Edmonds' Sons: A Judge and an Artist
John Worth Edmonds (1799-1874) is buried near his parents Samuel and Lydia in the Hudson City Cemetery. A Justice of the New York State Supreme Court, he began clerking for Martin Van Buren. He was editor of the Hudson Gazette, vestryman for Christ Church, city recorder and Chief Engineer for the Hudson Fire Department. He also had a successful law practice in New York City. He was staunchly anti-slavery and, after serving as inspector at Mount Pleasant Prison, (known today as Sing Sing), became a leader in the prison reform movement, founding the Prison Association of New York.
“I have, myself, stood day after day, for hours at a time, at the doors of the cells of the prisoners, listening to the details of human depravity and human suffering, until the sickness of the heart was even more intolerable than the weariness of the body. Still it was a duty...” - John Edmonds, February 22, 1851
When his wife Sarah died Edmonds was completely bereft and, in the midst of his grief, heard her voice. He spent the rest of his life investigating Spiritualism and wrote a book on the subject. At the end of his life Edmonds wrote: I wish to be buried in Hudson, in the same grave with my wife, not by her side, but in the same grave, that our ashes may mingle, and be one on the earth, as our souls will be one in the spirit world.
Taking the Census, Francis William Edmonds, 1854, The American Wing, Metropolitan Museum of Art
Another son, Francis William Edmonds, became a successful Manhattan banker, with a mansion in Bronxville, and was a painter of renown, with paintings in the Columbia County Historical Society Museum, Brooklyn Museum and Metropolitan Museum of Art.
