CHARLES EDWIN PUTNAM 



A MEMOIR 



BY WILLIAM CLEMENT PUTNAM 



Just west of the village of Saratoga Springs, New York, rises 

 "Prospect Hill," above a broad and beautiful valley, and command- 

 ing a fine panorama of field, forest, and mountain. In a commodious 

 residence on this noble site there dwelt, in the early part of this cen- 

 tury, Benjamin Risley Putnam and Eunice Morgan Putnam, his wife. 

 Here Charles Edwin, the fifth of seven children, was born on February 

 19th, 1825. The only survivor of this family at present is the youngest 

 brother, Hon. John R. Putnam, a Justice of the Appellate Division of 

 the Supreme Court of New York, who resides in a modern mansion 

 built on the old family estate. 



The home at "Prospect Hill" had been founded, not long after the 

 close of the Revolutionary War, by the pioneer settler of Saratoga, 

 Gideon Putnam, the father of Benjamin R. Ciideon had, at the age 

 of nineteen, purchased his majority from his father, and soon after- 

 ward pushed into the wilderness, with his young wife and child, to do 

 what lay in his power to open up and develop the country which had 

 been won from England by the war. He laid out the village, opened 

 the since world-famous mineral springs, built hotels to accommodate 

 the people who began to be attracted thither in the pursuit of health 

 and pleasure, and gave lands for the establishment of parks, churches, 

 schools, and a cemetery. He represented the highest type of those 

 public-spirited and energetic founders of commonwealths, of which 

 our country has produced so many brilliant examples. Gideon was of 



[Proc. D. A. N. S., Vol. VII.] i [ September 10, 1897.] 



