HOVEY-Edmund Otis - Fountain County INGenWeb Project

Edmund Otis Hovey, son of Roger and Martha Hovey, was born on July 15, 1801, and died March 10, 1877. His immigrant ancestor, Daniel Hovey, was a native of Essex County, England, being the son of Richard Hovey, and was baptized, August 9, 1618, in the Waltham Abbey, a church dating from Saxon times. He was the youngest of nine children, and the only one of them that came to America. On his departure, the rector gave him a bulky volume of poems by Du Bartas, to be seen in the Boston Public Library, with a record of the above statement. Daniel Hovey, at the age of seventeen years, settled in Ipswich, Mass., in 1635; where he had a land grant, built a dwelling-house and an adjacent wharf, still known as Hovey's Wharf, and his name is given to a street in the town, and to an island near by. For a time he lived at Brookfield and later at Hadley; but finally ended his days at Ipswich, where a bronze tablet is erected to his memory. He married Abigail Andrews, a daughter of Captain Robert Andrews, who commanded the ill-fated ship, "The Angel Gabriel," that was wrecked off Pemaquid, Maine. Her oldest brother was Lieut. John Andrews, who presided at the meeting that resisted the tyranny of Sir Edmund Andros, in memory of which the Ipswich seal bears the motto: "The Birthplace of American Independence, 1687." Another brother, Thomas Andrews, was the first schoolmaster of the colony. On his maternal side, Edmund Otis Hovey sprang from the families of Freeman, Otis, Moody and Russell-names famous in early annals. Rev. John Russell harbored the Regicides for ten years; in the study of his son, Rev. Samuel Russell, Yale College was founded; and Rev. Joshua Moody, another ancestor, declined the presidency of Harvard College, preferring to be pastor of the fist church in Boston. James Hovey, son of Daniel, was killed in King Phillip's War. His family then moved, first to Malden, Mass., and later to Mansfield, Connecticut. Edmund, the son of James, married Margaret Knowlton. Their son, Roger Hovey (so named for Roger Williams), after serving twice as a soldier in the Army of the Revolution, married Martha, the daughter of Hon. Edmund Freeman, a Harvard graduate, who owned one thousand acres in Mansfield. Mr. Freeman also received, in recognition of his public services, a noble land grant from George III, including in all twenty-four thousand four hundred acres, on both sides of the Connecticut river, which was later subdivided into the four towns of Norwich and Hartford (in Vermont) and Lebanon and Hanover (in New Hampshire). A singular stipulation in this land grant was that there should be paid to the Crown, "one ear of Indian corn only, on December 25th of each year, if demanded." Edmund Freeman's name, and those of his five sons, heads the list of names on the original charter of the Hanover colony, dated July 4, 1761. There were fourteen heads of families named Freeman in 1770 when Dartmouth College was located at Hanover, with a royal grant of five hundred acres; all white pine trees being reserved "for His Majesty's Navy." Forty years after Hanover was settled there were only twenty families there, all living in log cabins, with a log meeting house, whose pulpit was a segment of a hollow basswood tree. The first college building was also of logs. Dartmouth Hall was begun in 1786, a brick edifice, one hundred and fifty by fifty feet in its dimensions, and three stories high. The historian of the college records the fact that "The handles of the doors, with all the ironwork, were made by Roger Hovey, a blacksmith, who had a shop on the Parade at the Centre." We do not exactly know when he joined the colony, but it is recorded that he married Martha (Otis) Freeman, daughter of Edmund Freeman, in Hanover, February 6, 1783; and it is the legend that he bought his first stock of iron with the wages paid for his services in the Revolutionary Army. He not only shod horses and oxen, but made the hinges, andirons, and indeed all the ironwork of the colony. His smithy "on the Parade" was a rendezvous for the villagers, whose farm-talk and doctrinal discussions chimed in with the blows on the anvil. Dartmouth had a stormy infancy, and we may gladly pass in silence its voluminous controversies; but we rejoice that the principles for which it stood were so firmly planted in the community, and so nobly transplanted at a later day to take root in Montgomery County and the broad Wabash valley. Roger Hovey was the father of ten children, all baptized by Dr. Eden Burroughs, pastor of the Presbyterian church in Hanover. Five of them died before the year 1800, victims of an epidemic; and the remaining five all lived to be more than