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CHAPTER FOUR
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Edward Langworthy, Patriot, Member of the Continental
Congress from Georgia, School Teacher, Printer,
and Historian
DWARD LANGWORTHY, whose association with
Goddard as partner was announced in the Maryland
Journal and Baltimore Advertiser on January 26, 1785,
had already distinguished himself as a school teacher,
secretary to the Committee of Safety of Georgia
and Member of the Continental Congress. He was
born about 1738 and was left an orphan early in life.
Fortunately, Georgia was particularly well provided for the care and
education of fatherless children. The Rev. George Whitefield had in
1738 procured a grant of five hundred acres of land and over £1000
in contributions with which he founded the famous Bethesda Orphan
House. The education which Langworthy received during his stay there
was probably very similar to that described by Whitefield in his original
plan which was printed as a preface to Account of Money received and
expended f or the Poor of Georgia:
"It may be further considered, that the children, to be maintained in the Orphan House, are to
be bred up to manual labour from their very infancy; and that the persons to be employed in their
education, it is to be hoped, have the glory of God at heart, and desire no other gratuity than food
and raiment."1
Langworthy probably supplemented what formal education he received
from the teachers with reading from the library that had been con-
tributed by charitable people in England.
His activities after leaving Bethesda seem to have been directed
toward getting a position as a teacher, for in 1771 in a letter from James
Habersham to the Countess Dowager of Huntington the following
passage occurs:
"A young man, one Mr. Langworthy, has expressed a great Desire to be employed as a Tutor
at the Orphan House. He has for more than a year past kept a School in this Town ... I am en-
1 Luke Tyerman, Life of the Rev. George Whitefield. 2nd ed. London, 1890. Vol. I, p. 543.
[37]
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