Elias Brewster Hillard (1825 - 1895)

Born 6 Sep 1825 in Preston, New London, Connecticut, United States

Ancestors

Descendants

Died 1 Mar 1895 at age 69 in Farmington, Hartford, Connecticut, United States

Biography

ELIAS BREWSTER HILLARD, son of Captain Moses and Martha (Brewster) Hillard, of Preston, Connecticut, was born in that town on September 6, 1825. During his College course his residence was in Norwich, Conn.

After graduation he was for two years principal of the Lewis Academy in Southington, Conn., and a little later entered the Yale Divinity School. In 1852 he removed to the Andover Theological Seminary, where he finished the course in July, 1854. On March 15, 1855, he was ordained as pastor of the Congregational Church in Hadlyme, Conn., and on September 10th married Julia, daughter of Judge Frederick Whittlesey (Y. C. 1822), of Cleveland, O. He was dismissed from his pastorate on April 15, 1860, and on May 16 was installed over the Congregational Church in Kensington Society, in the township of Berlin, Conn. He left this post on March 2, 1867, and was settled two months later over the Congregational Church in South Glastonbury, Conn., where he remained until November, 1869. Thence he went to Plymouth, Conn., where during a pastorate of twenty years he came into special prominence throughout the State as a leader in movements of temperance reform. His last pastorate (1889-93) was in Con way, Mass., and the closing months of his life were spent in Farmington, Conn., where he died on March 1, 1895, in his 70th year, of heart failure, following pneumonia.

His wife survives him, with five daughters and two sons.

Elias prepared for college at Bacon Academy, Colchester, CT, and was graduated from Yale College in 1848. After completing his theological studies at Yale (1851) and Andover (1853) Seminaries, Mr. Hillard offered himself for the home missionary service, and from the Home Missionary Society received appointment to California, at that time a new and distant field. But the society, falling just then into straitened financial circumstances was unable to send him, and he became the pastor of the Congregational Church at Hadlyme, where he labored from 1855-60. His other pastorates were successively at Kensington from 1860-67; at South Glastonbury from 1867-69; at Plymouth from 1869-89; and at Conway, MA, from 1889-93. Thirty-eight years in all he exercised the ministry of the gospel, and with his whole heart, with burning zeal, and the enlistment of every faculty of his being.

Sources

• Find A Grave: Memorial #57467740: West Cemetery, Plymouth, Litchfield, Connecticut