seventy years of age. In 1813 Roger Hovey and his family removed to Thetford, Vermont, where he bought a farm of one hundred and sixty acres, and built a house and blacksmith-shop. He spent his old age with his eldest son, Frederick Hovey, at Berlin, Vermont, enjoying a moderate pension from the United States government as a Revolutionary soldier. He died, May 19, 1839, at the age of eighty years. His wife, who survived him, died at Berlin, April 6, 1841, aged eighty-two years. In company with Colonel Israel O. Dewey, U. S. A., the writer visited old Hanover in 1877. We were the guests of Deacon Isaac Fellows, a vigorous octogenarian who had known Edmund Otis Hovey from boyhood, and promptly answered our inquiries, always speaking of him as "Otis." He said: "Otis was active, of good habits and a diligent scholar, very manly, and highly courteous." "Had he not faults?" asked Col. Dewey. The Deacon's eyes twinkled as if at some droll recollection. "Otis had a vein of humor," said he. "A big snow-ball once came down on his teacher's head as the latter was leaving the old red schoolhouse; and as no other lad was in sight, Otis was accused of having hit the master. He denied the charge, but explained that he threw the ball into the air and the force of gravity drew it down on the teacher's head. This reply started a discussion as to whether the boy had prevaricated or only given an extremely exact statement of the facts. That same school-master had a way of punishing boys by slinging them over his shoulder and letting them hang head-down-wards. He tried this one day on Otis, but the struggle ensuing was such that he never tried it again. The boy was too much for the man." The ruts of an old cart-road led from the "Parade" to the red clover patch where once stood the smithy. A few guarded apple trees were all that remained of the "choice orchard" that once surrounded the Hovey home. Moose Mountain loomed up not far away; and more remotely were discerned the blue Thetford hills, to which the family removed when the subject of this article was about twelve years old. The lad remained, however, for a while at Hanover as the pupil and guest of his uncle Jonathan Freeman. Afterwards he went to the Thetford school, his teacher being a Mr. Hubbard. Much reading was done in the long winter evenings, by the light of the blazing fire or of dip candles economically used. Among works thus early perused were Rollins' Ancient History, the Works of Flavius Josephus, Bruce's Travel's, Cook's Voyages, Young's Night Thoughts, Milton's Paradise Lost, the biographies of Washington and Franklin, and for light reading Addison's "Spectator" in sixteen volumes. There was decided piety in the home of Roger Hovey. The boys took turns at family prayers, and the children were all drilled in the Shorter Catechism. Six days were given to farm-work, shop-work, in-door duties and the duties of the school-room; and then came a sweet, quiet, unbroken Sabbath. When seventeen years of age, Edmund became an eager reader of "The American Journal of Science and Art," from which he got the impulse that led to his career as a scientist. When eighteen years old Edmund went to the Thetford Academy, of which the Rev. John Fitch was principal. He earned the money to pay his tuition by teaching during his vacations at Thetford and Norwich. He joined the Thetford Congregational church in 1821, of which Dr. Asa Burton was pastor, with Rev. Charles White as colleague, who became at a later period the second president of Wabash College. Young Hovey's zeal and various talents induced the church to adopt him as a beneficiary with the ministry in view. The members "boarded him around" and paid for his textbooks; and the ladies "cent society" undertook to clothe him. His uncle Otis gave him a calf which was sold and the money applied for tuition. Meanwhile, as we regret to say, Roger Hovey objected to all this. He offered to give him the home and the farm if he would relinquish his plans and care for his parents in their declining years. Finally as an older son accepted this parental offer, the father said to his younger son, "Well, Edmund, I will give you your freedom," meaning his time till he was twenty-one years of age; the mother slipped ten dollars into his hand, and at last the way was clear for him to gain a liberal education. Now there was a new trial. So ardently did Edmund enter on his preparatory studies that his health gave way and the church discontinued its aid. His physician, Dr. Kendrick, advised a journey on horseback, generously adding, "Do not spare money if you can regain your health." He went to Saratoga, and then to Sandwich on Cape Cod, where he was the guest and patient of his uncle, Dr. Nathaniel