EDWARD HITCHCOCK. 



1793-1864. 



BORN at Deerfield, Mass., May 23, 1793; died at Amherst, 

 Mass., February 27, 1864. 



The first of this family emigrated to this country in 1635, 

 coming probably from Warwickshire in England. He was one 

 of the original members of the New Haven, Conn., Colony. 

 Two or three generations of the family resided in New Haven ; 

 the fourth in the line emigrated to western Massachusetts, and 

 was an officer in the Revolutionary War. His son, Justin, the 

 father of Edward, was a soldier in the army of General Gates 

 when Burgoyne's army was captured. Justin married one of 

 the Hoyts, who was descended from the sufferers at Deerfield 

 at the French-Indian raid of 1704. He settled at Deerfield, 

 and was a hatter. Becoming embarrassed financially by obli- 

 gations incurred in the continental currency, he suffered from 

 poverty all Jiis life, and was unable to give his children more 

 education than was afforded by the common school and the 

 local academy. Edward was therefore compelled to educate 

 himself, and that under the drawback of ill health, caused by 

 overwork and carelessness. Six particulars may be mentioned, 

 going to show that by improving his opportunities he was well 

 educated in many respects: i. For several years he was a 

 leading member of a debating society. This afforded the op- 

 portunity to practise extempore speaking, composition, and 

 acquire facility in philosophical reasoning. A few short poems 

 showed that he essayed the higher type of composition. One 

 of these was a tragedy entitled The Downfall of Bonaparte, 

 written at the age of twenty-two, just after the battle of Water- 

 loo, and acted by himself and friends before the people of the 

 village. 2. For four years from twenty-two to twenty-six 

 he was the principal of the academy in his native town. As 

 there were always in this school a number who were fitting for 



