Source:Hanna, John. Biographies of Early American Presbyterians

Background

This work was probably written by a John Hanna at an unknown date, and provides brief biographies of various early Presbyterians ministers in the United States. Most of the biographies are for persons living in the 19th century. The earliest biography is for Rev. Zachariah Walker born before 1643), and the latest is for Rev. William Aikman, who died in 1905.

A representative biography is given for the Rev. Benjamin Hait (ca. 1734-1779)

He graduated at the College of New Jersey in 1754, and was licensed by the Presbytery of New Brunswick, October 25th 1754, and sent to the Forks of the Delaware. He was ordained, December 4th, 1755, and installed pastor of the Presbyterian Church at Amwell, New Jersey. While settled here, by order of Synod, he visited and supplied the southern vacancies. He gave up his charge in Amwell, in 1765. In 1776 he was settled at Connecticut Farms, New Jersey, and died there, June 27th, 1779.

This work is said to have been placed online at a University of Michigan site from c.2002 to 2005, by Aprille Cooke McKay. ^[1] After these materials were taken down an unidentified person (not Ms. McKay) transferred the information to a site called "ZoomInfo." That site is now (2013) orphaned. Though the list can still be accessed, none of the links to the original biographies are "live". The biographies themselves can be recovered through careful web searching. As an example, this link Mal.net will take you to a page containing the biographies beginning with the letter "H". Note that this is not, apparently, a ZoomInfo page, but on something called "Mal.net" which seems to be a reseller of abandoned web domains, one of which would seem to be ZoomInfo. Thus while the website is no longer supported, it is still accessible to some extent though Mal.net.

The copyright status of these biographies is unknown. The original biographies were clearly prepared after 1905 (the latest Date of Death of the person for whom biographies were prepared. Whether they were prepared at a time such that their copyright status would be protected, is unknown. From the style of writing it is suspected that the materials are early 20th century. It is possible that this was a "senior project" at the University of Michigan and might still be recovered from the University of Michigan's web servers, though they are not apparently still available online.

Inline Citation

Source:Hanna, undated