Freeman, who had been a member of the Continental Congress, a brigadier-general in the Revolutionary Army, and was a competent guide to various localities of historic interest. Health and vigor thus regained Edmund resumed his preparatory studies, being aided financially by Judge Joseph Reed and others. In the spring of 1825, Mr. Hovey entered as freshman at Dartmouth College, and wrote to his parents formally announcing it to be thenceforward "the great object of life to benefit mankind." He was graduated with honor, in 1828, being a Phi Beta Kappa man, in a class of forty-one, more than half of whom entered the Gospel ministry. His theological studies were pursued at Andover Seminary, where he mainly supported himself by his skill as carpenter and blacksmith; also doing mission work during vacations in Vermont and Canada. Many of his college classmates were with him at Andover; but the most intimate friend of them all, Caleb Mills, deferred entering the Seminary two years in order to take a Sabbath-school agency at the West, thus being graduated from Andover in 1833, while Hovey was graduated in 1831, and was licensed to preach November 27, 1830. On a frosty Monday morning, September 26, 1831, six young men walked from Andover to East Bradford, where, in what is now known as the Groveland church, they were ordained as home missionaries, by the Presbytery of Newburyport, "to go into the Western country," namely: Daniel Cole Blood, Asaph Boutelle, Nathaniel Smith Folsom, Edmund Otis Hovey, Benjamin Labaree and Jason Chapin. Dr. Gardiner B. Perry presided and made the consecrating prayer; the sermon was by Rev. Mr. Storrs; the charge was by Dr. Daniel Dana; and the right hand of fellowship was given by Rev. Mr. Phelps. The plans of "The Western Band" were sadly broken into by the sudden death of Dr. Cushman, general agent for the West. Medical men told them that they and their wives would sink under the climate in a year. A man who had gone five hundred miles on horseback in Indiana reported its main features to be "bad roads and fever and ague." On the other hand, Boutelle, who went among the Ojibways, wrote back that it was "no farther from Minnesota to Heaven than from dear old Andover." There are indications that it was Mr. Hovey's original intention to go as chaplain to Fort Brady on the Saulte St. Marie; although Indiana was also seriously thought of. He was in suspense. In college days a classmate, Horace E. Carter, was ill with typhoid fever and died in ten days. Mr. Hovey took constant care of him, and then was too sick to accompany the remains to Peacham, Vermont, where Mr. Carter had lived and was buried. After the funeral, Mr. Carter's widowed mother, accompanied by her daughters Martha and Mary, visited the friend who had so tenderly care for their deceased relative. The next year, Mr. Hovey had a tract agency in Caledonia County, in which Peacham was located, and found an opportunity to ask Mary Carter to share his fortunes. Her father had been the principal of the Caledonia County Grammar School, and she herself was admirably educated. She accepted the young minister's hand. And when later he wrote saying that he had a pastoral call to Hartford, which place he described as "a pleasant town on the banks of the Connecticut, and quite different from the log huts of Indiana," the young lady replied, "I am reading Flint's Mississippi Valley; do not let Hartford turn your mind from the path of duty." An interview with Dr. Absalom Peters decided him to devote himself to the work of a home missionary, and he wrote on his thirtieth birthday asking Miss Carter to prepare "for work in the wilderness of Indiana." On the 5th of October, 1831, they were joined in marriage by Dr. Leonard Worcester, and as soon as the farewells were spoken they started on their westward journey. Mr. Hovey's commission appointed him to "publish the Gospel in Fort Wayne, or such other place or places as shall be fixed on," with four hundred dollars as a salary, and seventy dollars as an outfit. According to the diary of the missionary, "Railroads were as yet only a subject of contemplation." He and his bride went down Lake Champlain by steamboat, by canal to Troy and thence to Buffalo; and, after a day at Niagara Falls, the "Henry Clay" carried them to Detroit in three days, where they were met by Rev. Noah Wells and Rev. Jeremiah Porter. After a brief conference it was decided that Mr. Porter should go to Fort Brady, whence two years later he was transferred to Fort Dearborn and became the founder of the first church in Chicago. During a delay of three weeks at Detroit, at that time a village of 3,500 inhabitants, Mr. Hovey improved the time by starting the first temperance