Abstract
Edward Rowland Sill, born at Windsor, Connecticut, on April 29, 1841, was a New Englander by more than accident of birth. In spite of his later wanderings and in spite of the broad experiences which made him acutely aware of the limitations of his boyhood home,1 he kept to the end of his days the moral enthusiasm that is the hallmark of the best New England culture. Indeed, from his ancestors he acquired an intellectual, as well as a spiritual, heritage, for in him were combined, as Elizabeth Stuart Phelps observed,2 the traditions of medicine and of the ministry. On his mother’s side, he was a Rowland, the child of a line of New England clergymen. On his father’s side, he was a Sill, inheriting from two generations of doctors a scientific curiosity which demanded knowledge as a buttress for faith.
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Footnotes Chapter I
For genealogical information on the Rowland family, see the Memorial of the Life and Services of the Late Rev. Henry A. Rowland, D. D. (New York, 1860), pp. 7–8; D. L. Jacobus, History and Genealogy of the Families of Old Fairfield (Fairfield, Conn., 1932), I, 506–509, II, 794–795; and H. R. Stiles, The History and Genealogies of Ancient Windsor, Connecticut… 1635–1891 (Hartford, Conn., 1891–1892), II, 664–667.
See Daniel Howard, A New History of Old Windsor, Connecticut (Windsor Locks, Conn., 1935), p. 58.
See Franklin B. Dexter, Biographical Sketches of the Graduates of Yale College with Annals of the College History, October, 1701–May, 1745 (New York, 1885), pp. 744–746.
See Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, “Edward Rowland Sill,” Century Magazine, XXXVI (September, 1888), 705.
See George G. Sill, Genealogy of the Descendants of John Sill (Albany, 1859), pp. 7–8. Further information concerning the Sill family may be found in H. R. Stiles, Ancient Windsor, II, 684–686, and in R. H. Walworth, Hyde Genealogy of the Descendants in the Female as Well as in Male Lines, from William Hyde of Norwich (Albany, 1864), II, 806–807.
Jabez Sill, moving into the Wyoming Valley in 1770, was a pioneer in the region. He built the second house in Wilkesbarre; his wife was one of the first women in the settlement; and his daughter’s marriage was the first wedding of the town. See Charles Miner, History of Wyoming (Philadelphia, 1845), pp. 138, 140, and Appendix 30, p. 49.
Daniel Howard, A New History of Old Windsor, p. 112, lists E. N. Sill as town clerk, “one of the most important of the town offices,” from 1803 to 1831. For E. N. Sill’s other offices, see G. G. Sill, Genealogy, p. 54, and the Roll of State Officers and Members of General Assembly of Connecticut from 1776 to 1881 (Hartford, 1881), pp. 218, 222, and 249.
Theodore Sill graduated in 1831. See the Catalogue of the Officers and Graduates of Yale University, 1701–1924 (New Haven, 1924), p. 489.
The Connecticut State Medical Society was organized as protection against haphazard medical practices and quackery. According to the Memorial of the Centennial of the Yale Medical School, 1814–1914 (New Haven, 1915), p. 13: “Before the formation of the Connecticut Medical Society, there were no qualifications for practice except one’s desire to practice the healing art.”
Theodore Sill’s name first appeared upon the membership rolls of the Society in 1833. He remained a member until 1852. In 1844 he served upon a committee that reported upon the proposed state hospital for inebriates. His dissertation, “Practical Observations on Typhous Fever,” was published in the Proceedings of the Connecticut Medical Society, 1846, pp. 19–36.
W. B. Parker, Edward Rowland Sill, His Life and Work (Boston and New York, 1915), pp. 296–297.
E. R. Sill to M. W. Shinn, May 9, 1884, in [Berkeley Club, Oakland, Cal.], A Memorial of Edward Rowland Sill ([Oakland, Cal.? 1887]), p. 106.
Elisha Noyes Sill, the third child of Elisha Noyes and Chloe (Allyn) Sill, was born in Windsor on January 6, 1801. He graduated from Yale at the age of nineteen, studied theology at Andover Seminary for two years, and then taught briefly at Windsor. In 1824, he married Elizabeth Newberry and five years later joined his father-in-law, Henry Newberry, in business at the latter’s new settlement at Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio. In the new land, Sill became a prominent figure, serving as president of the town bank, state senator, and Commissioner of Funds for the state of Ohio. After the death of his first wife, he married her younger sister, who bore him two daughters, the elder of whom later became the wife of his nephew Edward Rowland Sill. He outlived his second and his third wife, dying at the ripe age of 87. See Yale University, Obituary Record oj Graduates of Yale College, 1880–1890 (New Haven, 1890), pp. 417–418; Samuel A. Lane, Fifty Years and Over of Akron and Summit County (Akron, 1892), p. 773; and H. W. Perrier, ed., The History of Summit County (Chicago, 1881), pp. 479–480.
