He was born on March 27, 1666 in Haverhill, Massachussets, United States, the eldest son of Nathaniel and Elizabeth (Ward) Saltonstall, the grandson of Richard Saltonstall, and the great-grandson of Nathaniel Ward. His father also was a Massachusetts magistrate.
He graduated from Harvard College in 1684.
He was ordained minister of the church at New London, Connecticut, in 1691. He soon rose to a position of prominence among the clergy of the colony; he became the confidant and advisor of his leading parishioner, Fitz-John Winthrop, later the governor.
Only two years after his ordination the Assembly asked him to go to England with Winthrop to represent the colony in a dispute over the New York governor's claim to command the Connecticut militia. Flattering though the invitation was, he declined to go.
During Winthrop's governorship, 1698-1707, both he and the Assembly relied more and more upon Saltonstall's help in drafting state papers and in adjusting disputes within the colony and with its neighbors. Upon Winthrop's death the Assembly, at a special meeting called for Dec. 17, 1707, asked Saltonstall to leave the pulpit and assume the governorship. Such a step was unprecedented, even in Puritan New England, and it has few parallels in all American history. Saltonstall had not advanced to leadership through the regular apprenticeship of the magistracy as law and custom demanded, and his choice as acting governor of the tradition-bound colony was an outstanding tribute to his abilities - and perhaps to his political management.
When he accepted the call, the Assembly amended the law to permit his election by the freemen in the following May even though he had not previously been nominated a magistrate. These proceedings of the Assembly met the approval of the voters, and he was annually reelected until his death.
As governor, he faced the usual problems of his times: warfare with the French and Indians, boundary disputes with neighboring colonies, the defence of the colony's charter from threatened cancellation in England. In the solution of these problems his influence was felt long after his death.
One of the first acts of the Assembly after his election was to call upon the churches of the colony to appoint delegates to a synod at Saybrook, which was to draw up a system of ecclesiastical discipline. The result of this meeting was the Saybrook platform of 1708, which, with its endorsement of the Savoy Confession and its provision for consociations of churches and associations of ministers, set the course for Connecticut Congregationalism for generations to come. Under the governor's leadership the Assembly approved the platform, and he had it printed in 1710 at the New London press he had recently caused to be established (A Confession of Faith by Delegation at Say-Brook). Even before his translation to the governorship, he had been interested in the founding of a college in Connecticut. Though never a trustee, he was one of the ministerial leaders in the movement that led to the chartering of the Collegiate School in 1701.
His attitude so angered the ministerial leaders of the Hartford faction, Timothy Woodbridge and Thomas Buckingham, that they obtained their own election to the Assembly in 1719 in a strenuous effort to bring about his defeat for reelection.
In 1722 his firm but temperate leadership was again invoked when the conversion to Anglicanism of Timothy Cutler, Samuel Johnson, and others intimately associated with the Yale College threatened the very foundations of conservative Puritanism upon which it had been built.
His years in office were marked by a number of personal and factional attacks. But he successfully overrode all opponents, and at his death, which came suddenly through apoplexy, was sincerely mourned throughout New England.
As governor he actively protected the institution, soon named Yale College, from the factional jealousies and Anglican defections that endangered its early career. Besides, Saltonstall ruled against a mulatto slave seeking freedom
In his religious and political views Saltonstall was thoroughly conservative, and some of the bolder spirits of the colony showed restlessness under the restraining influence of his administration.
He had practical wisdom. Through his orthodoxy, learning, and unusual eloquence he gained quick success.
Quotes from others about the person
Cotton Mather outdid himself in eulogy, likening his old friend to a "Silver Basket of a comely Body, carrying in it the Golden Apples of a well-furnished and well-disposed Soul, " and adding "We will not call him a Star, but even a Constellation of the most fulgid Endowments".
Saltonstall was married three times: to Jerusha, the daughter of James Richards of Hartford, to Elizabeth, the daughter of William Rosewell of Branford, and to Mary, the daughter of William Whittingham and the widow of William Clarke of Boston. His third wife and seven of his ten children survived him.
