Kirtland, Edwin Leander (1833 - April 12, 1910)

Edwin Leander Kirtland (1833 - April 12, 1910) was an American publisher, public servant, and musician. Born in Westbrook, Connecticut, Kirtland graduated from Yale in 1859 and taught at Westbrook Academy the next year. he worled in the pension office in Washington, D.C. during the American Civil War and was in Ford's Theater the night President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated. After he retired from the pension office, he lived in Philadelphia for a few years before returning to Connecticut, where he was elected to the Connecticut State Legislature in 1869. He moved to Holyoke, Massachusetts in 1870. Kirtland purchased Henry M. Burt's share of the Holyoke Transcript, the town's weekly newspaper, in 1870 and sold his share of the newspaper in 1881. Kirtland was elected to the Massachusetts State Legislature in 1873 and wrote a history of the city of Holyoke, Massachusetts that was published in 1898. He held the position of superintendent of schools in Holyoke for twenty years. He died at his home in Holyoke in 1910. He married Laura Maria Whiting on July 6, 1892.