34 Some Eminent Men 



have been superior to the prominent men of his 

 day. He was born when his father was 38, and 

 the next three generations cover 99 years. This 

 is an average of a little over 34. But there is a 

 suspicion that Washington's greatness came from 

 his mother. She was Mary Ball, born when her 

 father was about 60 years of age. There is a 

 Ball pedigree extending back eight generations, 

 but dates are not given. From Mary's birth back 

 to the estimated birth of the earliest of these 

 Balls, the average is about 40 years. 



Henry Ward Beecher was perhaps the greatest 

 preacher of the nineteenth century. At least, he 

 was exceptionally brilliant. Henry was born 

 when his father was 38, and that father was a 

 Yale graduate and a learned man who got his 

 education first and his son afterwards. The 

 father, Lyman Beecher, was born when his father, 

 David, was 35 or more years of age. And David 

 was one of the best educated persons in New 

 England, who got his education first and his son 

 afterwards. Running out the male line to Isaac 

 Beecher, born in 1620, we have five generations 

 in 193 years. In the other parts of Beecher's 

 pedigree we have the ages of seven other persons. 



