Sophia Woodbridge Dwight

Mrs. Sophia W. Dwight was remarkable for her great personal beauty and grace of mien and manners, as well as for her superior intellect, and the loveliness of her disposition and character. Her nature was full of vitality, and her heart of magnanimous impulses. All the aspects of life that gave it significance to her, its interests, duties, charms, and treasures were of a thoroughly religious kind. Her moral convictions filled her whole nature to the full with light and heat from above. She illuminated her home, while she was in it, with the brightness of her joy-inspiring presence there, and, never, since she went up from it to one higher and better, has the memory of that home been without the halo, left in the hearts of her children, of her well-remembered inspiration of all the higher life that it had within its walls.

Her health, originally fine, became greatly impaired the winter before her marriage, and never recovered its former high tone again. For the last dozen years of her life it was miserably poor, and her fine intellect settled, in the end, into sad decadence, and even imbecility. She d. Dec. 3, 1861, aet. 69. See, for full sketch of her character and life, "In Memoriam."

[For her Strong lineage, see History of Strong Family, and, for her general Woodbridge pedigree. For her immediate Woodbridge kindred, see Appendix of this book. For a brief sketch of her Eliot lineage, see below.]

[Eliot Lineage.

Her grandfather, Rev. John Woodbridge of S. Hadley, Mass., b. Dec. 25, 1702, and settled as pastor at S. Hadley for forty-one years, (1742-83), was the son of Rev. John Woodbridge of West Springfield, Mass., b. June 10, 1678, and Jemima Eliot, b. Nov. 14, 1679 whom he m. Nov. 14, 1699. She was the daughter of Rev. Joseph Eliot, b. Dec. 20, 1638, grad. at Harvard in 1658, who was pastor at Guilford, Ct., for 30 years (1664-94), and Sarah Brenton, his first wife (dau. of Gov. Wm. Brenton of R.I., and Martha Burton, dau. of Thomas Burton of Boston).

Rev. Joseph Eliot had eight children. They were: (By Sarah Brenton.)

I. Mehitable, b. Oct. 4, 1676, m. William Wilson, and d. without issue, April 14, 1723.

II. Ann, b. Dec. 12, 1677, m. Dec. 20, 1698, Hon. Jonathan Law, of Milford, Ct., Gov. of Conn, and Chief Justice. He was b. Aug. 6, 1674, and d. Nov. 6, 1750. She d. Nov. 16, 1703.

They bad a dau. Ann, whose dau. Abigail m. Rev. John Foote of Cheshire, who were the parents of Hon. Samuel Augustus Foote, Gov. of Conn, and (J. S. Senator.

III. Jemima, b. Nov. 14, 1G79, who m. Rev. John Woodbridge.

IV. Bashua, b. in 1682, m. Augustus Lucas of Fairfield, Ct., a Huguenot refugee. Their dau. Mary Lucas, b. in New Haven, Dec. 8, 1735, in. Hon. James A. Hillhouse of New Haven.

Rev. Joseph Eliot of Guilford, after the death of his first wife, Sarah Brenton, in. about 1084-5, for a 2d wife, Mary Wyllys (dau. of Hon. Samuel Wyllys of Hartford, and Ruth Haynes, dau. of Gov John Haynes, Gov. of Mass. and afterwards of Conn.). He had (By Mary Wyllys.)

V. Rev. Jared Eliot, D.D. and M.D., b. Nov. 7, 1685, grad. at Yale in 1706, who m. Elizabeth Smieton and had 11 children. He was a man of universal genius. (See Sprague's Annals, vol. ii. p. 321.) He d. April 22, 1763.

VI. Abial Eliot, b. in 1688. m. Mary Leete. Their son Nathaniel m. Beulah Parmelee, and they had a dau. Mary Eliot, b. May 1, 1762, who m. Israel Halleck — who were the parents of Fitz-Greene Halleck.

VII. Mary Eliot, b. in 1687, who was four times married: 1st to Samuel Hart of Durham, Ct., 2d to Abraham Pierson of Clinton, Ct., 3d to Richard Treat of Wethersfield, Ct., 4th to Samuel Hooker of Kensington, Ct.

VIII. Rebecca, b. in 1690, m. John Trowbridge; and, 2d, Ebenezer Fiske of New Milford, Ct.; and, 3d, Dea. William Dudley of North Guilford, Ct.

The parents of Rev. Joseph Eliot of Guilford, Ct., were John Eliot and Ann Mountfort. He was b. in England in 1604, and m. her in Boston, Oct. 1632. She was b. in 1004, and d. March 24, 1087, aet. 84. He d. May 20, 1090, aet. 80. She was remarkable for her energy of character and her fervent piety. The Eliot family is traceable (back to the landing of William the Conqueror in England) to Sir William De Aliot, a Norman knight.

John Eliot, "the Apostle to the Indians," was grad. at Cambridge, England, and excelled as a classical scholar and theologian. He was settled, for 58 years, as pastor at Roxbury, Mass. (1632-90). He was remarkable for his great piety and self-forgetful generosity.

(See "History of the Eliot Family.")

Source: The history of the descendants of John Dwight, of Dedham, Mass , Volume 1 (Google eBook), Benjamin Woodbridge Dwight, pub. by J. F. Trow & son, printers and bookbinders, 1874, pages 178-79. Downloaded 2011.