Ebenezer Fisher was an American clergyman, educator. Member Maine Legislature, 1840; member Maine Universalist Convention, 1840.
Background
Ebenezer Fisher was born on Plantation No. 3, now Charlotte, Washington County, Maine, where his father and uncle had established themselves when it was a wilderness. He was a descendant of Anthony Fisher who came to Boston from England in 1637, and settled in Dedham, Massachusetts, and son of Ebenezer and Sally (Johnson) Fisher.
Education
He grew up under frontier conditions, a sober-minded boy, early- inured to long hours of toil in the open, with limited opportunities for schooling, but an eager reader of whatever hooks and papers came within his reach.
Career
His father was a liberal in religion; his mother, an earnest Baptist; and his mind early turned to questions of theology. When about sixteen he went to Sharon, Massachusetts, and worked in a furniture establishment with his brother-in-law.
Returning to his home at nineteen, for the next four years he taught school for a part of each year. In 1840 he was elected representative to the Maine legislature, where despite his youth he was put on one of the most important committees, that of revising the state statutes. He had determined to enter the ministry and in 1839 had for six months supplied for his board the Milltown Universalist Society.
Most of the money he received as a state official went into books needful for his theological preparation.
He was pastor of the Universalist church at Addison Point, near his home, from July 1841 to May 1847, when he was installed pastor of the Salem, Massachusetts, Universalist church.
In October 1853 a throat affection forced him to resign, but in November of that year he was able to take charge of the South Dedham Universalist church, of which he was pastor until 1858. During these years in Massachusetts he became known as an able preacher and contributor to denominational periodicals.
Of the latter, the first Universalist theological school in the country, Fisher became the first principal, being installed April 15, 1858, and serving for more than twenty years. Beginning with practically nothing to work with, in the face of many difficulties, especially during the Civil War, he administered its affairs, taught, raised funds, and insured its permanency.
In 1869 he was offered a professorship in the new divinity school of Tufts College, which he declined. Death came to him suddenly one morning, ten years later, while he was on his way to the school. He was a man of large frame and noble head, its bald top “shining like a helmet, ” with a face both stern and kind. He was direct, practical, and unsentimental, terse in verbal expression, without wide range of learning, but sure of what he knew, and thoroughly honest; a person to inspire respect and confidence.
The Universalist Quarterly from 1849 to 1876 contains numerous articles from his pen, and sermons by him appear in the Trumpet from 1849 to 1857. A discussion between him and Rev. J. H. Walden, entitled The Christian Doctrine of Salvation, was published in 1869.
Achievements
Politics
A discussion between him and Rev. J. H. Walden, entitled The Christian Doctrine of Salvation, was published in 1869.
Personality
He was a man of large frame and noble head, its bald top “shining like a helmet, ” with a face both stern and kind.
He was direct, practical, and unsentimental, terse in verbal expression, without wide range of learning, but sure of what he knew, and thoroughly honest; a person to inspire respect and confidence.
Connections
He joined the Maine Universalist Convention in 1840, and on September 27, 1841, married Amy W. Leighton of Pembroke, Maine.