214 A NOBLE COMPANY

Stephen Smith Nelson 1772-1853, from a daguerreotype taken late in life.

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STEPHEN SMITH NELSON 1772 - 1853

by Jeffrey P. Straub

The Massachusetts Bay Colony was a Congregational bastion

from its formation in 1620 until the early years of the nineteenth century as a state. The town of Middleboro, Massachusetts, was an early settlement (1661) of that colony, located about fifteen miles as the crow flies from Plymouth, the first community founded by the Mayflower Pilgrims. Settlement of Middleboro by Europeans came slow because the Indian population in the area was significant, estimated at between fifteen and twenty thousand.1

By 1669, the town of Middleberry (later Middleboro or Mid-dleborough) 11 by 14 miles in area, was incorporated. Included in this land area was Assawompset, Nemasket and Titcut land that formerly belonged to the Wampanoag Indian tribe. Early settlers in this area included William Nelson (1615-1679), who emigrated from England sometime around 1633.2 In August of 1640, he was granted six acres of land in the Plymouth Colony and, a couple of months later (October 29), he married Martha Forde. Together they began to raise a family in this new world.3 By 1714, William’s grandson, Thomas Burton Nelson (1675-1755), acquired about 150 acres of land in the undeveloped area known as Assawamsett (Assawompset) Neck, in what is today the town of Lakeville, which is about four miles south southwest of Middleboro.4 He was the 1 Thomas Weston, History of the Town of Middleboro, Massachusetts (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, and Co., 1906), 1: 29.

2 For an important family history of the Nelsons and their descendants, including Stephen Smith Nelson, see W. Ripley Nelson, The Nelson

Family of Plymouth, Middleboro and Lakeville Massachusetts. Unpub-lished manuscript, 1963.

3 Nathaniel B. Shurtleff, ed., Records of the Colony of New Plymouth in

New England, Court Orders (Boston: The Press of William White, 1855), 1 (1633-1640): 50, 131, 153, 159. William shows up here and there in the printed records of Plymouth. See for example, David Pulsifer, ed., Records

of the Colony of New Plymouth in New England, Deeds (Boston: The Press of William White, 1861), 1: 186, 207, 214; and Nathaniel Shurtleff, ed., Records of the Colony of New Plymouth in New England, Miscellaneous

Records (Boston: Press of William White, 1857), 161, 181, 197.

4 For a history of Thomas (third generation), son of William, son of William of the early settlers of Plymouth, see Nelson, The Nelson Family

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first white settler to build a house and move his family there in 1717. In this house, one of the earliest New England Baptist churches would find its roots—the Second Baptist Church (1757) of Middleboro, under the shadow of Isaac Backus and the First Baptist Church of Middleboro, the Baptist champion of soul liberty. Backus (1724-1806) had started the First Church of Middleboro just a couple years ahead of the founding of this second church that began in Nelson’s home. Backus’s life and the Nelson family will intersect further as this story unfolds. Both Thomas Nelson and Isaac Backus came out of Standing Order churches, but Nelson preceded Backus in accepting Baptist views by a quarter of a century.

Both Thomas Nelson and his wife Hope (née Huckins, some-times mistakenly spelled Hutchins or Higgins in the record) were Calvinistic Baptists, the first to identify as such in this part of the frontier. Thomas Burton Nelson was born at Barnstable, Massa-chusetts, on May 17, 1675. He married Hope Huckins, also of Barnstable, on March 24, 1698. Both came from Old World English families that formed a part of the new colony of Plymouth. After the Nelsons occupied their new home at Assawamsett, the family initially worshiped at the local Congregational church of Thomas Palmer. However, when Palmer was charged with immorality and disfellowshipped from the church,5 Thomas Nelson began to question Congregationalism and doubted the scriptural basis of infant baptism.6 Thomas and Hope embraced Baptist sentiments, but finding no Baptists nearby with whom to identify, they attached themselves to the church at Swansea, Massa-chusetts, about 35 miles southwest of Plymouth, on August 5, 1723. He and his family traveled down on Saturdays and lived in a

of Plymouth, 37-44; see also Gladys Vigers, History of the Town of

Lakeville Massachusetts. n.p: by the author, 1953.

5 The story of Palmer’s actions and church discipline in 1717 or 1718 and his subsequent restoration in 1737 are briefly but obliquely referenced in Book of the First Church of Christ in Middleborough (Boston: C. C. P. Moody, 1852), 7-8. Apparently Palmer “preached a considerable time (after being rejected by the church,) in his own house, where he had a few hearers.” Ibid., 7.

6 Isaac Backus, A History of New England, with Particular Reference to

the Denomination of Christians Called Baptists. Second Edition, with Notes by David Weston (Newton, MA: The Backus Historical Society, 1871), 2: 427.

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small house built for them, returning to their home on Monday mornings.7

Eventually, Nelson and his sons secured the services of Ebenezer Hinds (1719-1812) to preach to them and the several other families that inclined toward Baptist sentiments that now met with them. Hinds was a member of the Second Baptist Church of Boston and, in 1753, when Nelson opened his home for preaching, Hinds came to minister to the group.8 A short distance away was a group of Congregationalists led by James Mead. Mead died in 1756 and his hearers joined with Hinds and became Baptists.9 A church was formed on November 16, 1757, with Hinds being ordained as its first pastor on January 26, 1758. Though Thomas Nelson had died by this time, his widow Hope remained with the group, which still met in her home, and was hailed as a “Mother in Israel” communing with the assembly until death took her in her 106th year, December 7, 1782.10 So significant was the

7 Weston, History of Middleboro, 1: 420.

8 [Thomas Weston characterized Hinds as “a man of unusual ability, and an earnest and devout Christian pastor, who did much to build up his church and increase the spirituality of its members during his forty years of service. He was remarkable for his bodily health and activity, and it is stated that at the age of eighty years he would spring upon his horse unaided and take long rides to visit his parishioners. Probably on account of his great age, he gave up the pastorate about the year 1793.” History of

the Town of Middleboro Massachusetts, 1: 475-476 —Ed.]

9 This was just one year after Backus, who had renounced his Congre-gational views, led in the formation of the first Baptist church at Middleboro. On Backus, see William Cathcart, The Baptist Encyclopedia (Philadelphia: Louis H. Everts, 1881), 52-54; Alvah Hovey, A Memoir of

the Life and Times of Isaac Backus. Boston: Gould and Lincoln, 1858; T. B. Maston, Isaac Backus: Pioneer of Religious Liberty. Rochester, NY: American Baptist Historical Society, 1962; William G. McLoughlin, Isaac

Backus and the American Pietistic Tradition. Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1967; and Stanley Grenz, Isaac Backus: Puritan and Baptist. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1983.

10 For an early history of this church, see Backus, History of New

England, 2: 270-271; David Benedict, A General History of the Baptist

Denomination in America, and Other Parts of the World (Boston: Lincoln and Edmands, 1813), 1: 430-431; and D. Hamilton Hurd, History of

Plymouth County, Massachusetts with Biographical Sketches of Many of

Its Pioneers and Prominent Men (Philadelphia: J. W. Lewis, 1884), 298, 315-316.

