In the early '90s, Rod Bigelow came to campus
to visit his son, Jeffrey Jon
13 Bigelow-class of
'95. Wandering into Schaffer Library, he noticed a special "Union
Worthies" publication that chronicled the extraordinary life of John
Bigelow.
Thumbing through the 40-page booklet, he
learned about the post-Union feats of John Bigelow, a member of the
Class of 1835. Co-founder of the New York Public Library. Editor and
publisher of Benjamin Franklin's autobiography. Appointed consul
general to Paris by President Abraham Lincoln, to name just a few of
his accomplishments.
What Rod Bigelow didn’t know at the time was
that he was related to one of Union's most distinguished alums. This
past weekend, Rod Bigelow and more than a dozen other members of the
Bigelow Society met for the first time at the College for their annual
meeting. The group has about 500 members and publishes a quarterly
newsletter, The Forge, about the genealogy of generations of the family
descended from John Bagley Bigelow.
The focal point of this year's gathering was
Union's Bigelow, the seventh generation of the family in America and
arguably one of the most unheralded figures of the 19th century and
early 20th century. A reception Friday evening in the library featured
remarks by College librarian Frances Maloy, David Hayes, acting dean of
the faculty and vice president for academic affairs, and Mark Walker,
the John Bigelow Professor of History. On Saturday, the group,
including staff from Schaffer Library, visited Bigelow's homestead in
Malden-on-Hudson in Saugerties, N.Y. They also listened to
presentations from Ellen Fladger, head of Special Collections, Matthew
Connolly, digital projects specialist and Annette LeClair, head of
technical services at Schaffer. Attendees also enjoyed an encore of an
earlier exhibit about Bigelow, "Remembered First Citizen," featuring
artifacts such as his death mask, typewriter and working papers for his
groundbreaking edition of the Franklin autobiography. Also on display
are letters to Bigelow from such luminaries as Andrew Carnegie, J.P.
Morgan and a telegram from President William Taft noting the death of
Bigelow on Dec. 19, 1911. - See more at:
http://union.edu/news/stories/2013/07/ties-that-bind-bigelow-family-celebrates-unions-favorite-citizen.php
The title of the exhibit is a nod to the 1947
Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of Bigelow, Forgotten First Citizen,
by Margaret Clapp, who believed that Bigelow never received the
attention he deserved. "He just wasn't a self-promoter," said Rod
Bigelow, a retired inspector for the U.S. Customs
Service and president of the Bigelow Society. "He was a great man who
had a fascinating life. You look at politicians and others today who
are just promoters, John wasn't like that." The Bigelow reunion
coincides with an ongoing project at Union, The Correspondence of John
Bigelow, a massive digital index of more than 20,000 letters from
political, cultural and literary giants, including Theodore Roosevelt,
Mark Twain and Charles Dickens. The collection was gifted to the
College by the Bigelow family decades ago. Along with the New York
Public Library, Union boasts the largest collection of Bigelow
material. "We are so thrilled to have the Bigelow Society meet here,"
said LeClair. "John Bigelow was a remarkable man, and to be able to
share his story with his relatives is special."
Descendants
of John Bigelow Rod, left, and Don Bigelow at the Union College library
on Friday July 19, 2013 in Schenectady, N.Y.
John Bigelow, Union College Class of 1835, was a statesman and
publisher and a founder of the New York Public Library.
(Michael P. Farrell/Times Union)
It's been 178 years since there
were
so many Bigelows on campus.
Descendants of John Bigelow, an 1835 graduate of
Union College and a central figure
in 19th-century American letters, gathered for a family reunion Friday
at the school where their famous forebear developed a lifelong love
of literature.
Bigelow was a noted lawyer, author and editor
who was also President Abraham
Lincoln's minister to France during the Civil War, a founder of the
New
York Public Library and co-owner of the New York Evening Post.
Bigelow also worked behind the scenes in the U.S. acquisition of rights
to build a canal through Panama instead of Nicaragua.
Bigelow's descendants donated to his alma mater his 4,000-volume
personal library and more than 20,000 letters Bigelow wrote and
received from Theodore
Roosevelt, William
Cullen Bryant, Andrew
Carnegie, Samuel
Tilden, Elizabeth
Cady Stanton and other major historical figures.
