Caledonia

JEWETT, Luther

Vermont Historical Magazine, No. XI, October 1867, pp 402-403
(extracted from a section on the history of St. Johnsbury, Caledonia County, 
Vermont)

Dr. Luther JEWETT, whose enterprise established and whose literary talent 
ably sustained the first paper in St. Johnsbury, and who was for many years 
an active and honored citizen of this town, was born in 1772 in Canterbury 
[Windham County], Connecticut, graduated at Dartmouth College, class of 1792, 
removed to St. Johnsbury in 1800, and immediately commenced the practice of 
medicine. In 1817 he represented the northeast district of Vermont in 
Congress, and took his seat by the side of Daniel WEBSTER, then in his second 
term. He was licensed to preach the year following by the Coos Association 
[Coos County, New Hampshire], and supplied the pulpits of Newbury [Orange 
County, Vermont] and other towns in this vicinity for a period of ten years. 
His varied acquirements and experience in public life especially fitted him 
for the post of a journalist, and in the editorial management of the "Herald" 
he displayed much practical tact and ability. He was honest and 
straightforward in every expression of opinion, and no less firm in his 
support of justice and right, than unsparing in his rebuke of existing evils. 
Slavery, intemperance and anti-masonry, he denounced in the most fearless 
manner, and to combat the ultraism of the latter, he issued during 1827 a 
weekly sheet entitled "The Friend," whose columns were entirely devoted to 
the discussion of this and kindred subjects.

A late member of Congress from Massachusetts, and intimate friend of the 
Doctor, writes as follows: "To us, the name of Luther JEWETT will always 
recall some of the most pleasant memories of life. He was eminently good, 
and scrupulously just in all his ways. In a delightful village, unsurpassed 
for its picturesque beauty by any in New England, his bright example has 
contributed largely for half a century in the development of its character 
for enterprise, as well as for moral and intellectual elevation. On 
revisiting the town a few years since, we sought out the venerable old man at 
his retired house, and found him so feeble that he scarcely ventured from his 
door. His snowy locks and patriachial mean lent impressiveness to his 
words as he conversed of current events with the zest of one who was never 
content to be a mere spectator of the world's progress. It was our last 
meeting." He [Luther JEWETT] died in 1860, aged eighty-seven [at St. 
Johnsbury, Caledonia County, Vermont].

Submitted by Cathy Kubly