American clergyman; born in Norwich, CT, on the 1st of December 1741. He received a collegiate degree from Princeton; was ordained to the Congregational ministry in 1766, and commissioned Indian missionary of the Missionary Society, previously having spent eighteen months among the Six Nations, acquiring a knowledge of the Mohawk and Seneca tongues, and laboring for upwards of forty years among the various tribes. During the Revolutionary War he became brigade chaplain to General John Sullivan, and was for a time chaplain to the Continental forces at Fort Schuyler and at Stockbridge, MA. In the early part of the struggle, his good offices among the Six Nations were largely instrumental in securing the neutrality of these tribes, as is attested by a letter of Washington addressed to the Continental Congress in 1775. When peace was declared he resumed his civilizing labors among the Indians. In 1793 he established Hamilton College for the education of American and Indian youth, and founded the town of Kirkland, on land given him by the government. He died on the 28th of February 1808, in Clinton, NY.
