Judd Sylvester

Life and character of the Rev. Sylvester Judd. By Judd Sylvester

Sylvester Judd III was born on July 23, 1813, in Westhampton, Massachusetts to Sylvester Judd II and Apphia Hall, a daughter of Aaron Hall of Norwich, a veteran of the Revolutionary War, one-year attendee at Harvard and later modest Justice of the Peace. His great-grandfather was Rev. Jonathan Judd (1719-1803), clergyman of Southampton, while his grandfather ran the family store. His father, after working in the store in his boyhood, went to Boston for several years, where, according to Judd's sister's biography, he became a voracious reader, returning to the family business, but then becoming editor of The Hampshire Gazette. Sylvester Judd III studied at Hopkins Academy in Hadley, Massachusetts, where he was president of the Literary Society and delivered the valedictorian address. He graduated from Yale College in 1836, and from Harvard Divinity School in 1840. His dissertation was entitled The Uses of Intellectual Philosophy to the Preacher. While a student, on April 4, 1838, Judd traveled to Concord, Massachusetts to meet Ralph Waldo Emerson after reading his essay "Epic Poetry". Emerson was pleased by Judd's interest in seeking a mystical identification with Christ. Judd may have been in the audience on August 31, 1837, and heard Emerson's commencement speech to the Phi Beta Kappa Society known as "The American Scholar."