He was born, then, Sabbath, April 8, 1750,
and was cousin, in good or evil, to the notorious Aaron Burr. He was
also brother to Rev. Jonathan Edwards, president of Union College.
His mother, Sarah Pierrepont, was of aristocratic origin, and the
daughter of Rev. James Pierrepont, and granddaughter of John Pierrepont,
of Roxbury, from whom descended Rev. John Pierpont, the celebrated poet
and divine of our own time. The Pierrepont family was a branch of the
family of the Duke of Kingston, (Pierrepont being the family name;) and
the mother of Mr. Edwards was thus cousin-german to Mary Pierrepont,
(Lady Mary Wortley Montague.)
Through his whole ancestral line we trace the "laying on of hands" in
the most conspicuous as in the divinest order; and thus might he be
truly called a child of prayer and consecration. What pity that his
biographer should have been compelled to record, "The most remarkable
feature of his character was his unbridled licentiousness"! But we
cannot drop the curtain here. We would relieve the picture by this
somewhat lighter shade. "His intellectual energies were gigantic. As a
pleader and a determined and artful advocate, he had few equals. Hence,
as a lawyer, he scarcely ever lost a case in his whole practice." An
amusing anecdote is related of him in his professional career.
"In an insurance case, the evidence of which was strongly against him,
he went in disguise to New London, where the witnesses, mostly sailors,
resided.
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