Thursday, July 25, 2013

Obituary of James Taylor Dickinson, Class of 1826, in 1885 Yale College Obituary Record


Obituary record of James Taylor Dickinson, Class of 1826, in the June 1885 issue of the Obituary Record of Graduates of Yale College.

After graduation, Dickinson practiced law at Montreal and then decided to enter the ministry.  After studying at Andover Theological Seminary and Yale, he became the pastor at the Second church (Congregational) at Norwich, Connecticut.  After the death of his first wife, he became a missionary at Singapore, where he stayed until about 1845 when ill health forced him to return home.  He married again and lived at Middlefield, Connecticut, where he spent the remainder of his life in study in his library.

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The last few pages of this booklet are a Summary of the deceased graduates and an index, all pages of which appear at the end of this post.



Transcript:


James Taylor Dickinson, the eldest child of Horace and Mary Ann (Taylor) Dickinson (both from Western Massachusetts), was born in Lowville, Lewis county, N.Y., October 27, 1806.  His parents removed to Canada in 1816, and he entered College from Montreal in 1822.

After graduating he began the study of law in Montreal; but in 1827 he became convinced that he ought to enter the Christian ministry and removed to Andover Theological Seminary; he took the last year of his course (1829-30) in the Yale Divinity School.  

He was ordained pastor of the Second (Congregational) church in Norwich, Conn., April 4, 1832, and on the 21st of November following married Mary, daughter of Samuel Hickok, of Burlington, Vt., where he had been preaching for some time and had declined a call to settle.  She died in Norwich, April 6, 1834, at the age of 19; and on the 20th of August next, he resigned his pastorate that he might fit himself for the work of a foreign missionary.  After one year of preparatory studies in medicine, he embarked in July 1835, for Singapore, in the East Indies, under an appointment from the American Board.  Five years passed in the study of the Chinese and Malay languages, and in missionary labor.  For four years from 1840 he was employed as a teacher in the Singapore Institution, till the loss of his health obliged him to return home.

In 1845, he settled in Middlefield, Conn., where he married , May 15, Sarah C., daughter of Deacon William Lyman, who survives him.  Owing to his shattered health, he lived in seclusion, in the midst of his large and continually replenished library, chiefly occupied in reading and study.  He published a few articles in periodicals, and contributed to Appleton's Cyclopedia an account of the Malay language; he also wrote a brief memoir of his brother-in-law, the Rev. George W. Perkins (Y.C. 1824), prefixed to a volume of sermons in 1859.  These are the only results in print of his broad culture and accurate scholarship.

He died of paralysis, at his home in Middlefield, July 22, 1884, in his 78th year.

By his last will he added to a fund already established by him for the benefit of the College, which thus amounts to nearly $50,000; about 1500 volumes of his valuable library were also bequeathed to the College.




List of deceased Yale College graduates in this issue

Augustus H. Abernethy, Class of 1864
Adolph Asher, Class of 1872
Robert M. Baker, Class of 1856
T. Jefferson Bassett, Class of 1853
Henry C. Beardslee, Class of 1826
Lewis S. Benedict, Class of 1834
Michael D. Benedict, Class of 1836
Theodore H. Benedict, Class of 1840
Frederick N. Bennett, Class of 1841
James Berdan, Class of 1824
George W. Blagden, Class of 1823
David Booth, Class of 1819
Marius Brandegee, Class of 1843
C. Lewis Brent, Class of 1849
Daniel Chadwick, Class of 1845
Henry Childs, Class of 1846
James H. Clendenin, Class of 1872
George H. Coffey, Class of 1859
Thomas Cowles, Class of 1829
S. Sherwood Day, Class of 1827
Sherman Day, Class of 1826
John DeForest, Class of 1826
James T. Dickinson, Class of 1826
Richard V. Dodge, Class of 1840
George B. Dusinberre, Class of 1855
Aaron R. Dutton, Class of 1837
Barnabas M. Fay, Class of 1833
George W. Fisher, Class of 1859
Samuel A. Fisk, Class of 1844
Samuel H. Fletcher, Class of 1824
Thomas E. Franklin, Class of 1828
William Frazier, Class of 1832
Theodore Gilbert, Class of 1825
George Goodyear, Class of 1824
John M. Gordon, Class of 1830
George M. Hanners, Class of 1823
Winthrop B. Hawks, Class of 1882
Thomas R. Hubbard, Class of 1829
William Hutchison, Class of 1854
Joseph H. Isham, Class of 1865
Thomas H. Jackson, Class of 1850
Barclay Johnson, Class of 1882
Ross Johnston, Class of 1870
Francis E. Kernochan, Class of 1861
Alfred Lambert, Class of 1843
Frank A. Langworthy, Class of 1872
Cortland L. Latimer, Class of 1832
Edward A. Lawrence, Class of 1884
James N. Lea, Class of 1834
Charles A. Lewis, Class of 1829
Allyn C. Loomis, Class of 1883
Oliver E. Lyman, Class of 1876
Darius Mead, Class of 1828
Timothy T. Merwin, Class of 1827
Charles L. Mills, Class of 1835
Hiram Moses, Class of 1825
George C. Murray, Class of 1845
William Norton, Class of 1829
John J. Orton, Class of 1842
Lewis R. Packard, Class of 1856
Francis H. Palmer, Class of 1847
David C. Perry, Class of 1833
Stephen T. Robinson, Class of 1827
Charles M. Runk, Class of 1845
William H. Russell, Class of 1833
Murray C. Shoemaker, Class of 1864
Benjamin Silliman, Class of 1837
Jonathan Silliman, Class of 1817
Elbert J. Smith, Class of 1847
Charles G. Southmayd, Class of 1856
John B. Staples, Class of 1827
Hezekiah Sturges, Class of 1841
Frank H. Taylor, Class of 1878
John L. Taylor, Class of 1835
Chauncey M. Thompson, Class of 1854
Albert Todd, Class of 1836
Charles Tracy, Class of 1832
Alexander C. Twining, Class of 1820
David A. Tyler, Class of 1844
Leonidas C. Vinal, Class of 1880
Jonathan Wales, Class of 1871
Jacob K. Warner, Class of 1850
D. Ellis Willes, Class of 1850
William L. Williamson, Class of 1853
Leonard Withington, Class of 1814
Dexter Witter, Class of 1824
J. Hampden Wood, Class of 1866
Robert W. Wright, Class of 1842
Edward Wurts, Class of 1832

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