226 HEREDITY IN RELATION TO EUGENICS 



manding appearance, striking carriage, "of strong will, ex- 

 treme intellectual vigor, of mental grasp akin to rapacity, 

 attracting not by a few magnetic traits but repelling" when 

 she evinced an extraordinary deficiency of moral sense. 



"On November 19, 1667, she married Richard Edwards of 

 Hartford, Connecticut, a lawyer of high repute and great 

 erudition. Like his wife he was very tall and as they both 

 walked the Hartford streets their appearance invited the 

 eyes and the admiration of all." In 1691, Mr. Edwards was 

 divorced from his wife on the ground of her adultery and 

 other immoralities. The evil trait was in the blood, for one 

 of her sisters murdered her own son and a brother murdered 

 his own sister. After his divorce Mr. Edwards remarried 

 and had five sons and a daughter by Mary Talcott, a medio- 

 cre 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 reputa- 

 tion." 



Of Elizabeth Tuttle and Richard Edwards the only son 

 was Timothy Edwards, who graduated from Harvard Col- 

 lege in 1691, gaining simultaneously the two degrees of 

 bachelor of arts and master of arts — a very exceptional feat. 

 He was pastor of the church in East Windsor, Connecticut, 

 for fifty-nine years. Of eleven children the only son was 

 Jonathan Edwards, one of the world's great intellects, pre- 

 eminent as a divine and theologian, president of Princeton 

 College. Of the descendants of Jonathan Edwards much has 

 been written; a brief catalogue must suffice: Jonathan Ed- 

 wards, Jr., president of Union College; Timothy Dwight, 

 president of Yale; Sereno Edwards Dwight, president of 

 Hamilton College; Theodore Dwight Woolsey, for twenty- 

 five years president 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 



