John Dwight

John Dwight (twin), (son of Yale President Timothy and Mary Dwight), b. Sept. 1, 1784, grad. at Yale in 1802, d. of consumption July 25, 1803, at Hadley, Mass. He expected to become a clergyman. He had considerable poetic taste and talent, and obtained a prize of $20.00 offered by Noah Webster, the lexicographer, for the best poem that should be written by a student at college. He was remarkable for the sweetness of his disposition.

He d. away from home, and not one of his father's family could reach Hadley, now but a few hours distant from New Haven, in time to attend his funeral. His death was a source of intense and long continued grief to his father, and he rarely ever spoke of him at any time without tears. On his tombstone at Hadley is the following inscription, prepared probably by his father:

"Reader! if thou art a youth of hopeful talents, and an enlightened education, and an intense love of knowledge, a disposition distinguished by amiableness, and a life, by filial duty and fraternal affection, and an universal gentleness of demeanor: — remember, that, with all these advantages, thou art destined to the grave and to eternity. There was hope in his end; and may there be in thine!"

He was at Hadley, visiting the young lady (Miss Mary Kellogg, dau. of Giles Kellogg), to whom he was betrothed. She d. soon after him, as did Jerusha, dau. of Prest. Edwards, after the death of Rev. David Brainerd, the missionary, to whom she was engaged.

Source: Source: The history of the descendants of John Dwight, of Dedham, Mass., Volume 1 (Google eBook), Benjamin Woodbridge Dwight, J. F. Trow & son, printers and bookbinders, 1874, page 202-03. Downloaded 2011.