Miami Union

August 10, 1867 

EDWARDS, PROFESSOR WM. N. - A brief announcement in a portion of our last week's edition conveyed to most of our readers in this county that sad tidings of the sudden death of Professor Wm. N. Edwards, Superintendent of our Union School, and Principal of the High School connected therewith.  The funeral of the deceased took place on Tuesday afternoon, and was attended by as large a concourse of people as we have ever seen on any similar occasion in the county.  Besides the citizens of Troy and vicinity, we saw quite a number from Piqua and other distant parts of the county.  The funeral services were held in the Franklin Street Presbyterian Church--of which the deceased was a member--and the burial was in Riverside Cemetery.  The death of Mr. E. is a loss to the public generally, as he was one of the most devoted friends of education and practical Teachers in the State; but especially is it a loss--amounting, indeed, to a calamity--to Troy and its vicinity which have, for some fourteen years, enjoyed the benefits of his ability, his experience, and his untiring devotion to that noble cause--the instruction of youth--which he has made the single purpose of his life.  We shall enter upon no extended eulogy of the life, the services, and the moral worth of the deceased.  We leave that to some one who has known him longer and better than we.  We will only add that no death that has ever occurred in this community has produced a deeper sensation, or been more sincerely regretted.  This was manifested in an unmistakable manner on the day of the funeral by the general suspension of business, the draping of business.  Houses in mourning, and the attendance of almost the entire population of every age, sex, color and condition to pay the last sad tribute of respect to the remains of departed worth.

                                                              "Such groves as his are pilgrim shrines,

                                                                   Shrines to no creed or code confined;

                                                                The Delphian vales, the Palestines,

                                                                    The Meccas of the mind."

Troy Times

August 8, 1867

EDWARDS, WILLIAM N. - On Saturday morning last, August 3d, William N. Edwards died. We have never witnessed in any community more genuine grief at the doings of Death than on this occasion. The loss appears to be felt in every family; indeed his long and faithful labors in the school room had almost made him a member of every family in Troy. While he was honored by all classes for his high moral character his sterling worth, his natural as well as acquired abilities, and his plain, unassuming ways, it was the long continued and intimate intercourse of the school room, that begat in pupils and parents a love for the man that was only fully known when they followed him to the grave. He was buried on Tuesday afternoon, after funeral services at the Franklin St. Presbyterian Church. Resolutions of respect to the memory of the deceased have been handed in, but as we presume that other bodies will also offer their tribute, we defer this week the publication of any, that all may be in the same issue of the paper.

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