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impact of Thomas and Hope Nelson that no less than three of their grandsons, William, Samuel and Ebenezer, became Baptist ministers as well as three great-grandsons, Stephen, Ebenezer Jr., and Dr. Thomas Nelson, of Bristol, Rhode Island.11 Samuel Nelson would be called and ordained as pastor of the Third Baptist Church of Middleboro in 1761.12 William Nelson was ordained as the pastor of the Baptist church at Taunton, November 12, 1772, and Ebenezer Nelson was ordained November 10, 1790, also at Taunton, to assist his brother William, who had a weak constitu-tion.13 Parentage, conversion and education of Stephen S. Nelson

By the early 1770’s, the Nelson family was committed to

Baptist sentiments. This same tradition was perpetuated in the life of Stephen Smith Nelson, the subject of this essay, and great grandson of Thomas Nelson, among the earliest of the Massa-chusetts Baptists.14 Stephen was born in Middleboro on October 5, 1772, to parents Thomas and Ann (née Turnbull) Nelson. Stephen was the third of four sons—Job, the eldest, who eventually became a judge of probate in Hancock County, Maine; Thomas, who became a well-known physician;15 and Bial, the youngest, of Mid-

11 For Thomas Nelson’s part in the founding of the first Baptist church at Bristol, see Wilfred H. Munro, The History of Bristol, R. I.: The Story of

the Mount Hope Lands (Providence: Reed, 1880), 295-296.

12 Backus, History of New England, 2: 429.

13 Ibid., 2: 447.

14 Biographical information is limited. See Cathcart, Baptist Encycloped-

ia, 833-834; Robert Turnbull, “Stephen Smith Nelson,” in William B. Sprague, ed., Annals of the American Pulpit (New York: Robert Carter and Brothers, 1860), 6 (Baptist): 366-369; and “Rev. Stephen Nelson,” in J. Lansing Burrows, ed., The American Baptist Memorial (Philadelphia: King and Baird), 13 (1854), No. 3 (Mar.): 73-75. The most important source is Nelson, The Nelson Family, 111 ff., which traces Stephen and his descendants. See also New England Families, Genealogical and

Memorial, ed. William Richard Cutter (New York: Lewis Historical Publishing, 1913), 2: 543-545. 15 For a biographical sketch on Dr. Thomas Nelson, see “A Memoir of Dr. Nelson,” in Thomas Baldwin, ed., The Massachusetts Baptist Missionary

Magazine (Boston: Manning and Loring, and Lincoln and Edmands), 4 (1814-1816), No. 2 (June 1814): 56-60.

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dleboro. In 1786, Stephen was converted at the age of fourteen and baptized at sixteen by his uncle, Pastor William Nelson. He subsequently united with First Baptist, led by Isaac Backus, May 4, 1788.16

In 1794, after spending several years at Rhode Island College, later to become Brown University, Nelson graduated. He had earned both the A. B. (with the first honors) and the A. M. while at Providence.17 At that time, the College, under the leadership of James Manning, was about the only school where Baptists could study freely.18 Nelson remained a loyal alumnus, serving the school as a trustee from 1819-1831.19 While in Providence, he was also a member of First Baptist Church, before leaving by letter in July of 1794.20 By graduation from college, Nelson’s gifts were becoming evident. Backus recorded that the First Church of Middleboro “gave him approbation as a gospel preacher” after sermons delivered on two consecutive Sundays, May 10 and 17, 1795.21

In the providence of God, Nelson went next to study theology in Boston with Samuel Stillman (1737-1807), the esteemed pastor of First Baptist Church.22 At this time, Baptists had no school for

16 Stephen first shows up in the Backus diaries July 30-31, 1787, with a passing reference to “Thos. Nelson, whose son Stephen hath lately discovered much distress about his soul.” There is a brief biographical sketch by McLoughlin that cites the Middleboro First Baptist Church records regarding the date of his admission. William G. McLoughlin, ed., The Diary of Isaac Backus (Providence, RI: Brown University Press, 1979), 3: 1202. See also ibid., 3: 1225, where Backus records in his diary on May 4, the admission of Nelson into the church.

17 Cathcart, Baptist Encyclopedia, 833.

18 See Reuben A. Guild, Early History of Brown University, including the

Life and Correspondence of President Manning, 1756-1791. Providence, RI: Snow and Farnham, 1897.

19 See Louise P. Bates, ed., Historical Catalogue of Brown University,

1764-1914 (Springfield, MA: F. A. Bassette Co., 1914), 31.

20 Henry M. King with Charles F. Wilcox, Historical Catalogue of the

Members of the First Baptist Church in Providence, Rhode Island

(Providence: F. H. Townsend, 1908), 33.

21 McLoughlin, Diary of Isaac Backus, 3: 1383.

22 On Stillman, see Cathcart, Baptist Encyclopedia, 1107-1109, and Sprague, Annals of the American Pulpit, 6 (Baptist): 71-79.

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ministerial training at the seminary level. Students attached themselves to pastors who instructed them in theology and the duties of the ministry. Stillman was at the height of his ministry and influence and had long shown a keen interest in the education of Baptists for the ministry. He was one of the main supporters for the new Baptist college in Rhode Island, serving on its board and preaching its commencement address every other year for many years. In September 1791, he led the Warren Association to establish a fund for ministerial education.23 From Stillman, Nelson learned the ministry while assisting the elder pastor with visiting and other labors.

Early efforts at ministry

By 1795, Nelson, still a young man, became active in Baptist

life and ministry. Remnants of a diary he kept give some details of his young post-college life. On October 11th, he ministered at Marshfield, preaching two sermons.24 On December 11th, he was engaged to teach school for the sum of $15 per month plus $5 for boarding. He agreed to a six to eight week appointment. On January 29, 1796, he agreed to two more weeks of teaching under the same terms as before. On the 9th of February, he was contacted by a Capt. Shepherd to come to Attleboro and teach scholars there, while also filling the pulpit of the Baptist church. On February 12th, he agreed to two more weeks of teaching. He finally left the school on March 3rd. He filled the pulpit at New- 23 Nathan Wood, History of the First Baptist Church of Boston, 1665-1899 (Philadelphia: American Baptist Publication Society, 1899), 255, 279.

24 An important piece of the Nelson story comes from these remnants of a diary that he kept from October 2, 1795, through January 13, 1797. Unfortunately the diary has apparently been lost, except for two sources that contain excerpts from the 160-page original. W. Ripley Nelson had access to the diary in the 1950’s and included a handful of entries in this biographical sketch of Stephen (see Nelson, The Nelson Family, 112-115). Ripley Nelson also described the diary as to its length and composition. The other source where portions of the diary may be read are from some handwritten notes made in the 1980’s. Mary Fuller, of the Lakeville (Massachusetts) Historical Commission, gained access to the diary in the 1980’s and made notes on some of the entries, a copy of which is in the possession of the author of this essay. It is impossible to tell from either recent source if the entries are selected portions of a particular day or the entire entry. Efforts to locate the original to date have proven unsuccess-ful.