society ever formed in the bounds of Michigan, and in interesting Hon. Lewis Cass in its success. Cass was a New Hampshire man, at that time Governor of the territory, and the same year made Secretary of War under Jackson, where he exemplified his temperance sentiments by abolishing grog from the army. Forwarding their baggage with a lot of goods consigned to Judge Hanna of Fort Wayne, the missionary and his bride went by the steamer "Gratiot" to Perrysburg-Toledo being as yet unknown. After a brief sojourn at a village of Pottawatomies they drove by ox-cart through an almost unbroken forest to the Maumee rapids, whence they were poled by pirogue up to Fort Wayne, where they met a hearty welcome from Judge Hanna. The Fort Wayne church however was supplied, and the Judge remarked: "There is a right smart little town of three hundred inhabitants started at the foot of Lake Michigan. They call it 'Chicago'; better go there." Instead of doing so they went by canoe down the Wabash to Logansport, where they were met by Rev. Messrs. Martin M. Post and James A. Carnahan. Leaving Mrs. Hovey for a while at Logansport, Messrs. Hovey and Carnahan took to their canoe again and floated down the Wabash to Lafayette, where Mr. Hovey had the joy of preaching his first sermon in Indiana. Part of the time on horseback they "rode and tied." Fountain County, which was decided on as Mr. Hovey's chosen field of labor, had then ten thousand inhabitants, but no meeting-house, schoolhouse or newspaper. A church organization at Portland had been abandoned; but one was ready to be formed at Covington, of which the missionary took charge, and also of one just formed at Coal Creek. New churches were started at Rob Roy and Newtown. Midway between the two stood the log cabin into which the pioneer couple moved, exactly twelve weeks after bidding adieu to Squire Carter's mansion at Peacham, Vermont. The cabin walls were "chinked and daubed"; its one room had a "puncheon" floor; its one window had twelve small panes in the space made by simply removing a log; a loft served for storage; the wide door swung on wooden hinges, and its latch-string was out by day for hospitality, and pulled in by night for security. In a log stable near by was kept "Barney" a reformed race-horse, who carried his new owner over two thousand miles on errands of mercy and righteousness through Fountain county, occasionally running away, but never letting his master miss an appointment in two years. Mr. Hovey felt the responsibility of being the only minister in the county. He gathered churches and Sunday schools, started day schools and temperance societies, scattered good literature abroad, and promoted the first newspaper started in the county seat. He held camp-meetings with good results. The Wabash Presbytery was formed, covering sixteen counties, whose four ministers and eight elders met on one occasion at the Hovey cabin and lodged at night on its straw-strewn floor. A college classmate, Rev. Caleb Mills, was urged to come west as his associate. Mills reply, dated June 14, 1832, was highly characteristic, but when he finally did come, the next year, the hand of Providence had opened for both men a wider educational field to which they gave their lives, and which was located in Montgomery County. Several men who had been revolving the idea of founding a literary institution of high order for the Wabash valley, met at the "Old Brick House" at Crawfordsville, on November 21, 1832. Rev. John M. Ellis, secretary of the Indiana Education Society, presided; Rev. Edmund Otis Hovey was the secretary; Rev. James Thomson stated the object of the meeting; Rev. John Thomson and Rev. James A. Carnahan were also present; and elders Gilliland, Robinson, McConnell and King. A public meeting of citizens was held that night. The next day the founders inspected and accepted grounds generously donated by Hon. Williamson Dunn. A light snow having fallen, those men of faith knelt on its spotless surface amid the virgin forest and dedicated the spot to the Triune God, being led in prayer by Mr. Ellis. We are not giving a history of the college, except as touching the career of Mr. Hovey, who from that day till the day of his death was identified with it in various ways. His name headed the list of clerical trustees and remained there for forty-five years. He was on the charter committee and the building committee, and was the man designated to secure the services of Caleb Mills as first instructor. The original suggestion was to found "a classical and English high school, rising into a college." The charter name, however, was "The Wabash Manual Labor College and Teachers' Seminary"; wisely shortened at a later day to its simpler form