General Court of Massachusetts, was in 1684 made Speaker of the House of
Representatives. He was eminent in his day among Boston business-men,
was a witness to the will of Governor Leverett, was one of the sureties
on the bond of Emma, widow and administratrix of the estate of Moses
Maverick, of Marblehead, in 1686; succeeded to his father in the
ownership of a portion of Long Island in Boston Harbor, and in 1694
sold "Beudal's Dock," then in his possession. His wife Emma (nee
Roberts), upon his death in 1702, was appointed executrix of his estate.
From John, and other descendants of Gamaliel Wayte, are traced the
Watertown, Medford, and Brookfield branches of the family, whose
representatives are found in all parts of the United States. A memorial
of the last named branch is found in the historic "Wait Monument" at
Springfield, Mass., erected in 1763 to mark the old "Boston Road." It
appears that Mr. Wait, mistaking his way at this point, nearly perished
in a snow-storm, and erected this waymark for the benefit of future
travellers. It is about four feet high, two feet broad, and one
foot thick, and, beside Masonic emblems, bears two Latin
inscriptions,--"VIRTUS EST SUA MERCES," and another, of which only the
word "PULSANTI" remains. Beneath are the words,--
BOSTON ROAD.
THIS STONE IS ERECTED BY
JOSEPH WAIT, ESQ., OF BROOKFIELD,
FOR THE BENEFIT OF TRAVELLERS, 1763.
The stone is of a dark red, similar to the Long Meadow stone, and is
supposed to have been cut by Nathaniel Brewer. By a singular
coincidence, it marks the spot where the celebrated "Shay's Rebellion"
culminated in an encounter between the insurgents and the Springfield
militia under General Shepard, and bears upon its face the scars of the
opposing bullets.
Thomas, one of the Malden descendants of Gamaliel, removed to Lyme,
Conn., about the year 1700, where he married, in 1704, Mary Bronson, a
granddaughter of Matthew Griswold, the ancestor of a family
distinguished in American history. Remick, a grandson of the Thomas last
referred to, married Susannah Matson, whose sister was the mother of
Connecticut's noble war governor, Hon. William A. Buckingham. The first
child of Remick and Susannah (Matson) Wait, born in Lyme, Feb. 9, 1787,
was Henry Matson, who, when of legal age, restored to the name the final
letter, which had been for some time omitted by many of the descendants
of Gamaliel Wayte. Henry Matson Waite was fitted for college at the
academy in Colchester, and graduated at Yale with distinction, in 1809.
He studied in the office of Gov. Matthew Griswold, and his brother,
Lieut.-Gov. Roger Griswold; became a lawyer of marked ability; was
repeatedly made a member of the legislature; in 1832 and 1833 was a
member of the state senate; in 1834 was made associate of the supreme
court of Connecticut; and in 1854, by the almost unanimous vote of the
legislature, was elevated to the position of chief justice. He held this
office until 1857, when he retired, having reached his seventieth year,
the legal limit as to age. He died Dec. 14, 1869, full of years and full
of honors. His wife, married in 1816, was Maria, daughter of Col.
Richard Selden, of Lyme, and granddaughter of Col. Samuel Selden, of the
revolutionary army. By her he had eight children. The first born of
these was Morrison Remick, the most distinguished of the members of this
old and honorable family.
Hon. Morrison Remick Waite, LL.D., Chief Justice of the United States
Supreme Court, was born in Lyme, Conn., Nov. 29, 1816. He graduated with
distinction from Yale College in 1837, in a class which included Hon.
William M. Evarts, Edwards Pierrepont, and Prof. Benjamin Silliman, Jr.,
and began the study of law in his father's office. He finished his
studies, preparatory to admission to the bar of Ohio, in the office of
Samuel M. Young, in Maumee City, in that state, and, on his admission,
formed a partnership with Mr. Young. In 1840 the firm removed to Toledo,
and there continued their law-partnership until Mr. Waite's youngest
brother, Richard, who graduated at Yale College in 1853, was admitted to
the bar, when the brothers formed a new partnership, which existed until
the senior partner received his present appointment. He was married
Sept. 21, 1840, to Miss Amelia C. Warner, a resident of his native town.
