Biographical Sketch of Rev. Edward WEBB (1893); Chester County, PA Contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by John Morris . *********************************************************************** USGENWEB ARCHIVES NOTICE: Printing this file within by non-commercial individuals and libraries is encouraged, as long as all notices and submitter information is included. Any other use, including copying files to other sites requires permission from the submitters PRIOR to uploading to any other sites. We encourage links to the state and county table of contents. http://www.usgwarchives.net/ *********************************************************************** Source: "Biographical and Portrait Cyclopedia of Chester County, Pennsyl- vania, comprising a historical sketch of the county," by Samuel T. Wiley and edited by Winfield Scott Garner, Gresham Publishing Company, Phila- delphia, PA, 1893, pp. 340-1. "REV. EDWARD WEBB, financial secretary of Lincoln university, who labored earnestly and faithfully for twenty years as a missionary for the conver- sion and civilization of the benighted heathen of India, is a son of Thomas and Susan (Grimsby) Webb, and was born in Lowestoft, Suffolk county, England, December 15, 1819. Thomas Webb was a native of England, where he married Susan Grimsby, and died some years afterward. His widow and their four children - three sons and one daughter - came in 1840 to Andover, Massachusetts, where they resided for some time. She died at Greenwich, that State, in 1847, when in the sixty-third year of her age. "Edward Webb was reared in England and took the classical course at the King Edward's Grammar school in Bury street, Edmunds, from which institu- tion he was graduated in 1838. He was then private tutor in a family until 1840, when he came to Andover, Massachusetts. He there entered the Theological seminary, from which he was graduated in 1845, and in the same year went to India as a missionary under the auspices of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign missions. Engaged in philanthropic and Christian labor for the spiritual and intellectual good of India's ignor- ant millions, he established Christian churches and schools. He translated and edited school books and religious works, including a periodical entit- led 'The Tamil Quarterly Repository.' He also edited a volume of native hymns, which were set to Indian music. He remained in India until 1864, when he returned to the United States, and spent one year in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, recruiting his health, which had been impaired by long resi- dence and overwork and the tropical heat of Asia. At the end of that time he took charge of the Pencader Presbyterian church in New Castle county, Delaware, where he remained until 1871, when he became pastor of a church in Andover, New Jersey, which he left in April, 1873, to accept his present charge, which he has held until the present time. Mr. Webb's missionary labors did not cease with his residence in India, but he con- tinued them in his work for Lincoln university (whose history appears elsewhere in this volume), and has done a large amount of work in the interests of that institution, whose object is the education of young men of color for evangelical ministry among our seven millions of Afro-Ameri- cans and the unnumbered millions of the 'Dark Continent.' For the last nineteen years he has held his present relation to the finances of the college. "On September 30, 1845, Mr. Webb married Nancy A. Foote, a teacher in Mt. Holyoke Ladies' seminary, of which she was a graduate. To Mr. and Mrs. Webb in India were born eight children: Lucius and Allyn (deceased), Mary E., wife of J. Wilkins Cooch, probate judge of New Castle county, Delaware; Dr. Ella S., who was graduated from the Womans' Medical college, of Philadelphia, in 1886, and since then has been in active practice at Oxford; Edward A., editor of an agricultural paper at St. Paul, Minnesota; Sarah (deceased); Rev. Samuel G., who is pastor of the Presbyterian church of New Gretna, New Jersey; and Anna F., who is a missionary at San Sebas- tian, Spain. "In politics Mr. Webb is a republican. He was licensed to preach in 1844, and ordained to the ministry in 1845. One of his distinguishing charac- teristics is earnestness, and he throws his whole soul into any cause in which he labors. Well known as a minister and missionary, he has been successful in his efforts to advance the interests of Lincoln university."