Birthplace: Hatfield, Massachusetts August 24, 1694
Died: Wethersfield, Connecticut July 24, 1755
Rector: 1726-1739

Elisha Williams was thirty-two years old when he became Rector of Yale College in 1726. He assumed the position in a period of dissension. After the dismissal of Cutler the College had managed for four years without a Rector or permanent head. The trustees offered occasional supervision, and former Rector Andrews presided at most of the interim commencements. The tutorship of young Jonathan Edwards was a bright spot in this period. During Williams's term, which lasted thirteen years, the young College developed a solidarity that served as the foundation for the important development which was to follow.

Williams was born on August 24, 1694, the son of the Reverend William Williams, minister at Hatfield, Massachusetts. On his father's side he was a descendant of Robert Williams, who had come from England in 1637 and had settled in Roxbury, Massachusetts; through his mother he was a great-grandson of John Cotton and Governor Bradstreet. In 1708 Williams entered the Sophomore Class of Harvard and was graduated in 1711 with honors, at the age of seventeen. The following year he took charge of the grammar school at Hadley, but he soon returned to Hatfield to study theology with his father. For reasons not exactly clear, Williams finally settled in Wethersfield and acquired a farm there. On February 23, 1714, he married Eunice Chester.

Failing to find a good parish, Williams began the study of law, and in 1717 he was chosen to represent Wethersfield in the Connecticut General Assembly. For the next four years he was elected clerk of the lower house and the auditor of public accounts for a fifth. During this time the students of the Collegiate School at Saybrook had grown disenchanted with the lodgings there and with the teaching of their tutors. Many of them came to Wethersfield in 1716, and Williams agreed to instruct them. A good teacher, he was popular with the students, all of whom were only four or five years younger than himself. Recognizing Williams's ability and his popularity, the Yale trustees tried to persuade him to come to New Haven as senior tutor, when they decided on that town as the permanent site for the College. He refused. Finally, in June 1719, the Wethersfield scholars returned to New Haven and Yale to stay.

Williams was seriously ill in 1719, and upon recovering he resolved to enter the ministry. In 1720 the people of Newington Parish, in western Wethersfield, offered him the post of pastor. He accepted and was ordained there on October 17, 1722. He served until he became Rector of Yale College in 1726.

Williams was in fact the sixth choice for the job vacated by Cutler (1). He was elected to the position on September 29, 1725, and, after swearing to the Saybrook Confession of Faith, took office in September 1726. The faculty of Yale at this time consisted solely of Rector Williams and Tutor Daniel Edwards. Williams had general charge of the College administration and taught several classes. In addition, he frequently gave the sermon on Sunday.

The College now entered upon a period of growth and prosperity. The number of students increased, especially those coming from Massachusetts. A second tutor was employed in 1728. During Williams's administration, Yale was the recipient of the magnanimous gifts of George Berkeley, Dean of Derry in Ireland, afterwards Bishop of Cloyne. Berkeley came to Rhode Island in 1729, hoping to found a college in Bermuda. Failing in this venture, he returned to England after two and a half years, and largely at the prompting of Samuel Johnson and Jared Eliot, decided to aid the New Haven college. He gave Yale his Newport estate "Whitehall" (2) in 1732, together with funds to provide support for graduate study for "Scholars of the House residing at the College between their first and second degrees." A significant step toward advanced study was taken. A year later Berkeley sent from England some nine hundred volumes for the Yale Library. These were reputed to be the finest collection of books yet brought to America. In making these gifts, Berkeley probably hoped to further the Episcopalian cause at Yale. Appreciative though he was, Elisha Williams was a champion of orthodoxy, and Yale remained solidly in the Congregational camp. Berkeley Scholars, Berkeley Premiums, and Berkeley College, however, continue to remind Yale of its indebtedness.

Williams was Rector of Yale for thirteen years before ill health and poor eyesight handicapped him. He offered his resignation on October 31, 1739, and then returned to his farm in Wethersfield, where he became active in public affairs. In 1740 and frequently thereafter, he was elected a deputy to the General Assembly, and was chosen speaker of the lower house. At the first session he was also appointed an associate judge of the superior court, a post which he held for the next three years (3). He was not re-appointed in 1743 because of "New-Light sympathies, that is, his opposition to the recently enacted Connecticut laws which attempted to curb the spreading enthusiasm and effectiveness of the Great Awakening (4). In 1744 an anonymous pamphlet, entitled The Essential Rights and Liberties of Protestants? A Seasonable Plea for Liberty of Conscience and the Right of Private Judgment in Matter's of Religion without any Controul from "Human Authority"..., appeared in Boston. Williams was quite probably the author. It was a plea for religious liberty and opposed Connecticut's restrictive legislation.

Early in 1744 the War of the Austrian Succession (King George's War) broke out in Europe and inevitably in North America. Williams was appointed chaplain of the Connecticut troops who participated in the successful scheme to take the Louisburg Fortress of Cape Breton. He was asked to remain as chaplain of the new garrison after the Colonial victory in June 1745, but instead returned to Wethersfield. In 1746 he was back in the army again, this time as colonel of the regiment Connecticut was raising to join the royal troops in a projected conquest of Canada. The plan failed, and Colonel Williams never had the opportunity to exercise his talent as commanding officer on the field of battle.

He did, however, go to England in 1749 to secure payment for the Connecticut soldiers who had volunteered to attack Canada. Eventually he won half the claim. While in England, he also solicited funds for the new College of New Jersey (later Princeton) and found time to work on several business ventures of his own. Among them was the mercantile firm of Williams, Trumbull, and Pitkin, of which he was senior partner.

Personal tragedy plagued Williams during all these years. Of his six children, only two remained in 1750, a son and a daughter. In May of that year, his wife died. Williams's business kept him in England for more than two years, and toward the end of his stay he met Elizabeth Scott, the daughter of the Reverend Thomas Scott of Norwich; they were married in January 1751.

Bride and groom returned to the old farm at Wethersfield in April 1752. He was again sent to the General Assembly in 1752, 1753, and 1754, and chosen speaker in 1753. He was one of the Connecticut delegates at the Albany Congress in 1754 which rejected Benjamin Franklin's plan for union of the Colonies. The following year he died at Wethersfield, on July 24.

At his funeral Dr. James Lockwood said this of Williams: "He presided with wisdom, gravity and authority; applied himself with care and assiduity to guard and secure the students, both from whatever might blemish and wound their moral characters, and from errors and mistakes in matters of religion. And to form their minds, not only to useful knowledge and learning, but to virtue and real piety. He introduced and settled a number of good customs, a taste for many parts of useful and polite literature increased, and the state of this Seminary became from this period improved."

Source: Holden, Profiles and portraits of Yale University presidents pages: 25-29

(1) The trustees had previously offered the post to Timothy Woodbridge, Nathaniel Williams, Eliphalet Adams, Edward Wlgglesworth, and William Russell.

(2) In view of Newport's great distance from New Haven at that time, Yale authorities in 1769 leased "Whitehall" and Its 96 acres for 992 years. The house and a half-acre of land were later deeded to the Colonial Dames, who have preserved has an historical landmark.

(3) It was also said he had ambitions to become governor of Connecticut.

(4) By these laws each minister's service was strictly limited to his own parish, and individuals were permitted to file "information" against a minister to prevent his collection of the minister's rate.