Clap, Nathaniel

Clap, Nathaniel a Congregational minister, was born at Dorchester, Massachusetts, in January 1668, and graduated from Harvard College in 1690. He began his work as a minister in Newport, R.I., in 1695. After many trials of faith and patience a Church was formed, of which he was ordained the pastor, November 3, 1720. I He preached there about half a century, and died October 30, 1745. He was a saintly and patriarchal man, but never married. The celebrated dean Berkeley said of him, "Before I saw father Clap, I thought the bishop of! Rome had the gravest aspect of any man I ever saw, but really the minister of Newport has a more venerable appearance." He published only a Sermon (1715), See Callender, Funeral Sermons; Whitefield, Journal (J.C.S.)