36 



The Journal of Heredity 



the chance of the son of a judge to 

 possess extraordinary abihty was just 

 about five hundred times as great as 

 that of a boy taken at random from the 

 general population. 



Two American Families 



The study of genealogy and the cul- 

 tivation of family trees has for some 

 time been a favorite hobby among a 

 certain class of people in the United 

 States, but "looking up your ancestors" 

 has been regarded as a subject for jest 

 among the great majority of our people. 

 Some of these pedigrees, however, have 

 a very direct bearing on the subject 

 we are discussing. As examples I will 

 mention the histories of two "old 

 American families." the descendants of 

 Elizabeth Tuttle and those of "Ada 

 Jukes." 



"'On November 19, 1667, Elizabeth 

 Tuttle married Richard Edwards, of 

 Hartford, Connecticut, a lawyer of 

 high repute and great erudition. Like 

 his wife, he was very tall, and as they 

 walked the Hartford streets together 

 their appearance invited the eyes and 

 admiration of all.' In 1691 Mr. Ed- 

 wards was divorced from his wife on 

 the ground of her adultery and other 

 immoralities. After his divorce, Mr. 

 Edwards remarried and had five sons 

 and a daughter by ]\Iary Talcott, a 

 mediocre woman, average in talent and 

 character, and ordinary in appearance. 

 'None of Mary Talcott's progeny rose 

 above mediocrity, and their descendants 

 gained no abiding reputation.' 



"Of Elizabeth Tuttle and Richard 

 Edwards, the only son was Timothy 

 Edwards, who graduated from Har- 

 vard college in 1691, gaining simultan- 

 eously the two degrees of bachelor of 

 arts and master of arts — a very excep- 

 tional feat. He was pastor of the 

 church of East Windsor, Connecticut, 

 for fifty-nine years. Of his eleven 

 children, the only son was Jonathan 

 Edwards, one of the world's greatest 

 intellects, pre-eminent as a divine and 

 theologian, ])resident of Princeton col- 

 lege. Of the descendants of Jonathan 



Edwards much has been written ; a 

 brief catalogue must suffice : Jonathan 

 Edwards, Jr., president Union College ; 

 Timothy D wight, president of Yale ; 

 Sereno Dwight Edwards, president of 

 Hamilton College ; Theodore Dwight 

 Woolsey, for twenty-five years presi- 

 dent of Yale College ; Sarah, wife of 

 Tapping Reeve, founder of Litchfield 

 Law School, herself no mean lawyer; 

 Daniel Tyler, a general of the Civil 

 war and founder of the iron industries 

 of Northern Alabama ; Ann Maria, 

 wife of Edward Amana Park, president 

 of Andover Theological Seminary, her- 

 self as astute a thinker as her clerical 

 spouse ; Timothy Dwight, the second, 

 president of Yale University from 1886 

 to 1898; Theodore William Dwight, 

 founder and for thirty-three years 

 warden of Columbia Law School ; Hen- 

 rietta Frances, wife of Eli Whitney, 

 inventor of the cotton gin, who 'burn- 

 ing the midnight oil by the side of her 

 ingenious husband, helped him to his 

 enduring fame' ; Merrill Edwards 

 Gates, president of Amherst College ; 

 Catherine Maria Sedgwick, famous au- 

 thoress ; Charles Sedgwick Minot, au- 

 thority on biology and embryology in 

 the Harvard Medical School ; Edith 

 Kermit Carow, wife and co-worker of 

 Theodore Roosevelt ; and Winston 

 Churchill, one of the best known of 

 American novelists." These constitute 

 a glorious galaxy of America's great 

 educators, students and moral leaders 

 of the Republic. 



"Two other of the descendants of 

 Elizabeth Tuttle. through her son, Tim- 

 othv. have been purposely omitted from 

 the foregoing catalogue because they 

 inherited also the defects of Elizabeth's 

 character. These two were Pierrepont 

 Edwards, who is said to have been a 

 tall, brilliant, acute jurist, eccentric and 

 licentious ; and Aaron Burr, Vice-Presi- 

 ident of the United States, in whom 

 flowered the good and evil of Elizabeth 

 Tuttle's blood. 



"The remarkable qualities of Eliza- 

 beth Tuttle were in the germplasm of 

 her four daughters also. Among their 



