Ohio History Journal

WINTHROP SARGENT VII

By the death of Winthrop Sargent VII of Haver-

ford, Pennsylvania, on March 29, 1932, this Society

sustained the loss of a generous friend and life member.

It was chiefly through his aid that the Ohio State Arch-

aeological and Historical Society came into the posses-

sion of the valuable historical papers of Winthrop Sar-

gent, Secretary of the Northwest Territory from its

organization until 1798.

In the year 1904 the writer learned that a relative of

his who was a manuscript collector was about to make a

trip to New York City. The writer had been in corre-

spondence with William Butler Duncan whose wife was

a descendant of Secretary Winthrop Sargent and

learned that he had in his possession a large collection

of important Sargent papers covering in part the terri-

torial period of the old Northwest. At the request of

the manuscript collector the writer sent a letter to Mr.

Duncan with whom he had been in correspondence. The

collector had a very pleasant visit with Mr. Duncan

whom he found rather cordially disposed toward the

suggestion that the manscript letters be forwarded to

the Ohio State Library. Nothing, however, resulted

farther from the visit. Later the writer, who was then

State Librarian, called on Mr. Duncan in his New York

office, but Mrs. Duncan was not yet ready to part with

these precious letters. After the deaths of Mr. and

Mrs. Duncan the papers passed into the hands of Win-

throp Sargent, who in the Sargent Genealogy is desig-

nated as Winthrop Sargent VII, and his cousin, Pro-

fessor Charges Sprague Sargent of Harvard College.

In 1926 Winthrop Sargent VII and Charles Sprague

(531)

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532       Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

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Winthrop Sargent VII           533

Sargent made a brief inventory of the letters of Win-

throp Sargent, Secretary of the Northwest Territory,

and found among them the letter of introduction written

to William Butler Duncan by the writer in 1904. At

the suggestion of Winthrop Sargent VII, the letters,

numbering 1,071, were forwarded in a strong box, as a

gift to the Ohio State Archaeological and Historical So-

ciety. These are now in the library of the Society and

have been in rather frequent use for reference purposes.

A short time after the arrival of the letters Pro-

fessor B. H. Pershing of Wittenberg College wrote an

interesting sketch of the life of Secretary Sargent for

the quarterly publications of the Society. At the pres-

ent time Dr. Clarence E. Carter, who is editing the Ter-

ritorial Papers of the United States for the Department

of State in Washington, is having copies made of a num-

ber of these papers to supplement the record in the Jour-

nal of the Northwest Territory, which recently came

into the possession of the Society through one of its life

members, Mr. John H. James, of Urbana, Ohio. These

documents will in the near future become accessible to

students of the early history of the Northwest Terri-

tory through the State Department at Washington which

will print them for general distribution.

Not only did Winthrop Sargent VII make this most

valuable contribution to the manuscripts of the Society,

but through the later years of his life he was in fre-

quent correspondence with the Secretary of the Society

and with Professor Pershing who is writing a life of

Secretary Sargent, who served for many years with

Governor St. Clair, and in the absence of St. Clair was

Acting Secretary of the Northwest Territory. This in-

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534       Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

teresting work on the early history of the Territory has

been made possible through the generous interest of

Winthrop Sargent who breathed his last on March 29,

1932, at his home in Haverford, Pennsylvania. Follow-

ing is the sketch of his life substantially as published in

the New York Times of Wednesday, March 30:

Winthrop Sargent, industrialist, genealogist and member of a

distinguished New England family, died of pneumonia at his

home in Haverford today. He was born at Frederick, Montgom-

ery County, Pennsylvania, August 18, 1853.

Mr. Sargent was a first cousin of the late John Singer Sar-

gent, noted artist, and a son of the late Dr. Winthrop Sargent

and Elizabeth Tunis Browne Sargent. His mother belonged to

an old Philadelphia family. After receiving his education here,

Mr. Sargent spent fourteen years at the Altoona plant of the

Pennsylvania Railroad.

He helped organize the Pennsylvania Glass Sand Company

and also the Patterson Sargent Paint Company of Cleveland. He

was a director of the De Long Hook and Eye Company, the

Giant Portland Cement Company, the Avonmore Coal and Coke

Company and other concerns.

"Early Sargents of New England" is the subject of one of

Mr. Sargent's genealogical works. An ancestor settled in Glou-

cester, Mass., in 1650. Mr. Sargent led the movement to pre-

serve the Colonial House of his great-great-grandfather, built in

Gloucester during the Revolution.

In 1911 Governor Tener appointed Mr. Sargent chairman of

a commission to study the chestnut tree blight in Pennsylvania.

He was chairman of the greens committee of the Merion Cricket

Club when its championship golf course was built. He was a

founder and former president of the Delaware and Montgomery

Council of Boy Scouts.

Mr. Sargent also belonged to the Union League Club, the

Society of Genealogists of London, the Archaeological and His-

torical Society of Ohio, the Historical Society of Pennsylvania

and Old Plymouth Colony Descendants.

He was a cousin of Professor Charles Sprague Sargent, head

of the Arnold Arboretum at Harvard. Surviving are a widow,

the former Emma Worcester; four sons, Winthrop, Jr., Samuel

Worcester, Gorham Parsons and Fitzwilliam, and a brother, Fitz-

william Sargent of Mahwah, N. J., former chief engineer of the

American Brake Shoe and Foundry Company.

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Winthrop Sargent VII           535

The interest of the subject of this sketch in local

history and genealogy was especially notable in his later

years. In 1923 appeared the sumptuous and carefully

prepared genealogy of the family entitled, Epes Sargent

of Gloucester and His Descendants, a volume of 320

pages with a supplement of 68 pages entitled, "A List

of the Publications of the Descendants of Epes Sar-

gent," and a copious index to the entire work. The Pub-

lisher is the well known house of Houghton Mifflin Com-

pany.

In the preface to this work Charles Sprague Sargent

says:

"The descendants of Epes Sargent of Gloucester are

indebted to the love of family and the public spirit of

Winthrop Sargent, of Haverford, Pennsylvania, for this

volume."

In the personal sketch of Mr. Sargent published in

this volume we find the following statement:

"Winthrop Sargent, of the seventh generation, the

eleventh of that name, will always be remembered with

gratitude by the descendants of Epes Sargent, for it is

largely due to his imagination, industry, and generosity,

that they are indebted for this genealogy, and for the

preservation as a family memorial of the house built at

Gloucester by another Winthrop Sargent for his daugh-

ter Judith."

A copy of this work is in the Ohio State Archaeolog-

lical and Historical Society, the members and officers of

which will also recall with gratitude this distinguished

life member who has passed away.

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