Rev. Dr. Moses Mather

Reverend Doctor Moses Mather (Yale College, 1739), was the youngest of five

children of Captain Timothy and Sarah (Noyes) Mather, of Lyme, New London

County, Connecticut. He was the grandson of Richard and Catherine (Wise)

Mather, of Dorchester, Massachusetts, and Lyme. He was born in Lyme, February

23, 1718/1719. His mother, Sarah, was the daughter of Reverend Moses Noyes

(Harvard, 1659), of Lyme, a Trustee of Yale College from 1703 till his death

in 1729. Reverend Doctor Mather was the first cousin of Reverend Eleazer

Mather, of the preceding class of 1738 at Yale College.

He studied theology and in April, 1742, began preaching to a newly formed

society in what was then Middlesex Parish (now the town of Darien), in Norwalk

and Stamford, Connecticut. After a long probation, he was ordained by the

Fairfield West Consociation, June 6, 1744. Here he remained a faithful and

successful pastor until his death, September 21, 1806, in his 88th year, -

having preached to the same people for over 64 years.

He was an earnest patriot, and thus made himself especially obnoxious to the

Tories of his neighborhood; in August, 1779, he was taken from his own house,

with four of his sons, and was held in captivity at New York for about five

weeks; and in July, 1781, when the town was invaded on a Sunday by the British,

he was seized in his church, with about fifty of his congregation, and was

confined for some months in the Provost prison in the City of New York and

treated with great indignity.

He was a Fellow of Yale College from April 1777, till his resignation in 1790.

The College of New Jersey (Princeton) conferred on him the degree of Doctor of

Divinity in 1791.

President Dwight describes him as "a man distinguished for learning and piety,

a strong understanding, and a most exemplary life."

He was thrice married: first, on September 10, 1746, to Hannah Bell, of his own

parish, by whom he had two sons and a daughter. She died, April 21 (or 23),

1755, aged 37 years; and he married, January 1, 1756, Elizabeth, daughter of

Joseph and Abigail Whiting, also of Middlesex, who bore him one son, and died,

December 18, 1757, aged 27. He next married, August 23, 1758, Rebecca, daughter

of Samuel and Elizabeth (Hoyt) Raymond, of Norwalk, who had four sons, and

died, January 23, 1786, aged 64 years.