Researching Edward Phelps

A prominent Democrat even as Vermont was trending towards the Republicans, Phelps was the son of Senator Samuel S. Phelps and his first wife, Francis (Shurtleff) Phelps. Edward Phelps graduated from Middlebury College in 1840, taught school in Virginia, and studied for a career as an attorney, first in the office of Middlebury attorney Horatio Seymour, then at Yale Law School. He practiced in Burlington, and served as Second Comptroller of the Treasury from 1851 to 1853. Phelps supported the Union during the American Civil War, but was a critic of what he regarded as the excesses of the Abraham Lincoln administration. He served as a delegate to the Vermont constitutional convention of 1870, and was one of the founders of the American Bar Association. Phelps served as ABA president from 1880 to 1881. In 1880, he was the unsuccessful Democratic nominee for Governor of Vermont.

Phelps was Envoy to Court of St. James's in Britain from 1885 to 1889. He later taught law at Yale Law School, the University of Vermont, and Boston University. He supported Republicans after 1896, in response to his disagreement with the Democratic Party's turn towards the Free Silver movement. He died in New Haven, Connecticut, and was buried at Greenmount Cemetery in Burlington.

Edward Phelps attended Yale College, where he graduated in 1886. During that time he took an interest in sports, being a member of the Freshman Football Team and was also Chairman of the Yale Literary Magazine. He was a member of Eta Phi, Delta Kappa Epsilon, Chi Delta Theta, the Political Science Club and Skull and Bones. Due to his ability as a public speaker, Phelps was entered into the De Forest Medal Contest in his senior year. He was beaten by Evans Woollen, who like Phelps spoke on "The American Tory in the Revolution" After his senior year, Phelps enrolled at the Yale Graduate School and received an MA in 1888. During the years 1887 and 1888, he also engaged in the insurance business in Chicago.

With an MA to his name, Phelps entered the offices of the New Haven Morning News as a reporter and was later promoted to the position of telegraph editor. The following year, he was appointed reporter and chief editor of the Hartford Courant. Phelps was not to stay in Connecticut for long, for in 1890 he made his way to Chicago, where he engaged in editorial and financial work at the Chicago Herald. He left the Chicago Herald in 1895, to pursue a career, using the financial skills he had picked up. He was picked up by the Northern Trust Safe Deposit Company of Chicago, where he was secretary, treasurer and general manager until 1923. From 1923 to his retirement in 1929, he was a director and President of the company. Phelps became well known in safe deposit circles, being made President of the Illinois Safe Deposit Association and Chairman of the National Safe Deposit Advisory Council. From 1895 to 1897, Phelps was secretary of Chicago's First Civil Service Commission.

Phelps was heavily involved in the affairs of Yale throughout his life. He was secretary and treasurer of the Yale Scholarship Trust of Chicago, in 1905; President of the Yale Club of Chicago, from 1910 to 1911; represented the Yale Club of Chicago on the Alumni Board, from 1910 to 1916; and was a director of the Yale Publishing Association. He also took an interest in a high school in Winnetka, Illinois.