Encyclopedia of Connecticut biography, genealogical-memorial ...

liam Wright, of whom further ; Edward
Thomas Wright, a sketch of whom follows;
Frederick R., now deceased, who
became a large importer in New York
City, and a prominent manufacturer of
Stamford ; Richard H., now deceased, who
was prominently identified with the
Stamford "Advocate" for many years, and
whose biography follows.
The father of these children died in
1854, at the age of forty-nine years.
Reared as he had been in the stern old
school of religious precept and practice,
he brought up his children strictly, but
with such loving kindness that they were
attracted to the same ideals of godliness
and right living as he had espoused. His
widow continued in her vocation of
school-teacher in the old country until
1857, when, with her young sons, Fred-
erick R., Richard H., and Anthony, she
crossed the ocean to Canada, where her
elder children were already residing. She
died in Brooklyn, New York, in 1879,
aged sixty-eight years. Like her husband,
she was an earnest and devoted
Christian, ready to make any sacrifice for
her children. She was beloved by all
who knew her.
(Ill) William Wright Gillespie, son of
John (2) and Mary J. (Cunningham) Gil-
lespie, was under the careful and thorough
tuition of his parents until he was
fourteen years old. Then, in a competi-
tive examination, he won a scholarship in
the Dundalk Institution, an endowed
schood of academic grade. In December,
1856, he and his brother, Edward T. W.
Gillespie, accompanied their father's
brother to Guelph, Canada, and thus ended
their formal instruction. But William
W. had acquired a thirst for knowledge,
and he remained a diligent student to the
end of his days. His intellectual interests
covered a wide range, including the natural
sciences, history and literature. The
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF BIOGRAPHY
347
—
following quotation from one who knew
him intimately will convey some idea of
the extraordinary quality and comprehensive
scope of Mr. Gillespie's mental
endowment, his all-round capabilities and
untiring industry. Had he devoted himself
to the accumulation of wealth, no
doubt he would have become one of the
rich men of his time, but he realized as
few do the truth so tersely expressed by
Abraham Lincoln : "There is something
more important than making a living
making a life."
From early boyhood he had shown extraordinary
capacity for doing things, especially in the
lines of mechanical constriictiveness and inventive
resourcefulness. There was no machine so com-
plicated or so novel that he could not almost at a
glance understand the principles of its operation
and the philosophy of its purpose. Every great
invention that appeared in his time, he understood
fundamentally, while most people regarded it with
incredulity, or even ridicule. The first crude
phonograph had scarcely appeared, when he
grasped the full meaning of the new discovery of
until then hidden facts in the realm of nature
which it represented, and he made it the founda-
tion and illustration of a series of lectures on the
"science of sound," which were heard with rapt
attention by many public audiences in this country
and in Canada. At the first hint of the power
and light to be derived from electricity, he gave
public lectures upon this topic, in which he ap-
peared to have the whole meaning and philosophy
of it at his fingers' ends, so to speak, and in which
he confidently prophesied developments, then
unknown and unheard of, but which have since
been realized in practical, everyday working.
Such were the capabilities of a mind, in these di-
rections, which, if it had had the advantages of
early technical training, such as is now available
to thousands of the youth of this country, could
scarcely have failed to become, not only merely
an eager and intelligent follower of these inven-
tions, but in all probability a leader and creator in
the same field.
His accomplishments as a writer, whether of
newspaper reports, comments, etc., or, more espe-
cially, the large and respectable body of original
literary material he produced in the form of
essays, lectures and addresses for public delivery
on special occasions, are marked first of all by