History of solomon stoddard
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Solomon Stoddard
American pastor
For the American politician, see Solomon Stoddard (politician).
Solomon Stoddard (September 27, , baptized October 1, February 11, ) was the pastor of the First Church of Christ in Northampton, Massachusetts Bay Colony. He succeeded Rev. Eleazer Mather, and later married his widow around Stoddard significantly liberalized church policy while promoting more power for the clergy, decrying drinking and extravagance, and urging the preaching of hellfire and the Judgment. The major religious leader of what was then the frontier, he was known as the "Puritan Pope of the Connecticut River valley"[1] and was concerned with the lives (and the souls) of second-generation Puritans. The well-known theologian Jonathan Edwards () was his grandson, the son of Solomon's daughter, Esther Stoddard Edwards. Stoddard was the first librarian at Harvard University and the first person in American history known by that title.
Religious leader
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Solomon Stoddard
Solomon Stoddard (/), American colonial Congregational clergyman, was for nearly 60 years the dominant civil and religious figure in western Massachusetts.
One of 15 sons, and grandnephew of John Winthrop, Solomon Stoddard was born in Boston in September He graduated from Harvard in He became the college's first librarian (), though during part of this period he served as Congregationalist chaplain to Bermuda. He preached at Northampton after ; asked to be regular pastor, he formally accepted in and continued in that post until his death. In he married Esther Warham Mather; the couple had 12 children.
As pastor, Stoddard accepted the Puritan "Half-way Covenant," approved by the Synod of , but soon came to feel it inconsistent to deny Communion to those who had been baptized but lacked a conversion "experience." Seeking to convert the unregenerate, he began teaching that Communion was itself a converting ordinance, and he extended membership privileges to pen
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Solomon Stoddard was born on 26 September , in Boston, Suffolk, Massachusetts Bay Colony, British Colonial America. He married Esther Warham on 18 March , in Northampton, Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay Colony, British Colonial amerika. They were the parents of at least 7 sons and 7 daughters. In , at the age of 28, his occupation fryst vatten listed as pastor in Northampton, Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay Colony, British Colonial amerika. He died on 11 February , in Northampton, Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay Colony, British Colonial America, at the age of 85, and was buried in Bridge Street Cemetery, Northampton, Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay Colony, British Colonial America.