Author: Strong, Titus
Biography:
STRONG, Titus (1787-1855: ancestry.com)
He was born in Brighton MA, the son of Mary (Burrill) and Titus Strong. The family moved to Boston a year later but his father died in a drowning accident; his mother remarried. Strong was raised by grandparents in Northampton. At fourteen, he was apprenticed to a printer for four years; then he began the study of law in a Boston office. But his health suffered, so he taught school for a time instead. He also began to study theology with a Congregationalist minister, then went back to the law. In 1807 he married Hannah Dwight in Dedham MA; they had eight children, of whom four survived into adulthood. He edited and contributed a series of essays to the Norfolk Repository, a Dedham newspaper, in 1809.In 1812 he presented himself as a candidate for the Episcopal Church. He was made a Deacon in Dedham in 1812, then in 1814 moved to Greenfield MA as the first Rector of St. James' Church in that village. Ordained priest in 1815, he remained in Greenfield for the rest of his life, although in the early years he also did missionary work as far north as Vermont. He was a member of the Republican Lodge of Freemasons. He received the degree of MA from Williams College in 1822, and of DD from Trinity College, Hartford CT, in 1839. He died after what the newspapers notices described as a "long and distressing illness" at home in Greenfield and is buried in the Green River Cemetery there, with a monument placed by his children. His publications are very various: a few occasional short poems from 1810 onwards; sermons and discourses; many tracts distributed by Episcopal networks; a children's story, The Deerfield Captive (1831); and an assortment of schoolbooks. (ancestry.com 25 Oct. 2020; Sprague 5: 575-7; findagrave.com 25 Oct. 2020; Culturist and Gazette [Pittsfield MA] 20 June 1855) HJ
Other Names:
- T. Strong