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Manuscript Sermons

Eaton, Samuel. Sermons, 1770-1810.

Samuel Eaton (1737-1822) of Harpswell, Maine, graduated from Harvard College in 1763 and succeeded his father as minister of the First Congregational Church of Harpswell. Clifford Shipton wrote of Eaton "On his parish travels he carried lancet and simple medicines with which he treated most of the ills of his people, referring serious sickness to professional physicians. Similarly, being hostile to the ordinary practice of the law, he served his people by drawing up wills and other legal papers, and arbitrating most of their controversies. As a preacher he was effective and could often bring his congregation to tears although strangers to his oddities found them disturbing." On a Sabbath in August 1775 "a recruiting officer arrived in Harpswell on an emergency mission, but the minister refused to let him act until after sundown, when he himself preached a sermon which put forty men of the congregation on the march within an hour." This collection includes several dozen sermons preached by Eaton, usually with notes on where and when they were delivered. Until now, only two sermons by Samuel Eaton were known to have survived.
Purchased from Thomas Cullen. Forbes Fund.

--Thomas G. Knoles, Marcus A. McCorison Librarian and Curator of Manuscripts

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"One day I am visited by a collector of ordination sermons; the next, by a collector of 4th of July orations; then comes a collector of geography; another wants religious newspapers; another wants every book printed in New York before 1700. I accommodate myself to all; for I want every thing and collect every thing, and I have more zeal than the whole of them: and in this way I am kept very busy."
~Christopher Columbus Baldwin
 3rd Librarian of AAS