Smith, Thomas Mather, Dd

Smith, Thomas Mather, D.D.

a Protestant Episcopal clergyman, was born at Stamford, Connecticut, in 1797. He was a son of Reverend Daniel Smith, who, for fifty years, was pastor of the Congregational Church at Stamford, and a descendant of the Cottons and Mathers of Puritan fame. Thomas graduated from Yale College in 1816, spent the following year in study with his uncle, John Cotton Smith, governor of Connecticut, and graduated from Andover Theological Seminary in 1820. In 1822 he was ordained minister of the Congregational Church at Portland, Maine, but, his health failing, he removed to Fall River, Massachusetts; was next pastor at Catskill, N.Y., and subsequently at New Bedford, Massachusetts. During this period his views of the ministry underwent a change, and he was ordained in the Protestant Episcopal Church. Soon after he was appointed to the Minor professorship of systematic divinity in the Theological Seminary at Gambler, Ohio. He combined with the duties of his professorship the presidency of Kenyon College during four years. In 186-3 he resigned his professorship at Gambier, receiving the appointment of emeritus professor. He died at Portland, Maine, September 6, 1864. See Amer. Quar. Church Rev. October 1864, page 484.