804 EDWARD WIGGLESWORTH. 



June 10, 1705, Though he was noted for his skill and efficiency 

 in the medical practice of those days, he could not explain the nature 

 of the malady which made him for most of his life a sufferer from a 

 mysterious form of invalidism which interrupted his professional work, 

 and caused him to make a voyage to Bermuda. As the poet of his 

 age and country, he was the author, among various other compositions, 

 of that which, under the title of " The Day of Doom," was the classic 

 for children and their parents for more than half a century in New 

 England. 



Edward, the youngest son of Michael Wigglesworth, was inaugu- 

 rated in 1722 as the first divinity professor in Harvard College, where 

 he had graduated, on the foundation of Thomas Hollis, Esq., of Lon- 

 don. Dr. "Wigglesworth having held this office for more than forty 

 years, was succeeded in it, in 1765, by his son, Dr. Edward Wiggles- 

 worth, Jr., who, in 1791, had, as his successor in it, the Rev. Dr. 

 David Tappan, who was a great-grandson of Rev. Michael Wiggles- 

 worth, till 1803. Thus, for a period of eighty years, descendants in 

 three generations from the old Maiden divine filled one of the places 

 of highest influence and responsibility in this colony, province, and 

 State of Massachusetts. The second Prof. Wigglesworth was one of the 

 original Fellows of the Academy, at its incorporation. Papers con- 

 tributed by him appear in the earlier volumes of the Memoirs. His 

 calculations for the consti-uction of Life Tables were especially valued. 

 Thomas Wigglesworth, a graduate of Harvard in 1793, who studied 

 law, but afterwards, in wide commercial business, became one of the 

 most honored and successful merchants of Boston, was the youngest 

 son of the second Professor Wigglesworth. The subject of this Memoir 

 was the oldest son of Thomas, by his wife, Jane Norton, a sister of that 

 eminent Biblical scholar, Prof. Andrews Norton of Harvard College. 



From his earliest childhood Edward Wiijglesworth manifested those 

 fine traits and virtues of character, and that love of the jjrocesses of 

 thought and the acquisition of learning, which were so marked in him 

 through his whole life. Having been prepared for college by the Rev. 

 Ebenezer Pemberton of Boston, he completed his course there in 

 1822, graduating with the highest honors of his class. He pursued 

 the study of the law in the office of the late Judge William Prescott, 

 having there, as fellow-students, the late Franklin Dexter, and the late 

 Nathaniel I. Bowditch. Though he began the practice of the profes- 

 sion, it did not prove to be congenial or attractive to him, and he 

 abandoned it to enter his father's counting-room, to aid him in his mer- 

 cantile aflTairs. 



