John Denison Baldwin

John Denison Baldwin (September 28, 1809 – July 8, 1883) was an American politician, Congregationalist minister, newspaper editor, and popular anthropological writer. He was a member of the Connecticut State House of Representatives and later a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Massachusetts.

Biography

Baldwin briefly studied law, but graduated with a degree in theology from Yale Divinity School in 1834. He became a Congregationalist minister and preached in West Woodstock, North Branford, and North Killingly, all in Connecticut. In 1839 Yale awarded him an honorary Master of Arts degree.

He became a member of the Connecticut State House of Representatives in 1847.

Baldwin was active in the Free Soil and anti-slavery movements. He edited anti-slavery journals the "Republican" (published in Hartford) and the "Commonwealth" (published in Boston), and from 1859 became the owner and editor of the "Worcester Spy," what George Frisbie Hoar called "one of the most influential papers in New England." Senators from Massachusetts, Baldwin served for three terms in the House, promoting full equal rights for black Americans in the wake of the Civil War. In 1869, when George F. Hoar was nominated as the Republican candidate for his seat, Baldwin returned full-time to his journalistic and anthropological work. He edited the Worcester Spy until his death in 1883. In 1867 Baldwin was elected a member of the American Antiquarian Society.

Family

Baldwin married Lemira Hathaway of Bristol County, Massachusetts on April 3, 1832, and they had four children. Two daughters died by the age of 21, and neither married. Both of Baldwin's sons survived into adulthood and became partners in their father's newspaper business. The elder, John Stanton Baldwin, served as a captain in the 51st Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry in the Union Army during the Civil War. He did, however, still subscribe to the idea that these "Mound Builders" were not the same as the American Indian inhabitants of the region at that time, who he believed were a separate race originating in Asia.

Works

A scriptural view of the Messiah: Being the substance of a sermon delivered in the Methodist chapel, Dighton, Mass., on Sunday evening, May 27, 1832, Edmund Anthony, Office of Independent Gazette, 1832. Lessons from the grave: A discourse delivered in North Branford, June 12, 1842, and occasioned by the death of Daniel Wheadon, Hitchcock & Stafford, 1842. The story of Raymond Hill,: And other poems, W.D. Ticknor & Co, 1847. STATE SOVEREIGNTY And TREASON. Speech of Hon. John D. Baldwin, of Massachusetts, Delivered in the House of Representatives, Washington, March 5, 1864, the House being in Committee of the Whole on the State of the Union., H. Polkinhorn, 1864. Congress and Reconstruction: Speech of Hon. John D. Baldwin of Massachusetts in the House of Representatives, April 7, 1866, 1866. Human rights and human races, Congressional Globe Office, 1868. Human rights and human races : speech of Mr. Baldwin, of Massachusetts, delivered in the House of Representatives, January 11, 1868, in reply to a speech of Hon. James Brooks, of New York, on the Negro race., F. & J. Rives & G.A. Bailey, 1868. Pre-Historic Nations; or, Inquiries Concerning Some of the Great Peoples and Civilizations of Antiquity, New York, Harper, 1869. Ancient America, in notes on American archæology, New York, Harper, 1871. A record of the descendants of John Baldwin, of Stonington, Conn.: With notices of other Baldwins who settled in America in early colony times, Tyler & Seagrave, 1880. Thomas Stanton of Stonington, Conn: An incomplete record of his descendants, Tyler & Seagrave, 1882. A record of the descendants of Capt. George Denison of Stonington, Connecticut: With notices of his father and brothers, and some account of other Denisons who settled in America in the colony times.