Person:Jedediah Morse (7)

(p.117) "[ ]didiah Son of Jedidiah Morss by Sarah his wife born August 23^d: 1761"
(p.190) "Jedidiah Son of Jedidiah & Sarah Morse Born August y^e 23^d: 176[ ]"

JEDEDIAH MORSE D.D.
Dr. Morse was the son of Deacon Jedediah Morse, of whom mention has been made, in connection with the histori­cal sketch of the first church of Woodstock.

He was born in this town the 23d of August, 1761; gradu­ated at Yale college in 1783; licensed to preach in 1785, by the New Haven association of Congregational ministers. He was for a time tutor at Yale, and in 1786 was ordained a min­ister of the Gospel. In 1789 he was installed as pastor of the first Congregational church in Charlestown, Massachusetts. He received the honorary degree of D.D. from the Edinburgh university in 1794; and was an active member of the Massa­chusetts Historical society, and other literary and scientific bodies at that time.

Dr. Morse is known as the father of American geography. He prepared, while in New Haven, in 1784, for the use of schools for young ladies, an l8mo geography, the first work of the kind published in America. This was followed by large works in the form of systems of geography and gazetteers, giving full description of the country from materials gathered by traveling and correspondence.

Dr. Jeremy Belknap, the historian of New Hampshire; Thomas Hutchins, the geographer-general of the United States; Ebenezer Hazzard, the postmaster-general, and others, had contemplated the same task, but ascertaining the progress of the doctor in this research, yielded their pretensions in his favor, all furnished him with many materials for this work gathered by them.

For a period of thirty years he continued, almost alone, the work in this department of science.

Reprints of his larger geographical works were republished in Great Britain; and translations of them were made in the French, at Paris, and in German, at Hamburg. He labored actively in writing and preaching against the innovation of Unitarianism, and engaged himself in favor of the enlarge­ment, in 1804, of the Massachusetts general association of Congregational ministers, based on the Westminster assembly’s catechism.

In 1805 he opposed, though unsuccessfully, the election of the Rev. Henry Ware, D.D., to the Hollis professorship of divinity in Harvard college. The same year he established a monthly religious journal, called the Panoplist,which was continued five years. He was prominent in the establishment of the Andover Theological seminary, then preventing a rival institution at New­bury, projected by the Hopkinsians, and in effecting a union of these parties on a common Calvinistic basis, the Westminster assembly’s catechism.

The articles of this union, which were signed in his study at Charlestown, November 30, 1807, constitute substantially the theological basis of that institution at Andover at the pres­ent time. Dr. Samuel Spring and Dr. Eliphalet Parsons were united with Dr. Morse in framing these articles of agree­ment.

He joined in the organization of the Park street church in 1808, conforming to the standard of theology at Andover, when all the other Congregational churches in Boston, except the Old South, had more or less departed from that standard of faith. His anxiety and labors were exceedingly great at this period in opposing any departure from the old Puritan character of Congregationalism. This action brought down upon him, as one of the chief leaders of this faith, all that party of the Congregationalists who were tinctured with what was styled “Liberalism,” or those who had actually embraced the doctrine of Unitarianism.

Dr. Morse suffered in his health by these active mental labors, and found it necessary to be relieved from the pastoral cares of a church; thus he requested to be discharged from those duties by the church and society at Charlestown, over which he had so long and faithfully presided, this request was granted in 1820.

He now removed to New Haven, where he continued to reside till the time of his decease, June 9, 1826.

In 1820 he was commissioned by the United States gov­ernment to visit the North-Western Indians; on his return, the account of his doings covered, when printed, 400 pages, 8vo, and was published in 1822. He published “Annals of the Revolution,” a book of sermons, and a general history of New England. These publications are in addition to his geographical works.

The sons of Dr. Jedediah Morse, Samuel Finley Breese Morse, born at Charlestown, Massachusetts, April 27, 1791, and Sidney Edwards Morse, born at Charlestown, on the 7th of February, 1794, and both recently deceased, have abun­dantly sustained the same vigorous, intellectual powers so strongly exhibited by their father and grandfather; the former as the inventor of the electric telegraph, and the latter as an American journalist, in connection with his younger brother, Richard C. Morse, establishing and ably sustaining for many years the New York Observer.

This gives evidence of the tenacity of intellectual powers, continued in the same family, controlled by strong moral and religious sensibility. It is difficult to estimate the value of the persistent characteristics of such men by example and precept in diffusing knowledge and correct principles. There is scarcely a blemish upon the character of either, belonging to the three generations of this family. This has probably arisen from the firm and consistent character of the elder, Deacon Jedediah Morse, who, through a long life, sustained the most entire confidence of his townsmen.

1795 Jedidiah Morse 1826

Son of Dea. Jedidiah Morse and Sarah Child;
born, Woodstock, Conn., Aug. 23, 1761;
South Woodstock Academy;
Yale College, 1783, and tutor;
taught in New Haven and Norwich, Conn.;
pastor of First Church, Charlestown, 1789-1820;
"father of American geography," publishing various geographies and gazetteers;
influential in the organization of Andover seminary and the American Board for Foreign Missions;
founder and editor of the Panoplist, 1805-10;
commissioned by Secretary of War Calhoun to visit and inspect Indian tribes;
died, New Haven, Conn., June 9, 1826.
A.M., Princeton, 1787;
D.D., Edinburgh, 1794;
overseer, Harvard;
member of Massachusetts Historical Society.
Father of Samuel F. B. and Sidney E. Morse, Phillips Academy, 1802.