For comment on E. N. Sill, see E. R. Sill to Henry Holt, January 27, 1867, quoted in W. B. Parker, Life, p. 93. The appointment of E. N. Sill as administrator and guardian was made by the court on May 3, 1853. See Appointment for Guardian, E. R. Sill, Guardianship Records, Reel 2, Case 339, Summit County Courthouse, Akron, Ohio. No will was probated for Theodore Sill, but the request for appointment of a guardian (the court was requested by E. N. Sill to appoint W. F. A. Sill, a younger uncle living in Windsor, but ignored the request) contained an approximation of the estate which would be administered.
See F. H. Cunningham, Familiar Sketches of Phillips Exeter Academy and Surroundings (Boston, 1883), p. 312.
Lawrence M. Crosbie, The Phillips Exeter Academy (Exeter, 1923), pp. 94–101, describes the teaching careers of Gideon Lane Soule and Joseph Gibson Hoyt at some length. Soule, without being either original or progressive, was a masterful disciplinarian with a passion for thoroughness. His students learned fundamentals meticulously. Hoyt, on the other hand, inspired his students with his infectious enthusiasm and was known by the title, “the Great Teacher.” He was not only a brilliant mathematician, but also a classical scholar, as he demonstrated by becoming Professor of Greek at St. Louis University. For information concerning Henry Stedman Nourse, see the National Cyclopedia of American Biography, XIX, 215. Just out of Harvard, Nourse taught at Exeter only for the two years during which Sill was a student there. In 1855 he gave up teaching to become a civil engineer. He kept his scholarly interests, however, and in his later life was well known as an antiquarian and genealogist.
Theresa Orne and Sarah Ann Rowland were daughters of Sill’s granduncle, the Reverend William Frederick Rowland, minister at Exeter for thirtyeight years. See “Ministers in Rockingham County,” New England Historical and Genealogical Register, I, 155. Three other students besides Edward boarded with the two sisters during each of his years in the Academy. See the Catalogue of the Officers and Students of Phillips Exeter Academy, 1853–54, 1854–55. For further information on the Exeter branch of the Rowland family, see C. H. Bell, History of the Town of Exeter, New Hampshire (Exeter, 1888), p. 190; and The First Church in Exeter, 1638–1898 (Exeter, 1898), p. 95–96.
E. R. Sill, “The Left-Over Expression of Countenance,” Atlantic Monthly, LIX (February, 1887), 277. Prose, p. 339.
See L. M. Crosbie, The Phillips Exeter Academy, pp. 207–212. No literary exercises were demanded of the students until 1886.
Academy Hall, built in 1794, remained the central building of the school until 1870. See R. H. Bowles, “The Phillips Exeter Academy, the Old and the New,” New England Magazine, n.s., XXVIII (July, 1903), 608.
R. M. Stocker, History of the First Presbyterian Society of Honesdale (Honesdale, Pa., 1906), pp. 320–321.
E. R. Sill to Henry Holt, December 25, 1866, quoted in W. B. Parker, Life, p. 92.
See Helen M. Kitzmiller, One Hundred Years of Western Reserve (Hudson, Ohio, 1926), p. 32.
E. N. Sill served as Trustee of Western Reserve College from 1836 to 1860; as Treasurer from 1840 to 1842; and as Secretary from 1848 to 1850. See Frederick C. Waite, Western Reserve University, the Hudson Era (Cleveland, 1943), p. 478. Financially, he showed his generosity by the donation of $1500. See Carroll Cutler, A History of Western Reserve College, 1826–1876 (Cleveland, 1876), Appendix K, p. 87.
Before 1820, six of Edward’s Rowland ancestors had graduated from Yale, and three of his uncles had continued the tradition since then, Henry A., in 1823; William Sherman, in 1836; and James Edward, Medical School, in 1837. For the pride of the Rowlands in their Yale tradition, see Daniel Howard, A New History of Old Windsor, p. 383. The record of the Sills at Yale was much the same. Six members of the family had graduated from the college by 1831.
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Ferguson, A.R. (1955). Heritage of Boyhood. In: Edward Rowland Sill. International Scholars Forum. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-6648-7_1
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