| Notes |
- BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH XXXV.
JOHN ALPHEUS WOODHULL, (Rev.), seventh generation from Richard Wodhull I., Patentee of Brookhaven, Long Island, was the third son of Richard Woodhull and Frances Greene. He was born October 30, 1825, near Lake Ronkonkoma, Suffolk County, Long Island.
We read of clergymen, whose sermons set the standard of English for the community in which they lived, as well as the standard of spiritual excellence; whose lives inspired every man in the parish to
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greater manliness and courage and awakened the interest in a broader world than the little eddying current of village life.
Ways and means never stood in the way of this type of clergyman, nor were they obstacles to his disciples. Barriers appeared only to be overcome; they were hazards, tests of strength only, and the man was he who surmounted the obstacles, not he who turned away and said "I was thwarted."
Such a clergyman was John Alpheus Woodhull, son of Richard Woodhull and one of ten children, born in an interesting old house near the shores of beautiful Lake Ronkonkoma, where the home place, with its heritage of fine old trees, was a portion of that original property of 10,800 acres purchased by his first American ancestor, Richard Wodhull, in 1665.
His mother was Frances Greene, of the Vermont family of Greenes, and not remotely connected with General Greene of Revolutionary fame.
From his earliest years, he evinced a strong character, an unusual sense of personal dignity, fastidious taste, and a gift of eloquence that was a source of amusement to his fun loving father, who when he found him delivering a long extemporaneous sermon to his astonished brothers called him "little parson" and declared "I shall send that boy to college."
When he was only nine years old, his father died and his young mother found that the property, that she had supposed large, was involved in debt and she was obliged to leave the large house for a smaller place and face, alone, the hard problem of bringing up the children on limited means.
After a period of living with distant relatives, he at length made his home with Deacon Joel Brown, of Rocky Point, twenty miles or more from his old home, but with a man famed for the beauty of his character and the lovableness of his spirit.
Into this home of plain living and high thinking, the young student came. He helped on the farm and walked through the picturesque woods to school. He was a reticent proud boy, with his own thoughts about life and the future.
From his father, he had learned the pride in his race but in the boy, it had early passed into a phase of idealism,--character was the measure of the man.
If he the descendant of kings and earls was without means and outward show of dignity, he might yet be of royal soul,--that no outward circumstance could touch. Material dignities, material obstacles were thus ignored, the life of the spirit usurped complete sway.
At the Academy, his reverence and enthusiastic admiration were stirred for Homer and Virgil, Theocritus and Horace, Demosthenes and Cicero, and he early became a good classical scholar.
He stored his mind with long passages from Shakespeare and Milton, Pope and Cowper, Thomson and Young, Burns and Wordsworth, and recited these in his long walks through the woods.
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He wrote easily and was keen in debate. For mathematics, he cared little except for Geometry, that appealed to his imagination and his sense of beauty.
Before he entered Yale, he distinguished himself as a teacher who controlled by tact and force of personality, and interested his students by a variety of resource and keenness of wit.
At Yale College, he led a quiet student life, was sometimes quoted for his quaint humor and formed some life long friendships.
His health caused much anxiety and although he was absent months at a time, he succeeded in graduating with his class in 1850 and held creditable rank.
He had never felt any hesitation about his life work and the year after his graduation from Yale, he entered Bangor Theological Seminary. His independence of thought led him to adopt a custom of an earlier day in migrating from Seminary to Seminary, in pursuit of the professor best versed in a given subject.
In following this plan, he went from Bangor to Yale, and finally graduated at Auburn Theological Seminary in 1853. In July following, he was married to Joanna Brown whom he had known from childhood, and whose buoyancy of spirit and tenderness of devotion made sunshine in dark days of struggle with ill health; whose open-hearted hospitality and genial sympathy aided him in church work for thirty-four years; and whose unselfish spirit never faltered when life with an unpractical idealist and eight small children brought serious problems that must be practically solved.
In 1852, the Rev. John Alpheus Woodhull had been licensed to preach by the Long Island Congregational Association, but for two years after his graduation from Auburn, the frailty of his health prevented his taking a permanent charge.
After preaching for a time at Union Center, New York, and at Freeport, New York, he was in 1856 ordained pastor of the Congregational Church at Wadham's Mills, Essex Co., New York, where he began his preaching in 1855. Two years later, he removed to New Village, in his native county, where on account of his outspoken views on the question of anti-slavery certain difficulties arose that led to his accepting the pastorate of the church at Commacs in the same county, where he remained for seven years, from 1859-1866.
The following three years were spent at Northville, also in Suffolk County, where he suffered from the dissensions of pro slavery members of the parish but overcame opposition by the dignity of his bearing and by tact.
Here he not only preached but started an Academy, for the better education of the older children and young people.
The next three years were spent as pastor of the First Congregational Church of New Boston, Connecticut, and in 1872 he removed to Groton, where he was installed December 24th, 1873.
He was Chairman of the School Board, and also became interested in the history of both the town and church, and wrote "A Review of
Congregational Church History of Groton, Connecticut, with sketches of its ministers from 1704-1876."
For ten years, he was again in his native county, this time at Baiting Hollow. From here he removed to Middlefield, Massachusetts, where in 1887 he was called upon to bear the loss by death of his wife.
In 1889 he married Mrs. Eliza Miller Church and removed to Plainfield, Massachusetts, where he preached for seven years. Then after an active service in the Ministry of over forty years he retired and resided in Chicago until his death, February 1, 1902. He was interred beside his wife and two children in the historic Ledyard Cemetery, at Groton, Connecticut, where his widow has erected a substantial monument to his memory.
In the new stone church at Groton, is a window designed by Mr. Frederick Wilson, executed by Tiffany and given as a memorial to the Rev. John A. Woodhull, by his wife Eliza Miller Woodhull.
His life, like that of the parson in the Deserted Village, ran its unworldly course; of worldly ambition, he knew little, of the aspiration for all that was high and noble and beautiful, he knew much.
There was no community that was ever touched by his life that was not ennobled; young men went to college, libraries were started, public sentiment grew nobler and broader.
One of his parishioners quoted Chaucer's well known lines in characterizing the Rev. John Alpheus Woodhull, and I know of no more fitting summary with which to conclude this sketch.
"He waited after no pompe
ne reverence,
Ne maked him no spiced conscience,
But Cristes lore, and his
apostles twelve,
He taught, but first he folwed
it himselve."
Of his children, four sons and one daughter survive him.
(See Genealogyy, No. 402.)
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1825 - 1902 (76 years)
d. 13 Feb 1834, Ronkonkoma, Islip, Suffolk, New York, United States 