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From: "LWH" <>
Subject: ICHABOD CODDING
Date: Sat, 13 Nov 2004 15:14:01 -0600

THE HISTORY OF SAUK COUNTY WISCONSIN 1880
published: Chicago: Western Historical Society

SOME OF SAUK COUNTY'S ILLUSTRIOUS DEAD Page 432

ICHABOD CODDING, was born at Bristol, Oneida, Co., N.Y., September 26, 1810.
At the age of seventeen, he entered the the (sic) academy at Canandaigua,
where he remained three years in the capacity of pupil and teacher. While
there, he had for fellow-student Stephen A Douglas, whom he in later life
encountered in political debate on the prairies of Illinois. On leaving the
academy, he entered Middlebury College, and, while there, commenced his
career as an Anti-slavery lecturer, and in so doing incurred the displeasure
of those in authority in that institution, on account of which he
voluntarily left without completing the course. After that, his
persecutions in that behalf came fast and more trying, until he had received
violent treatments at the hand of pro-slavery mobs on no less than forty
different occasions. He early espoused the temperance cause, and delivered
nearly one hundred lectures on that subject before arriving at the age of
twenty-one. At this time, the doors of the churches were closed against the
temperance lecturer, and, to use Mr. Coddings own expression, "the pioneers
in the temperance cause had to get their hearing in the churches by printing
pamphlets and throwing them over the walls of Zion from the outside." A
great deal of light has since been infused into the church after similar
means. After leaving college, he was employed by the Anti-Slavery Society
to lecture in the New England States. He came West in 1843, stoutly
maintaining his opposition to slavery. He was ordained a minister of the
Congregational Church at Waukesha in 1846, Own Lovejoy officiating as one of
the ministers on that occasion, in whose behalf Mr. Codding afterward had
the honor of declining a nomination for Congress. Mr. Codding also declined
a like nomination on another occasion. His extensive researches and
investigations soon led him to change his religious views, and placed him
outside the so-called orthodox churches. As a religionist, he may be
classed among that branch of the Unitarians represented by Theodore Parker.
He held, like Thomas Paine and many other men of deep thought, that there is
a religion arising from man's relation to God and his fellow-man not
dependent on written revelation. The one-ideaism of his life was to plant
himself on the broad platform of eternal truth and justice, and defend it
against all assailants. His discourse was argumentative, sometimes
eloquent. Although not a politician, the Republican party had no abler
advocate than he, and he especially endeared himself to the thinking people
of Baraboo during his four years' residence among them for his righteous
denunciation of secession. His death occurred on the 17th of June, 1866,
upon the eve o of his intended departure for Bloomington, Ill., where he was
under engagement to preach. To Ichabod Codding, Chief Justice Chase once
paid this tribute: "I have heard Webster, Clay and most of the great orators
of this country, but none of them could equal Codding. When I say greatest
orator, I wish to qualify the expression. Many may be ranked higher by the
usual standards, but by the standard which, after all, should measure the
power of oratory - that of effect produced upon a large and promiscuous
audience - Codding surpassed any speaker I ever heard."

Contributed by Linda Wright

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