Cutler Timothy, Dd

Cutler Timothy, D.D., minister of the English Church in America, was born at Charlestown, Mass., in the year 1683, and graduated at Harvard in 1701. He was educated and ordained for the Presbyterian ministry, and in 1710 was installed pastor of the Congregational church in Stratford, Conn. He became president of Yale College in 1719, at the request of the trustees; but on the day after Commencement in 1772, a paper was presented to the clergy and others assembled in the college library, signed by the rector and one of the tutors, together with several of the neighboring ministers, in which they say: "Some of us doubt of the validity, and the rest are fully persuaded of the invalidity, of Presbyterian ordination in opposition to Episcopal." In October following a discussion took place in the college library, the principal speakers being the rector and Mr. Samuel Johnson (afterwards Dr. Johnson, of Hartford) on the one side, and governor Saltonstall on the other. The result was that the rector declared himself confirmed in his Episcopal proclivities, and in October following the trustees voted to excuse the Rev. Mr. Cutler from all further service as rector of Yale College." He went to England in July, 1722, to procure Episcopal ordination, which he received the following year, with the degree of D.D. from both Oxford and Cambridge. In 1723, on his return, he was appointed missionary to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, and became rector of Christ Church, Boston. In that station he died, Aug. 17, 1765. He published several occasional sermons. —Sprague, Annals, v. 50.