ary, whose vigor of thought,
keenness of logic, and pulpit power are unsurpassed, was a descendant
of Mr. Edwards. The family has furnished several army chaplains and one
eminent chaplain of the United States senate. They have made many
churches prominent for the vigor of their pulpit utterances. The famous
Second church, Portland, Park street church of Boston, and many in New
Haven and other Connecticut cities and towns as well as many churches in
the Middle and Western States owe much to the descendants of Mr. Edwards.
Not one of the Jukes was ever elected to a public office, while more
than eighty of the family of Jonathan Edwards have been especially
honored. Legislatures in all sections of the country, governor's
councils, state treasuries, and other elective offices have been filled
by these men. They have been mayors of New Haven, Cleveland, and Troy;
governors of Connecticut, Ohio, and South Carolina; they have been
prominent in the Continental congress, in the constitutional conventions
of Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Ohio, Illinois, and Wisconsin.
They have represented the United States at several foreign courts;
several have been members of congress; three have been United States
senators, and one vice-president of the United States.
The Jukes lacked the physical and moral courage, as well as the
patriotic purpose, to enlist, but there were seventy-five officers in
the army and navy from the family of Mr. Edwards. This family has been
prominent as officers, chaplains, or surgeons, in the army and navy in
the three great wars. In the Civil war they were at Shiloh, New Orleans,
and with the Red river expedition, at Fort Fisher and Newbern, at Big
Bethel, Antietam, and Gettysburg, on Lookout mountain with Hooker, with
Sheridan in the Shenandoah, and were on the march to the sea with
Sherman.
One spinster of the family residing in Detroit expressed much regret
that she had no husband. The reason she gave, however, was highly
complimentary to the sterner sex,--because she had no husband to send to
the Civil war. Having none, she paid the regulation bounty and had a man
in the service of her country for three years in lieu of the husband she
would have sent if she had had one.
The Jukes were as far removed as possible from literature. They not only
never created any, but they never read anything that could by any
stretch of the imagination be styled good reading. In the Edwards family
some sixty ha
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