Vaill, William Fowler

Vaill, William Fowler a Congregational minister, the son of Rev. Joseph and the father of the Rev. Thomas Scott Vaill, was born at Hadlyme, Conn., June 7, 1783. He was prepared for college by his father, and, mainly by his own exertions, supported himself at Yale College, where he graduated in 1806. He studied theology with Rev. Asahel Hooker, was licensed to preach in 1808, and for twelve years was pastor at North Guilford, Conn. In 1820 he was appointed by the United Foreign Missionary Society superintendent of a mission among the Osage Indians, then occupying the Arkansas country, where, amid trials and hardship, hope and fear, he labored fourteen years, or until the abandonment of the mission on account of the removal of the Indians farther west. He returned to New England, where he preached in various places, until he accepted a commission from the Home Missionary Society of Connecticut as missionary to Illinois. He at once went to Wethersfield, Ill., where he was pastor seven years, and where for twenty- seven years he made his headquarters for constant and faithful missionary toil. He died with the harness on at Wethersfield, Feb. 24, 865. Mr. Vaill loved his work intensely, and, his ardent piety carried him forward in it in labors most exhausting. See Cong. Quar. 1865, p. 422.