Edward C. Delavan

Who was Edward C. Delavan?

Edward Cornelius Delavan was a wealthy businessman who devoted much of his fortune to promoting the temperance movement. He helped establish the American Temperance Union; attacked the use of wine in Christian communion; established a temperance hotel in Albany, New York; traveled to Europe to promote teetotalism; sent a copy of a temperance tract to every soldier in the Union Army during the Civil War; and sponsored a series of periodicals. They included the Journal of the American Temperance Union, the Temperance Recorder, the American Temperance Intelligencer; the Enquirer, and the Prohibitionist. Prohibition or dry towns in Illinois and Wisconsin were named in his honor.

E. C. Delavan is the namesake of Delavan, Illinois and Delavan, Wisconsin.