Withington, son of Joseph W. and Elizabeth (White) Withington, was born in Dorchester, Massachusetts, August 9, 1789, and died in Newbury, Massachusetts, April 22, 1885, in his 96th year, being the last survivor of the Yale College Class of 1814, and older than any other surviving graduate at the time of his death, as well as the oldest Congregational clergyman in the country.
Graduated from Yale, 1814.
He entered College as a Sophomore, having already served an apprenticeship as a printer, and having thus acquired an ambition for a literary life. On October 31, 1816, he was ordained as pastor of the First church in Newbury, Massachusetts, and there spent his long life. After forty-two years of active service, while his powers were still in full vigor, he retired on the anniversary of his ordination, with the title of senior pastor, and his declining years were passed in calm happiness in the midst of his grateful people.
He was a man of original thought and vigorous expression, and of extensive and accurate learning.
Number one could meet him, even casually, without admiration of his unusual gifts. Bowdoin College gave him in 1850 the degree of Doctor of Divinity.
Nathan Noyes, Doctor of Medicine, of Newburyport, who died August 5, 1860. This article incorporates public domain material from the 1885 Yale Obituary Record.
