Cleveland, Aaron

Cleveland, Aaron, a Protestant Episcopal minister, was born at Cambridge, Mass., Oct. 19, 1715. He graduated from Harvard College in 1735, and in July, 1739, was ordained pastor of the Congregational Church in Haddam. Conn., from which he was dismissed in 1746, partly because of the deficiency in his support, and partly because some were offended with the fervency of his preaching. In 1747 he accepted a call from the South Precinct Congregational Church in Mahlen, Mass., and remained there about three and a half years. In 1750 he took charge of a small Congregational Church in Halifax, N.S. In consequence of a change in his theological views, he resigned his charge and sailed for Boston in 1754. Shortly afterwards he went to England, was ordained by the bishop of London in 1755, and was sent by. the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts to Sussex County, Del. The vessel in which he sailed was wrecked upon Nantucket shoals, and he was detained by personal injuries for some time at Norwich, Conn. On reaching Lewes, Del., he found his parish so feeble that the society, in 1757, transferred him to the vacant parish at New Castle, but he died on the way, Aug. 12, 1757. See Sprague, Annals of the Amer. Pulpit, v, 164.