of "Wabash College." After a brief period Mr. Hovey bade his parishioners in Fountain county farewell, took an appointment as financial agent for the college, embarked with his wife and infant son at Covington, descended the Wabash to its mouth, and then went up the Ohio to Louisville, Cincinnati and Pittsburgh. Few encouraged him. Dr. Lyman Beecher "frowned on the infant weakling of a college." Swarms of agents were ahead of him at the Presbyterian General Assembly in Philadelphia and the "May anniversaries" in New York. Efforts at Baltimore, Boston, Providence and New Haven were fruitless. A memorable crisis found Mr. Hovey at the Tontine Hotel in New Haven, "with an empty purse and no hope and every door closed." He wrote to Crawfordsville, resigning all connection with the college, saying that he should return to his mission field in Fountain County as soon as he got money enough to do so. He signed this affecting letter, "Yours at the point of desperation." Concerning it President Tuttle has impressively remarked: "If that letter had been sent, the college would have perished. It was not sent and the college lived." It is due to the memory of Rev. John M. Ellis to relate the fact that he happened in on the discouraged agent just at this time, and made the wise suggestion that, before mailing his letter, he should confer with the faculty of Yale College. President Woolsey has described the interview. The early struggles of Yale were rehearsed and words of encouragement were spoken. After which event followed an interview with the faculty of Andover Seminary, who advised an appeal to the rural churches of New England. A circular was printed on behalf of "a region equal to Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island, where the first settlements had been made only twelve years previously, yet where there was now a population of one hundred thousand." The plan was effective. The first response was from Amesbury Mills, being fifty dollars. Then from Newburyport came four hundred and twenty-five dollars. Other New England towns gave several thousand dollars in all, and the crisis was safely past. The task of finding a president was even harder than trying to raise money. Dr. Absalom Peters suggested the name of Dr. Elihu W. Baldwin, the most popular pastor in New York City. Bravely the Hoosier agent met the eminent clergyman, saying, "The King's business requires haste. I ask you to be the president of Wabash College." A map of Indiana was spread out, and the claims of the new commonwealth were urged till finally consent was gained, followed by a unanimous election. Thus encouraged the financial problem was successfully solved. The fact may here be stated that, after Dr. Baldwin's death in 1840, Mr. Hovey was again deputed to secure the services of Dr. Charles White, of Owego, New York; and after Dr. White's death, twenty years later, he went on a like errand for Dr. J. F. Tuttle, of New Jersey. Some of the other members of the faculty were gained by his instrumentality. From the first the trustees urged Mr. Hovey himself to take a professorship. In 1834 they offered him the chair of the Natural Sciences, and Mr. Ellis urged it on him, saying "your standing in Indiana, your acquaintance with the business concerns of the institution, your familiarity with the minutiae of all its parts at home and abroad, as well as your personal endowments, all render you emphatically the man." Distrusting his gifts, Mr. Hovey at first took the chair of Rhetoric; but in 1836 was led to become the professor of Chemistry, Geology and Mineralogy. This department was divided in 1871, leaving Geology alone to him for the rest of his days. A pioneer college man must do whatever has to be done; from mending a gate to teaching astronomy. Mr. Hovey was accustomed to say, in his old age, that he had taught everything in the curriculum except the differential and integral calculus. From 1833 to 1839 he was the college librarian, during which period he collected and catalogued several thousand volumes. His services as treasurer covered twenty-six years, enabling him to turn over to his successor, Alexander Thomson, Esq., the sum of one hundred thousand dollars. He personally superintended the erection of the fist frame building, now known as Forest Hall; the original brick building, styled South Hall; the main building, known as Center Hall; and with General Carrington, the Armory, since turned into the Hovey Museum, and now used as a gymnasium. His early knowledge of farming enabled him to aid the agricultural experiments undertaken during the "manual labor" period. Together with President White he mustered the boys for tree-planting so that a younger growth of elms, maples