Pomeroy, Benjamin

last name (variants): Pomroy; Pomory
honorific(s): Reverend
Birth: November 19, 1704 in Suffield, CT
Death: December 22, 1784 in Hebron, CT
Affiliation

Trustees of Moor's Indian Charity School; Trustees of Dartmouth College; Connecticut Board of Correspondents, Society in Scotland for Propagating Christian Knowledge; Provincial Militia; Continental Army

Education

AB from Yale in 1733, honorary Doctor of Divinity from Dartmouth in 1774

Faith

New Light Congregationalist

Nationality

Anglo-American

Occupation

Minister at Hebron in CT

Residence(s)
  • Hebron, CT (from 1734 to 1784)
Marital status

Married to Abigail Wheelock. He had many children, and sent his firstborn son, Josiah Pomeroy, to Moor's. A younger son, Ralph Pomeroy, was master at Moor's for a year from 1758-1759.

Biography

Benjamin Pomeroy was a school friend of Eleazar Wheelock and a lifelong supporter of his cause. Like Wheelock, he was a New Light evangelical and a staunch ally of James Davenport, a radical New Light preacher whose beliefs got him in trouble with the law. After graduating from Yale in 1733, Pomeroy received the ministry at Hebron, CT, in 1734, and assisted Wheelock in myriad ways until his own death in 1784. He kept Wheelock's school during 1746, when Wheelock's first wife, Sarah, was dying, and he tutored Occom (primarily in Hebrew) after Occom had completed his studies with Wheelock. Pomeroy also supported Wheelock as a trustee of Moor's, and, later, Dartmouth, and as a member of the Board of the Correspondents in Connecticut for the Society in Scotland for Propagating Christian Knowledge. Pomeroy and Wheelock also had close family connections: Pomeroy was married to Wheelock’s sister, Abigail, and one of Pomeroy’s daughters, Hannah, married David McClure, one of Wheelock's most illustrious graduates. Outside of his liturgical career, Pomeroy served as an army chaplain in the French and Indian War and the Revolution.

Sources

Brooks, Joanna. The Collected Writings of Samson Occom, Mohegan: Leadership and Literacy in Eighteenth-Century Native America. Oxford 2006. Hoefnagel, Dick and Close, Virginia. “Eleazar Wheelock’s Two Schools.” Dartmouth College Library Bulletin November 1999. http://www.wheelockgenealogy.com/ged/ralphdsc/d0000/g0000032.html. Accessed 11/20/2012. Love, Deloss. Samson Occom and the Christian Indians of New England. Pilgrim Press 1899. McCallum, James. The Letters of Eleazar Wheelock’s Indians. Dartmouth College Press 1932. McClure, David and Parish, Elijah. Memoirs of the Rev. Eleazar Wheelock. Edward Little and Co 1811. Pomeroy, A.A. History and genealogy of the Pomeroy family. Franklin Print and Engraving Co. 1912. Accessed via ebooksread.com, 11/20/2012. Wheelock Family Genealogy. “Rev. Benjamin Pomeroy.” http://www.wheelockgenealogy.com/ged/ralphdsc/d0000/g0000032.html Accessed 11/19/2012.

General note

Manuscript 761404 refers to a Mr. Pomeroy traveling frequently. This is almost certainly B. Pomeroy, an itinerant minister, rather than R. Pomeroy, a lawyer-in-training. In 769261, N. Whitaker asks Wheelock and Pomeroy to draw up a preaching license for a Mr. Huntington. Although a license seems like legal work, that Whitaker paired Pomeroy with Wheelock suggests that this was actually a matter for ministers, especially since the Connecticut Board, of which Wheelock and B. Pomeroy were both members, issued licenses (e.g., Ashpo’s).