Nathaniel Dwight

Background

Nathaniel Dwight was born on January 31, 1770 in Northampton, Massachusetts, United States. He was tenth of the thirteen children of Maj. Timothy and Mary (Edwards) Dwight and seventh of their nine sons.

Education

Dwight's early education was probably in charge of his mother, the gifted daughter of Jonathan Edwards, who conducted a regular school for her children, and whose rare teaching ability was inherited by many of her descendants.

He may also have attended the school at Greenfield Hill kept by his brother Timothy, later president of Yale.

Apparently he did not go to college, but he later said himself that he was employed “several years in school-keeping. ”

He studied medicine under an eminent Hartford physician, Dr. Mason F. Cogswell; practised in Hartford, and served for a time as assistant surgeon in the army at Governors Island.

Career

Resigning from the army, Dwight practised in Westfield, Massachusetts and New London and Wethersfield, Connecticut.

In 1812 he entered the ministry and settled in Westchester, Connecticut, returning, however, to medical practise in 1820, in Providence, Rhode Island, and Norwich, Connecticut.

In 1795 he published A Short but Comprehensive System of the Geography of the World: by Way of Question and Answer, which went through numerous editions over a period of years. This effort was enthusiastically received as “better calculated to impress the facts which it contains on the minds of children than any heretofore published, ” but it was not, as has often been stated, the first school geography issued in the United States, The American Geography (1789), by Jedidiah Morse having preceded it. Dwight wrote another schoolbook, Sketches of the Lives of the Signers of the Declaration of Independence, first published in 1830, which continued to appear with slightly varying title in subsequent editions up to 1895.

As early as 1812, Dr. Nathaniel Dwight of Colchester sent to the convention of the Connecticut Medical Society a communication upon the subject of a hospital for lunatics in this State, and a committee was appointed to collect proper information and report.

Achievements

• Dwight's chief additional contribution seems to have been a constructive suggestion for improving the condition of the insane.

Works

More photos

• book

  • McClymonds High: The School Of Champions

    (Long before the prominent era of AAU basketball and the m...)

  • The lives of the signers of the Declaration of independence

    (The lives of the signers of the Declaration of independen...)

  • The Lives of the Signers of the Declaration of Independence

Personality

Like his brothers, Dwight was tall and well built, though not as fine-looking as most of them.

Connections

On June 24, 1798 Dwight married Rebecca Robbins, the daughter of Appleton Robbins and Mary Stillman. Four of their eight children died in infancy.

Father:

Timothy Dwight

Mother:

Mary (Edwards) Dwight

Spouse:

Rebecca Robbins

Brother:

Timothy Dwight