Edwin Hammond was born on May 20, 1801, in Middlebury, Vermont, United States, the son of Elnathan Hammond and Deborah (Carr) Hammond. He descended from Benjamin Hammond who came with his mother to Boston in 1634, through a grandson, Elnathan, who moved to Newport, Rhod Island, and was married there in 1728. At an early age, Edwin and his brother William started farming together, devoting themselves chiefly to the raising of horses, sheep, and cattle.
Sheep raising was then one of the most profitable branches of husbandry in northern New England, and one for which the rich pastures of Addison County were well adapted. The Hammond brothers at one time were keeping a flock of a thousand sheep, chiefly of the Saxony breed, but finding that changing conditions were making this breed less profitable, they turned their attention to the Merinos. This breed became permanently established in the United States in 1802 when David Humphreys, United States minister to Spain, succeeded in importing seventy ewes and twenty-one rams, but they had been crossed with the Saxony sheep to such an extent that the Merinos as a pure-blooded stock were rapidly becoming extinct.
The Hammond brothers visited the leading sheep-raising centers of New England in quest of the purest strain of Merinos obtainable. In January 1844, in company with R. P. Hall of Cornwall, they inspected the flock of Stephen Atwood at Woodbury, Connecticut, and after satisfying themselves that these sheep were full-blooded Merinos and obtaining documentary proof of descent from the original Humphrey importation, they purchased over a hundred ewes and rams. Using the Atwood sheep as a basis, they began through careful breeding and selection to build up a flock of pure-bred Merinos. Edwin devoted himself to the breeding side of the business and William attended to the management and practical care of the sheep, but after the death of the latter in 1858 Edwin carried on the work alone. He possessed keen judgment and an instinct which guided him in the determination of the qualities to be developed.
Year after year the Merino breed improved under his management, blemishes and defects were eradicated, desirable traits strengthened, and the dominant characteristics intensified. Other sheep raisers of the county specialized in the Merinos and share the credit for the improvement of the breed, but Hammond was generally recognized as foremost in the field. In 1881 seventy-one carloads, containing 6, 777 sheep, were shipped from Middlebury to various parts of the country as breeding stock.
Edwin Hammond was active also in other phases of agriculture. He gave aid and advice in the formation of the New England Agricultural Society and the National Woolgrowers Association and was a member of the executive committee of the latter. He was associated with the National Manufacturers’ Association in framing the schedule on wool and woolens in connection with the tariff of 1867.
Edwin Hammond was known as a leading sheep-breeding specialist of the Merinos in Addison County, which thanks to him, for several decades following the Civil War, was the chief Merino-breeding center of the country and its stock commanded fancy prices, five or six thousand dollars being paid for choice rams.
Hammond was a member of the board of trustees of Middlebury College and contributed generously to its funds.
Hammond was a founding member of the Vermont State Agricultural Society (1851) and served as its president for several years.
On December 29, 1828, Hammond was married to Alpha Olmsted, of Middlebury, by whom he had three children.
