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He left us in March, 1861, and went to Brown
University, Providence, Rhode Island, and remained there until the Spring of 1862, at which
time he enlisted in Company A, Tenth Regiment, Rhode Island Volunteers, for three
months, and served with his regiment in Virginia until the expiration of his term of
enlistment.
In November, 1862, he again enlisted for nine months, in Company F, Forty-eighth
Regiment, Massachusetts Volunteers, and was with General Banks' expedition up the Red
River. He was sick for several months with malarial fever, and returned home with impaired
health at the expiration of his term of service. He returned to Dartmouth in
September, 1863, and entered as Junior with the class of 65, and received his degree of Bachelor of
Arts with that class. Immediately after graduating, he went to Boston, Massachusetts, and
became Usher in the Dwight School, in the Fall of 1865. On account of ill health, he was
obliged to resign this position, and in August, 1866, he removed to Red Wing, Minnesota.
For eleven years he was Superintendent and Principal of Schools in Red Wing, Rochester
and Winona, Minnesota, organizing three public schools upon their present excellent system
; he also founded the Red Wing Seminary, and was its Principal for six years. He was also
mainly instrumental in founding and freeing from debt the Baptist Church at Red Wing. He
was the Superintendent of its Sunday School, and also of the Sunday School at Winona. He
returned to the East in 1878, and was engaged with the Publishing House of A. J. Johnson
& Co. until April, 1881, when he received a Master's Certificate from the Boston
Supervisors, and returned to the profession of teaching. He is at present the Principal of the
High School at Nahant, Massachusetts. He has purchased a residence in Melrose,
Massachusetts, where he expects to make his permanent home, having also bought land near
by, which he expects to improve as a farm.
He is President of the Baptist Social Union of Melrose.
He is a member of the Baptist church, and is a Republican in politics.
He was married March 27, 1866, to Miss Maria Phelps Putnam, of Danvers,
Massachusetts, the ceremony being performed at the old General Israel Putnam homestead.
They have had three children: Robert Putnam, born at Red Wing, Minnesota, February 17,
1868; William Phelps, born at Winona, Minnesota, April 2, 1870, and Susie May, born at
Red Wing, May 10, 1876.
William Phelps died August 4, 1870.
Source: "Memorialia
of the Class of '64 in Dartmouth College" complied by
John C. Webster, Shepard & Johnston, Printers, 1884,
Chicago
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