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port on March 26th and then was in Boston on April 2-3, when he preached for Thomas Baldwin at Second Baptist. He also heard Stillman preach. The next week, he filled the pulpit at Rowley. As April passed into May of 1796, he was traveling by horseback to New York and Philadelphia, stopping at the homes of various deacons and ministers. On the 29th of May, he saw President George Washington and his wife about to enter the Episcopal church of Philadelphia(?). In early June, Nelson was busy visiting and preaching in the Philadelphia area. Here the diary breaks off and resumes after he returned home (September 2, 1796). He remained busy for the rest of the year, visiting Providence (his alma mater) at commencement (September 6), then back to Middleboro to preach the inaugural sermon in the new meeting-house of the church his father helped to start (October 9). He visited with Isaac Backus in Bridgewater where he settled his account over some books he had purchased from Backus. He also discussed with Backus his possible ordination (October 14). He was back at Baldwin’s church preaching both morning and night (October 16). On the 19th of October, he records receiving a letter from the people of Hartford (likely inviting him to come preach to them). On November 6th, he was preaching in New Bedford and then at Needham on December 11th. On December 28th, he “put up [his] things to go to Hartford.” On January 1, 1797, he preached at Newport and on January 12, 1797, he visited Judge Howell at Providence, apparently to get him to intercede for the Baptists who were being troubled. Howell agreed to do this and Nelson notified Baldwin by letter of the same the next day. At this point the diary, apparently and abruptly, ends.

His ordination and first pastorate at Hartford, Connecticut

Nelson also starts showing up in the minutes of the Warren

Association, participating regularly in associational life, a habit he would continue throughout his entire ministerial career. In 1795, he was appointed to write on behalf of the Warren Association to the Stonington Association, and he served as representative from Warren that year to the associational meetings of Shaftsbury and New York, along with Stephen Gano and Thomas Baldwin.25 The

25 Minutes of the Warren Association, held at the Baptist Meeting-House in

Bridgewater, September 8 and 9, 1795 (Boston: Manning and Loring, 1795), 5-6. From this point on, there will be numerous references to the various associations with which Nelson was connected. Rather than citing

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following year, Nelson, under the direction of the Warren Association brethren, began to itinerate at a new Baptist assembly in Hartford, Connecticut. He was licensed to preach and spent the next two years in fruitful ministry in Hartford, preaching to a small but growing body of believers, who met initially in an upper room in the Old Courthouse. This led to his ordination on Wednesday, September 13, 1797, during the Warren Association’s annual meeting at Boston. The council included Samuel Stillman who preached the ordination sermon, Isaac Backus who delivered the charge, and Thomas Baldwin who gave the right hand of fellowship.26 Backus recorded these details of the council:

At 3 o’clock the 13th we attended the ordination of Brother Stephen S. Nelson of our church, in answer to the request of our sister church at Hartford. Mr. Grafton made the first prayer, Dr. Stillman preached the sermon from 1 Tim. 4.6. Dr. Smith made the ordaining prayer, I gave the charge, Elder Baldwin the right hand of fellowship, and Elder [Stephen] Gano the last prayer. The whole was performed with decency and solemnity; and our meeting in general was happy.27

Nelson’s early ministry was blessed of the Lord with 176

additions to the church during his first three years among them, fifty of them in 1799.28 He finally moved his letter from the church

the individual annual minutes, the details can be examined by reading the minutes themselves that are collectively located at the American Baptist Historical Society at Mercer University, Atlanta campus. The author wishes to express appreciation to Deborah Van Broekhoven and her staff for access to these valuable collections as I traced the life of Nelson through his long ministry.

26 The ordination sermon was subsequently printed as Samuel Stillman, A

Good Minister of Jesus Christ: A sermon preached in Boston September 15

[13], 1797, at the ordination of the Rev. Mr. Stephen Smith Nelson. Boston: Manning and Loring, 1797. Baldwin and Backus’s contributions are included.

27 McLoughlin, Diary of Isaac Backus, 3: 1421.

28 Cf. entry dated December 29, 1799, McLoughlin, Diary of Isaac Backus, 3: 1451, with entry dated August 29, 1800, 3: 1459. Regarding the growth in attendance at the church during Nelson’s ministry, different numbers exist—numbers from Backus’s diary, membership numbers listed in the Warren Association’s annual Minutes, a statement from Benedict and a

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at Middleboro to the church at Hartford on May 20, 1798.29 Several important things happened in Nelson’s life while serving at Hartford. First, he found his wife among the flock of his first church. Stephen married Emilia Robbins,30 the third daughter of deacon Ephraim Robbins, on October 15, 1798. They would have nine children together—Stephen Robins (February 10, 1801); John Gill (November 30, 1802); Emelia Dianthe (December 25, 1805); William Francis (March 29, 1808); Ephraim Robins and Ann Abigail (August 31, 1813); Julia Clarissa (September 13, 1815); Sarah Welby (November 17, 1817) and Caroline Elizabeth (August 25, 1821).31

Nelson’s early ministry in Hartford seems to have spurred a revival in the city reminiscent of the days of Whitefield. At the beginning of his ministry there, “the cause of evangelical piety in Hartford, and, indeed, throughout New England, was in a most languishing condition.” Unconverted church members, intemper-ance, infidelity and “the influx of French principles had infected the community.” In 1798, under Nelson’s ministry and preaching, a work of grace brought spiritual relief. Dr. Nathan Strong (1748-1816) of Hartford First Church (Congregational) recognized the role Nelson played in the awakening and encouraged him in his ministry. The awakening lasted on into 1800.32 One of those individuals Nelson won to the Gospel and baptized was Lucius Bolles (1779-1844), sixth son of David Bolles. Lucius was long connected with the fledgling Baptist missionary movement and

statement in the church’s 100th anniversary history that puts the total additions during the Nelson years at 121. Centennial Memorial of the

First Baptist Church of Hartford, Connecticut (Hartford: Press of the Christian Secretary, 1890), 191. See also the Minutes of the Warren

Association from 1797-1801. Benedict suggests the number added during the revival was “about seventy five.” General History of the Baptist

Denomination, (1813), 1: 530.

29 McLoughlin, Diary of Isaac Backus, 3: 1430.

30 The name of Nelson’s wife is spelled variously in the literature as Emillia, Emelia, Emilia. Robins, her last name, is also alternately spelled Robbins in the literature. [She was the sister of Abigail Robbins, who married the Baptist minister William Collier (1771-1843), whose essay by Truett Rogers was seen earlier in this volume —Ed.]

31 Nelson, The Nelson Family, 116.

32 For a description of this revival and Nelson’s role in it, see Centennial

Memorial of the First Baptist Church of Hartford, 187-190.

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served as the senior corresponding secretary of the General Missionary Convention of the Baptist Denomination for Foreign Missions at the time of his death.33

Nelson gained a good reputation while in Hartford (1796-1801) and was one of only a handful of “liberally educated” ministers in Massachusetts and Connecticut. Of his ministry at Hartford, it was said “his accurate scholarship, courteous manners, and consistent piety, served greatly to aid in the establishment and increase of the Baptist church, especially in this city.”34 Soon the church secured a permanent location and built a new building on the corner of Temple and Market Streets.

