Jeptha H. Wade

Jeptha H. Wade, 83, a prominent Boston, Mass., attorney who assisted in the formation of the federal Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, died on Aug. 8, 2008, in Burlington, Mass. Born to an affluent Cleveland, Ohio, family on Dec. 26, 1924, he was the son of the late George G. and Irene Love Wade. He graduated from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, class of 1946, and while there met Emily Vanderbilt, who became his wife of 63 years. He also served in the American Field Service volunteering in 1944. Inspired by enjoyable arguments with an MIT business law teacher, he ventured into the legal world, graduating from Harvard Law School in 1950. Mr. Wade’s initial employment was as an MIT intellectual property lawyer, in which capacity he later served the university’s outside counsel. He moved to the Boston firm of Choate, Hall and Stewart in 1956, retiring as a senior partner in 1990. In 1952, Mr. Wade and his wife purchased a house in Bedford, Mass., built in 1898 on seven acres of land. He remained there for the rest of his life, serving on the town planning board and later on the Historic District Commission. He engaged in a diversified practice of law, eventually becoming the partner responsible for the operation of a large trust, which he also served as an active trustee. During this time, he volunteered as an assistant to retired Secretary of the Army John McCloy in the formation of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency under the Kennedy Administration. He returned to Choate in 1961. An advocate for nuclear arms control, Mr. Wade was president of the Lawyers Alliance for Nuclear Arms Control — eventually LAWS, Lawyers for World Security — in the mid-1980s. From the late 1960s to the late 1970s, he was a member of the MIT Corporation. He belonged to a number of clubs: Somerset, Tavern, Winous Point and Tobique. He also was president of the Boston Children’s Museum in the 1980s and was a trustee of several other organizations: The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the Science Museum in Boston and Historic Deerfield. At his death, he was an emeritus trustee at the Children’s Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts and Historic Deerfield. Mr. Wade’s grandfather, Jeptha H. Wade II, created Mill Pond Plantation in Thomasville, beginning in 1906. The decedent spent the winter months in recent years at Arcadia Plantation which was his third of the original plantation after it was divided in the family. Arcadia has one of the largest tracts of virgin longleaf pine in the country, studied by foresters throughout the world. He donated one of the first conservation easements in the Red Hills on this tract to Tall Timbers, reflecting his profound love of the land. Mr. Wade marked his own trees but cut sparingly. He is survived by his wife, Emily Vanderbilt Wade; four children, William G. Wade of Unity, Maine, Emily Wade Hughey of Brookline, Mass., Randall H. Wade of Ashfield, Mass., Rebecca Wade Comstock of Chappaqua, N.Y.; two sisters, Mrs. Ellery Sedgwick of Lexington, Mass, Mrs. Austin Chinn of Cleveland; eight grandchildren; seven nieces and nephews; 13 great-nieces and nephews; and three great-great-nephews. A memorial service was held Aug. 14 in the Wade Chapel at Lake View Cemetery in Cleveland and a memorial service will be held in Bedford, Mass., on Sept. 6 in the Unitarian Universalist Church. Donations can be made to the Boston Children’s Museum, 300 Congress St., Boston, Mass. 02210, Manomet Center for Environmental Science, Box 1770, Manomet, Mass. 02345 or Tall Timbers Research Station and Land Conservancy, for the Wade tract, 13093 Henry Beadel Drive, Tallahassee, Fla. 32312. — Whiddon-Shiver Funeral