Lanterna Rally

Author: Chester Dewey

Publisher:

Published: 2012-07-08

Total Pages:

ISBN-13: 9781614680796

In June 1826 the Berkshire Association of Congregational Ministers voted to commission a written history of the county. It was an ambitious project: The group envisioned a book that "would embrace everything important in it, whether natural or artificial, civil, literary, or religious." A History of the County of Berkshire, published in 1829, is the result of a fruitful collaboration. The two men most responsible for the finished bookRev. David Dudley Field and Professor Chester Deweytook their instructions to heart. They and the book's contributors produced a wonderfully detailed portrait of western Massachusetts: its natural history; the formation of settlements and local economies; its religious, political, and social history; and biographical sketches of eminent residents.Anyone interested in the early history of Berkshire County, its landscape, and people will find this book to be a bountiful resource.Chester Dewey was born on a farm in Sheffield, Massachusetts, in 1784, and graduated from Williams College in 1806. He briefly served as a minister before returning to Williams in 1808 as a tutor, achieving the rank of professor in 1810. He taught a range of subjects, including mathematics, physics, chemistry, geology, and botany. From 1827 to 1836 he was principal of the Berkshire Gymnasium (a boys' school) in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. Beginning in the 1820s and continuing for two decades he was a lecturer as two western New England Medical Schools. In 1836 he moved to Rochester, New York, to become head of the high school (later known as Rochester Collegiate Institute). In 1850 Dewey was a founding faculty member of the University of Rochester, where he taught chemistry and natural sciences until his retirement in 1861. He died in 1867.David Dudley Field, Sr., was a Congregational clergyman and historical writer. He was born in East Guilford (Madison), Connecticut, in 1871. He graduated from Yale in 1802 and held pastorates at Haddam, Connecticut, and Stockbridge, Massachusetts. He died in 1867 and is buried at Stockbridge Cemetery. Four of his sons achieved national distinction: David Dudley Field, Jr., lawyer, law reformer, and politician; Cyrus West Field, businessman and founder of Atlantic Telegraph Company, which laid the first Atlantic telegraph cable; Stephen Johnson Field, lawyer, jurist, and U.S. Supreme Court justice; and Henry Martyn Field, clergyman and author.