William Jackson
William Jackson [1]
a Congregational minister, was born in Cornwall, Conn., Dec. 14, 1768. At the age of sixteen, when about commencing his studies preparatory for college, his mind became deeply impressed with religious truth, and he at once decided to devote his life to the ministry. He entered Dartmouth College in 1786, and graduated in 1790. For a time he taught a school in Wethersfield, Conn., but, finding that his services were needed in the Church, he commenced finally the study of theology under Drs. Spring and Emmons. In 1793 he was licensed to preach, and he performed ministerial labors first near his home, and afterwards in New Jersey. A call which had been given him by the Congregational Society at Dorset, Vt., in 1793, when feeble health obliged him to decline, was renewed three years after, and this time accepted. He was ordained Sept. 27, 1796. In 1837 he was obliged to ask his people for all assistant; and though his task had thus been made easier, his health continued to fail him, and he died Oct. 15, 1842. In 1837 Middlebury College, of which he had been a corporation member for several years, conferred on him the doctorate of divinity. Dr. Jackson possessed a mind of high order, sanctified by earnest devotion to the interests of the Church. "Dr. Porter, late of Andover, the companion of his youth, and particular friend in college, said of him, ‘ He is the only minister of his- age who has kept up with the times.' His mental enterprise and panting for progress never left him."-Dr. J. 1i-altby, in Sprague, Annals. of the American Pulpit, 2, 336.
