Solomon Stoddard - Early Life

Early Life

Solomon Stoddard was born in Boston on September 26, 1643. He was the son of Anthony Stoddard, a wealthy Boston merchant, and Mary Downing (sister of Sir George Downing (for whom Downing Street in London is named), niece to Governor John Winthrop). As such, Solomon was born into the highest stratum of aristocratic New England. Solomon graduated from Harvard College in 1662; shortly thereafter, he was appointed "Library keeper", and Library Laws were enacted specifying that he should keep the Library "duly swept" and the books "clean and orderly." The following is found in the records of Harvard College:

March 27, 1667, "Mr Solomon Stoddard was chosen Library keeper." "For the rectifying of ye Library & Rules for the Library Keeper", sixteen "orders were made." "No person resident in the College, except an Overseer", and "no Schollar in the College, under a Senior", could borrow a book, and "no one under master of Art (unless it be a fellow) . . . without the allowance of the President."

To improve his health, Stoddard went to Barbados and served as a chaplain from 1667 to 1669. But he soon felt the need to return to New England. As he prepared to depart from Boston for a position in England, he received a call from Northampton Church to stand in for the recently deceased Eleazar Mather. Stoddard accepted the offer, and relocated to Northampton in 1670. Within a few months, Stoddard had married Mather's widow, née Esther Warham (circa 1644 - February 10, 1736), moved into his house, and took over his pulpit to become Northampton's second minister. He held the post for 55 years, and he and Esther produced thirteen children.

Although well versed in the Latin and Hebrew of the Boston Puritan elite, he preferred to use the common language of the frontier in his sermons. A sense of the frontier life may be gleaned from his proposal in 1703 to use dogs "to hunt Indians as they do Bears", the argument being that dogs would catch many an Indian who would be too light of foot for the townsmen. This was not considered inhuman, for the Indians, in Stoddard's view, "act like wolves and are to be dealt with as wolves." Three years later. Massachusetts passed an act for the raising of dogs to better secure the frontier borders.