Memorial Of John Slafter : With A Genealogical Account Of His Descendants, Including Eight Generations
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The discovery of America by the Northmen, 985-1015 : a discourse delivered before the New Hampshire Historical Society, April 24, 1888
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Edmund Farwell Slafter was an American Protestant Episcopal clergyman and author.
Background
He was born on May 30, 1816 at Norwich, Vermont, United States, the seventh of the ten children of Sylvester and Mary (Johnson) Slafter, and a descendant of John Slaughter (Slafter) who emigrated from England to Massachusetts in 1680, and later went to Connecticut. Edmund's great-grand-father, Samuel, was one of the original proprietors of Norwich, Vermont. The boy grew up on his father's farm in Thetford.
Education
He was prepared for college at the local academy. He graduated from Dartmouth in 1840, and studied at the Andover Theological Seminary in 1840-41 and 1842-44.
Career
On July 12, 1844, he was ordained a deacon of the Protestant Episcopal Church, and on July 30 of the following year, priest. He served as rector of St. Peter's Church, Cambridge, Massachussets (1844 - 46), and of St. John's Church at Jamaica Plain (1846 - 53).
His marriage permited him to retire from pastoral work when his health weakened in 1853. His vigor restored by 1857, he became superintendent, for his denomination, of the American Bible Society. This post he held for twenty years. Since its duties were not burdensome, he had ample leisure for the quiet activities of the scholar which he pursued for the rest of his long life.
From the time he joined the New England Historic Genealogical Society in 1861 he was one of its most active members. From 1867 to 1887 he was its corresponding secretary; from 1867 to 1889, a director; from 1879 to 1889 a member of its committee on publication; and to the end of his life a frequent contributor to its Register. His interest in genealogy, evinced by the study of his own family, Memorial of John Slafter (1869), soon ripened into historical research.
Slafter served as the secretary of the Prince Society in 1865-66 and as its vicepresident from 1866 to 1880, when he became its president, which position he held until his death. Of its monographs he edited Sir William Alexander and American Colonization (1873), Voyages of the Northmen to America (1877), Voyages of Samuel de Champlain (3 vols. , 1878 - 82), and John Checkley, or, The Evolution of Religious Tolerance in Massachusetts Bay (2 vols. , 1897).
He also contributed a well documented chapter on Champlain to the fourth volume (1885) of Justin Winsor's Narrative and Critical History of America. Among his minor publications were contributions to the journals of other New England societies. Slafter maintained an active interest in the work of his Church long after he gave up preaching.
During a considerable period he was also assistant to the rector of Trinity Church, Boston. Absorbed as he was in historical and religious work, he yet found time for the successful management of his moderate fortune, which he increased considerably.