Timothy Dwight

DWIGHT, Timothy. b. Northampton, Massachusetts, 14 May 1752; d. New Haven, Connecticut, 11 January 1817. Timothy Dwight was the grandson of the preacher Jonathan Edwards. A child prodigy, he began reading the Bible at the age of four, and secretly learned Latin against his father’s wishes. He entered Yale College at age thirteen, graduating in 1769. He tutored at Yale until 1777 when he became a chaplain in the Revolutionary Army, and befriended George Washington. After helping his widowed mother for some years, he became pastor of the Congregational Church in Greenfield Hill, Fairfield, Connecticut (1783-95), where he became famous for his preaching and as an educator (his Greenfield...