“Eliza Wharton,” generally known, perhaps, as Elizabeth Whitman, was the eldest of four children—­Elizabeth, Mary, Abigail, and William; the latter of whom was a physician, twice married, and who also left a son of his own name, (William Elnathan,) who died in Philadelphia in 1846, unmarried.  Her father, the Rev. Elnathan Whitman, was the son of Rev. Samuel Whitman, who was the third son of Rev. Zechariah Whitman, the youngest child of John, the original ancestor of the Whitman family.  He (Rev. Samuel W.) graduated at Harvard University in 1696, and was for several years a tutor there.  Thus having passed through the usual, though then somewhat limited, course of theology, he was ordained as minister of the gospel in Farmington, Connecticut, in 1706, at that time one of the largest towns in the state.  He inherited by bequest one half of his father’s lands in Stow, Massachusetts, and was thereby also made executor of his will.  He married, March 19, 1707, Mary Stoddard, daughter of Rev. Solomon Stoddard, second minister of Northampton, Massachusetts.  Mr. Stoddard was born in Boston in 1643, and died in Northampton in 1729.  This Solomon Stoddard was the great-grandfather of Hon. Solomon Stoddard, now residing in Northampton.

It is worthy of remark here that the early ancestors of “Eliza Wharton” intermarried also with the Edwards family; so that Hon. Pierpont Edwards, who figures in this volume as “Major Sanford,” could be no less than second cousin to his unfortunate victim.

Rev. Elnathan Whitman, the father of Elizabeth, was born January 12, 1708-9, and graduated from Yale College, New Haven, where he was for several subsequent years a tutor.  He at length settled as minister over the Second Church in Hartford, Connecticut, and there married Abigail Stanley, daughter of Colonel Nathaniel Stanley, treasurer of the colony of Connecticut, a woman of uncommon energy of character and of superior mental acquirements, (a correct portrait of whom accompanies these pages, taken from an original painting.) He died in Hartford also, March 2, 1776, aged sixty-eight years, after having served in the ministry in that place forty-three of the same.  His tombstone bears the following inscription:—­

  In memory of

  The Rev.  Elnathan Whitman,

Pastor of the Second Church of Christ in Hartford, and one of the fellows of the corporation of Yale College, who departed this life the 2d day of March, A.D. 1776, in the 69th year of his age and 44th of his ministry.

Endowed with superior natural abilities and good literary acquirements, he was still more distinguished for his unaffected piety, primitive simplicity of manners, and true Christian benevolence.  He closed a life spent in the service of his Creator, in humble confidence of eternal happiness through the merits of the Savior.

  “Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord.”