Benjamin Church was born on August 24, 1734 in Newport, Rhode Island, United States. He was the grandson of Colonel Benjamin Church, who was conspicuous in the Indian and French Wars, and a son of Benjamin, deacon of Mather Byles’s church (Boston).
Benjamin entered the Boston Latin School in 1745, and graduated from Harvard College in 1754. Soon after graduation he wrote two poems which appeared in a collection in celebration of the accession of George III. Later he studied medicine with Dr. Joseph Pynchon.
About 1768 Church built a fine house at Raynham, Massachusetts, which some think threw him into debt. Seemingly his pen supported the Whig cause vigorously, but it is said that he parodied the patriotic songs in favor of the British and that his political essays were answered from the Tory side by his own pen. The Times “by an American” (Boston, 1765), a satire upon the Stamp Act, has been attributed to him. He examined the body of Crispus Attucks, killed in the Boston Massacre, 1770, and his deposition was printed in the narrative of the town.
He wrote for the Loyalist paper, The Censor, but on October 28, 1772, being a member with Adams and Warren of a committee of correspondence, he was appointed to draft a letter to the other towns about the colony’s rights. On March 5, 1773, he delivered An Oration to Commemorate the Bloody Tragedy of the Fifth of March, 1770, which ranks high amongst these utterances. In 1774, alter a caucus of Whigs, sworn to secrecy, it was learned, according to Paul Revere, that the proceedings had been divulged to the Tories, and Revere did not doubt that Church had supplied the information to Hutchinson. Church, nevertheless, continued in the confidence of the Whigs, for, with Dr. Joseph Warren and others, he was appointed a delegate in 1774 to the Provincial Congress.
According to Samuel Kettel, soon after the battle of Lexington, Church told his confreres that he must go into Boston, to see about medicines. On his return, he said he had been made prisoner and taken before General Gage, but it was learned later that he had paid Gage a voluntary visit. In May 1775, on the other hand, he went to consult the Continental Congress, Philadelphia, about the defense of the colony.
He was unanimously elected director and chief physician of the first Army Hospital at Cambridge, July 25, 1775, at a salary of four dollars a day, but his management of its affairs seems to have been not altogether successful, finally causing an inquiry to be held into his conduct. It must be admitted, however, that he had rivals seeking his position. He evidently wrote to Washington, September 20, seeking permission to leave the army.
Benjamin Church rose to great eminence as a physician and rendered the great service as a surgeon-general in the United States Army during the American Revolution. He was the most distinguished among his contemporaries in Boston as a poet. He wrote a great number of works on subjects relating to politics and philology. The most widely known of his poetical works were The Times, The Choice and An Elegy on the death of Dr. Mayhew.
At the commencement of the revolutionary troubles, Church was a staunch whig.
In London Church married Hannah Hill of Ross, Herefordshire.
