century association biographical archive

Earliest Members of the Century Association

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Henry D. Sedgwick

Lawyer

Centurion, 1854–1903

Full Name Henry Dwight Sedgwick

Born 16 August 1824 in Stockbridge, Massachusetts

Died 26 December 1903 in Rome, Italy

Buried Stockbridge Cemetery, Stockbridge, Massachusetts

Proposed by George William Curtis

Elected 2 December 1854 at age thirty

Archivist’s Note: Father of Alexander Sedgwick, Henry Dwight Sedgwick Jr., Ellery Sedgwick, and Theodore Sedgwick; cousin of William Ellery Sedgwick; second cousin of John Sedgwick; grandfather of Francis Minturn Sedgwick; grandfather-in-law of John P. Marquand; great-grandfather of John P. Marquand Jr. and Alexander Sedgwick

Century Memorial

It is nearly a quarter of a century since Henry Dwight Sedgwick retired from the practice of the law and returned to the home of his ancestors in Stockbridge, Mass., and the Century, of which he had been a member since 1854, has in that time seen but little of his previously familiar and most welcome figure. Descended from one of the oldest and most respected of New England families, Mr. Sedgwick came to New York in his twenty-first year, after graduating at Harvard College and Law School. He was in successful practice here until 1880, when he resumed his residence at Stockbridge. He was one of the founders of the Union League Club, a charter member of the Bar Association, and actively connected with the church of the late Dr. Bellows and with that energetic leader’s varied work. In his New England home he instituted the famous Laurel Hill Improvement Society, which has been the model for village improvement and development in all parts of the land, and was its President for many years. Modest and winning in manner, of broad culture, loyal to ideals and to friendships, he was the scholar and gentleman of the old and good New England type.

Edward Cary
1904 Century Association Yearbook