Hale County AlArchives Biographies.....Wadsworth, Edward August 28 1811 - 1889
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Ann Anderson alabammygrammy@aol.com May 26, 2004, 8:28 pm

Author: Brant & Fuller (1893)
   REV. EDWARD WADSWORTH, D. D., A. M., B. A., was born in Newberne, N. C.,
August 28, 1811. He was the son of Thomas and Eleanor Bryan Wadsworth, both of
whom were born and reared in North Carolina. Thomas Wadsworth was a merchant in
Newberne, married, reared his family and died there as also did his wife. The
family consisted of four sons and one daughter. The Wadsworth family is one of
the oldest and most prominent in the United States. They came to this country
from England, but are said to have had a French origin. At an early day three or
four brothers came from England to America, one of whom, Ignatius Wadsworth,
selected North Carolina for his home. He was the father of Thomas Wadsworth. The
poet Woodworth, author of the "Old Oaken Bucket" and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow,
were descended from the same family. The mother of Rev. Edward Wadsworth was a
lineal descendant of Gen. Nathan Bryan, a distinguished character of the
Revolution, and a member of congress when that body met at Philadelphia, he
dying while yet a member. Dr. Edward Wadsworth was converted September 24, 1829,
and was received on trial into the Virginia conference of the Methodist
Episcopal church in February, 1831. The fields of labor to which he was assigned
were diligently and successfully cultivated, and included Lynchburg, Norfolk,
Petersburg, Va., and Raleigh, N. C., together with a chaplaincy at
Randolph-Macon college at Athens, Va., and a presidency at La Grange college,
these positions marking the high estimate placed upon his ability and fidelity.
Having been a student at, as well as chaplain of, Randolph-Macon college, he
received at her hands the degreee of bachelor of arts, June 9, 1841, and on June
12, 1844, he was admitted to the degree of A. M. The honorary degree of D. D.
was simultaneously conferred upon him by Randolph-Macon and Emory & Henry
colleges, June, 1847. To the general conference of the Methodist Episcopal
church, south, he was elected a delegate in 1850, and again in 1854. Resigning
the presidency of La Grange college in 1852, he was stationed at Nashville,
Tenn., in 1853 and 1854, and was elected to the chair of English and
belles-letters in Nashville university, and chairman of its faculty in 1853. In
1855 he was transferred to the Alabama conference, and during the following two
years he was stationed at Greensboro, Ala. He was located at Selma, Ala., during
the years 1858 and 1859, and in October of the latter year, he was called to the
chair of moral science in the Southern university at Greensboro. This chair he
resigned in February, 1871, and during the four succeeding years served as
pastor of the church at Montgomery, Ala. The four years following found him at
the Franklin Street Methodist Episcopal church, Mobile, Ala., and he was then
transferred to the eldership of the Mobile district, serving during the years
1880 and 1881. At this point the be-numbing and withering hand of paralysis was
suddenly and heavily laid upon him, irrepressible though his energies were, and
he never recovered from the blow. He was taken to his home, his much loved
Greensboro, where he passed many a day and night in suffering and seclusion till
relieved by death in 1889. If an attempt were made to review the character of
this distinguished divine nothing in it would be found more conspicuous than
candor. So transparent was he in word and deed, that mere policy, as that word
is understood, was practically unknown to him. To believe a certain course of
action to be right, that was enough. What is duty? was always with him the
paramount question, and having settled that question he would go right on
without regard to the popular drift of opinion, into which so many throw
themselves in order to secure the praise and admiration of the multitude. So
pure was he in thought, word and deed, that it is in no wise an exaggeration to
quote in application to his purity, "Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom there
is no guile." And in summing up what is said of him in this work it must be said
that the fact of his having been for fifty years in the front rank of pulpit
orators presents to the mind the most certain expression of his gifts as a
preacher. In 1841 he was married to Miss Eliza Felton, of Raleigh, N. C., who
died in 1848. In 1850 Dr. Wadsworth was united in marriage with Miss Mary W.
Sledge, of Alabama, a lady of excellent family and culture. The latter still
survives.



Additional Comments:
from "Memorial Record of Alabama", Vol. I, p. 1070-1071
Published by
Brant & Fuller (1893)
Madison, WI

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