Richard Eddy (clergyman)

He remained at Clinton two years, and though not a college trained man, yet with a ready wit, be learned the essentials of classic and sacred literature.

His all-round common sense and practical fashion of studying literature and human nature, early developed within him the characteristics which made him the strong man that he was.

Their continued intimacy amply qualified him for the task, and the biography of the lives of Dr. and Mrs. Caroline A. Sawyer, became a model of its kind.

His note book gave the following statistics: sermons preached, 6,786; lectures, 2,400; funerals, 2,362; and weddings, 375.

[1] Eddy during the Civil War served the 60th N. Y. Volunteer Infantry as Chaplain for nineteen months.

He was a faithful Chaplain and rendered that service which gained for him a permanent hold upon the soldiers during the war, and in the ranks of the veterans in the years since.

In these books were shown learning and skill of treatment, which easily placed them in the front ranks of temperance literature.

This history is a text book of the Universalist Church, showing its beginning and growth in the midst of much opposition.

The Register was no easy book to edit, but Eddy rendered a fine service for the Church in giving it a faithful and patient skill scarcely equalled.

He indeed was a worthy successor of Doctors Hosea Ballou 2nd, George H. Emerson and Thomas B. Thayer.

These articles traced the growth and changes of denominational government, and statements, and their strict adherence to the essential and distinctive doctrines.

He was often secretary of conventions, or president of them; or a man on a committee who possessed initiative and was ready with suggestion and tack.

Tufts College conferred upon him in 1883 the degree of S. T. D.[1] Eddy married in 1852 Miss Sarah Stoddard of Hudson, New York, who was the mother of his five children.