Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1889-08-23
OBITUARY.
REV. w. w. WINCHESTER.

The quiet village of Williamstown was
startled by the announcement on Sab
bath morning of the sudden death of one
of their esteemed citizens, Rev. W. W.
Winchester, who passed peacefully away
without warning while lying in bed.
His death was as unexpected to the fam
lily as to the community at large, al
though the doctor had intimated that
there was trouble about the heart that
needed more than usual care. Mr.. Win
chester had been following the directions
given by his physician and seemed to be
much better.
On the day before his death he wrote
letter to the Presbyterian board in New
York city, accepting an appointment
rendered him by that body to the charge
of home missionary church in Juneau,
Alaska. This act, voluntarily taken,
shows that he was not anticipating any
serious trouble from the disease, which
had given him only slight warning a
few weeks before. But a short time be-
fore Mrs. Winchester left their sleeping
apartments they were conversing cheer
fully with no signs of trouble near at
hand, and when she returned a half hour
later he was dead, seemingly having
passed away without pain.
Mr.. Winchester was born in Madrid, st.
Lawrence county, New York, April %,
1923. Early in his childhood he eyinced
love for books. While the boys of his
age were engaged in the usual sports of
youth, he was employed in reading. To
the end of his life he was fond of books.
He was great reader of such magazine
and newspaper articles as were instruct
i've to his thoughtful mind. He was not
heir to fortune, but his tastes and his
ambition would not let him rest short of
college course. He fought his way up
to it and through it, by his own exertions.
He was graduated from Middlebury col
lege in 1S47. After teaching two years
at Castleton seminary, Vermont, in the
fall of 1S49 he entered Andover Theo-
logical seminary. Three years later he
went directly from graduation to take
charge of the Congregational church in
Wilton, n. III. At the end of one year
he was called to the pastorate of the
Congregational church in Clinton, Mass.
Here he remained eight years, and in the
spring of 1852 he resigned, to take charge
of Finley hospital, Washington, d. C.
His labors in the hospital were varied
and untiring. His sympathies with the
sick and wounded and dying were I'M
bounded. He was appointed Spiritual
adviser of two of the conspirators, Payne
and Atzerot, who were executed after the
assassination of President Lincoln. He
happy men, and accompanied them to
the scaffold. He remained at his post to
the end of the war. | cannot forbear
quoting from an article which appeared
in one of the Washington papers at the
time of his chaplaincy, showing the es-
teen in which he was held:
"Ihe labors of chaplain are about
what he has the heart to make them. To
pass hastily through the wards each day,
and occasionally offciate at "A funeral
service, is what some are satisfied with
doing, but very small part of what a
chaplain may and ought to do. Take
for example Finley hospital, where, if |
mistake nN, is a model chaplain. He
goes through the wards, among his fami-
ly of seven or eight hundred, with his
pockets full of tracts, and bundle of
papers under his arm His practised eye
detects at a glance those who specially
need his aid. He kneels beside the dying
and converts them to the Great Physician.
He consoles the suffering, speaks encour-
agingly to those who are losing heart,
writes to friends when the patient is too
weak to write himself, sustains a prayer
meeting every evening in the week,
breaches on the Sabbath attends burial
service on the average perhaps once a
day, follows himself the remains to the
grave, and sees them inferred, and the
grave properly marked, writes letter
of sympathy to relatives, with such con-
selling facts as are at command, answers
inquiries of anxious fathers and mothers
and leaves his door always open to the
perpleXed and dispirited and those who
feel that there is no one to care for them,
to whom words fifty spoken are like
"appes of gold" For such chaplain
heart and soul in his work-the office is
no sinecure. The soldiers appreciate his
labors; they love him; they look upon
him as he really is, the best friend they
have at hand, and his name is house
hold word in families far away. | never
heard more fervent "God bless you,
from human lips, than fell from mother
who came searching for her sick soma
noble youth of eighteen, and found the
chaplain by his side, acting the good
Samaritan. 1t is certainly not too much
to say, that on hospital grounds, warm
hear and really devoted chaDlain is a