The following biographical sketch of the author is taken from the "History of Bowdoin College: With Biographical Sketches of Its Graduates, from 1806 to 1879, Inclusive", by Nehemiah Cleaveland.
ABRAHAM CHITTENDEN BALDWIN was born in 1804 at North Guil- ford, Conn. His grandfather, Timothy Baldwin, fought for liberty in 1876. His father was Col. Benjamin Baldwin. His maternal grand father, Abraham Chittenden, was also in the war, a staff officer of Gen. Ward, and died at the age of ninety-six. Having passed through the New Haven Seminary, Mr. Baldwin was settled in Berlin, Mass., succeeding there the venerable Dr. Puffer. From 1833 to 1837 he was pastor of the Olivet Church in Springfield, Mass. In 1839 he became the associate principal of a young ladies' school in Newburg, N. Y. Two years afterward he accepted a call to the Howe Street Church in New Haven, Conn. From this place he went to Hartford as family guardian and steward of the American Asylum for the Deaf and Dumb. Compelled by ill health in his family to resign this office in 1854, he acted for a year or two as superintend ent of the Guilford Institute, supplying, at the same time, the pulpit of his native parish. Since 1857 he has been pastor of the First Congregational Church in Durham, Conn., and also of the church at Black Rock, a portion of Bridgeport. He thence returned to spend his remaining days at Hartford. Without pastoral charge he has con tinued to preach as opportunities presented. In addition to several sermons and contributions to the periodicals, Mr. Baldwin has pub lished a work entitled " Themes and Texts for the Pulpit," which has had a good circulation ; also " Helen and her Cousin," a Sunday- school book; also "Friendly Letters to a Christian Slaveholder" (a preminm essay), and three prize essays ; "Liberty and Slavery, the Great National Question" ; also a " Dictionary of Phrases for Secret Telegraphing," of which Prof. Morse and others speak well ; as also an article on Joel Barlow in the New Englauder for July, 1873. He was married in 1830 to Emily, daughter of Dr. Joseph Foote of North Haven, Conn.