and beeches might replace the monarchs of the primeval forest as the latter fell to decay. At his suggestion the first college band was formed, under the leadership of Philyer L. Wells; and he himself selected, at the house of Firth, Hall & Pond, in New York city, the bugle, horns, trombones, flutes, clarinets, drums, etc. that were stored in his attic during long vacations. When the first site of fifteen acres was deemed unsuitable Mr. Hovey, acting for the trustees, bought for six thousand dollars a quarter section from Major Whitlock and sold a hundred acres of it at auction for nine thousand dollars, keeping the remainder as a college reserve. Payment was in "wildcat" bills, which the hard-money Major refused to accept. Then Mr. Hovey went to Cincinnati, exchanged the bills for specie, took the silver dollars home, by mud-wagon from Indianapolis, in six square boxes, each containing one thousand dollars; had Tom Kelley, a tenant of the college, carry them in a wheel barrow to Major Whitlock, who counted them, dollar by dollar, and then gave his receipt for the sum. On one of the lots of the "college reserve" the Hovey house was built in 1837, space for it being cleared from the virgin forest. A number of the big trees were allowed to stand, around some of which wild grapevines twined fantastically burdened with many clusters. This property remained for sixty years in the hands of the family, and was finally sold as an eligible site for a presidential mansion, the original dwelling being removed to a place near the gymnasium to be used by the curator of the college campus. One night the five year old son of Mr. Hovey awoke his father with the strange cry, "Pap, why does God let Wabash College burn up?" In Professor Hovey's diary the following record occurs, for the 23rd of September, 1838: "About two o'clock this morning the cry of 'Fire, the College is on fire' was heard, and by half past two the whole roof and fourth story of our beautiful building was in a complete blaze." Only eight rooms were saved; but the library and philosophical apparatus were destroyed. That calamity was on Saturday, and on Monday rooms were rented in Hanna's Building, and by Tuesday recitations were resumed, only a single student having left by reason of the conflagration. The generous men of Crawfordsville rallied to the rescue, saying, "Rebuild and we will help." The friends of President Baldwin in New York urged him to resume his pastorate in that city, but he nobly said: "I will not give up Wabash College; there is only the more work to be done." Among the new friends raised up for Wabash College in its time of need should be mentioned Mr. and Mrs. Israel Williams, who were inmates of Mr. Hovey's family in 1840-41, with their daughter, who afterward became Mrs. S. S. Thomson. Mr. Williams endowed the professorship bearing his name, and he induced his brother-in-law, Mr. Chauncey Rose, of Terre Haute, to endow the Rose professorship of Geology, whereof Mr. Hovey was the first incumbent. Through the hands of the latter Mr. Rose passed a sum total of eighty thousand dollars for benevolent purposes, though not all the sum was for the college. One day, when putting into his hand fifty thousand dollars he playfully said, "Here Mr. Hovey are two thousand dollars more as your commission and for your own use." The Lord had already guided more than one benefactor to the treasurer's cottage. There one evening the prudential committee knelt in prayer because debts were due and the treasury empty. A knock at the door brought to them Mr. Jesse J. Brown, of New Albany, with an offering in cash that exactly met their need. An incident comes to mind when at another crisis, Mr. Hovey had been pleading in vain in Brooklyn, till footsore and heartsore he dropped in to the weekly prayer-meeting of the Plymouth church and meekly took a back seat. The topic was "Cheerfulness," and after the opening remarks he took occasion to thank the pastor and people for past generosity to the college of which Mr. Beecher had long been a trustee. "Come to the platform," said Beecher. The final result of the appeal that followed was a gift of ten thousand dollars to found the Beecher professorship. The hospitality of the Hovey home was abundant. A dozen nephews and nieces were treated like sons and daughters. Several orphans were practically adopted, one of whom afterward was the wife of Professor D. A. Bassett. The house was full of student-boarders, not for gain, but by parental urging. Some of them distinguished themselves in public life. All were required by domestic rules to bow daily at the family altar where prayer was wont to be made. The humble nucleus of the college cabinet was a lot of ores and