Author: Wight, J. Ambrose
Biography:
WIGHT, J. Ambrose (1811-89: ancestry.com)
He published as "J. Ambrose" and that is the name on his marriage certificate; the J. stands for "Jay." He was born in Floyd NY, son of Mary (Bancroft) and Jabez Wight. He went from Bennington Academy in Vermont to Williams College in Williamstown MA, where he wrote and read aloud his only known poem for a Fourth of July celebration while he was still an undergraduate. (Many years later, the College granted him an honorary DD.) After graduating in 1836, he moved to Illinois where he engaged in business, married Caroline Elizabeth Adams (1840), and was called to the bar (1841). But it was not long before he switched track to become, from 1843 to 1853, an editor and proprietor of the Chicago newspaperPrairie Farmer--a paper addressed to farmers and associated with the Congregational and Presbyterian churches. In another change of course he then studied for the ministry and was ordained in 1856 as pastor of the Presbyterian Church in Olivet MI. Although he had to resign in 1863 on account of ill health, he recovered sufficiently to accept another charge and served as the minister of the First Presbyterian Church in Bay City MI from 1865 until 1888. He died in Bay City after what an obituary described as "a brief illness," leaving a widow and four children, and was buried at Rosehill Cemetery, Chicago. (ancestry.com 3 Feb. 2021; findmypast.com 3 Feb. 2021; Chicago Tribune 16 Nov. 1889) HJ