He received the degree of LL.D. from Yale College in 1872, and, a year
prior to his appointment as chief justice, was admitted to the bar of
the United States Supreme Court, on motion of Hon. Caleb Cushing, whose
name was subsequently spoken of in connection with the office of chief
justice. It was not until 1849 that Judge Waite, as he was called by
courtesy, occupied a public position. He was then elected a member of
the Ohio House of Representatives for the sessions of 1849 and 1850.
Although frequently urged to allow the use of his name as a candidate
for Congress, and other positions, he subsequently declined to hold
office. On two or three occasions, he was offered a position on the
supreme bench of his adopted state, offers which he also declined. The
esteem in which he was held by the citizens of Ohio is marked by the
fact that he was unanimously chosen as the representative from Toledo
in the Ohio Constitutional Convention in 1874, of which body he was made
president.
In 1871, as is generally known, Mr. Waite was appointed one of the
counsel in the matter of the Alabama claims, to prepare the case of the
United States and present the same before the Court of Arbitration at
Geneva. While the most prominent part was assigned to the senior
counsel, Mr. Cushing, it is the opinion of those familiar with the
arguments, including Mr. J. C. Bancroft Davis, that Mr. Waite
contributed in a very large degree to the success of the case of the
United States, and thus to the peaceful settlement of long standing and
bitterly contested questions of the gravest national concern. A writer
in the Boston Evening _Transcript_, date of Dec. 6, 1874,--Mr. A. H.
Hoyt, to whom we are indebted for many of the facts here recorded,--very
accurately describes the characteristics of the chief justice at that
time as follows: "He has the reputation of possessing a vigorous
intellect, which very readily and clearly grasps the facts and the law
of a case. He has a sound and well-balanced judgment and a large share
of practical common sense. He is blessed with robust health, is
industrious in his habits, and possesses an equable temper. His
appointment was not prompted by motives of party or political policy. He
will enter into his office untrammelled by close political alliances,
and free from the biases and prejudices engendered and fostered by party
spirit and party contests." The truth of these words has been more than
proven by the dignity, ability and impartiality with which Mr. Waite has
filled his high office,--an office in the esteem of many the most
important and honorable in the gift of the American people. In
Washington, as in Toledo, Mr. Waite's home is one of unostentatious
comfort rather than elegance, commendably in contrast with those of many
men at present prominent in political circles at the national capital.
His home and private life may be said, in brief, to present a notable
example of the simplicity, quiet dignity, and domestic virtues which
should characterize the home and life of a republican citizen in exalted
station. Those who have enjoyed familiar acquaintance with him speak of
him as affable, thoroughly unaffected, as a good conversationalist, well
informed in history, literature, philosophy, and the sciences, and as a
close student of social, financial, and all political questions of the
day. His interest in these respects is evidenced by his connection with
the management of the "Peabody Fund," as a trustee, and with the
important non-partisan movement in the direction of political education
recently inaugurated by the American Institute of Civics, a corporate
institution, national in scope, of whose advisory board he is president.
Judge Waite was married to Miss Amelia C. Warner, of Lyme, Conn., Sept.
21, 1840. Mrs. Waite is a woman of fine mind, engaging manners, and
great force of character, and is in every way worthy of the position in
life to which her husband's distinguished abilities have exalted her. Of
their living children all save one--Miss Mary F. Waite, highly esteemed
because of her personal qualities and her deep interest in philanthropic
and charitable work--have gone forth from the home roof to occupy
honorable positions in homes of their own. Judge Waite and family are
communicants and active co-operators in the work of the Protestant
Episcopal church.
