Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1900, volume 2).djvu/324

This page needs to be proofread.
302
EDES
EDGAR

Sept., 1776. He had married Caroline Calvert. sister and co-heir of the last Lord Baltimore, and died while on a visit to Maryland in 1784 "to look after his lady's estate," which he was entitled to by the treaty of 178.5. — His grandson, Sir Freder- ick, an officer in the British army, fell at New Or- leans, 24 Dec, 1814.— Sir Robert's brother, Will- iam, Lord Auckland, b. in 1744; d. 28 May, 1814, studied law and became a barrister. He was at different times secretary of state for Ireland, privy councillor and ambassador to France, Spain, and Holland, and in 1789 was made an Irish peer, with the title of Baron Auckland. He received the same title in the English peerage in 1793. He •was one of the lords of trade and plantations in 177(3, and one of the three commissioners sent by Lord North in 1788 to treat with the Americans.


EDES, Benjamin, journalist, b. in Charlestown, Mass., 14 Oct., 1732; d. in Boston, 11 Dec, 1803. His great-grandfather John came from England to Charlestown, Mass., about 1G74. Benjamin was educated in the public schools of C!liarlestown, and in 1755 he became, with John Gill, editor and proprietor of " The Boston Gazette and Country Journal," a patriotic sheet that exerted a powerful influence Just before the Revolution and during that struggle. In its columns first appeared John Adams's " Novanglus " letters, and Quincy, Warren, and other patriots were among its contributors. Mr. Edes, as one of the " Sons of liberty," took an act- ive part in the politics of his time, and was a caus- tic writer on the political questions of the day. In his house the patriots comprising the Boston tea- party" assembled on the afternoon of 16 Dec, 1773, and drank punch from a bowl that was sub- sequently given by Mr. Edes's family to the Massa- chusetts historical society, afterward disguising tliemsel ves as Indians in the " Gazette " office. Dur- ing the siege of Boston, Mr. Edes escaped to Water- town, where he continued the publication of the "Gazette." After forty-three years of editorship he discontinued it in 1798. Andrew Oliver, writing to England in 1768, says, referring to the " Gazette ": " The temper of the people may be surely learned from that infamous paper " : while Gov. Bernard, in one of his letters to the Earl of Hillsborough, advised the arrest of both Edes and Gill as publish- ers of sedition. At the beginning of the war Mr. Edes possessed a comfortable fortune, but after- ward lost it by the depreciation of the currency. — His son, Peter, b. in Boston, 17 Dec, 1756 : d. in Bangor, Me., 30 March, 1840, was educated at the Boston Latin-school. Two days after the bat- tle of Bunker Hill, when in his nineteenth year, he was arrested by Gen. Gage on the charge of " having fire-arms concealed in his house," and confined in Boston jail one hundred and seven days, in the same room with " Master " James Lovell of the Latin-school and *' Master " John Leach. Mr. Edes was afterward in business in Boston, and Newport, R. I., but removed in 1796 to Augusta, Me., where in 1797 he published the "Kennebeck Intelligencer." He afterward lived in Hallowell, Me., and finally settled in Bangor, Me., where he died. He published an edition of the " Fifth of March Orations," with a preface ad- dressed to the people of Boston (1785), and an ora- tion on Washington (Hallowell, Me., 1800). His journal, kept during his imprisonment, contain- ing a list of the prisoners taken at Bunker Hill, was published by one of his descendants (Bangor, Me., 1837). An interesting letter from Mr. Edes to his grandson about the " Boston tea-party " ap- pears in the "Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society " (December, 1871).


EDES, Henry Herbert, great-great-grandson of Benjamin's brother Thomas, merchant, b. in Charlestown, Mass., 29 March, 1849. He was edu- cated at the grammar and high schools of his native town, and in 1865 entered mercantile life in Boston, in which he has since continued. He be- came assistant treasurer of the " New England historic genealogical society" in 1869, and since 1873 has been a member of its publication com- mittee. He is also a fellow of tiie American anti- quarian society. Mr. Edes has been a member of the executive committee of the Boston civil-service reform association since 1881, and of the Massa- chusetts reform club since 1885 ; and since 1869 has been arranging the Charlestown archives (1629- 1847), which when complete will fill about 120 volumes. He has in manuscript a " Genealogy of the Edes Family," and is the author of " History of the Harvard Church at Charlestown, 1815-'79 " (Boston, 1879), besides many historical books and pamphlets, including " Connecticut Colonial Docu- ments," a reprint of papers contributed by him to the "New England Historical and Genealogical Register " in 1868-'71 (privately printed) ; " Me- morial of Josiah Barker, of Charlestown " (privately printed, Boston, 1871) ; " Charlestown's Historic Points" (1875). He also edited and wrote the in- troduction to Wyman's " Genealogies and Estates of Charlestown " (Boston, 1879) ; and contributed three chapters on Charlestown to " The Memorial History of Boston " (Boston, 1880-1).


EDES, Richard Sullivan, clergyman, b. in Providence, R. I., 24 April, 1810; d. in Boston, Mass., 26 Aug., 1877. He was sixth in descent from John Edes. He was graduated at Brown in 1830, and at Harvard divinity-school in 1834, and held various Unitarian pastorates, the last in Boston, Mass., retiring from the ministry in a few years. He was active in public afliairs, and took special interest in educational matters. Besides numerous discourses and addresses, he published a memoir of Peter Edes in the " New England Historical and Genealogical Register " (1862) ; " Journal and Letters relative to Two Journeys to the Ohio Country in 1788 and 1789 made by Col John May," with a biographical sketch (Cincinnati, 1873) ; and assisted in the preparation of " A Genealogy of the Descendants of John May" (Boston, 1878). — His son, Robert Thaxter, physician, b. in Eastport, Me., 23 Sept., 1838, was graduated at Harvard in 1858, and took his degree in medicine there in 1861. In September following he was appointed acting assistant surgeon in the U. S. navy, in January, 1862, assistant surgeon, and in May, 1865, passed assistant surgeon, resigning in the same month. Having taken an extended tour in Europe he then practised his profession at Hingham, Mass., Roxbury, and Boston, where in 1872-'5 he was assistant professor of materia medica at Harvard. lie held the full professorship from 1875 till 1884, and in 1884 was Jackson professor of clinical medicine. In 1886 Dr. Edes removed to Washington, D. C. He was for several years one of the visiting physicians at Boston city hospital. He is a member of various medical societies, was a contributor of many articles to medical journals, and to Peppers's " System of Medicine," and has published " Nature and Time in the Cure of Diseases " (Boston, 1868), and " Physiology and Pathology of the Sympathetic Nerve " (New York, 1869), both originally prize essays, and " Therapeutic Hand-Book of U. S. Pharmacopoeia " (1883). EDGAR, Henry Cornelius, clergyman, b. in Rahway, N. J., ll'April, 1811; d. in Easton, Pa., 23 Dec, 1884. He was graduated at Princeton in