Daniel Nash was born on May 28, 1763 in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, United States. He was a descendant of Thomas Nash, who signed the Fundamental Agreement of New Haven in 1639. Daniel's father, Jonathan, son of Daniel and Experience (Clark) Nash, had married Anna Maria Spoor of Taghkanick, Columbia County, New York, and Daniel was the youngest of their nine children.
He prepared for college and entered Yale, graduating in the class of 1785. President Ezra Stiles records in his diary under date of July 6, 1783, that after the forenoon sermon Daniel Nash, sophomore, among others, was admitted to the College Church.
For some years after his graduation he engaged in teaching, first at Pittsgrove, New Jersey, and later at Swedesboro. During this period changes in his ecclesiastical views led him to leave the Congregational for the Episcopal Church, and at Swedesboro he studied theology under Rev. John Croes, principal of the academy where Nash was teaching, and rector of the local church.
In 1794 he became head of an academy in New Lebanon Springs, New York, and served as a lay reader for the Episcopalians of that town.
He was ordained deacon by Bishop Samuel Provoost on February 8, 1797, and at once began work on the western frontier, making his first home at Exeter, Otsego County. For nearly forty years thereafter, indifferent to discomfort and hardship, abounding in labors and fervent in spirit, he devoted himself to extending the teachings and worship of what he had come ardently to believe was the Apostolically established church. Because he felt that Bishop Provoost did not display a proper missionary ardor, he did not wish to be ordained priest by him, and waited until October 11, 1801, when the recently consecrated Bishop Benjamin Moore ordained him. His field was a difficult one, not only because it was frontier territory, but also because the settlers had Presbyterian traditions behind them; but Nash had great success.
In the annual Conventions he was styled "Rector of the Episcopal Churches in Otsego County. " Others built on his foundations, but he established practically all the Episcopal churches of that county and extended his labors to some eight other counties, going as far north as Ogdensburg.
On January 1, 1811, due to his activities, Christ Church, Cooperstown, was formally organized, and he was chosen rector. This position he informally held until his death, still continuing his missionary labors. He is supposed to have been the original of Reverend Mr. Grant in J. Fenimore Cooper's The Pioneers.
He died in the home of a daughter in Burlington, New York, and was buried in the churchyard of Christ Church, Cooperstown, under a pine tree, a spot which he had chosen.
He was not a great preacher, nor especially keen mentally, but he was diligent in season and out of season, entering the homes of the people, baptizing and catechizing the children, and conducting private and public worship. He came to be affectionately known everywhere as "Father Nash. "
He lived in log-cabins, was content with few possessions, traveled on horseback, often with his wife holding a child behind him. Her help in the music and responses, he testified, was invaluable.
Whatever his peculiarities and limitations, he was admirably fitted physically for his work, being "of rugged health, six feet in height, full in figure, over two hundred pounds in weight".
In January 1796 he married Olive Lusk of Richmond, Massachussets Under the influence of Rev. Daniel Burhans who had been instrumental in establishing the church at New Lebanon Springs, Nash became imbued with intense missionary zeal.