We have traced the descent of the Hon. Morrison R. Waite to Remick, a
grandson of Thomas and Mary Bronson Wait, of Lyme. Among other grandsons
of Thomas was Marvin, who became a noted member of the Connecticut bar,
having his office in Lyme, where he was a partner of Gen. Samuel Holden
Parsons, a nephew of Gov. Matthew Griswold. Marvin Wait was a member of
the electoral college chosen after the war, and cast his vote for
Washington. He was nineteen times made a member of the Connecticut
General Assembly, was several years judge of the county court, and was
one of the commissioners for the sale of the state's land in the
northwestern territory. Judge Marvin Wait was the father of that honored
citizen of Connecticut, Hon. John T. Wait, LL.D., who was born in New
London, and graduated at Washington (now Trinity) College, Hartford, in
1842, held the office of state attorney in 1863, headed the electoral
ticket cast for Lincoln in 1864, was elected to the state Senate in
1865, and in 1866 presided over that body. In 1867 he was speaker of the
national House of Representatives, and from that time to the present has
been almost regularly returned to that body, where he has a recognized
position as one of the ablest, most upright, and most influential of its
members. He is familiarly known in New London, where, with his family,
he has always resided, as "Colonel Wait," and is not merely esteemed,
but beloved, by his fellow-citizens of all parties and creeds.
From these notes concerning Gamaliel Wayte and his descendants we now
turn to his elder brother Richard.
Richard Wayte was born in England in 1596. His name first appears upon
the colonial records Aug. 28, 1634, when, at the age of thirty-eight, he
was admitted to the church in Boston, his younger brother, Gamaliel,
having been admitted in the previous year. It appears that he took the
freeman's oath March 9, 1637, and that November 30 of the same year, in
company with his brother Gamaliel, he was found guilty of too much
sympathy with the religious views of Mr. Wheelwright and Mrs. Anne
Hutchinson, and by a judgment very suggestive of the church militant,
was thereupon sentenced to be disarmed. This enforced retirement to the
walks of peace was of brief duration, as in 1638 we find him an active
member of the "Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company." In 1640 he
united with other residents of Mt. Wollaston in a petition for the
formation of the town of Braintree. In 1647 he was sent as an officer
with a message to the Narragansett Indians, and went on a similar errand
in 1653. In 1654 we find him occupying the honorable and difficult
position of marshal of the Massachusetts colony, a post which he seems
to have filled to the satisfaction of the colonists for many years, and
in which he was succeeded, as will be seen, by his son Return. In the
same year (1654) he took an important part in an expedition against the
Narragansett Indians. October 20, 1658, on account of services in the
Pequot war and elsewhere, he received from the General Court a grant of
300 acres of land, "in the wilderness between Cochituate and Nipnop, 220
acres on a neck surrounded by Sudbury River, great pond, and small
brook, five patches, 20 acres meadow, and 60 acres on northeast side
Washakum Pond," all now included in Framingham, Mass., and a part of
which is supposed to be now occupied by the Lake View Chautauqua
Assembly, whose Hall of Philosophy stands on the summit of the elevation
still known as "Mt. Waite." In 1659 Marshal Wayte was voted L5 from the
public treasury in recognition of "his great and diligent pains, riding
day and night, in summoning those entertaining Quakers to this court."
October 16, 1660, his prowess was recognized by an appointment as
"governor's guard (John Endicott at that time occupied this position) at
all public meetings out of court."
From these fragmentary records we learn enough to indicate that the
first marshal of the Massachusetts colony was a man of no ordinary
character. His was a semi-military position, devolving upon him, not
only the duty of executing the ordinary behests of the General Court,
but of acting an important part as an aid to the governor in devising
means for the defence of the colonists against their Indian foes.
Marshal Waite was proprietor of a tailoring establishment, and an owner
of real estate on Broad Street. He was twice married, and was the father
of fourteen children--eight by his first wife, who died in 1651, and six
by his second wife, Rebecca Hepbourne. Of these, three died at an early
age; two (Nathaniel and Samuel) are not mentioned in their father's
will; of the eight remaining, three only were sons. These, Return,
Richard, and John, each married and left children. Return, one of the
sons of Marshal Wayte, born in 1639, was an officer in the Ancient and
Honorable Artillery Company, was his father's successor as marshal, and
also succeeded to his father's business. It appears that in 1679 he
imported "part of the show that appeared at Gov. Leverett's funeral,"
taking a personal part in the ceremonies. He died in 1702, aged
sixty-three years. He had seven children by his wife Martha. The name of
his first born, Return, is connected with the romantic story so
charmingly told in "The Nameless Nobleman," a book published by Ticknor
& Co. He married, in 1707, the heroine of this book, Mary, the wife of
the nobleman, Dr. Francis Le Baron. Thomas, his second son, born in
1691, was a well-to-do shopkeeper, owning land on Leverett's Lane, Queen
Street, Cornhill, and elsewhere, including a tenement on King Street,
known as the "Bunch of Grapes." He was for twenty years or more a deacon
in the first church, to which he left, in his will (proved in 1775), a
silver flagon with twelve shillings for each of its poor.
