Davies Samuel
Davies Samuel [1]
a Presbyterian minister, president of the College of New Jersey, was born near Summit Ridge, Newcastle County, Del., Nov. 3, 1723. He was educated at Fogg's Manor School, where he completed his theological studies also, and was licensed July 30, 1746. He was ordained as an evangelist in 1747, undertook a mission to Hanover County, Va., and on his arrival obtained a license from the General Court to officiate at four different places of worship. In 1748 he accepted a call to Hanover, and, having received an extension of his license, he divided his labors between five counties with great success. He subsequently claimed the privilege of the Act of Toleration for Virginia, and received a letter "under authority" in England confirmatory of his views. In 1753 he went to England in behalf of the College of New Jersey, and returned to Virginia in 1755, when the Presbytery of Hanover was founded, chiefly through his instrumentality. In 1759 he became president of New Jersey College, and removed to Princeton, where he died Feb. 4, 1761. It is deserving of record that in a discourse on the occasion of Braddock's defeat he made the following prophetic remark of Washington: "I may point out to the public that heroic youth, colonel Washington, whom I cannot but hope Providence has hitherto preserved in so signal a manner for some important service to his Country ." "In the pulpit he was at once instructive and persuasive, full of light, and power, and love; and his manner of delivery was worthy of his fine thoughts, splendid diction, and deeply evangelical spirit." His sermons, which are strikingly eloquent, have been often reprinted; the latest editions are those of Albert Barnes, with a life of the author (New York, 1851, 3 vols. 8vo), and that of the Presbyterian Board, with Memoir by Dr. Sprague (Phila. 3 vols. 8vo). — Sprague, Annals, 3, 140.
