this new town, principally for the pecuniary advan tages of his family, an enterprise wherein he met a reward. His son, John, a worthy man, was the first representative of Turner, 1806-7-8-9, in the General Court and a magistrate.

REV. NATHANIEL WEBSTER.

REV. NATHANIEL WEBSTER, Harvard College 1769, was ordained April 14, 1779, the third settled minister of Biddeford succeeding to the pastorate of Rev. Moses Morrell. He is believed to be the son of Rev. Samuel Webster, D. D., who, graduated at Harvard College 1737, was the minister of Salisbury, Mass., and died 1796. The subject of this sketch partook largely of the talents so readily conceded to the name, and acquired the character of a pious and devoted divine. His ministry closed with his life, in 1728, after being extended thirty-nine years.

REV. JOHN ADAMS.

REV. JOHN ADAMS was the first minister in Washington plantation, incorporated a town February 26, 1794, by the name of Newfield. He was the son of Mathew Adams, an ingenious and literary mechanic of Boston, whose writing in the New England Journal raised him to public notice. He died in 1753 leaving several children without any other inheritance than an estimable reputation. His son John, above named, born 1732, was graduated at Harvard College in 1745, the father having anxiously labored to give him a liberal education. Having completed a theological

course of reading, he was ordained in 1748 at Durham, in New Hampshire,1 the nephew of Rev. Hugh Adams, the first minister settled in that place. But, unfortunately, the subject of this notice was connected with a people whose opposition, fanaticism and indolence gave him great discomfiture. For in the words of Dr. Eliot, "any man who received a liberal education, who wore a band or black coat, and held a regular service on the Lord's day, was called hireling, thief, wolf, or anything that would make him odious. So insulted, he was often enveloped in gloom, ready to sink into despondency. In his best days, however, he was very much the sport of his feelings. Sometimes he was so depressed, as to seem like a being mingling with the dust; then, suddenly, he would mount up to heaven with a bolder wing than any of his contemporaries. This would happen frequently in the pulpit, so that when he had been all the week preparing a sermon which was, according to his own expression, as dull as his feelings, he would take a new text and give a flow to his sentiments and expressions, which were much better than he was ever able to utter with previous consideration. His delivery was then as lively as his fancy." He was called in another publication, "a man of superior natural talents, but rather eccentric in his genius."

At length the people became weary of supporting a man they did not like, and of paying their money which they thought they needed more for other purposes in time of war; therefore, they dismissed him

1 2 Coll. of Farmer Moore p. 365.

in 1768, and it was a dissolution which ministered much to his own relief and comfort. In a couple of years the proprietors of Newfield believing a preached gospel to be of the first importance in new settlements, freely gave him four hundred acres of land in consideration of which he removed his family into the plantation in February, 1781, when it contained only five or six families. Indeed, the population in 1790 was only two hundred and sixty-two souls. Mr. Adams was a physician as well as a minister, and rendered himself exceedingly useful in both professions, continually doing good, for he preached constantly, somewhere, and practised physic in Newfield, Lexington, Parsonsfield and Limerick till a short time before his death. His home was in Newfield and he died there June 4, 1792, aged sixty years, leaving a character for faith and good works which will not, for ages, wholly be lost in oblivion.

REV. DAVID JEWETT.

REV. DAVID JEWETT, Harvard College 1769, was installed January 2, 1782, the first settled minister of Winthrop, which was incorporated in 1771. The first preacher here was Rev. Thurston Whiting, 1773; the second was Rev. Jeremiah Shaw in 1776, when a church was formed of twenty-seven members. Mr. Jewett had been recently dismissed from a pastoral charge in Candia, N. H., and he now entered upon the solemn duties and labors of his office as an experienced teacher. But his ministry was of short continuance, he being taken from his people by death in February,

1783, in less than fourteen months after his installation. Transformed by grace and fitted to die, he was translated early to the mansions of blessedness. In his departure, the world had a minister less; God an angel more.

REV. CALEB JEWETT.

REV. CALEB JEWETT, Dartmouth College 1776, ordained November 20, 1783, was the third settled minister of Gorham. He was a successor of Rev. Isaiah Thatcher. He was a kindred, perhaps a brother of Rev. David Jewett, settled at Winthrop. They were both men of considerable talents, forcible and persevering, rather than intuitive, free and flowing. Abundant time was taken for the people of Gorham to become acquainted with his piety and powers, for he was there more than two years before he was settled. He was their preacher, in all, about nineteen years, and though his preaching was intermitted by reason of infirmity a year or two before his death, his pastoral relation was only dissolved by his own dissolution, which occurred in 1801 - a good and faithful minister of consecrate memory.

REV. SAMUEL PERLEY.

REV. SAMUEL PERLEY, Harvard College 1763, installed the eighth of September, 1784, the second settled minister of Gray. He was the successor of Rev. Samuel Nash, much such a man and minister, and continued his pastoral relation about the same length of time. But neither of them were fit ministers

for Gray. No; the people there longed for a minister of splendid mind, interesting manners, pristine piety: for such a preacher sent from God might have been the means of showing what religion can achieve. Mr. Perley had been previously a settled minister at Seabrook and at Moultonborough, N. H. A repeatedly dismissed minister, like an often removed family, gathers no substance, nor yet fame. He may varnish and redeliver his old sermons, but they are not newcooked viands directly from the fire. On his settlement Presbyterianism was adopted. He represented Gray in the General Court in 1788, and he worried along till May, 1791, when he and his people mutually agreed, and perhaps rejoiced, to be set asunder. From that time he ceased to preach, though short of fifty years of age; a minister whose motives and character were better than his piety and talents. His son, Jeremiah Perley, was a counselor-at-law, author of Powers and Duties of Justices of the Peace, and stenographer of the delegates in the convention at Portland that formed the constitution, 1820. He died at Orono, 1830, a pious man.

REV. JOHN STRICKLAND.

REV. JOHN STRICKLAND, Yale College 1761, installed September 20, 1784, the first settled minister and second preacher of Turner. Rev. Charles Turner had previously preached there and his residence was in that town. Mr. Strickland was a dismissed minister, having been previously settled first at Oakham, Mass., April 1, 1768, dismissed June 24, 1773, and again