Sylvester Judd

Sylvester Judd (July 23, 1813 – January 26, 1853) was a Unitarian minister and an American novelist.

Sylvester Judd III was born on July 23, 1813, in Westhampton, Massachusetts to Sylvester Judd II and Apphia Hall, a daughter of Aaron Hall of Norwich, a veteran of the Revolutionary War, one-year attendee at Harvard and later modest Justice of the Peace. His great-grandfather was Rev. Jonathan Judd (1719-1803), clergyman of Southampton, while his grandfather ran the family store. His father, after working in the store in his boyhood, went to Boston for several years, where, according to Judd's sister's biography, he became a voracious reader, returning to the family business, but then becoming editor of The Hampshire Gazette. Sylvester Judd III studied at Hopkins Academy in Hadley, Massachusetts, where he was president of the Literary Society and delivered the valedictorian address. He graduated from Yale College in 1836, and from Harvard Divinity School in 1840. His dissertation was entitled The Uses of Intellectual Philosophy to the Preacher. While a student, on April 4, 1838, Judd traveled to Concord, Massachusetts to meet Ralph Waldo Emerson after reading his essay "Epic Poetry". Emerson was pleased by Judd's interest in seeking a mystical identification with Christ. Judd may have been in the audience on August 31, 1837, and heard Emerson's commencement speech to the Phi Beta Kappa Society known as "The American Scholar."

Judd was ordained a Unitarian minister on October 1, 1840, becoming pastor of a church in Augusta, Maine. He was a member of the Maine Peace Society which was anti-war and sought justice through a World Court. Early in 1841, Judd met Jane Elizabeth Williams, the daughter of United States Senator Reuel Williams. The couple married on August 31, 1841; they had three daughters: Jane Elizabeth (September 26, 1844), Frances Hall (June 28, 1847), and Apphia Williams (March 16, 1853). Judd's third daughter was born two months after his death. His second daughter, Frances, married the Unitarian minister Seth Curtis Beach on November 17, 1869. Their son, Reuel W. Beach (Harvard graduate, married Ruth Walcott Stetson in 1909), and grandson, Curtis Beach, were both Unitarian ministers. Frances and Seth Beach's second son, Dr. Sylvester Judd Beach, lived from 1879-1953, residing in Portland, ME. Dr. Beach served as President of the Wayflete School in Portland, bringing progressive education to the school. Sylvester Judd's sister, Apphia Putnam Judd (born Oct 27, 1820 in Westhampton; died 1901 in Augusta), married his wife's brother, Joseph Hartwell Williams (1814-1896), who was the 27th governor of Maine (1857-1858).

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