Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1900, volume 5).djvu/731

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STODDARD
STODDARD

STODDARD, Joshua C., inventor, b. in Pawlet, Vt., 26 Aug., 1814. He was educated at the public schools, and became noted as an apiarist. He also turned his attention to inventing, and in 1856 devised the steam-calliope, which is used on Mississippi steamers. He also invented the Stoddard horse-rake and hay-tedder. More than 100,000 of his rakes are now in use.


STODDARD, Richard Henry, poet, b. in Hingham, Mass., 2 July, 1825. His father, a sea-captain, was wrecked and lost on one of his voyages while Richard was a child, and the lad went in 1835 to New York with his mother, who had married again. He attended the public schools of that city, but worked for several years in an iron-foundry, at the same time reading the best authors, particularly poetry. His talents brought him into relations with young men interested in literature, notably with Bayard Taylor, who had just published his “Views Afoot.” Stoddard had written verses from his early years, and in 1840 printed privately a collection in a small volume called “Footprints,” the edition of which he afterward destroyed. In 1852 he published a riper volume of poems, became a contributor to the “Knickerbocker,” and entered upon literary work. Writing as a means of subsistence became such a burden that, through Nathaniel Hawthorne, he obtained a place in the custom-house, and retained it from 1853 till 1870. He was confidential clerk to Gen. George B. McClellan in the dock department in 1870-'3, and city librarian in New York for about a year. He was literary reviewer on the New York “World” from 1860 till 1870, and has held the same office on the “Mail” and “Mail and Express” since 1880. He also edited for some time “The Aldine,” an illustrated periodical, which was discontinued. His mind and tastes are poetical, but he has done a good deal of booksellers' work from the urgency of circumstances. In 1853 he published “Adventures in Fairy Land” for young folks, and in 1857 “Songs of Summer.” abounding in luxuriant imagination and tropical feeling. Among his other works are “Town and Country,” for children (New York, 1857); “Life, Travels, and Books of Alexander von Humboldt,” with an introduction by Bayard Taylor (Boston, 1860; London, 1862); “The King's Bell,” a poem (Boston, 1862; London, 1864; New York, 1865); “The Story of Little Red Riding Hood,” in verse (New York, 1804); “The Children in the Wood,” in verse (1865); “Abraham Lincoln, a Horatian Ode” (1865); “Putnam, the Brave” (1869); and “The Book of the East,” containing his later poems (1867). He has edited “The Last Political Writings of Gen. Nathaniel Lyon” (1861); “The Loves and Heroines of the Poets” (1861); John Guy Vassar's “Twenty-one Years Round the World” (1862); “Melodies and Madrigals, mostly from the Old English Poets” (1865); “The Late English Poets” (1865); enlarged editions of Rufus W. Griswold's “Poets and Poetry of America” (1872); “Female Poets of America” (1874); and the “Bric-à-Brac Series” (1874). He has also edited several annuals, made translations, and written numerous monographs and prefaces, including monographs on Edgar Allan Poe and William Cullen Bryant. — His wife, Elizabeth Barstow, poet, b. in Mattapoisett, Mass., 6 May, 1823, was educated at various boarding-schools. At twenty-eight years of age she married Mr. Stoddard, and soon afterward she began to contribute poems to the magazines. These are more than of the merely agreeable, popular order; they invariably contain a central idea, not always apparent at first, but always poetical, though not understood by the average reader. No collection of her poems, distributed for twenty-five or thirty years through many periodicals, has been made. Years ago she published three remarkable novels. “The Morgesons” (New York, 1862); “Two Men” (1865); and “Temple House” (1867). Owing to various causes, they never sold to any extent, and had long been out of print when a new edition was published in 1888. They illustrate New England character and scenery, and are better adapted to the taste and culture of the present than to the time when they were written. She has also published a story for young folks, “Lolly Dinks's Doings” (New York, 1874).


STODDARD, Solomon, clergyman, b. in Bos- ton, Mass., in 1643; d. in Northampton, Mass., 11 Feb., 1729. His father, Anthony, came from Eng- land to Boston about 1630, was a member of the general court from 1665 till 1IJX4. and married a sister of Sir George Downing. Their son Solo- mon was graduated at Harvard in 1662, was ap- pointed " fellow of the house," and was the first librarian of the college from 1667 till 1674. His health being impaired, he went to Barbadoes as chaplain to the governor, and preached to the dis- senters there for nearly two years. In 1069 he be- gan to preach in Northampton, and on 11 Sept., 1672, he was ordained pastor of the Congregational church there, retaining this charge till his death. In February, 1727, Jonathan Edwards, his grand- son, at that time a tutor in Yah 1 , became his col- league. In addition to sermons, he published " Doctrine of Instituted Churches explained and proved from the Word of God," which was a reply to Increase Mather's "Order of the Gospel," and occasioned an exciting controversy (London, 1700): "Appeal to the Learned" (1709); "Guide to Christ" (1714); " Answer to Cases of Conscience" (Boston, 1722); "Question on the Conversion of the Indians" (1723); and "Safety in the Right- eousness of Christ " (4th ed., with preface by John Erskine, D. D., Edinburgh. 1792). His son. An- thony, clergyman, b. in Northampton, Mass.. !l Aug..' 1678: d. in Woodbury, Conn., 6 Sept.. 1700. was graduated at Harvard in 1697, and was minis- ter at Woodbury, Conn., from 27 May, 1702. till his death. He was clerk of probate forty years, was the lawyer and physician of his people, and one of the most extensive farmers in the town. He pub- lished an "Election Sermon" (New London. 1716). Another son, John, b. 11 Feb., 1681; d. in Bos- ton, 19 June. 1748. was graduated at Harvard in 1701, was for many years a member of the council of Massachusetts, chief justice of the court of com- mon pleas, and colonel of militia. His Journal of an Expedition to Canada, 1713-14," was printed in the "Genealogical Register" for January. 1851. Anthony's grandson, A 111 OS, soldier, b. in Wood- bury. Conn., 26 Oct.. 1762; d. in Fort Meigs, Ohio., 11 May, 1813, was a soldier from 1779 till the close of the war of independence, then clerk of the su- preme court in Boston, and practised as a lawyer in Ilallowell. Me., in 1792-'8. He was appointed a.