Edmund Clarence Stedman

Edmund Clarence Stedman (October 8, 1833 – January 18, 1908) was an American poet, critic, essayist, banker, and scientist.

Early life

Edmund Clarence Stedman was born in Hartford, Connecticut, on October 8, 1833; his father, Major Edmund Burke Stedman died of tuberculosis two years later in December 1835. By the following spring, his mother Elizabeth Clementine Stedman moved the boy and his younger brother to Plainfield, New Jersey, to live with her wealthy father, David Low Dodge.

Dodge, a Calvinist and pacifist, was strict, did not want to use his finances to support his grandchildren, and often physically punished the boys for bad behavior. Mrs. Stedman sold poems and stories to magazines including Graham's Magazine, Sartain's Magazine, The Knickerbocker, and Godey's Lady's Book for income. Eventually, the children were taken in by their paternal grandfather, Griffin Stedman, and his brother James in Norwich, Connecticut.

Stedman enrolled in Yale University in 1849 at the age of 16. Stedman studied two years at Yale University, but was suspended and did not return. Yale later restored him to the Class of 1853 and gave him the degree of Master of Arts.

Early career

After leaving Yale, he became a journalist for The Norwich Tribune and became an editor at the age of 19. In 1854, he moved to Winstead, Connecticut, and edited The Herald. He then moved to New York City in 1856 and joined the staff of the Tribune and then the World, for which latter paper he served as field correspondent during the first years of the Civil War. As opportunity offered, he studied law and was for a time private secretary to Attorney-General Bates at Washington, and was a member of the New York Stock Exchange in Wall Street from 1865 to 1900.