John Denison Baldwin (September 28, 1809 – July 8, 1883) was an
American politician,
Congregationalist minister,
newspaper editor
An editor-in-chief (EIC), also known as lead editor or chief editor, is a publication's editorial leader who has final responsibility for its operations and policies. The editor-in-chief heads all departments of the organization and is held account ...
, and popular
anthropological
Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including archaic humans. Social anthropology studies patterns of behaviour, wh ...
writer. He was a member of the
Connecticut State House of Representatives and later a member of the
U.S. House of Representatives
The United States House of Representatives is a chamber of the bicameral United States Congress; it is the lower house, with the U.S. Senate being the upper house. Together, the House and Senate have the authority under Article One of th ...
from
Massachusetts
Massachusetts ( ; ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Maine to its east, Connecticut and Rhode ...
.
Biography
Baldwin briefly studied law, but graduated with a degree in theology from
Yale Divinity School
Yale Divinity School (YDS) is one of the twelve graduate and professional schools of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut.
Congregationalist theological education was the motivation at the founding of Yale, and the professional school has ...
in 1834. He became a
Congregationalist minister and preached in
West Woodstock,
North Branford, and
North Killingly, all in Connecticut. In 1839
Yale
Yale University is a private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, and one of the nine colonial colleges ch ...
awarded him an honorary
Master of Arts
A Master of Arts ( or ''Artium Magister''; abbreviated MA or AM) is the holder of a master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The degree is usually contrasted with that of Master of Science. Those admitted to the degree have ...
degree.
He became a member of the
Connecticut State House of Representatives in 1847.
Baldwin was active in the
Free Soil["Captain John Stanton Baldwin, U.S.V.". ''Officers of the Volunteer Army and Navy who served in the Civil War''. L.R. Hamersly & Co. (1893).] and
anti-slavery
Abolitionism, or the abolitionist movement, is the political movement to end slavery and liberate enslaved individuals around the world.
The first country to fully outlaw slavery was France in 1315, but it was later used in its colonies. T ...
movements.
[Hoar, George Frisbie. ''Autobiography of Seventy Years'', Vol. 1–2. Chapter XII. New York, Scribner's Sons (1903). (available online via Gutenberg Project: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/19548)] He edited anti-slavery journals the "Republican" (published in
Hartford
Hartford is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the U.S. state of Connecticut. The city, located in Hartford County, Connecticut, Hartford County, had a population of 121,054 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 ce ...
) and the "Commonwealth" (published in
Boston
Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...
), and from 1859 became the owner and editor of the "
Worcester Spy," what
George Frisbie Hoar
George Frisbie Hoar (August 29, 1826 – September 30, 1904) was an American attorney and politician, represented Massachusetts in the United States Senate from 1877 until his death in 1904. He belonged to an extended family that became politic ...
called "one of the most influential papers in New England."
From this time onwards Baldwin was resident in
Worcester, Massachusetts
Worcester ( , ) is the List of municipalities in Massachusetts, second-most populous city in the U.S. state of Massachusetts and the list of United States cities by population, 113th most populous city in the United States. Named after Worcester ...
. He was a
delegate to the
1860 Republican National Convention
The 1860 Republican National Convention was a United States presidential nominating convention, presidential nominating convention that met May 16–18 in Chicago, Illinois. It was held to nominate the Republican Party (United States), Republic ...
, where
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln (February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was the 16th president of the United States, serving from 1861 until Assassination of Abraham Lincoln, his assassination in 1865. He led the United States through the American Civil War ...
was nominated as
Republican presidential candidate, and in 1863 he was elected to the
U.S. House of Representatives
The United States House of Representatives is a chamber of the bicameral United States Congress; it is the lower house, with the U.S. Senate being the upper house. Together, the House and Senate have the authority under Article One of th ...
for
Massachusetts's 8th congressional district. A "close friend" of both
Charles Sumner
Charles Sumner (January 6, 1811March 11, 1874) was an American lawyer and statesman who represented Massachusetts in the United States Senate from 1851 until his death in 1874. Before and during the American Civil War, he was a leading American ...
and
Henry Wilson
Henry Wilson (born Jeremiah Jones Colbath; February 16, 1812 – November 22, 1875) was the 18th vice president of the United States, serving from 1873 until his death in 1875, and a United States Senate, senator from Massachusetts from 1855 to ...
,
Senators from Massachusetts, Baldwin served for three terms in the House, promoting full
equal rights for
black Americans
African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from an ...
in the wake of the
Civil War
A civil war is a war between organized groups within the same Sovereign state, state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies.J ...