This “moderate-sized frame building” was built in 1798-1799 as the first meetinghouse of the First Baptist Church, Hartford, Connecticut, during the pastorate of Stephen Smith Nelson.

33 On Bolles, see his obituary in The Baptist Missionary Magazine (Boston: John Putnam), 24 (1844), No. 3 (Mar.): 49-57, and Rufus Babcock, “Lucius Bolles,” in Sprague, Annals of the American Pulpit, 6: 477-478.

34 Turnbull, “Stephen Smith Nelson,” 366.

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Nelson used his influence as the pastor at Hartford to aid in the establishment of a new Baptist assembly at upper Middle-town, Connecticut, about twelve miles south of Hartford. While laboring at Hartford, Nelson extended his ministry to “neighboring towns, particularly Middletown.”35 The first Baptist church of Middletown had started just before Nelson arrived at Hartford when a group of Congregationalists including the pastor, Stephen Parsons of the Strict Congregational Church, Middletown, em-braced Baptist views in August 1795. They were disfellowshipped from the Congregational church. Delegates from the Baptist churches at Meriden and Hartford gathered with the separated brethren who had received believer’s baptism and formed a new Baptist church on October 29, 1795. The second church of Middle-town started seven years later when, in early January 1802, members of the Hartford church met in the home of Eleazer Savage to consider forming a new Baptist church in upper Middletown, later called Cromwell. This was five months after Nelson relocated to New York, but the conversations about forming the new assembly must have started during Nelson’s Hartford ministry and likely with his blessing.36

A petition for religious liberty; pastorate

at Mount Pleasant, New York, 1801-1813

Nelson also played an important role as a messenger from First

Baptist, Hartford to the Danbury Association. In 1801, the Danbury and Stonington Associations sent an important letter to the new American president, Thomas Jefferson, congratulating him on his election and appealing to him that no government should dictate to a man how his conscience ought to be exercised

35 Ibid., 367.

36 The church at upper Middletown started in 1802 after Nelson left Hartford for New York, but Nelson must have encouraged the brethren from this area to form their own church before his departure through preaching trips, etc. For the early history of this church, see History of

Middlesex County, Connecticut with Biographical Sketches of Its

Prominent Men (New York: J. B. Beers, 1884), 255-256. For a history of the first Baptist church, see ibid., 142-143. There is a most interesting anecdotal story of one of the members of First Middletown who struggled to accept believer’s baptism during this time in John Cookson, Memoir of

Mrs. Martha Barnes, late of Middletown, Connecticut (Middletown, CT: Edwin Hunt, 1834), 38-41.

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toward God. Signing the letter along with Nelson was Nehemiah Dodge37 and Ephraim Robbins, his father-in-law.38 Nelson ex-plained the petition in the pages of the local Hartford paper, The

American Mercury:

A number of our brethren stated and proved to us several late instances of unjust and unprovoked oppression; committed under the pretext of some of the existing laws of this state, and requested our council and assistance. In answer to their request the Association chose a committee to state and represent the case to the Stonington Baptist Association. . .a number of like instances of oppression were proved in those parts also. That association then chose a committee to set jointly with ours to devise the best method of obtaining redress. The joint committee, wishing to act as good subjects of civil government and as became the religion they professed, chose two of their number to remonstrate and petition for relief. A petition was accordingly prepared

37 Nehemiah Dodge spent thirty years among the Baptists until 1823, when he embraced Universalism and was excommunicated from the Baptist church at New London, Connecticut, where he was pastor. Cf. Francis M. Caulkins, History of New London, Connecticut (New London, H. D. Utley, 1895), 598, with Pitt Morse, ed., The Herald of Salvation,

devoted to the inculcation, defence, and promotion of the sublime and

heavenly doctrine of Universal Benevolence (Watertown, NY: S. A. Abbey, 1822-1823), 1: 119. Also see Heman R. Timlow, Ecclesiastical and other

Sketches of Southington, Conn. (Hartford: Case, Lockwood, and Brainard, 1875), 317-319. For a brief biographical sketch, see “Death of Rev. Nehemiah Dodge,” Universalist Union, 8 (January 14, 1843): 135-137, and Asher Moore, “Rev. Nehemiah Dodge,” Universalist Union, 8 (February 11, 1843): 199-200. For a discussion of his shift to Universalist views, see J. G. Adams, The Christian Victor; or, Mortality and Immortality:

including Happy Death Scenes (Boston: A. Tompkins, 1851), 176-179.

38 The letter, dated October 7, 1801, is published in The Papers of Thomas

Jefferson (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press), 35 (2008): 407-409. Jefferson replied to Danbury and Nelson, et al. July 1, 1802, by stating in part that “their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establish-ment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between Church & State. Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.”

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and presented to the joint committee and received their approbation. From thence to the association[s] and received theirs. Several of our members were then chosen as a committee to superintend the printing and circulating said petitions and also the presenting and advocating them before the Honorable General Assembly.39 It was a landmark moment for Baptists and religious liberty in

America that ultimately failed.40 But the petition also marked the end of Nelson’s ministry in Connecticut, for reasons not yet determined. By the end of the summer of 1801, he had assumed the pastorate of the Baptist church at Mount Pleasant, New York, where he would remain until 1812. His departure was “a serious loss to the petition movement.”41

Mount Pleasant, located thirty-six miles up the Hudson River from the city of New York, provided Nelson with his next minis-terial challenge. The Baptist churches in this region were “few and feeble” when Nelson commenced his ministry.42 The Baptist Society of Sing Sing was first organized on November 12, 1790. Nelson was the fourth minister and the longest serving in its brief history up to the time of his departure.43 Nelson assumed the pastorate at Mount Pleasant in late 1801.44 Like he had done with both the Warren and Danbury Associations, he was active in the

39 Stephen Smith Nelson, American Mercury, June 4, 1801, quoted in William G. McLoughlin, New England Dissent, 1630-1833: The Baptists

and the Separation of Church and State (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971), 2: 986-987.

40 For a discussion of this petition, see McLoughlin, New England Dissent, 2: 985-1005.

41 Ibid., 2: 987. Backus noted the impending move of Nelson in his diary entry dated August 2, 1801. Nelson visited First Baptist, Middleboro, and preached from John 3:18 in the Sunday afternoon service. McLoughlin, Diary of Isaac Backus, 3: 1469.

42 David Benedict, Fifty Years Among the Baptists (New York: Sheldon and Co., 1860), 35.

43 Robert Bolton, History of Westchester County, New York (New York: Alexander S. Gould, 1848), 1: 498.

44 Mount Pleasant or Ossining, New York, is home to the Sing Sing Correctional Facility and the Baptist church was apparently built on land that later was converted into this prison. Initial attempts to discover what became of this church have met with no success.

