Author: Horton, Francis
Biography:
Horton, Francis (1803-72: Congregational Quarterly)
Born in Boston to Jotham and Robey (Warren) Horton, he graduated from Brown in 1828 and was first licensed to preach by the Old Colony Association and then ordained in Dartmouth in 1829. He served as pastor in Congregational churches in West Brookfield MA (1832-41), West Cambridge MA (1843-54), and Barrington RI (1856-72). Besides his poem for the local Temperance Society, he published Fireside Lectures (Boston 1850) and a long poem, "Memorials of Brookfield" (1867), written for the 150th anniversary of his old church. He married Caroline Washburn of New Bedford in 1831; they had nine childrren, four of whom survived their parents. In 1850, after the death of his first wife the previous year, he married Abby Gibbs. He died in Barrington of pneumonia. (J. G. V., obituary notice in Congregational Quarterly 14 [1872] 576; Samuel Dunham, An Historical Discourse delivered at West Brookfield, Mass. [1867] 29-31; ancestry.com 25 Apr. 2019)