William Gordon

Background

William Gordon was born in 1728, at Hitchin, Hertfordshire, England.

Education

William was educated for the dissenting ministry under the learned Dr. Zephaniah Marry- att in London.

Career

Gordon began his ministry in 1752, in an Independent Church in Ipswich and remained there until 1764 when he quarreled with a leading member of the church who employed his workmen on Crown business on Sunday. He then succeeded Dr. David Jennings in the Old Gravel Lane Church in Wapping.

In 1770, he resigned his pastorate and emigrated to America. On July 6, 1772, having already preached to the society a year, he was ordained as pastor of the Third Congregational Church at Roxbury, Massachusets.

In the same year, he published at Boston a Plan of a Society for Making Provision for Widows, a pamphlet advocating old age pensions.

In 1775, he was made chaplain to both houses of the Provincial Congress assembled at Watertown. Congress possessed great confidence in him and voted him a good horse and access to the prisoners of war.

He was commissioned to obtain the letters of Gov. Hutchinson which Congress learned were in the hands of a Capt. McLane of Milton. In 1776, “struck with the importance of the scenes that were opening upon the world, ” he determined to write an adequate history of the Revolution. To this end, he tirelessly collected his materials.

He conducted a vast correspondence, interviewed generals and statesmen, consulted manuscript collections, borrowed letters, and memoranda, and in his wide travels became a familiar figure in council and camp.

He delivered the election sermon before the General Court on July 19, 1775, and the first independence anniversary sermon on July 4, 1777, both of which were published and widely circulated. Early in 1778, he delivered a pungent attack against Article V of the proposed constitution and was summarily dismissed from both houses.

When Gordon was ready to publish his history he thought it necessary to return to England because of the objections in America to an impartial history of the Revolution. Accordingly, he returned to London in 1786 and lived with John Fields, the noted apothecary.

He was surprised to find in England prejudices similar to those he had left America to escape. A friend told him that his history could not be printed according to his manuscript, that it was too bold, too favorable to the Americans, and filled with statements which the English law would regard as libels.

The manuscript was then revised by several hands and much original material was omitted. At length, in 1788, The History of the Rise, Progress, and Establishment of the Independence of the United States of America was published in four volumes.

An American edition appeared in New York the following year in three volumes, and a second American edition in 1794. Gordon realized £300 from the sale of the History. For more than a hundred years it was considered to be an authority of the very first importance but at length, it was discredited and shown to be chiefly plagiarism from the Annual Register.

Gordon, in 1789, secured a congregation at St. Neots in Huntingdonshire. He returned to Ipswich in 1802 and lived in great poverty until his death.

Achievements

• Gordon is known as an outstandind pastor who secured a congregation at St. Neots in Huntingdonshire.

Works

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  • The History of the Rise, Progress, and Establishment of the Independence of the United States of America: Volume 1

    (Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We h...)

  • The History of the Rise, Progress, and Establishment, of the Independence of the United States of America; Including an Account of the Late War; And ... from Their Origin to That Period; Volume 3

    ( This work has been selected by scholars as being cultur...)

  • The History of the Rise, Progress, and Establishment of the Independence of the United States of America; Including an Account of the Late war, and of ... Their Origin to That Period Volume; Volume 2

    ( This work has been selected by scholars as being cultur...)

  • The History of the Rise, Progress, and Establishment, of the Independence of the United States of America: Including an Account of the Late War: And ... from Their Origin to That Period; Volume 4

    ( This work has been selected by scholars as being cultur...)

  • The American Republic and Ancient Israel

Politics

Gordon's political sympathies were with the colonists. He was a vigorous partisan of independence.

Personality

Gordon was rash and devoid of restraint; he was “somewhat vain, and not accurate nor judicious; very zealous in the cause and a well-meaning man, but incautious”.

Connections

Gordon was married to Elizabeth Fields.

Wife:

Elizabeth Fields