Rev. Aaron Dutton

AARON DUTTON, the youngest of the 9 Children of Thomas and Anne Rice Dutton was born in Waterbury, which is now Watertown, May 21, 1780. He pursued his classical studies at Yale College in 1803, and was ordained Dec 10 1805, as pastor of the First Church and Society of Guilford. he resigned his charge June 1842, mainly on account of a difference of opinion between himself and his people on the subject of slavery. A few months after his separation from his church, he went in the service of the Home Missionary Society, to Iowa and was invited to settle over the church and society of Burlington. When about to return to New England, to make permanent arrangements to settle in the west, he was taken sick. He reached New Haven with difficulty, and had a long and dangerous illness, from which he never completely recovered. He died in June 1849 and was buried in Guilford. Mr. Dutton was an earnest, faithful and fearless man, respected among the churches, and true in all the relations of his life. His wife Dorcas, daughter of Samuel Southmayd of Watertown, whom he married in April 1806, died in Sept 1841. Their son Rev Samuel William Southmayd Dutton, D.D. a graduate of Yale in 1833, was pastor of the United Society (North Church) of New Haven from 1838-1866. Another son, Aaron Rice Dutton was a graduate of Yale in 1837 and a lawyer in Washington D.C. A daughter Mary Dutton, was a teacher at a widely known school for girls in New Haven along with Harriet Beecher Stowe. She died in 1888.

Taken from the book,Town and City of Waterbury, Chapter on The First Church to 1825, page 639-640.