Rev. Ebenezer Rossiter

Ebenezer Rosseter ws born in Guilford, Ct, February 4, 1698-9, the youngest of seventeen children of Josiah and Sarah Rosseter. His father was the son of Dr. Bray Rosseter, one of the early settlers of Guilford and his mother was the only daughter of Samuel Sherman of Woodbury, CT.

He sutdied theology, and in 1721, November 28, received a call from the new parish in the northwestern part of Guilford (named NorthGuilford in 1727). He declined this offer, and in March, 1722, was applied to by the First or South Society in stonington, to preach for them for three months. Since the death of their aged minister the Rev. James Noyes (Harv. 1659), December 30, 1719, they had made two unsuccessful attempts to secure a successor; in the third thrial they were more fortunate. After the expiration of his first engagement, Mr. Rosseter was again invited, in July, to supply the pulpit, and on the 5th of October received a call to settle, with an annual salary of L100, which he accepted on November 16. His ordination took place December 19, 1722, the sermon on the occasion being preached by the Reb. Eliphalet Adams. It soon became necessary to build a larger meeting-house for the congregation, and the even developed so great a division in the society on the question of the location, that finally (in 1730) two houses were built,-one on the old site, in the western part of the parish, and the other in the center or eastern part,-while the Society was, in 1731, divided into two Societies by the General Assembly. Mr. Rosseter, who retained, throughout this controversy and afterwards, the respect of both parties, remained with the old, or western, Society (to which the major part of the male members of the original church belonged), until his death, October 11, 1762, in his 64th year.

He married, October 17, 1723, Hannah, daughter of the Rev. Ebenezer White (Harv. 1692), of Bridgehampton in Southhampton, Long Island, by whom he had four sons and four daughters. One of the sons died in infancy; the others were graduated at this college in 1744 and 1756. From Biographical Sketches, 1718, Yale College pg 195, 196

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