Joseph Bellamy

Joseph Bellamy (20 February 1719 – 6 March 1790) was an American Congregationalist pastor and a leading preacher, author, educator and theologian in New England in the second half of the 18th century. He was a disciple of Jonathan Edwards, and along with Samuel Hopkins, Timothy Dwight IV, Nathaniel William Taylor, and Jonathan Edward Jr., one of the "Architects of the New Divinity", a branch of the New Light movement that came out of the Great Awakening.[1] A proponent of education for both clergy and laity, for a half century out of his rural Bethlehem, Connecticut church he trained fifty ministers, and founded what was possibly the first American Sabbath or Sunday school.[2]

View of the center of Bethlehem by John Warner Barber (published 1836, 46 years after Bellamy's death) "Bellamy's house is the one to the right of the two trees in the center of the drawing and to the left of the Congregational Church."[3]
  1. ^ Ahlstrom, Sidney E., A Religious History of the American People, Yale University Press, 1972, pp, 406-407
  2. ^ Ahlstrom, p. 406
  3. ^ [1] Web page titled "Visual Evidence: Drawing 1: View of the center of Bethlehem" part of the National Park Service Web pages for the Joseph Bellamy House