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New York Baptist Association during his eleven years at Mount Pleasant. From this association came a plan for a school, likely the first of its kind in the United States among the Baptists, specifically for the training of men for ministry. Nelson likely picked up the burden for ministerial education from his mentor Samuel Stillman. The academy apparently did not do well, though among its students was the future Baptist historian David Bene-dict (1779-1874), six years Nelson’s junior.45 While studying under Nelson, Benedict also taught school, and one of his students there was reported to be the well-known Francis Wayland, Jr. (1796-1865).46 Few details of the school can be found besides the general knowledge of its existence and Benedict’s brief description, in which he stated: 45 David Benedict, General History of the Baptist Denomination in

America and Other Parts of the World (New York: Lewis Colby, 1848), 413 and 544. See Benedict’s footnotes.

46 Cf. J. Thomas Scharf, History of Westchester County, New York (Philadelphia: L. E. Preston, 1886), 2: 339. Scharf suggests that Wayland “was one of the most distinguished students.” Wayland, who would have been no more than a young man of sixteen at the time of Nelson’s departure, was said to have been instructed by David Benedict in a separate educational setting. “Benedict, David” in The National

Cyclopædia of American Biography (New York: James T. White, 1899), 9: 468. David Benedict, in a footnote to the 1848 edition of his General

History of the Baptist Denomination, states that “Frank” Wayland, “as he was familiarly called,” was also a pupil under Nelson. However, when examining the biographical record of Francis Wayland written by his sons, there is no mention of either David Benedict or Stephen Smith Nelson. Moreover, the first school mentioned in the son’s biography was a boys school that met in the back of an old Methodist chapel on John Street. (Was this the Nelson school?) He was also instructed for a time by an unnamed, but apparently later to become well-known, Englishman of New York, a clergyman. This descriptor fits neither Benedict nor Nelson. By his eleventh year, his father, Francis Sr., had moved the family to Poughkeepsie, where young Francis entered the Dutchess Academy of John Lawton. If Wayland was instructed by David Benedict, his sons Francis and Heman Lincoln do not mention it. See Francis Wayland and Heman Lincoln Wayland, A Memoir of the Life and Labors of Francis

Wayland (New York: Sheldon and Co., 1867), 1: 21 ff. N.B. There are three Francis Waylands in the Wayland story—Francis Wayland Sr. (1772-1849) who emigrated from England with his wife Sarah Moore; Francis, Jr. (b. 1796) the well-known leader of Brown University; and Francis III (1826-1904), graduate of Brown (1846) and later a probate judge in Connecticut, as well as the lieutenant governor of the state, 1869-1870.

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In this place the New York Association attempted to found an Academy, for the purpose of assisting young preachers in their studies. A convenient edifice was erected, and some measures were taken to carry the design into effect, which however, soon fell through for want of patronage. When Mr. Nelson settled in the place, he purchased the building and premises, and under his superintendence, a seminary of respectable character has been conducted to the present time.47

This raises an interesting question. Was Nelson’s “academy” a

seminary of sorts in the modern sense of the term, or was it more like a high school? Nelson had taught school shortly after leaving Brown and before he went to Hartford. If both Benedict and Wayland attended the school earlier in life than would be expected for “seminary” men, this would suggest the school was more preparatory in nature. Benedict by his own declaration went to the academy before he went to Brown. On the nature of the academy, the record is unclear. However, if one takes Benedict’s description at face value, the academy was more akin to a ministerial seminary focusing on students already inclined toward ministry. If this is the case, then Nelson’s effort deserves consideration for the title of primogeniture of the Baptist ministerial educational effort in the United States.

Nelson shows up in the Minutes of the New York Association while serving at the church at Mount Pleasant. In 1802, he served as clerk of the Association alongside David Benedict, who wrote the corresponding letter. Nelson also made his way to Boston to be at the installation service of Joseph Clay, formerly of Georgia, who was called to succeed the venerable Samuel Stillman as pastor of the First Baptist Church.48 In 1807, Nelson again served as clerk of the Association. Francis Wayland, Sr., who by this time was at

47 Benedict, History of the Baptists, 1813, 1: 544. William Brackney, in his otherwise helpful study of American Baptist schoolmen, makes no notice of this early effort. See William H. Brackney, A Genetic History of Baptist

Thought (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 2004), 251 ff. Also, Nelson receives only a passing mention in Henry M. King, “Education Among the Baptists of this Country During the Last Hundred Years,” Baptist

Quarterly, 10 (October 1876): 464.

48 Thomas Baldwin, ed., The Massachusetts Baptist Missionary Magazine (Boston: Manning and Loring), 1 (Sept. 1803-Jan. 1808), No. 11 (Sept. 1807): 352.

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Poughkeepsie, served as clerk the following year. Eventually Nelson’s time at Mount Pleasant came to an end and, in 1813, he left the church. Membership of the church was around 55 when Nelson left, as his successor, Jacob H. Brouner, who came in May 1814, was said to have seen the church grow from 55 to 75 during his tenure of nine years.49

A final interesting activity of Stephen S. Nelson happened sometime during his New York pastorate. His brother, Dr. Thomas Nelson, had moved to Bristol, Rhode Island, to practice medicine in 1801. However, he soon realized that there was “the want of church privileges to which he had been accustomed.” Therefore, he resolved to leave Bristol in 1807. He sailed to New York, but en route Thomas had a “Jonah” experience and felt compelled to return to Bristol. By 1811, there was a sufficient number of Baptist people to form a small church in Bristol on August 22nd. Stephen S. Nelson was on hand to officiate at the church’s first communion service. James Manning Winchell, a graduate of Brown in 1812, would be called to become the first pastor.50 A succession of short pastorates in New England, 1813-1853

The cause for Nelson’s departure from New York is uncertain,

although there may have been circumstances related to the War of 1812 that contributed to this.51 After 1813, Stephen Smith Nelson’s ministry seems to change. Rather than having longer pastorates, he has a number of shorter ministries, sometimes helping struggling churches during times of pastoral transition. In 1814, Nelson preached at the Baptist church in Bellingham, Massachusetts, a small society of thirty-four members.52 Despite the fact that eleven were baptized during his brief stay and there was “unusual religious interest,” he remained but a short time.53

49 Scharf, History of Westchester County, 339.

50 Munro, History of Bristol, 296.

51 George F. Partridge, History of the Town of Bellingham, Massachusetts,

1719-1919 (Bellingham, MA: Published by the Town, 1919), 117.

52 Cf. William H. Eaton, Historical Sketches of the Massachusetts Baptist

Missionary Society (Boston: Massachusetts Baptist Convention, 1903), 187. The church is listed in the Minutes of the Warren Association, meeting at Providence in September 13-14, 1814, as having 34 members.

