, and many were the sharp though friendly discussions we had over them - questions then of great moment, but which we seemed to have settled, for I have scarcely heard of them since. As a preacher he was uniformly accept- able. His audiences always wanted to hear him again. His prolonged invalid- ism broke in upon his cherished plans, yet he bore it cheerfully. As a writer his style was logical, compact, incisive, polished, with a rhetoric that was fault- less. His last work, on the Sabbath, is a good example of the thoroughness of his study. He wrote and rewrote the whole and parts of it many times. His mind took the philosophical view of truth, yet not to the exclusion of the Bib- lical or practical."
Mr. Bittinger was married, October 4, 1860, to Sarah Jones Wainwright, of Hanover, N. H., daughter of Albert Wainwright and Sarah Jones. She sur- vives him, with three sons and a daughter, one daughter having died in in- fancy. Two sons were educated at Dartmouth College.
Mr. Bittinger died of chronic rheumatism, at Haverhill, N. H., April 5, 1895, aged sixty-four years.
Chester Case Humphrey. (Non-graduate.)
Son of Rev. Aaron C. Humphrey and Betsey Starr; born in Liberty, Ohio, July 13, 1830; prepared for college at Davenport, Iowa; graduated at Iowa College, 1857; studied in this Seminary, 1857-58; graduated at Chicago Theo- logical Seminary, 1861 ; was ordained at Austin, Minn., July 21, 1861 ; preached there, 1861-63; at Cass, Iowa, 1863-67 ; Amity, Iowa, 1868-69; Tipton, Iowa (without charge), 1870-71 ; Camp Creek, Neb., 1871-72; Osceola, Neb., 1872-74 ; Albion, Boone, Dayton, and Oxford, Neb., 1874-78; Osceola, Neb., 1878-83, and Golden Prairie, Iowa (without charge), 1883-84; Waucoma and Lawler, Iowa, 1884; Hickory Grove and Wayne, Iowa, 1884-86; Cincinnati and Bel- knap, Iowa, 1886-87; Cromwell, Iowa, 1888-89; Summer Hill, Iowa, 1889-90; Wythe and West Rockford, Ill., 1891 to the time of his death.
An obituary notice in a local newspaper contained the following: "Mr. Humphrey was of the old school both in manner and matter of theological
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teaching. He was of the most radical type of reform, laboring and sacrificing without consideration of personal interests. He was intensely in earnest as a preacher, seeking to win souls by the passionate fervor of his appeals and the prayerful earnestness of his pastoral visitations. He was in his true sphere as a country pastor. One could hardly mistake him for anything else, so thor- oughly was his calling and work impressed upon the man."
He was married, September 29, 1859, to Elizabeth Sawyer Holt, of An- dover, Mass., daughter of Thomas Holt and Ruth Beard. She survives him, with three sons and one daughter. One of the sons is preparing for the min- istry in McCormick Theological Seminary. One son and two daughters have died.
Mr. Humphrey died of cancer of the stomach, at Wythe, Ill., January 5, 1894, aged sixty-three years.
CLASS OF 1862.
George Wilson Howe.
Son of Deacon Lorenzo Gilman Howe and Dorcas Mallon ; born in Lowell, Mass., January 5, 1833; prepared for college at the New Hampton (N. H.) Lit- erary and Biblical Institution; graduated at Bowdoin College, 1859; studied theology one year in the Biblical Department at New Hampton, 1859-60, and in this Seminary, 1860-62; preached in the Free Baptist Church in Lowell, 1863; ordained over the Free Baptist Church in Buxton, Me., November 12, 1863, and remained there until 1866; pastor at Harrison, Me., 1867-72; agent of the Free Baptist Missionary Society of Maine, 1872-73; pastor, South Lim- ington, Me., 1874-76. From 1876 he was a teacher in Lowell, being successively principal of the Colburn and Varnum Grammar Schools. Mr. Howe was brother of Rev. Prof. James A. Howe, D.D., of the same Seminary class, dean of Cobb Divinity School in Bates College.
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