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IMG_9744.JPG - Endicott "Cotty" Peabody.

Endicott "Cotty" Peabody.

Endicott Peabody arrived in Tombstone January 29, 1882, when he was twenty-five years old. He had come to take over the Episcopalian ministry in Arizona's largest city, where over 800 mines were being worked. Born in Salem, MA, Peabody graduated from Trinity College of Cambridge, England in 1880. He entered the Episcopal Theological School in Cambridge in 1881 and subsequently accepted a temporary assignment to Tombstone.

Peabody quickly established himself in the community. He organized a baseball team, was the umpire and president of the baseball association, and also a boxer. His primary mission was to finish construction of a church and bring in the faithful. His ability to secure funding was legendary, for some of it came from unusual places. Once he encountered a group of mine superintendents gambling. When asked for donations, each gave $150. Saloons sold the largest blocks of tickets for fund-raising bazaars and operas. When a parishioner, Mrs. E. B. Gage, offered a gambling pot she had confiscated, Endicott replied, "The Lord's pot must be kept boiling, even if it takes the devil's kindling."

Peabody would not see his church consecrated, for he returned east in July 1882, his assignment ended. His is most noted for founding and serving as headmaster of the Groton School for boys in Massachusetts. According to Peabody, school was not to prepare boys for college, but for life. One lad who graduated from his school was future president Franklin D. Roosevelt. 
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