53 Partridge, History of the Town of Bellingham, 117.

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Nelson had what appears to be a prosperous ministry at Bellingham, but he was invited on April 15, 1815, to take up the pastoral care of the church at Attleboro.54 Between May 1815-1820, Nelson was pastor of the Baptist church in North Attleboro, Massachusetts. In 1813, there were 111 members at the church, but about one year after Nelson came the church nearly doubled to 207 members. A revival had broken out in the winter of 1815-1816, apparently stirred by an epidemic of typhoid fever that plagued the area. The epidemic, described as “the most fatal sick-ness ever known in these parts,” lasted about ninety days and took about one hundred residents of the town, many of them the heads of families.55 In a letter dated January 30, 1816, he wrote in part:

I can only say the Lord is still doing great things among us, both by mercies and by judgments. The fever still rages, and sweeps off many in a sudden and awful manner. Our good deacon William Blackington is now at the point of death. Multitudes here, and in the adjacent towns are inquiring what they shall do to be saved. I have baptized 66 since this good work begun, and we have received 12 by letters from other churches. I expect to baptize a number more soon.56

In August of 1816, Nelson was chosen an officer in a newly

formed missionary society, “The Baptist Missionary Society, for Norfolk and Vicinity, constituted for the promotion of Missionary objects, either Foreign or Domestic.”57 In 1817, the Attleboro church, under Nelson’s leadership, dismissed thirty-three mem-bers to form the Baptist church at Foxborough.58 Nelson’s ministry at Attleboro ended when he was released by that assembly in May 54 See John Daggett, ed. (completed by his daughter), History of Attleboro, (Boston: Press of Samuel Usher, 1894), 275.

55 Ibid., 654.

56 Baldwin, Massachusetts Baptist Missionary Magazine, 4 (1814-1816), No. 9 (Mar. 1816): 273. [See also Joshua Bradley, Accounts of Religious

Revivals in Many Parts of the United States from 1815 to 1818 (Albany, NY: Printed by G. J. Loomis and Co., 1819), 53-54 —Ed.]

57 Ibid., No. 8 (Dec. 1815): 252.

58 For Nelson’s part in helping to birth this church, see William H. Spencer, Historical Discourse Delivered at the Rededication of the Baptist

Meeting-House, in Foxborough, Mass. (Foxboro, MA: R. W. S. Blackwell, 1879), 7-13.

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of 1820.59 He made his presence felt throughout the Attleboro years in

the Warren Association participating on a committee in 1816 along with Benedict to form the Warren Education Society.60 Nelson served as secretary in both 1816 and 1817. In 1820, he was still listed on the Executive Committee of the Society. In 1818, Nelson served on the committee of the Baptist Evangelical Tract Society, and was listed as a trustee of the Massachusetts Baptist Missionary Society.61

From 1821-1823, Nelson served the Baptist church in Plymouth, Massachusetts. The Baptist Society of Plymouth was organized in the home of Heman Churchill on June 9, 1809. The first pastor was Lewis Leonard of Middleboro, who was succeeded by Adoniram Judson, Sr. in 1818. Nelson came in 1820. The church’s first meetinghouse was built on Spring Street during Nelson’s pastorate. Nelson was recognized as pastor on the day the new building was dedicated, November 6, 1822.62 He participated in the ordination of Clark Cornish to do the work of an evangelist by delivering the charge to the candidate on November 21, 1822, at the Ministerial Conference of the Old Colony Baptist Associa-tion held at Hanson.63

Nelson appears in the Warren Association minutes for 1821 as pastor at Plymouth, a church of 87 members. He is not listed as an executive committee member of the Education Society in 1822. Instead, the officers were Francis Wayland, Jr. (First Baptist, Boston), Stephen Gano (First Baptist, Providence), and Benedict (Pawtucket). Benedict was secretary. The Plymouth church was

59 Daggett, History of Attleboro, 278.

60 Benedict, Fifty Years Among the Baptists, 292.

61 “Report of the Trustees of the Massachusetts Baptist Missionary Society,” held at Second Baptist Boston, May 27, 1818, published in Thomas Baldwin, ed., The American Baptist Magazine and Missionary

Intelligencer, (Boston: James Loring, and Lincoln and Edmands), 1 (1817-1818), No. 10 (July 1818): 385. Nelson was still listed as a trustee in 1822, Thomas Baldwin, ed., The American Baptist Magazine and Missionary

Intelligencer (Boston: James Loring, and Lincoln and Edmands), 3 (1821-1822), No. 10 (July 1822): 389.

62 Thomas Baldwin, ed., The American Baptist Magazine and Missionary

Intelligencer (Boston: James Loring, and Lincoln and Edmands), 4 (1823-1824), No. 1 (Jan. 1823): 39.

63 Ibid., 37.

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not listed in 1823 in the Warren Association minutes, as the church was in the process of helping to form a new Baptist association, the Old Colony Association. In 1823, Plymouth joined the new Old Colony Association at the meeting held at Plymouth. Benjamin C. Grafton was its pastor by that time.64

From 1823-1825, Stephen Nelson was back in Connecticut, this time at Canton, serving the Baptist Society there. This church began as a split off the Congregational church in 1783 when a group departed as Separatists led by James Bacon. In 1785, another group split (about half the congregation) over Baptist views but did not have regular meetings until Jared Mills began preaching among them in 1802 and was ordained in 1808. He left in 1817, followed by Pierpont Brockett in 1819, Nelson in 1823-1824, and Isaac Kimball in 1825. In 1837, George B. Atwell became pastor.65 In the fall of 1823, the Baptists of Connecticut constituted their own convention. Nelson was listed as the elder of the church at Canton at the formation of the Connecticut Baptist State Convention on October 29, 1823. Canton was one of thirty churches that met in Hartford to form the new state group.66 Nelson also served on a committee to consider amendments to the proposed new constitution.67

In 1825-1826, Nelson was pastor at Belchertown, Massachu-setts. Belchertown is located in the western part of Massachusetts, and Nelson spent the rest of his ministry (almost 30 years) helping Baptist churches across this region, especially in and around Amherst, Massachusetts. Nelson apparently moved into this area

64 William Thomas Davies, Ancient Landmarks of Plymouth (Boston: A. Williams Co., 1883), 104. On Nelson’s brief ministry here, see H. W. Coffin, Historical Sketch of the First Baptist Church of Christ in

Plymouth, Mass. (Plymouth, MA: Avery and Doten, 1885), 4-5.

65 Noah A. Phelps, History of Simsbury, Granby and Canton 1642-1845 (Hartford: Case, Tiffany, and Burnham, 1845), 142-143. Phelps is mistaken on two important details. First, he implies that Nelson was only at Canton from 1824-1825, which is clearly a mistake since he was at the formation of the state convention in October of 1823 on behalf of the church. Second, Phelps says that Nelson was “ordained” by the church in 1824. However, the Warren Association had ordained Nelson in 1797, nearly 30 years earlier.

66 Philip S. Evans, History of the Connecticut Baptist State Convention

1823-1907 (Hartford: Press of Smith-Lindsey, 1909), 17.

