Author: Nettleton, Asahel
Biography:
NETTLETON, Asahel (1783-1844: WBIS)
Although technically speaking Nettleton was an editor rather than a poet himself, the vision behind his compilation Village Hymns, with the companion tune book Zion's Harp (not in the bibliography), was so original and influential that he can be given creative credit. Moreover, his book included a number of recent or contemporary American hymn-writers who did not publish separate collections, such as Ann Steele and Phoebe Brown. Benson says of it, "Nettleton knew a good hymn when he saw it, and produced the brightest evangelical hymn book yet made in America" (376). He was the son of Ann (Kelsey) and Samuel Nettleton, farmers in North Killingworth CT. Converted at a revivalist meeting when he was 18, he went to Yale (Class of 1809), studied for the ministry, and was ordained in 1811. Though he had intended to become a foreign missionary, circumstances conspired to make him a home-based evangelical preacher instead. Nettleton was an evangelist but not a revivalist; he held traditional Congregationalist views and eventually took the conservative side in an internal dispute that led to the establishment of the Theological Institute of Connecticut (later renamed Hartford Theological Seminary) as a rival to Yale's divinity school. Nettleton never married. He died at East Windsor Hill CT; his papers are held at the Hartford Theological Seminary. (ANBO 13 May 2020; Benson)