Page:Archæologia Americana—volume 2, 1836.djvu/595

OBITUARY NOTICE OF CHRISTOPHER C. BALDWIN, Late Librarian of the Society. By JOHN DAVIS, LL. D. [This article originally appeared in one of the weekly journals pub- lished at Worcester, soon after the melancholy intelligence of the death of Mr. Baldwin had been received by his friends. It is now re- printed, with the consent of the writer, as a just and appropriate tribute to the memory of a gentleman universally esteemed for his private worth, and highly respected as a most zealous and faithful officer of the Society. Pub. Com.] Died, August 20th, 1835, at Norwich, Ohio, Christopher Columbus Baldwin, Librarian of the American Antiquarian Society. Mr. Baldwin was instantaneously killed by the over- turn of a stage-coach in which he was travelling. Little is known, at present, of the circumstances occasioning this melan- choly occurrence, except that the horses became unmanageable from fright, and that Mr. Baldwin, having his skull fractured, was not probably sensible of the fatal injury which occasioned immediate death. A letter to the post-master of this place, however, gives assurance that every kind attention w r as bestowed upon him, and that he was decently interred. Of this we should entertain no doubt, independently of the honorable hu- manity of the people of Ohio, as we are informed that our benevolent fellow-citizen, Isaac Southgate, of Leicester, who is a friend to all in need, was also in the stage, and rendered to the deceased the last offices of humanity. Of Mr. Baldwin, who has long been favorably known among us, the public will expect more than the ordinary obituary record of his untimely decease. His course has not been in the beaten track, and his taste and habits deserve notice. He was the son of Eden Baldwin, Esq., of Templeton, in the county of Worcester. He was educated at Harvard Uni- versity, where his standing was respectable, and subsequently read law in this place ; and here, in 1825, he entered upon the practice, in which he continued, with reputation to himself, and increase of patronage, for a considerable period. The profes- sion was then, as it now is, crowded with numbers ; and Mr. Baldwin, who was rather inclined to distrust his powers to command success, preferred a field for action where competition