The third son of Marshal Return, and grandson of Marshal Richard, was
Richard Waite, third of the name, born Oct. 21, 1693, and married to
Mary, daughter of John Barnes, in 1722. He was a resident of Middleboro,
in 1715; Taunton, in 1718, and afterward of Plymouth, save for a short
time, when he purchased a residence on Leverett's Lane, paying for the
same L3,700, owning also other property on Cornhill. He conducted a
profitable business as a merchant in the coasting trade, and was himself
for many years captain of a vessel plying between Plymouth and New
London. He had eleven children, three sons and eight daughters. Of these
Richard, the fourth of the name, was born in Plymouth, Oct. 6, 1745.
Members of the family having previously gone to Vermont (giving a name
to Waitsfield), Richard, after a brief residence in Boston, removed to
that state, settling at Bennington, and from there went to the pioneer
region in the "Black River Country" in New York, settling at Champion.
He married Submit Thomas, at Hardwick, Mass., in 1747, and had nine
children, four of them sons. Of these, James, born at Bennington, Vt.,
May 13, 1789, married at Dummerston, Vt., Esther L. Coughlan, who was
the daughter of an Irish gentleman, and a woman of fine culture and
great personal attractions. He spent the chief part of his life upon the
estate in Champion occupied by his father.
Of his seven children, one, Rev. Hiram Henry Waite, M. A., born Aug. 13,
1816, lately pastor of the Waverly Congregationalist Church, Jersey
City, N. J., and now of the Congregationalist Church, Madison, N. Y., is
well known among Congregational clergymen as an able, faithful, and
successful minister, his services, wherever he has labored, having been
signally blessed in every way. He married in 1843 S. Maria Randall at
Antwerp, N. Y., by whom he has now living three daughters and one son,
Henry Randall Waite, Ph. D., of West Newton, Mass., who is prominent
among the younger representatives of this ancient New England family. On
the maternal side his descent is traced from the Randalls and Carpenters
of New Hampshire, stocks from which have sprung many notable men. Both
his paternal and maternal grandfathers were soldiers in the war of 1812;
his ancestors were also active participants in the war of the
Revolution, and at a still earlier date, as we have seen, participants
in the wars with the Narragansetts and other Indian tribes. To his
Puritan ancestry we may trace his sturdy independence, his originality,
and persevering industry; while to his Celtic progenitors may be due
something of his generous and genial nature. He graduated in 1868, at
Hamilton College, with an excellent reputation as a scholar and thinker;
and in the same year became one of the editors of the Utica _Morning
Herald_, where his abilities as a critical and literary writer soon
gained recognition. Subsequently he studied theology at Union
Theological Seminary in the city of New York, and in 1872 visited
Europe.
He supplied the pulpit of the American Chapel in Paris for a short time,
and afterward visited Rome, where he was invited to assist in the
establishment of what became under his labors a flourishing and useful
church for resident and visiting Americans, the first for
English-speaking people tolerated within the walls. In the pastor's
parlors, facing the windows of the Propaganda Fide, many notable
assemblies were gathered. Here were taken the first steps toward the
organization of a union of the Sunday-school forces in Italy. Here were
held important meetings of the Italian Bible Society, and here was
organized the first Young Men's Christian Association in Italy, its
members including Italians of every evangelical faith. He established a
Bible training school for Italian young men, so planned as to secure the
approval and co-operation of Italian ministers of every denomination,
and was also instrumental in the establishment of a school among the
soldiers of the Italian army stationed in Rome, out of which grew a
church, composed wholly of men in the military service, its creed being
that of the Apostles. Many persons, native and foreign, assisted on the
occasion, memorable in the history of religious progress in Rome, when
the sacrament of the Lord's Supper was administered to these modern
soldiers of Caesar's household. This work has been efficiently continued
to this day under other direction, and thousands of ex-soldiers in all
parts of Italy have borne with them to their homes the influence of
their Catholic Christian training in the _Scuola_ of the _Chiesa
Evangelica Militare_.
