Austin, Richard Thomas

Austin, Richard Thomas, a Congregational minister and educator, was born at Waldoborough, Me, May 6,1809. He graduated from Bowdoin College in 1831. After teaching some months in Thomaston, Me., he went to Boston in 1832, where he was for a year an assistant in a private school. He then entered the Divinity School at Cambridge, bunt left after one term for want of funds. To obtain these. he took charge for a considerable time: of the Cambridge Grammar- school, and, without neglecting the duties of the latter position, resumed his theological studies, which in 1836 he creditably completed. On Sept. 28, 1836, he was ordained as minister of the Church in Wayland, and after two years spent there he returned to Cambridge, where he became principal of the high-school. This position he was at length obliged to relinquish because of declining health. The last two years of his life were spent as pastor of the Church in Lunenburg, Mass., where he died, Jan. 18, 1847. Mr. Austin was a man whose piety shone out through all his actions. As a preacher, he was earnest and practical; as a teacher, eminently successful. See The Christian Examiner (Boston, 1847), xlii, 311.