A Genealogical and Biographical Sketch of the Name and Family of Stetson; from the year 1634 to the year 1847. By John Stetson Barry. "Virtus nobilitat omnia." Boston: Printed for the author by William A. Hall & Co. 1847.
The name of Stetson is spelt differently in old records; as Stitson, Sturtson, Studson, Stedson, Stutson, and Stetson. The last is the usual method of spelling the name, though some families spell it Stutson. The first of the name and the ancestor of all in this country was Robert Stetson, commonly called Cornet Robert, because he was Cornet of the first horse company raised in Plymouth colony, Ms., in the year 1658 or '9. He settled in Scituate, Ms., in the year 1634, but it is not known satisfactorily whence he originated, though tradition says he came from the county of Kent, England.
Among his descendants are many who have held offices of trust and responsibility, and who have stood high in public esteem.
The pamphlet contains 116 pages, and gives a pretty full account of the Stetson family. We hope it will be an additional incentive to others to prepare memorials of their ancestors.
An Oration delivered before the New England Society in the city of New York, December 22, 1846. By Charles W. Upham. New York: Published by John S. Taylor, Brick Church Chapel, 151 Nassau Street. 1847.
This is an excellent address, written in a clear, graceful, and forcible manner. After describing the influences, both in the Old World and in the New, which were at work, and the combination of which resulted in the advent of our fathers to these desert shores, the orator remarks upon the Puritans, and the chief elements of their character and the result of their labors. The blessings of a free government and religious liberty are largely descanted upon, and the address closes as follows: "If the sons of New England rear the school-house and the church wherever they select their homes; if they preserve the reliance upon their own individual energies, the love of knowledge, the trust in Providence, the spirit of patriotic faith and hope, which made its most barren regions blossom and become fruitful around their fathers, then will the glorious vision of those fathers be realized, and the Continent rejoice, in all its latitudes and from sea to sea, in the blessings of freedom and education, of peace and prosperity, of virtue and religion."
A Sermon preached at Northwood, N. H., March 12, 1847, on the death of Dea. Simon Batchelder. By Elliot C. Cogswell, Pastor of the Congregational Church. Published by request. Concord: Printed by Morrill, Silsby, & Co. 1847.
The text on which this discourse is founded is contained in Acts viii: 2. "And devout men carried Stephen to his burial, and made great lamentation over him." It is divided into six heads. When the good man dies the people of God lose, 1. His society. 2. His sympathy. 3. His counsels. 4. His prayers. 5. His coöperation. 6. His admonitions. The subject is well treated, and the language affectionate and appropriate. Dea. Batchelder was born, March 5, 1758. He was the son of Davis Batchelder of Northampton, who moved to Northwood about 1770; who married, 1. Mary Taylor of Hampton, by whom he had four children; 2. Ruth Palmer; and 3. a Widow Marston; by whom, (the last two wives,) he had fourteen children, four of whom survive. Dea. Batchelder at the age of eighteen enlisted in the war of the Revolution, in 1776, and served in Capt. Adams's company and Col. Poor's regiment at Winter Hill in Charlestown, Newport, R. I., and Ticonderoga, N. Y. April 4, 1778, he married Rachel Johnson, daughter of Benjamin Johnson, with whom he lived about fifty-two years, she dying Jan. 5, 1830, aged 73. By her he had seven children, five of whom still survive. He died March 10, 1847, aged 89 years and 5 days.
A Discourse delivered before the Rhode Island Historical Society, on the evening of Wednesday, January 13, 1847. By Hon. Job Durfee, Chief-Justice of Rhode Island. Published at the request of the Society. Providence: Charles Burnett, Jr. 1847.
The subject of this discourse is "Rhode Island's Idea of Government." Judge Durfee speaks of the "origin of this idea—of the various forms which it took in its progress towards its realization in that state, in minds of much diversity of character and creed; and of that 'lively experiment,' which it subsequently held forth, that 'a most flourishing civil state may stand, and be best maintained, with a full liberty in religious concernments'—a liberty which implied an emancipation of reason from the thraldom of arbitrary authority, and the full freedom of inquiry in all matters of speculative faith."