Background
Eliphalet Pearson was born on June 11, 1752 in Newbury, Essex County, Massachusetts, United States. He was the eldest son of David Pearson, a thrifty farmer and miller, and his wife, Sarah (Danforth) Pearson.
Eliphalet Pearson was born on June 11, 1752 in Newbury, Essex County, Massachusetts, United States. He was the eldest son of David Pearson, a thrifty farmer and miller, and his wife, Sarah (Danforth) Pearson.
At Dummer Academy, in Byfield, where Eliphalet Pearson studied under the famous Master William Moody, Pearson first met Samuel Phillips, with whom he formed an enduring friendship. He graduated from Harvard College in the class of 1773, his Commencement part, a disputation with Theodore Parsons, being considered so excellent that it was published as a pamphlet (A Forensic Dispute on the Legality of Enslaving the Africans, 1773). He remained at Cambridge for further study.
Eliphalet Pearson was licensed to preach but was never a candidate for a pastorate. At the outbreak of the Revolution he withdrew to Andover, escorting the widow of President Holyoke of Harvard and her daughter Priscilla. At Andover, he taught in the grammar school, joined his friend Phillips in various projects, and especially aided him in drawing up the constitution of Phillips Academy, of which, at the unanimous request of the trustees, he became the first principal when it was opened in 1778. Described by Oliver Wendell Holmes as having a "big name, big frame, big voice, and beetling brow", he was a strict disciplinarian, who, through his masterful personality and careful supervision of his students, established confidence in the new institution. But he chafed under the irritating restraints of his position and, when he received in 1786 a call to become Hancock Professor of Hebrew and Oriental Languages at Harvard, he was glad to escape to Cambridge.
At Harvard, Pearson was an influential figure, who, after the death of President Willard in 1804, assumed the duties of president and, but for his orthodox and conservative Calvinistic views, might have been elected as Willard's successor. The growing spirit of Unitarianism being distasteful to him, he resigned in 1806 and returned to Andover, where he was instrumental through his perseverance and tireless energy in founding Andover Theological Seminary, destined to become a citadel of Congregational theology in New England. For one year (1808 - 1809) he was professor of sacred theology in the Seminary, but then retired in favor of Moses Stuart. He remained in Andover, however, until 1820, as president of the board of trustees of both the academy and the seminary, an office to which he had been elected on August 17, 1802, and which he did not resign until August 20, 1821.
In 1820 Eliphalet Pearson moved to Harvard, Worcester County, Massachussets. He died in Greenland, New Hampshire, while on a visit to a daughter.
Eliphalet Pearson was extraordinarily versatile, being both business man and scholar, musician and agriculturist, preacher and mechanic. His austerity, intolerance, and explosiveness made him many enemies, but his rugged personality and brilliant, restless intellect played an important part in American educational history.
On July 17, 1780, Eliphalet Pearson married Priscilla Holyoke, twelve years older than he, who brought him a dowry of $8, 000, by her he had a daughter. After his wife's death in 1782, Pearson married, September 29, 1785, Sarah Bromfield, by whom he had four children.