|
BALDWIN, son of Chauncey and Harriet (Hume) Baldwin, was born in Windsor,
Massachusetts, March 11, 1839. He prepared for college at Williston Seminary, Easthampton, Massachusetts, and Pittsfield High School, and entered our Class at its
organization, and remained until graduation. He became a member of the Alpha Delta Phi
fraternity, the 'Technician Literary Society, and was one of its presidents during Senior year,
and had the appointment of orator in the Adelphic Union Debate, October, 1861; and had
the assignment of an oration on the Commencement program.
After graduation, Baldwin entered Union Theological Seminary, New York City, and
was graduated in 1866. During the summer vacation of 1864 he did service in Virginia, with
the Army of the Potomac, as agent of the Sanitary Commission. After a year spent in
special study, our classmate became pastor of the Second Presbyterian Church in Peekskill,
New York, April 30, 1867. From this time until his final breakdown, Baldwin was, without
interruption, excepting one year spent in foreign travel, in pastoral service. "Having
preached every farewell one Sabbath evening, and his opening sermon the following Sabbath
morning."* His pastorates, after that at Peekskill-on-the-Hudson, were the Presbyterian
Church, Johnstown, New York, 1869 to 1873; Euclid Avenue Presbyterian Church, Cleveland, Ohio, 1873 to 1894, failing health compelling his resignation. This break was
followed by a year of travel in Europe, after which he accepted a call to the Mystic
Congregational Church, Medford, Massachusetts, where he was pastor from 1875 to 1881;
Second Presbyterian Church, Amsterdam, New York, 1881 to 1898. This was his last
pastorate, and he was compelled to relinquish this on account of ill health that at first took
the form of a serious throat trouble; but not long after a cancerous disease developed, and,
peacefully, and without pain, Baldwin entered into rest, November 26, 1899. Within a short
time after his resignation at Amsterdam, Baldwin was called to Iowa on business. Here for
about one year he was acting pastor over a weak church about ready to die, in Des Moines.
In this time he awakened new life in the church and placed it upon a firm foundation.
Baldwin's last pastorate, including the richest period of his professional life was at
Amsterdam, New York, a wide-awake manufacturing town not far from his second parish
in Johnstown, the shire of Fulton County. Here he spent seventeen years and did excellent
service. He won and held the general respect of the citizens of this busy and thriving town.
He found a strong and united church, and he built it up and made it still more flourishing.
Rev. Dr. McEwen, our classmate's successor in the Amsterdam pastorate, pays the following
tribute to Baldwin's life and influence in this church: "I have been impressed with the
strength, sincerity, tenderness, tact and wisdom with which he did his work. Foibles and
follies were never mentioned in connection with his name. He left a strong and united
church. As a true and loving pastor, and an earnest and devoted citizen, he had gone in and
out among his fellows for nearly a score of years, commanding confidence in the community
and winning the love of those whom he met."
In 1890, Baldwin was honored with the degree of Doctor of Divinity by Union College
of Schenectady, New York. In 1874 he married Miss Elizabeth Cady McMartin, of Johnstown, New York, who survives him and is at present (1902) living in Medford,
Massachusetts. They had one child, a son, Charles Hume Baldwin, born December 23, 1876,
in Medford, Massachusetts. He prepared for college at Amsterdam Academy and Lawrenceville School, New Jersey, and was graduated from Williams in the Class of 1900.
He is at present (1902) studying medicine at the Harvard Medical School, Boston,
Massachusetts.
*Records of Medford (Mass.) Historical Society.
Source:
Class of Sixty-Three Williams College Fortieth Year Report, by
the Class Historian, Thomas Todd Printer, Boston, 1903
|
