Theodore Dwight Jr.

Theodore Dwight (jr.) was born on 3 March 1796, in Hartford, Connecticut, the son of the abolitionist Theodore (1764-1845) (lawyer, politician, editor, and secretary of the Hartford Convention) and Abigail nee Alsop (1765-1846). His mother was a sister of Richard Alsop, and his father the brother of Timothy Dwight, President of Yale University and the grandson of Jonathan Edwards.  Theodore junior's main influences were thus patriotic Federalism and Calvinism, reinforced by a four-year course at Yale (graduated 1814). He revered his uncle Timothy, later publishing his classroom utterances (taken down in shorthand) as President Dwight's Decisions of Questions Discussed by the Senior Class in Yale College in 1813 and 1814 (1833). He had intended to study theology under his uncle, but fell ill from scarlet fever followed by a hemorrhage of the lungs.

In 1818-19, and again in 1820, Dwight traveled abroad for his health - particularly in England and France. In Paris he engaged with the Rev. Francis Leo in distributing free copies of De Sacy’s French New Testament and was arrested for collecting an unlawful number of persons on the streets. He spoke French, Spanish, and Italian well and had a fair command of German, Portuguese, and modern Greek.

At home in New York and in Brooklyn, where he lived from 1833 till his death, he taught school (during which he introduced vocal music into the New York public schools), and worked on his father’s newspaper, the New York Daily Advertiser. At one time or another he worked for the Protestant Vindicator, the Family Visitor, the Christian Alliance and Family Visitor, the New York Presbyterian and the Youth’s Penny Paper. A venture of his own was Dwight’s American Magazine and Family Newspaper, 1845-52.

On April 24, 1827, he married Eleanor nee Boyd (1808-1870), with whom he had seven children: Maria Bayard (1828–1852); Ellen Boyd (1830–1882, m. Kennedy); Theodore William III (1833–1852); Mary Alsop (1836–1918); Anna Maria (1837–1924); Augusta Moore (1840–1908, m. Sherwood Bissell Ferris); Rebecca Jaffray (1842–1920, m. Fenton Rockwell).

In the 1850s and 1860s, Dwight passionately advocated for the cause of Garibaldi and the unification of Italy. From 1854 to 1858, as an extension of his abolitionism, he worked with George Walter to send Free-Soil settlers to Kansas; together they persuaded about 3, 000 persons to emigrate to the new territory. His knowledge of the Romance languages, his republicanism, and his desire to protestantize Catholic countries led him to entertain many political exiles from the Latin countries of Europe and the Americas. Of these guests the most famous was Garibaldi, who entrusted to him his autobiography for publication in the United States. 

During his last years he worked in the New York Customs House. He died on 16 October 1866, from injuries suffered in a train accident while traveling to Newark, NJ. After accompanying his daughter and two grandchildren, he had jumped off the train as it left the station. He was buried in Brooklyn, where he had lived for many years.

Works

A Journal of a Tour in Italy in the Year 1821 (1824); 

The Northern Traveller, containing the Routes to Niagara, Quebec, and the Springs (1825; 6th ed., 1841); 

Sketches of Scenery and Manners in the United States (1829) 

(with William Darby) A New Gazetteer of the United States of America (1833)

Lessons in Greek (1833)

The Father's Book, or Suggestions for the Government and Instruction of Young Children on Principles Appropriate to a Christian Country (1834)

The School-Master's Friend, with the Committee-Man's Guide: Containing Suggestions on Education, Modes of Teaching and Governing, ... Plans of School Houses, Furniture, Apparatus, Practical Hints, and Anecdotes on Different Systems (1835); 

Open Covenants, or Nunneries and Popish Seminaries Dangerous to the Morals and Degrading to the Character of a Republican Community (1836); 

Dictionary of Roots and Derivations (1837); 

The History of Connecticut (1840); 

Things as they are (1834) republished as Summer Tours, or Notes of a Traveler through some of the Middle and Northern States (1847); republished in Glasgow in 1848 as Travels in America

The Roman Republic of 1849 (1851)

Awful Disclosures (republished and expanded work originally by Maria Monk) (1855); 

Life of General Garibaldi, Translated from his Private Papers with the History of his Splendid Exploits in Rome, Lombardy, Sicily, and Naples to the Present Time (1861)