Noah Welles

Background

Noah Welles was the son of a farmer of Colchester, Connecticut, for whom he was named, and of Sarah, daughter of Israel and Sarah Wyatt, also of Colchester.

Education

At the age of nineteen he entered Yale College, from which he graduated in 1741, remaining there another year as Dean's Scholar.

Career

For the next four years he was engaged in teaching, the study of theology, and occasional preaching. A part of this time he was in charge of the Hopkins Grammar School, Hartford, and from 1745 to 1746, tutor at Yale. After having supplied the Congregational church of Stamford, Connecticut, for several months, he was invited to become its settled pastor, and was ordained and installed there on December 31, 1746. His pastorate, terminated by his death, covered thirty years to a day. According to the elder Timothy Dwight, his talents were distinguished, his learning extensive, and his mind of the imaginative, poetical type. He was "an able preacher; a wise ruler of the church; and an eminently discreet manager of its important concerns". He was prominently mentioned for the presidency of Yale after the resignation of Thomas Clap in 1766, and from 1774 till his death he was a fellow of the college. He was a pronounced advocate of resistance to British oppression, setting forth from the pulpit the righteousness and duty of it, both at the time when the Stamp Act was creating excitement and in the opening days of the Revolution. A sermon of his preached before the General Assembly of Connecticut in 1764 and published that year bears the title, Patriotism Described and Recommended. He is now generally credited with being the author of the anonymously published satire, The Real Advantages Which Ministers and People May Enjoy Especially in the Colonies by Conforming to the Church of England; Truthfully Considered and Impartially Represented in a Letter to a Young Gentleman (1762). Skillfully and pleasantly written, it was in effect a keen attack upon the English Church and its clergy, and attracted no little attention. In 1763 he published a lengthy address entitled, The Divine Right of Presbyterian Ordination Asserted, and the Ministerial Authority, Claimed and Exercised in the Established Churches of New England, Vindicated and Proved. Jeremiah Leaming, in 1766, published A Defence of the Episcopal Government , containing remarks on Welles's address and on one by Charles Chauncy. To this Welles replied in A Vindication of the Validity and Divine Right of Presbyterian Ordination, as Set Forth in Dr. Chauncy's Sermon and Mr. Welle's Discourse, in Answer to the Exceptions of Mr. Jeremiah Leaming (1767). His death occurred in his fifty-ninth year, and was occasioned by jail fever contracted while he was ministering to British prisoners.

Achievements

• He was widely known as a defender of the validity of Presbyterian ordination and as an opponent of Episcopacy in the colony.

Works

More photos

• book

  • The divine right of Presbyterian ordination asserted and the ministerial authority claimed and exercised in the established churches of New-England, ... i.e., Stamford, Lord's-Day, April 10,...

    (Title: The divine right of Presbyterian ordination assert...)

  • The real advantages which ministers and people may enjoy especially in the colonies by conforming to the Church of England: faithfully considered, and ... in a letter to a young gentleman.

    (Title: The real advantages which ministers and people may...)

Personality

As a controversialist Welles displayed intellectual vigor, a keen mind, argumentative ability, fairness, and dignity.

Connections

On September 17, 1751, he was married to Abigail, daughter of Rev. Benjamin Woolsey; they had thirteen children.

Mother:

Sarah

Spouse:

Abigail