Dr. Waite's inquiries early led him to look upon sectarianism as one of
the most serious obstacles to the progress of evangelical truth in
Italy, and to the belief that the presentation of a united Christian
front, in agreement upon the fundamental truths of the gospel, was
essential to that influence upon the mind which would bring the most
hopeful elements among the Latin peoples into practical unity with
Protestant Christianity. He therefore energetically espoused the cause
of Christian unity, of which the church in Rome, in its ingathering of
worshippers of all creeds, was made a notable example.
In 1875 he returned to the United States, and, resuming editorial work,
was for a time editor of the New Haven _Evening Journal_, and then of
the _International Review_, in New York, in both of which positions he
added largely to his reputation as a scholar, thinker, and trenchant and
graceful writer. In 1876 he received from the University of Syracuse,
_pro causa_, the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, and was at the same
time invited to become a non-resident professor of Political Science in
that institution. He had previously accepted a call to the pastorate of
the Huguenot Memorial Church at Pelham on the Sound, where he purchased
an estate known as "Bonny Croft," and in the midst of most congenial
surroundings remained until 1880, when, upon invitation of Gen. Francis
A. Walker, superintendent of the Tenth Census of the United States, he
undertook the direction of the Educational and Religious Departments of
the Census.
Dr. Waite has an acknowledged position as one of the most accomplished
statisticians and most thoroughly informed educational authorities in
the United States. Doubtless in recognition of this fact, at the
Inter-State Educational Convention held in Louisville in 1883 and
composed of delegates appointed by the governors of the several states,
he was invited to deliver the opening address, a paper on the Ideal
Public School System, which was characterized by the Chairman of the
convention as "one of the best ever read before a like body." Aside from
editorial work he has furnished frequent contributions to various
periodicals, and has gained a special reputation as a writer upon
politico-economic subjects. Two of these contributions recently
published in the form of a brochure by D. Lothrop & Co., under title of
"Illiteracy and Mormonism," have attracted especial attention among
those interested in these important questions. When residing in New York
he was President of the Political Science Association, and Chairman of
the Executive Committee of the National Reform League, one of the
pioneer organizations for the reform of the civil service; and while
residing in Washington was president of the Social Science Association
of the District of Columbia.
Dr. Waite is a logical, fluent and earnest speaker, and his reputation
as a student of educational and social problems has led to a frequent
demand for his services on the part of committees concerned with
legislative questions, and at assemblies of leading educators. He
presided and delivered an address at one of the sessions of the National
Educational Assembly at Ocean Grove, in 1883, and in an address at one
of the meetings of the National Educational Association at Madison,
Wis., in 1884, following Mgr. Capel, to whose covert attack upon our
public school system he made, as reported in the Chicago _Tribune_, a
temperate but caustic and able reply. At the last meeting of the same
association, at Saratoga, he delivered an address upon the Tenure of
Office and Compensation of Teachers, which is characterized by the Iowa
_School Journal_ as one of the specially fine papers of the occasion. In
connection with his editorial labors, he discharges the duties of
President of the American Institute of Civics, an organization lately
incorporated, "for the purpose of promoting the study of political and
economic science and so much of social science as is related to
government and citizenship"; the aim of the institution being to secure,
in every walk in life, a more thorough preparation for the duties of
citizenship. Notable among the officers of this worthy institution are
Chief Justice Waite, Senator Colquitt, Hon. Hugh McCulloch, President
Porter of Yale College, President Seelye of Amherst, Senator Morrill of
Vermont, Hon. John Eaton, U. S. Commissioner of Education, Hon. Carroll
D. Wright, Hon. Mellen Chamberlain, D. C. Heath, Gen. H. B. Carrington,
Daniel Lothrop, and Robert M. Pulsifer, with hundreds of members of
equal eminence.
Dr. Waite has had several invitations to accept important positions in
connection with educational institutions, none of which he has thought
it advisable to accept.