67 Ibid., 19.

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to educate his children at the academy at Amherst.68 The Belchertown church was constituted June 24, 1795. Its first pastor was Samuel Bigelow who died about 1807. Shortly thereafter, the church joined the Warren Association. However, when the Sturbridge Association began, the church affiliated with that fellowship and withdrew from Warren.69 The church went through several pastors before Nelson began to minister among them in 1825. He remained about one and a half years. He shows up in the minutes of 1825 and 1826 at the Sturbridge Association representing Belchertown. In late 1825, discussions were held about forming a new church, “the Belchertown and Palmer” church. Nelson was part of a council that met at the Methodist meeting house on November 16, 1825, to endorse the proposal. In 1826, twenty-seven members of the church at Belchertown were released to start a new work at “Belchertown and Palmer.” Nelson also represented Sturbridge at the meeting of the Wendell Association, a new Baptist Association that was started the previous year. Nelson finally left Belchertown, apparently

being unable, on account of the distance, to perform the duties to his own satisfaction. . .He was accustomed, however, almost to his dying day, to preach to feeble and destitute churches in the neighborhood and elsewhere, as he had opportunity. In these gratuitous labours he enjoyed the abundant blessing of God.70

Nelson would become involved in another new Baptist effort

following his departure from Belchertown. In 1827, Stephen Smith Nelson was an elder in the Baptist

church of New Salem and Prescott, Massachusetts,71 when he facilitated the founding of still another Baptist assembly, First

68 Turnbull, “Stephen Smith Nelson,” 367.

69 For a brief history of the church at Belchertown, see History of the

Baptist Churches Composing the Sturbridge Association from Their Origin

to 1843 (New York: J. R. Bigelow, 1844), 48-49.

70 Turnbull, “Stephen Smith Nelson,” 367.

71 For a brief discussion on the founding of this church in 1772, see Josiah G. Holland, History of Western Massachusetts: The Counties of Hampden,

Hampshire, Franklin, and Berkshire (Springfield, MA: Samuel Bowles, 1855), 2: 402.

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Baptist Church of Amherst, Massachusetts.72 In November 1827, a letter was addressed to the First Baptist Church of New Salem signed by Nelson. There was a need for a Baptist church in the nearby town of Amherst, sixteen miles away, where there was an academy—“all as sheep without a shepherd—We feel it our indispensible duty to unite & exert ourselves to remedy these existing evils & procure greater religious enjoyment.”73 On November 18, 1827, the church at New Salem agreed to release members to form the new church in Amherst as a “Branch of the First Baptist Church in New Salem.” They were given permission to transact their own business, to call their own pastors, to admit members and discipline them, etc. The first meeting was held in Nelson’s home on December 7, 1827. Nelson moderated and Solomon Peck, professor of Latin and Hebrew at Amherst College, was clerk.74 At the December 12 meeting, a creed and covenant were offered and were adopted the following week. On February 29, 1828, the church decided that its first communion was to be held March 9th in the evening. This service was held in Nelson’s home. The church voted on September 19, 1830 that it was expedient to become a branch of the Baptist church at Northampton rather than New Salem. So on October 1, a letter of dismissal was entered into the minutes followed by application and acceptance of the church at Northampton. Finally in May 1832, the church was dismissed from Northampton care and constituted as First Baptist Church of Amherst. The church adopted the articles of faith of Federal Street Baptist Church of Boston. Mason Ball was called to be the first pastor. Ball remained two years. The next pastor, N. G. Lovell, served the church three years, 1836-1840. He left in January. By April, Elder S. S. Nelson was asked to preach until a new minister could be secured. Elder Joseph Hodges began his ministry August 2, but stayed for only one year. Not to be discouraged at the church’s inability to keep a

72 Edward W. Carpenter and Charles F. Morehouse, The History of the

Town of Amherst, Massachusetts (Amherst, MA: Press of Carpenter and Morehouse, 1896), 234ff. See also Ariel Parish, History of Education and

Educational Institutions in Western Massachusetts. Springfield, MA: Sam-uel Bowels, 1855.

73 Carpenter and Morehouse, History of Amherst, 234.

74 On Peck, see W. S. Taylor, History of Amherst College during Its First

Half Century, 1821-1871 (Springfield, MA: Clark W. Bryan, 1873), 164, 238-239.

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pastor long-term, the church voted August 8, 1841 to keep up the worship services “preaching or no preaching” and again invited Nelson to preach to them. The Association soon sent Mr. Chase to supply the pulpit, which he did until December.75

Nelson served as a delegate from the Wendell Association to the Massachusetts Baptist Convention meeting at West Spring-field on October 31, 1827. He also served as moderator of the associational meeting in New Salem that year. Two years later, he moderated the Wendell Association meeting held at Athol, Massachusetts. Nelson briefly served the Athol church, where he became “practical assistant to Elder [Isaac] Briggs,” from “about 1831” until the resignation of Briggs due to ill health on March 11, 1832, at which time Nelson then continued on “as acting pastor of the church” until Ambrose Day assumed the office in 1833. We are told that twelve persons had been baptized by Nelson and added to the membership during his time of ministry there.76

Nelson was back preaching at Amherst from 1833-1834. In 1833, the American Baptist Home Mission Society entered into an arrangement whereby the Connecticut Baptist Convention would become “an auxiliary of the Home Mission Society.” The Society was “directed to seek out and employ, as an organ of this body, a suitable brother who will take upon himself the fellowship of ministering to the saints, and of procuring the means necessary to the accomplishment of the designs of the Convention.” Nelson was the man chosen and served the latter nine months of 1834 in Connecticut as a missionary with the Board, ministering in twenty churches.77

Sometime after he completed his assignment with the Home Mission, Nelson returned to western Massachusetts. He was now over sixty, and the record suggests that, while he may have been 75 The early records of the church are on deposit at the Jones Library, Special Collections, Amherst, Mass. Special thanks to Cyndi Harbeson, head of Special Collections, who scanned and emailed these documents for examination. Included in the collection are a number of letters to and from Nelson, mostly about financial issues, land transfers, etc.

76 William G. Lord, History of the First Baptist Church of Athol, Massa-

chusetts (Athol: F. W. Gourlay, 1910), 40-41. See also Eaton, Historical

Sketches of the Massachusetts Baptist Missionary Society, 187. Another brief history of this church, with a list of its pastors that omits any men-tion of Nelson, is in History of Worcester County, Massachusetts, compiled by D. Hamilton Hurd (Philadelphia: J. W. Lewis, 1889), 2: 1041-1042.

77 Evans, History of the Connecticut Baptist State Convention, 34, 36.

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slowing down, he was not stopping his itinerant ministry in and around the western settlements. In 1835, he moderated the annual meeting of the Wendell Association and in 1836, partici-pated in the 22nd Annual Meeting of the American Baptist Board of Foreign Missions meeting at First Baptist Church, Hartford, on April 27, 1836.78

Nelson represented the Wendell brethren at the annual meet-ing of the American Baptist Home Mission Society held in Phila-delphia on April 27, 1837.79 He was still listed in the Wendell Association’s minutes for 1839 as an elder, along with N. G. Lovell at Amherst. The congregation numbered sixty. He was also listed at Amherst in 1840, this time along with Joshua Hodges. The next year, however, Nelson was not listed at Amherst. The church’s letter reported: “This church is destitute of a pastor, br. Hodges having left for want of support. They however, hold meetings on Lord’s days and keep up their S. School and Bible Class exercises, and hope to obtain preaching at least once a month. This is all they can hope for at present.”80 Nelson was again listed at Amherst on 1844 but not in 1845. In 1847, he was still listed as an elder at Amherst, but he did not attend the Association’s annual meeting. In 1848, Nelson seems to have been appointed as a member of the nominating committee for the choosing officers for the 1849 year of the American Baptist Home Mission Society.81 In 1849, Nelson was still listed in the church at Amherst and attended the Wendell meeting, but the church had no pastor. The final Wendell minutes listing Nelson was 1852. He died at the age of 81 on December 8, 1853, in Amherst, Massachusetts, having served his Lord and the Baptist cause for almost sixty years across three states.