Librarians put together a special exhibit at Schaffer
Library with samples of Bigelow's correspondence, his typewriter,
archival items and other oddities.
A display in honor of John Bigelow at the Union College
library on Friday July 19, 2013 in Schenectady, N.Y.
John Bigelow, Union College Class of 1835, was a statesman and
publisher and a founder of the New York Public Library.
(Michael P. Farrell/Times Union)
"We're pleased to hold our family
reunion at
Union College this year," said Rod Bigelow, 70, a retired U.S. Customs
agent who lives in Chazy Lake in the Adirondacks. He is president of
the
Bigelow Society, which has
about 500 members. It publishes a quarterly newsletter, The Forge,
which reports on the genealogy of 12 generations of the family
descended from
John Baguley Bigelow.
The patriarch emigrated from England in 1632 at age 16. He settled in
Watertown, Mass., worked as a blacksmith and fathered 13 children.
John Bigelow, the notable Union alumnus, was
the seventh generation of the family in America.<>"We're
excited to have the Bigelows here," said librarian
Annette LeClair, who has been
expanding Union's Bigelow online database, which includes digitized
copies of many of Bigelow's records and background on his remarkable
coterie of associates.
"The digital universe has opened up a new
level of interest on Bigelow," LeClair said. There have been recent
inquiries from scholars as far away as Mexico.
Librarian Annette LeClair looks through
some of the books from John Bigelow's library on display at the Union
College library on Friday July 19, 2013
in Schenectady, N.Y. John Bigelow, Union College Class of 1835,
was a statesman and publisher and a founder of the New York Public
Library.
(Michael P. Farrell/Times Union)
The effort is aimed at reclaiming
Bigelow's
place in history. A 1947 biography by
Margaret
Clapp was titled "Forgotten First Citizen." It won the Pulitzer
Prize in biography in 1948 for Clapp, who argued that Bigelow deserved
greater recognition.
Even descendants had forgotten. Rod Bigelow
did not know about him until he visited his son, Jeffrey, a 1995 Union
graduate, at the Schenectady campus and found a book about John Bigelow
in the library and became fascinated."They have an incredible
amount of material about him and his life at Union. That's why we're
here," said Bigelow, who was joined by his son, Jeffrey Jon Bigelow,
the Union alum, who works as a hydrogeologist and lives in
Saratoga Springs.
The weekend reunion included a reception and
discussion about the
library exhibit and the Bigelow papers as well as a Saturday visit to
John Bigelow's family homestead at Malden-on-Hudson in Saugerties.
"My brother drove over from Las Vegas, stopped
at my house and we
decided we should go to the reunion," said Dale Bigelow, 70, a retired
city bus driver from Grand Rapids, Minn.
"I don't know much about John Bigelow, but
it's pretty amazing to
see this exhibit about all the things he did," said his brother, Alan
Bigelow, 79, a retired high school teacher who lives in Las Vegas. "We
all share an interest in history."
"John Bigelow is one of my favorite alumni at
Union," said
Ellen Fladger,
college archivist and
head of special collections. "He knew everyone who was anyone in his
day, and there were so many facets to his life. He was a true
power broker."
Matt Connolly, a digital
projects specialist, has been digitizing Bigelow's correspondence and
is working on a book about Bigelow's deep interest in Emanuel
Swedenborg, the Swedish philosopher, theologian
and mystic."Bigelow believed in democracy as a spiritual process
and that
historical events were part of God's plan," Connolly said.
Don Bigelow, 70, a retired optometrist from
Bradenton, Fla., who is
is editor of the Bigelow Society's journal, expected to gather enough
material for an article or two at the reunion. "I'm looking
forward to learning a lot more about John Bigelow this
weekend," he said.
A death mask is part of a display in
honor of John Bigelow at the Union College library on Friday July 19,
2013 in Schenectady, N.Y.
John Bigelow, Union College Class of 1835, was a statesman and
publisher and a founder of the New York Public Library.
(Michael P. Farrell/Times Union)
From:
http://www.timesunion.com/local/article/History-shines-at-family-reunion-4676031.php
by: PaulGrondahl