. 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
The American Antiquarian Society (AAS), located in Worcester, Massachusetts, is both a learned society and a national research library of pre-twentieth-century American history and culture. Founded in 1812, it is the oldest historical society in ...
.
American Antiquarian Society Members Directory
/ref>
Family
Baldwin married Lemira Hathaway of Bristol County, Massachusetts
Bristol County is a county in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population was 579,200. The shire town is Taunton. Some governmental functions are performed by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, othe ...
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
Captain is a title, an appellative for the commanding officer of a military unit; the supreme leader or highest rank officer of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police depa ...
in the Fifty-first Massachusetts Regiment in the Union Army during the Civil War
A civil war is a war between organized groups within the same Sovereign state, state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies.J ...
.
John D Baldwin was a distant cousin of Roger Sherman
Roger Sherman (April 19, 1721 – July 23, 1793) was an early American politician, lawyer, and a Founding Father of the United States. He is the only person to sign all four great state papers of the United States: the Continental Association, ...
and of the Baldwin, Hoar, and Sherman political family. He was also a direct descendant of Mayflower passenger John Billington.
Anthropological writings and beliefs
Baldwin conducted correspondence with many notable thinkers of his time, including Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25, 1803April 27, 1882), who went by his middle name Waldo, was an American essayist, lecturer, philosopher, minister, abolitionism, abolitionist, and poet who led the Transcendentalism, Transcendentalist movement of th ...
, Charles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin ( ; 12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English Natural history#Before 1900, naturalist, geologist, and biologist, widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology. His proposition that all speci ...
, James Russell Lowell
James Russell Lowell (; February 22, 1819 – August 12, 1891) was an American Romantic poet, critic, editor, and diplomat. He is associated with the fireside poets, a group of New England writers who were among the first American poets to r ...
, and particularly his friend Charles Sumner
Charles Sumner (January 6, 1811March 11, 1874) was an American lawyer and statesman who represented Massachusetts in the United States Senate from 1851 until his death in 1874. Before and during the American Civil War, he was a leading American ...
. He accepted Darwin's theory of evolution
Evolution is the change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. It occurs when evolutionary processes such as natural selection and genetic drift act on genetic variation, resulting in certai ...
while maintaining a belief in the divine origin of "first forms."
In 1865 he was elected a corporate member of the American Oriental Society
The American Oriental Society is a learned society that encourages basic research in the languages and literatures of the Near East and Asia. It was chartered under the laws of Massachusetts on September 7, 1842. It is one of the oldest learned ...
. Baldwin's anthropological writing posited the origins of human civilization
A civilization (also spelled civilisation in British English) is any complex society characterized by the development of state (polity), the state, social stratification, urban area, urbanization, and symbolic systems of communication beyon ...
as arising among an Arabian
The Arabian Peninsula (, , or , , ) or Arabia, is a peninsula in West Asia, situated north-east of Africa on the Arabian plate. At , comparable in size to India, the Arabian Peninsula is the largest peninsula in the world.
Geographically, the ...
or Northeast African people, the Cushites, in pre-historic times.
In ''Ancient America, In Notes on American Archaeology'' he also speculated on the origins of the " Mound Builder" people then believed to have constructed the famous mounds around the Mississippi
Mississippi ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Deep South regions of the United States. It borders Tennessee to the north, Alabama to the east, the Gulf of Mexico to the south, Louisiana to the s ...
and Ohio River Valleys, suggesting that they had been an aboriginal people who had migrated northwards from Central America or Mexico
Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a country in North America. It is the northernmost country in Latin America, and borders the United States to the north, and Guatemala and Belize to the southeast; while having maritime boundar ...
. He rejected the then-common notion that they had been a lost European, Semitic, or Asiatic people who had been wiped out by the North American Indians, asserting on the contrary that the Mounds were "wholly original, wholly American" and "did not come from the Old World".[Baldwin, John D., ''Ancient America, in notes on American archæology'', New York, Harper, 1871, .] 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''.
Notes
References
* Hoar, George Frisbie. ''Autobiography of Seventy Years'', Vol. 1–2. New York, Scribner's Sons (1903). (available online via Gutenberg Project: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/19548)
*
*
*
*
* "Captain John Stanton Baldwin, U.S.V.". ''Officers of the Volunteer Army and Navy who served in the Civil War''. L.R. Hamersly & Co. (1893).
External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Baldwin, John Denison
Members of the Connecticut House of Representatives
Connecticut Free Soilers
Politicians from Worcester, Massachusetts
Yale Divinity School alumni
1809 births
1883 deaths
Republican Party members of the United States House of Representatives from Massachusetts
19th-century members of the Connecticut General Assembly
19th-century members of the United States House of Representatives