Sereno Edwards Dwight

Background

Sereno Edwards Dwight was born on May 18, 1786 at Greenfield Hill in Fairfield, Connecticut, United States. He was the fifth of the eight sons of the elder Timothy Dwight and his wife, Mary Woolsey.

Education

Dwight's early education was conducted at home and in his father’s school.

From 1796 to 1799 he attended the Hopkins Grammar School in New Haven; in 1803, at the age of seventeen, he graduated from Yale, of which his father was then president, and began his teaching career at Litchfield, Connecticut.

After another year, spent in general study, he was a tutor at Yale, in sole charge of half a class in mathematics, rhetoric, and the classics, and simultaneously studied law, which he practised in New Haven from 1810 to 1816.

Career

In 1812 Dwight fell victim to a severe lung fever, the mercury treatment for which produced a painful eruption which was to torture him for the rest of his days. Though successful in his law practise, in 1815 he decided to enter the ministry and on October 8, 1816, was licensed to preach by the West Association of Ministers of New Haven County. Shortly afterward he was appointed chaplain of the United States Senate, in which his father-in-law was representing Connecticut, and served during the session 1816-17. The following summer he accepted a call to the famous Park Street Church in Boston, being ordained and installed on September 3, 1817. He remained there until 1826, except for the year 1824-25, which he spent in European travel and a vain search for medical help.

Forced by vocal trouble and ill health to resign his pastorate, he returned to New Haven, and in 1828, in partnership with his youngest brother, Henry, opened a boarding-school for boys, the New Haven Gymnasium, modeled on the German plan. This project was highly successful, but neither brother had sufficient strength to keep it up, and in 1831 it was discontinued.

In 1833 he was called to the presidency of Hamilton College, of which his brother Benjamin Woolsey Dwight was then treasurer. He resigned on September 2, 1835, because of disagreement with the trustees, and he never accepted another office, except that of agent for the Pennsylvania Colonization Society which he held from 1835 to 1838.

In 1850 he went to Philadelphia, hoping to benefit from hydropathic treatments; but he died there in November of that year.

Dwight wrote his first book, The Hebrew Wife, published in New York many years later (1836), and republished in Glasgow (1837). In 1818 he prefaced a five- volume edition of Timothy Dwight’s Theology, Explained and Defended (1818 - 19) with a memoir of his father. Assisted by his wife, he worked for many years editing the complete writings of his great-grandfather, Jonathan Edwards; Edwards’s Memoirs of the Rev. David Brainerd was published in 1822, and ten subsequent volumes, one a memoir of the great divine, were published in 1830 as The Works of President Edwards: with a Memoir of his Life. Various sermons and addresses of his own were published, mostly in pamphlet form, during his lifetime, and after his death appeared a volume, Select Discourses of S. E. Dwight, D. D. (1851), with a memoir by his younger brother, Rev. William T. Dwight.

Achievements

• In partnership with his youngest brother, Henry, opened a boarding-school for boys, the New Haven Gymnasium, modeled on the German plan. As president of Hamilton College Dwight raised a $50, 000 fund, and also taught metaphysics, moral philosophy, and natural theology.

Works

More photos

• book

  • The Life of President Edwards (Classic Reprint)

    (Excerpt from The Life of President Edwards The length of...)

  • Memoirs of Jonathan Edwards, A. M., Revised Edition (With Active Table of Contents)

    (ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Jonathan Edwards was a preacher, theolo...)

  • The Hebrew Wife, or the Law of Marriage Examined in Relation (Classic Reprint)

    (Entered, aecording to the A ct of Congress, in the year 1...)

Personality

Dwight was over six feet tall, erect and dignified in his carriage, meticulous in details of dress, handsome and intellectual in countenance and altogether of commanding and striking presence.

Connections

On August 28, 1811 Dwight married Susan Edwards Daggett, daughter of David Daggett and Wealthy Ann Munson.

Father:

Timothy Dwight

Mother:

Mary Woolsey

Wife:

Susan Edwards Daggett