RIDDELLS OF COLERAINE, MASSACHUSETTS, NO. 1. 247
Samuel Hopkins, D. D., of Hadley, Mass. She was half-sister of the wife
of Doctor Emmons, and own sister of the two wives of Dr. Samuel
Spring, of Newburyport, Mass., and of Dr. Samuel Austin, of Worcester,
Mass. (afterwards president of Vermont University, at Burlington), and
also sister of the wife of Rev. Leonard Worcester, of Peacham, Vt. Mr.
Riddel labored on the farm with his father until within one year of his
majority, when, being desirous of obtaining a college-education, he
posed to his father that if he would grant him the remainder of his time,
he would relinquish all claims to his share of the parental patrimony in
favor of his younger brothers, and seek to acquire an education by his
own exertions. This proposal was accepted by his father, and the son
thereafter supported himself principally by teaching school.
pro-
When he entered Dartmouth College his mother gave him an outfit
of bedding, and his father made him a present of the colt on which he
rode to Hanover, and which he sold for his own benefit. This was all the
aid his parents were able to give him to assist in his education. He
showed remarkable application in his studies while at college, and grad-
uated in 1793, with high honors in his class. He afterwards studied divin-
ity with Doctor Burton, of Thetford, Vt., and with Doctor Emmons, at
Franklin, Mass. His first pastorate was at Bristol, Me., commencing in
1796; second settlement in Townsend, Vt., in 1806; third pastorate in
Whittingham, Vt., in 1818. He was a man of thorough scholarship,
strong, logical mind, retentive memory, a sound Calvinist, an able sermon-
izer, serious and earnest, but not eloquent, in his style of delivery. His
reading was extensive, and his mind, in riper years, was a store-house of
knowledge. His nephew says, "I remember Uncle William very well in
the last years of his life, when he rode the old, long, lank sorrel up and
down, with immense saddle-bags under him, from which he would pull
and scatter tracts as he passed taverns and naughty boys.
He was ava-
ricious, and saved large sums of money; but he was a true, honest man, a
good old uncle, and at the last gave considerable money to the Tract So-
ciety. For my part he sent me a large number of the New England Cate-
chisms to distribute, but I found them very unpopular in the West."
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His wife died in 1813, from which time until his death, a period of
twenty-six years, he remained a widower, keeping his family together until
his children were educated and settled in life. He died in South Deerfield,
Mass., Oct. 24, 1849, in the eighty-second year of his age. Mr. Riddel
adopted an orthography unlike any other of the family, in consequence of
reading the name in the poems of Robert Burns, where the name of Cap-
tain Riddell, a great favorite of the poet, was spelt with only one 7. Mr.
Riddel supposed this to be the most proper form; but the mistake was
made by the publishers of Burns, for the Riddells of Glen-Riddell, repre-
sented by the patron of the poet, were a branch of the "Riddells of Rid-
dell," in Roxburghshire, and they universally spelt the name with the
double letters. Mr. Riddel had issue seven children, of whom hereafter.
Samuel Riddell (1), second son of Hugh2 (2), was born in Cole-
raine, Mass., June 13, 1769; married Jane Donaldson, in 1794, and had is-
sue nine children, of whom hereafter. He purchased a farm, and moved
from Coleraine to Charlemont, Mass., in 1796; spent thirty years on "this
poor side-hill farm," and in 1835, when his family were all gone but
Thomas, he left the old neighborhood, and the graves of his father,
mother, and children, and went to Ann Arbor, Mich., where he spent one
year, and removed to Milwaukee, Wis., where he had a son and daughter.
