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Edward Everett Sill EDWARD EVERETT SILL, born July 14, 1839, at
Livonia, Livingston County, New York, was the son of Andrew Sill, M.D.,
and Marina (Woodruff) Sill. He prepared for college at the academies of
Oxford and Geneseo, New York State, and entered our Class at the beginning
of the second term of Freshman year. While in college he joined the Delta
Kappa Epsilon fraternity; he was also a member of the Technian Literary
Society, and was one of the orators in the Adelphic Union exhibition, July
9, 1862, and treasurer of the Technian Literary Society one term during
Junior year; was also toast orator in the Biennial Celebration; and was
elected a member of the Williams Quarterly editorial board, but resigned
on account of leaving college to enlist in the army. For this reason he
left college in June, 1862, and enlisted as a private soldier in the 136th
Regiment, New York Infantry Volunteers. His regiment joined the Army of
the Potomac in September, 1862. September 25, 1862, he was made a sergeant
of his company, and in March, 1863, was promoted to sergeant major of the
regiment. He took part in the campaigns of Fredericksburg, where he was
wounded, Chancellorsville, and Gettysburg. Sill was promoted to first lieutenant on the field at Gettysburg, July 4, 1863, and detailed for duty as adjutant of his regiment. In September, 1863, his regiment, with the Eleventh and Twelfth Corps under General Hooker, was transferred to the army of the Cumberland, near Chattanooga, Tennessee. He participated in the battles of Wauhatchie, Lookout Mountain, Chattanooga, Missionary Ridge, and Knoxville. In December he was ordered to duty on the staff of the brigade commander. At the opening of the Atlanta campaign, May 2, 1864, Sill was promoted to the position of aid-de-camp on the staff of Major General Daniel Butterfield, commanding Third Division, Twentieth Army Corps. During this campaign he took part in the battles of Buzzard Roost Gap, Resaca, Kingston, Cassville and Dallas, Georgia. While carrying dispatches in the night on the battlefield of Dallas, May 25, 1864, our classmate was severely wounded on his head and taken prisoner, and was confined in the rebel prisons at Macon, Georgia, Charleston and Columbia, South Carolina. November 29, he escaped from the prison at Columbia, was recaptured, December 29, by the rebels in the mountains of western North Carolina; but again escaped, January 2, 1865, and reached the Union lines at Loudon, East Tennessee, February 7. As soon as possible after this escape, Sill reported for duty with General Butterfield, and was commissioned captain and assistant adjutant general United States Volunteers, and also brevetted major by President Lincoln in March, 1865; also brevetted lieutenant colonel by the governor of New York; and was finally mustered out of the military service, September 18, 1865. In 1866 our classmate began to study law at Rochester, and later attended lectures at the Albany Law School. He was admitted to the bar in December, 1867, and in January following was taken into law partnership with A. J. Abbott, Esq., of Geneseo, New York, where he remained until June, 1874, and then removed to Buffalo, New York. In 1875, being threatened with trouble from the wound on the head received in the battle of Dallas, and acting upon the advice of his physician, Sill retired from the practice of law, and since 1876 he has been engaged as general manager in life insurance. During the past twenty-five years, as his business interests demanded, he has resided in Rochester, New York, Newark, New Jersey, and New Haven, Connecticut. He has been active and influential in behalf of the best interests of his various places of abode. For twenty years or more he was an elder of the Presbyterian church, and is now a member of the United Congregational Church, New Haven. For several years he was considerably engaged in the lecture field, chiefly with a narrative of personal observations and experiences, entitled, "In and Out of a Rebel Prison." As time has permitted, Sill has followed a bent for historical studies which has resulted in several published papers. Among these are the following titles:
Sill has served as president of the New York State Sunday School Association; president Life Underwriters' Association of New Jersey; governor of the Connecticut Society of the Order of the Founders and Patriots of America; commander of the Admiral Foote Post No. 17, Grand Army of the Republic, Department of Connecticut; companion of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States; companion of the Hamilton Chapter, No. 62 R. A. M., New York; director New Haven Colony Historical Society; member of the American Historical Association; member of the Connecticut Society of the Sons of the American Revolution, etc.
November 23, 1869, our classmate married Charlotte Elizabeth, daughter of James S. and Henrietta (MacNiel) Fowler, of Buffalo, New York. They have had five children: Herbert Fowler, born March 7, 1872; prepared for college at Newark Academy, Newark, New Jersey; graduated at Princeton University, 1894; appointed instructor in chemistry at Princeton, which position he has since held; and is now on a leave of absence from the university to spend a year or more in original research at Leipsic, Germany. Anna Elizabeth, born April 29, 1873; prepared for college at Newark, New Jersey; graduated at Vassar College, Class of 1896; afterward a teacher in the grammar school at New Haven, Connecticut, and library assistant at Princeton University. Died at Princeton, February 26, 1903. Edith Marina, born April 2, 1877; married, at New Haven, December 19, 1900, to Robert Henry Keener, Class of 1899, Yale University. They have one child, Stuart Rowland Keener, born May 20, 1903. Mr. Keener is now teacher of German in the high school at Paterson, New Jersey. Mary Henrietta, born June 27, 1881: until recently associated with her sister in library work at Princeton University. Gertrude, born April 7, 1883; died August 16, 1888.
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