Dwight, William T

DD, a Congregationalist minister, was a son of President Dwight, and was born at Greenfield Hill, Conn., in 1795. He graduated at Yale College in 1813, and was distinguished for his scholarship in a class of many able scholars. From 1817 to 1819 he was a tutor in the college, and then removed to Philadelphia, where he practiced law until 1831. In that year he was awakened under a lecture of Dr. Skinner, and, abandoning the law, he was licensed by the Third Presbytery of New York, and accepted a call to the Third Church in Portland, Maine. His ministry of above thirty years was eminently successful. He was an overseer of Bowdoin College and president of the Maine Missionary Society. In 1852 he was president of the Albany Convention of Congregational churches. "As a preacher he is entitled to a foremost rank among American divines for sound and varied learning, clear and polished diction, graceful and effective delivery, and eminent success." He died at Andover October 22, 1865. He published a Life of Sereno E. Dwight, with a Selection from his Discourses (1851).