Identifier: newyorkstatesprov2harr (find matches)
Title: New York State's prominent and progressive men : an encyclopaedia of contemporaneous biography
Year: 1900 (1900s)
Authors: Harrison, Mitchell Charles, 1870-
Subjects: Civic leaders
Publisher: (New York) : New York Tribune
Contributing Library: Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center
Digitizing Sponsor: Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center

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Rhode Island Assembly, an ensign ofthe Third Company of North Kingston, and a lieutenant of theThird Company of the Second Battalion of Rhode Island troops.Beriah Waits son, Christopher Brown Wait, removed fromRhode Island to New York State soon after the Revolution, andsettled at Fundys Bush, in the northern part of the State. Hisson, Christopher Brown Wait, Jr., father of the subject of thissketch, was a carpenter and builder at Amsterdam, New York. The maiden name of Mr. Waits mother was Betsey GrinnellBell, and she came of an old Connecticut family. Her fatherwasWilliam Bell of Stamford, for whom the subject of thissketch was named, and her grandfather was Captain Jesse Bellof western Connecticut, one of the most notable men contrib-uted by that region to the colonial forces during the Revolu-tionary War. He served continuously from 1775 to 1783, andwas in numerous battles and skirmishes with the British and Indians. .William Bell Wait, the son of Christopher Brown Wait, Jr., 356
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WILLIAM BELL WAIT 357 and Betsey Grrinnell Bell, his wife, was born at Amsterdam,Montgomery County, New York, on March 25, 1839. He waseducated in the public schools of Albany, New York, in theAlbany Academy for Boys, and in the Albany Normal School(now College), from which he was graduated in the class of 1859.Upon his graduation Mr. Wait adopted the profession of teaching,and accepted a position at the New York Institution for theBlind, in New York city, where he was engaged until the out-break of the Civil War, when he enlisted in the Seventy-firstRegiment, New York State Volunteers, and served with thatregiment until it was mustered out, a few months later. Havingstudied law while engaged in teaching, he entered the law officeof the Hon. Lyman Tremain of Albany as a student, and inDecember, 1862, was admitted to the bar of the State of NewYork. He seemed to be destined, however, to devote his life to edu-cational work rather than to the practice of the legal profession.Under a law

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