century association biographical archive

Earliest Members of the Century Association

View all members

Edwin Baldwin

Lawyer

Centurion, 1907–1926

Born 23 March 1847 in Jersey City, New Jersey

Died 8 April 1926 in Boston, Massachusetts

Proposed by Lawrence E. Sexton and Elihu Root

Elected 4 May 1907 at age sixty

Century Memorial

Edwin Baldwin was one of those numerous Centurions whom his fellow-members associated always with the Club, rarely with such avocations as business activity or professional life. The southwest corner table in the dining room, whose habitual circle of a few years ago has now been greatly decimated, was never complete without him; he was, indeed, like the Hinchmans and Fiskes and Harneys and Lippincotts of days not very long ago, so familiar a figure in the Club at nightfall that his absence caused remark.

In conversation Baldwin was terse and reticent, yet somehow always a participant in the conversation. Of himself or his every-day work he seldom talked; but his professional associates knew him outside the Century as a lawyer of the old school; closely devoted to the interests of his clients; ready to give time and thought unsparingly to small estates and trusts, of widows or orphans especially, that came within the scope of his practice. In that practice, his calm personality and avoidance of personal friction, even when he was asserting his client’s rights with the most determination, were very apt to achieve results.

Alexander Dana Noyes
1927 Century Association Yearbook