The life and legacy of Stephen Smith Nelson

Stephen Smith Nelson was a remarkable man with a striking

78 The American Baptist Magazine (Boston: John Putnam), 16 (1836), No. 6 (June): 121.

79 Minutes of the American Baptist Home Mission Society (New York: Office of the A.B.H.M.S., 1837), 10.

80 Minutes of the Wendell Baptist Association, 1841, 7.

81 Minutes of the Sixteenth Anniversary of American Baptist Home Mission

Society (New York: Published for the Society, 1848), meeting at First Baptist Church, New York City, May 11, 1848, 4.

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history. His life intersected many well-known late eighteenth and early nineteenth century Northern American Baptist leaders. Mentored by men like Isaac Backus and Samuel Stillman, a colleague of David Benedict, Thomas Baldwin, and Stephen Gano, just to name a few, Nelson stands among a generation of Baptist giants who helped shape Baptist life in the early years of post-revolutionary America. Though he often stood in the shadows of these men, he was undoubtedly their equal in terms of commit-ment to God and the Baptist cause. His signature on the 1801 Danbury letter to Thomas Jefferson showed him to be in the vanguard on the question of religious liberty, not as prominent as Backus or John Leland, to be sure, but still a part of the early movement for religious freedom that Baptists sought and modern Americans cherish. Undoubtedly, his pedigree as a descendant of an early American Baptist layman, Thomas Nelson, and his wife Hope, from whom he inherited much of the Baptist ways, played a significant role in shaping young Stephen in Baptist sensibilities. With three uncles and a brother in the Baptist ministry, Nelson’s family did much to strengthen the Northern Baptist witness in New England in the first half of the nineteenth century.

Nelson himself deserves honor as an indefatigable laborer in the Lord’s vineyard. The record seems clear that he had a hand in the planting or strengthening of at least six new Baptist works: Hartford, Connecticut (1795-1801); Middletown, Connecticut (1795); Bristol, Rhode Island (ca. 1807); Foxborough, Massachu-setts (1817); Belchertown and Palmer, Massachusetts (1825-1826); Amherst, Massachusetts (1827); as well as working as an agent for the Home Mission Board in Connecticut (1834), through which he aided another twenty churches, many of them new ministries.

Nelson was also heavily involved in Baptist denominational life, starting with his earliest connections to the Warren Associa-tion (1795). He served churches connected with the Warren, Danbury, New York, Sturbridge, Old Colony, and Wendell Associations, plus he was active in the Foreign Mission Board, the Home Mission Board, the Evangelical Tract Society, the formation of the Connecticut Baptist State Convention, and other local and larger efforts. He was a denominational man his entire life and worked to promote the Baptist cause wherever he labored. He remained active in associational work to the end of his seventh decade of life and filled Baptist pulpits across New England whenever the occasion presented itself.

Of his personal life and character, only a few clear statements can be found by those who either knew him or followed him in

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ministry. The most complete description of Nelson comes from his successor at Hartford who, though writing more than fifty years after Nelson left that community, knew him personally and still had access to the people who remembered his ministry in the church. Nelson was described as a man of

about five feet, six inches in height, erect in his gait, neat in his appearance, prompt in his movements and remarkably urbane in his manner. When I knew him, his hair was silver gray, his eye bright and penetrating, and his movements as vivacious nearly as those of a young man. Brief, pointed, earnest, evangelical, his preaching was eminently fitted to do good. His voice was clear, ringing; his manner impressive and dignified, as an ambassador of Christ. His life was simple, serene, and, especially in his later years, heavenly. “He seemed,” said a dear friend and relative, “to move among men in the quietness of his own reflections, above and aside from the cares and conflicts of outward life, at peace with God, at peace with men.”82

Concerning Nelson’s theology, little direct material can be

located. No sermons are known to exist and only the briefest of evidence is available. Even the extant diary transcripts have little to say of the theological reflections of a young Nelson. The personal material regarding his views is wanting.

However, several things may shed some light in this direction. First, his ancestors, Thomas Nelson and wife Hope, who founded the Second Baptist Church of Middleboro in their home, were Calvinistic Baptists, the first of that variety in their part of the country. Doubtless, that heritage was passed down through the generations to three grandsons and two great-grandsons who carried the Baptist flag as respected New England pastors. Stephen Smith Nelson was a member of Isaac Backus’s First Church, Middleboro, and thus of the Warren Association with its strong Calvinism of the Philadelphia Confession. He was ordained by a counsel of sober-minded early American Baptist Calvinists like Stillman, Backus, Baldwin and Gano. It is doubtful that he

82 Turnbull, “Stephen Smith Nelson,” 368. A picture of an aged Nelson may be found in Centennial Memorial of the First Baptist Church,

Hartford, 180, which is reproduced at the front of this essay. Robert Turnbull pastored the church from 1845-1869. He was thirty-six when he commenced his ministry. See Centennial Memorial, 205-215.

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would have passed muster before these men if he had not been able to acquit himself well before them at his ordination. Furthermore, he named his second son, John Gill, born in 1802, likely after the Baptist theological stalwart of English Baptist life who died in 1771, the year before Nelson was born. Finally, Stephen Smith Nelson was blessed in his ministry by two remarkable seasons of divine grace—one at Hartford in 1798-1800 and the other at Attleboro in 1815 during the typhoid fever outbreak. This kind of effort is in the best Calvinistic tradition of men like George Whitefield, Andrew Fuller, and Charles Haddon Spurgeon who, though they held rigorous Calvinism, did so with a warm evangelical fervor that left much room for the indis-criminate preaching of the Gospel to the lost. Stephen Smith Nelson was a Baptist evangelist in the truest sense of the term.

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Further Reading

Robert Turnbull, “Stephen Smith Nelson,” in William B. Sprague, ed. Annals of the American Pulpit. New York: Robert Carter and Brothers, 1860. Volume 6 (Baptist), 366-369.

“Rev. Stephen Nelson,” in J. Lansing Burrows, ed. The American

Baptist Memorial. Philadelphia: King and Baird. Volume 13 (1854), Number 3 (March), 73-75.

W. Ripley Nelson. The Nelson Family of Plymouth, Middleboro

and Lakeville Massachusetts. Unpublished manuscript, 1963. Samuel Stillman. A Good Minister of Jesus Christ: A Sermon

preached in Boston September 15 [actually 13], 1797, at the

Ordination of the Rev. Mr. Stephen Smith Nelson. Boston: Manning and Loring, 1797.

John S. James, et al., Centennial Memorial of the First Baptist

Church of Hartford, Connecticut. Hartford: Press of the Christian Secretary, 1890.