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Newell Avery Eddy (1856-??)
Businessman - Lumber, mining, banking.

1906 History. Contributed by Jim Petrimoulx, Sep. 2007.

A History of the Class of ‘79 Yale College, 1875-1905, by F.W. Williams (1906)

NEWELL AVERY EDDY
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Born in Bangor, Maine, May 20, 1856. Son of Jonathan and Caroline (Bailey) Eddy. His father, a lumber merchant of Maine, was descended from the Rev. William Eddy, a vicar of Cranbrook, County of Kent in England, whose son Samuel settled in Plymouth Colony in 1630. Newell’s great-grand-father, Colonel Jonathan Eddy of Eddington, Maine, served with distinction in the Revolutionary War. His mother’s family are also of Puritan New England stock that settled in Massachusetts.

He was trained at schools in Bangor, and spent three years before entering college at Phillips Academy, Andover. In college he was known as an athlete, played on the class baseball team, and belonged to the Canoe Club. One of the first of the class to marry, he spent the winter after graduation with his wife in Southern Florida, studying and making collections in ornithology and oology. Returning to Bangor in the spring of 1880, he remained engaged in business there until his removal in May, 1888, to Bay City, Michigan, where he is still living. He is a lumber merchant there of importance, not to say renown. In addition to this steady employment, he also occupies the responsible offices of President of the Smalley Motor Company, Director in the Bay Company Savings Bank, and in the Opera House Company, Secretary of the Eddy-Shaw Transit Company, and Secretary and General Manager of the Penobscot Mining Company, and of the Platt Mining Company. He had been for six years a member of the School Board of Bay City. He is, as you will notice is so frequently the case with men of importance in business, a Republican and a Presbyterian. During an active business career he had still continued his old affection for ornithology. Twenty years ago he spent two seasons in Dakota collecting birds’ eggs, and has for many years assisted in the publication of works on Michigan birds and given reports on the same subjects, as well as contributed frequently to ornithological journals.

He married, February 9, 1880, Marianna, daughter of Dr. Edward Mann Field of Bangor, a graduate of Bowdoin College. Their children are: Newell Avery, Jr., born in Bangor November 19, 1880; May Field, born in Bangor January 8, 1883; Laura Parker, born in Bay City April 4, 1884; Donald McRuer, born in Bay City April 10, 1890; Charles Fremont>, 2nd, born in Bay City January 7, 1896; Sally McRuer, born in Bay City May 19, 1900. Newell Avery, Jr., who portrait appears here as a child at our triennial in 1882, was graduated from the Sheffield Scientific School with the class of 1904. He will be remembered as being present at our class reunion celebration in that summer. May Field Eddy married, June 14, 1905, Harry F. Chapin. She and here sister Laura are both graduates of Abbot Academy in Andover. Donald is preparing for Yale in the Bay City High School, and there is no reason to suppose that his brother Charles will not go the same good old way.

His residence is 615 Grant Place, Bay City, Michigan. He has a country house at Pointe aux Barques.

Dec. 7, 1918: Bird Bath. Contributed by Jim Petrimoulx, Jan. 2008.

The Bay City Times Tribune - Saturday, December 7, 1918 (Page 5)

Bird Lover Has Fitting Memorial
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Mrs. N. A. Eddy Erects a
Beautiful Fountain in
Elm Lawn Cemetery
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Probably no more fitting remembrance could have been devised than the beautiful and elaborate bird bath and drinking fountain recently placed in Elm Lawn cemetery by Mrs. N. A. Eddy as a memoriam to her husband who passed away several months ago. The memorial is particularly appropriate as Mr. Eddy during his entire life was a devoted lover of birds and did much toward obtaining legislation for the protection of Michigan’s feathered menagerie.

The bird bath and fountain which is located in one of the central portions of the burying grounds is three and one-half feet high and about three feet across and is built of Vermont granite. Surrounding the fountain and carved in bas-relief are figures of a heron standing among rushes, two wild ducks and a dragon fly. On the edge of the bath are the figures of two robins carved to resemble birds quenching their thirst. All of the figures are remarkably close to nature. In the center of the bath a bubbling spring constantly furnishes fresh water. Owing to restrictions caused by war the work which was ordered several months ago was but recently installed.