crystals brought by Mr. Hovey from Vermont, augmented by tropical shells donated by Mrs. Baldwin, and specimens purchased from Prof. S. Harrison Thomson, in 1841. One day the little son of Prof. Hovey brought to his father what looked like a petrified toad; but which the wiser father identified as a crinoid-the first found of all the many thousand Crawfordsville crinoids that have enriched the museums of this and foreign lands. Corey's Bluff, the best known of the crinoid banks, yet remains in the possession of the family. In 1874, aided by his son and daughter, Dr. Hovey made out a numbered catalogue of ten thousand specimens for reference, with a written statement that there were in all some twenty-five thousand objects of natural history in the college cabinet. This included several hundred minerals, fossils and shells, and over two thousand botanical specimens indigenous to the region, that had been a memorial gift to his son. The varied cares of a busy professional life left this pioneer geologist scant time for describing or classifying the profusion of fossiliferous riches by which he was embarrassed. A volume might be filled with correspondence about them with such men as Silliman, Dana, Shepherd, Newberry, James Hall, Cox, Collett, and other scientists. Occasional articles from his pen found their way to the newspapers and magazines; but he had little time for the joys of authorship. A few of his sermons were published, and but few were left in manuscript, though he frequently occupied the pulpit, always being heard with attention by his intelligent hearers. It may be said that his sermonic appeals, like his own type of piety, were more intellectual than emotional. At its centennial celebration Dartmouth College honored him with the degree of Doctor of Divinity. His friends felt that it was merited. Dr. Hovey passed away after a short illness on the 10th of March, 1877. Mrs. Hovey survived him for several years, ending her useful life July 12, 1886, amid the familiar surroundings of the old home. Two children were born to them. One of these, Horace Carter Hovey, was born in Fountain county, January 28, 1833; and a sketch of his career appears elsewhere in this volume. Miss Mary Freeman Hovey, the daughter of Professor Hovey, was born at Crawfordsville, September 28, 1838, where she died June 4, 1897. She was a graduate of the Ohio Female College; for several years was a professor in the Kansas Agricultural College; taught for three or four years in the public schools in New Haven, Connecticut, but was best known by her faithful work as a teacher of young ladies, in her home at Crawfordsville, where, first and last she had under her care more than two hundred and fifty pupils. There are now living three grandchildren of Professor Hovey, one of them a namesake on whom his mantle has fallen, namely, Edmund Otis Hovey, Ph. D., a graduate of Yale University, and for the last twenty years a curator of Geology and Paleontology in the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. In the front wall of Center church, in Crawfordsville, a memorial window has been placed in honor of Professor Hovey; and a granite monument marks his resting-place in the beautiful Oak Hill Cemetery. But his most enduring monument is found in the noble work he did for religion and education. Montgomery County never had a more public-spirited citizen, though he never sought or held office outside of the college and the church. This sketch of his career may be fittingly closed by condensing the just tribute paid to him in the funeral discourse preached over his remains by the late President Tuttle: "Honored by his Alma Mater with her highest degree; honored as a preacher of the Word by his brethren in the ministry; honored by the community as an old Roman of the noblest type; honored by the church which he helped to found, and in which for thirty-eight years he was a pillar; honored as a founder, a trustee and a professor of Wabash College; honored with many other great trusts, all who knew him were witnesses that the consummate formula describing his life among men was: 'Faithful in the Lord.' His last years were singularly beautiful; as when maples in autumn are covered with dying leaves they are also lit up by supernal beauty. He moved among us tender, simple and loving as a child, trusting and joyful as a saint, fond of earth and most tenderly held by its ties, yet with lifted eye and shining face, and his head wearing the crown of glory which the loving God had given him." The privileged by-standers heard his expiring cry voice his ruling passion, "God bless Wabash College," after which simply came the parting prayer, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit."