Mr.

His father, in the midst of health and usefulness, had gone in the summer of 1776 to the Missisippi, for the purpose of providing a settlement in that country for two of his sons, by whom he was accompanied. Himself, with his brother-in-law, General Lyman, had grants from the Crown of a large tract of land, in the S. W. angle of what is now the State of Missisippi, comprising the present township of Natchez, and a considerable extent of adjacent country. Here he commenced a settlement under prosperous circumstances; but near the close of the following year fell a victim to the disease of the climate. He died at Natchez. His two sons, in company with the other adventurers, crossed the country through the wilderness in the dead of winter; and after innumerable dangers and hardships reached the sea-coast of Georgia in safety. An account of this expedition will be found in the Travels of President Dwight. Rarely have we met with a more interesting or melancholy story. The original papers containing the grant were unhappily lost; and the family have never been able to substantiate their title to the land. Dwight's personal grant was a considerable part of the Township of Natchez. He left a widow and thirteen children; ten of whom were under twenty-one years of age. The subject of this Memoir was the eldest; and on him devolved the care of the family, at a period when the situation and circumstances of the country rendered the task peculiarly difficult and laborious. From the time of his entering on the Bachelor's Degree at College to his leaving the army, he had subjected his father to no expense for his own support. The intelligence of his death, in consequence of the peculiar circumstances of the country, did not reach the family until nearly a twelve-month after the event had happened. Upon receiving the information, he, with as little delay as possible, removed his own family to Northampton, and undertook the performance of the new duties which providentially had devolved upon him, with the greatest promptitude and cheerfulness. In this situation he passed five years of the most interesting period of his life; performing in an exemplary manner the offices of a son and a brother, and of a guardian to the younger children. Here, he was emphatically the staff and stay of the family. The government and education of the children, as well as the daily VOL. I.

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provision for their wants, depended almost exclusively on his exertions. The elder as well as the younger were committed to his care, and loved and obeyed him as their father. The filial affection and dutiful respect and obedience which he exhibited towards his mother, and the more than fraternal kindness with which he watched over the well-being of his brothers and sisters, deserve the most honourable remembrance. To accomplish this object, he postponed his own establishment for life and a provision for his family. To accomplish it, though destitute of property, he relinquished in their favour his own proportion of the family estate; laboured constantly for five years with a diligence and alacrity rarely exampled; and continued his paternal care and exertions and liberality long after his removal from Northampton. Often have we heard his mother, who died only ten years since, acknowledge, in language of eloquent affection and gratitude, his kindness and faithfulness and honourable generosity to her and to her children. The respect which she felt and manifested towards him, though perhaps not his inferior in native powers of mind, resembled the affection of a dutiful child towards her father, rather than the feelings of a mother for her son. During this period, he laboured through the week upon the farm, and preached on the sabbath to different vacant congregations in the neighbouring towns. He also established a school at Northampton, for the instruction of youth of both sexes; which was almost immediately resorted to by such a number of pupils, that he was under the necessity of employing two assistants. At the same time, owing to the dispersed condition of the College at New Haven and to his established character as an instructor, a part of one of the classes in that seminary repaired to Northampton and placed themselves under his care as their preceptor. To them he devoted his own immediate attention, until they had completed their regular course of collegiate studies. The school was continued during his residence there, and uniformly maintained an extensive and distinguished reputation. At the same time, he preached almost without intermission upon the sabbath with increasing popularity. For about one year, commencing with the winter of 1778-1779, he supplied the vacant congregation of Westfield; the year following, that of Muddy-Brook a

parish of Deerfield; and the year after, that of South Hadley. He often mentioned it to the honour of the people of MuddyBrook, that they paid him for preaching, not in the depreciated currency of the country; but in specie, or wheat at the specie price, at his election. The compensation which he received for preaching, as well as the profits of his school, were all expended in the support of the common family.

A strong disposition was manifested from time to time, by the inhabitants of Northampton, to employ him in civil life. In the county conventions of Hampshire he repeatedly represented the town; and, in connection with a few individuals, met and resisted that spirit of disorganization and licentiousness which was then unhappily prevalent in many parts of the county, and which had too visible an influence in an assembly often fluctuating and tumultuous. It was owing eminently to his exertions and those of his colleague, the Hon. Joseph Hawley, in opposition to the current of popular feeling and to no small weight of talents and influence, that the new constitution of Massachusetts was adopted by the Convention of the most important county in the state. Twice he consented to serve the town as their representative in the State Legislature. This was in the years 1781 and 1782, just before the close of the war of Independence; when subjects of an interesting and perplexing nature, growing out of the great controversy in which the country had so long been engaged, extensively agitated the public mind, and engrossed legislative attention. Every thing was then, in a sense, unsettled. That war had sundered not only the cords which fastened the colonies to the mother country, but those also which bound them to each other. The old foundations were, in a sense, destroyed; and new ones were to be established. Many of the old laws and regulations were to be altered; and others, accommodated to the state of freedom and independence, were to be devised and instituted. A sense of subordination and obedience to Law, was also to be cherished, instead of a spirit of licentiousness then widely prevalent. In this situation, inexperienced as he was in the business of a politician or a legislator, he at once became one of the most industrious and influential members of that body, and was greatly admired and distinguished for his talents and

eloquence. All his exertions were on the side of good order and good morals; and indicated a steady attachment to the principles of rational liberty, and decided hostility to licentiousness. On one occasion he was enabled to prove his devotion to the interests of learning. A petition for a grant in favour of Harvard College was before the Legislature. At that time such grants were unpopular. That spirit of honourable liberality, which now happily characterizes the legislature and people of that Commonwealth, was then far from being universally operative. During his occasional absence from the house, the petition had been called up; and, after finding but few, and those not very warm advocates, had been generally negatived. On taking his seat, Mr. Dwight, learning what had occurred, moved a re-consideration of the vote. In a speech of about one hour in length, fraught with wit, with argument, and with eloquence, and received with marked applause on the spot, from the members and the spectators, he effectually changed the feelings of the House, and procured a nearly unanimous vote in favour of the grant. It gave him high pleasure thus to confer an obligation on that respectable Seminary: an obligation which was gratefully acknowledged by its principal officers, as well as by many others of its friends.

At this period, he was earnestly solicited by his friends to quit the profession in which he had engaged, and devote himself to public life. In the winter of 1782-1783, a committee from the delegation of Hampshire, waited upon him with assurances from fhat delegation, that, if he would consent, their influence should be exerted to secure his election to the Continental Congress: a place in the gift of the Legislature. The late Governor Phillips of Andover, who was his friend and fellow-lodger, though a man of distinguished piety, gave it as his own unqualified opinion that he ought to listen to these proposals and remain in civil life; assuring him, also, with several of the most influential members of both houses, of their cordial support. But he had become so thoroughly weaned from his first intention of practising law, and was so much attached to the clerical profession, and so convinced of its superior usefulness, that nothing could change his resolation to devote his life to the latter. Having preached occa

sionally, while attending the legislature, in Boston and the neighbourhood, he received invitations, accompanied with flattering offers as it regarded compensation, to settle as a minister in Beverly and Charlestown; both of which, however, he declined. In the month of May 1783, he was invited, by an unanimous vote of the church and congregation of Greenfield, a parish in the town of Fairfield, in Connecticut, to settle as their minister. This invitation he accepted on the 20th of July in the same year. On the 5th of November following, he was regularly ordained over that people; and for the succeeding twelve years remained their pastor.

The annual compensation which he received at Greenfield was a salary of five hundred dollars, the use of six acres of parochial land, and twenty cords of wood. They also gave him a settlement of one thousand dollars. From his extensive acquaintance with men of consideration in literature and politics throughout the country, and a native propensity to hospitaiity, it was very apparent that he could not expect to support a growing family and the expenses incident to his standing in the community, upon such an income. To supply the deficiency, he immediately established an academy at Greenfield, which he superintended himself; devoting six hours regularly every day to the instruction of his pupils. In a short time, youths in great numbers and of both sexes, not only from various parts of New England, but from the Middle and Southern States as well as from abroad, resorted to his school. This institution was commenced and carried on absolutely without funds, and depended solely on his own character and exertions. He supported it during the whole period of his residence there with unexampled reputation. We know of no similar institution in this country, thus dependent, which has flourished so long or to such a degree. During the twelve years of his residence there, he instructed upwards of one thousand pupils. Numbers of them were carried through the whole course of education customary at College. In his school he adopted to a considerable degree one part of the Lancasterian mode of instruction; making it extensively the duty of the older scholars, who were competent, to hear the recitations of the younger. Many of his pupils were regularly boarded in