Author: Dwight, Timothy
Biography:
Dwight, Timothy (1752-1817: WBIS)
A brilliant student and educator, the son of Timothy and Mary (Edwards) Dwight, Timothy Dwight was born into a large land-owning family in Northampton MA. Jonathan Edwards was his maternal grandfather. He entered Yale at thirteen and graduated in 1769. In 1777 he married Mary Woolsey, with whom he would have eight sons. In the same year, he was ordained and enlisted as chaplain with a Connecticut brigade in the War of Independence, but on the death of his father he returned to Northampton to help to manage the family farms (at the same time acting as schoolmaster, preacher, and representative to the state legislature). Called to preach in the parish of Greenfield Hill in Fairfield CT in 1783, he founded the Greenfield Academy, which admitted male and female students and taught the same curriculum to both sexes. From 1795 until his death, he was President of Yale, leading the college through a transformative program of reform and growth. One of his nephews and a grandson later became Presidents of Yale in their turn. Posthumous publications include a collection of sermons, Theology Explained and Defended (5 vols, 1818-19), and Travels in New England and New York (4 vols, 1821-2). (ANBO 3 Oct. 2018; Wikipedia 3 Oct. 2018) HJ