Browse the Ebenezer Gay sermon

Rev. Dr. Ebenezer Gay (1718-1796) was born in Dedham, Massachusetts in 1718. He graduated from Harvard in 1737 and later returned there to complete his Doctor of Divinity degree. He was ordained as the minister at the First Congregational Church in Suffield, Connecticut in 1742. His house, known as the Gay Manse, was built in 1742 and is still extant. He married Hannah Angier, and after her death married Mary Cushing and they had five children. One of his sons, Rev. Ebenezer Gay, Jr., took over the ministry at Suffield after his death in 1796. Gay’s uncle was Rev. Ebenezer Gay, minister in Hingham, Massachusetts.

In his Biographical Sketches of the Congregational Pastors of New England, Emerson Davis noted of Gay that “his manuscript sermons are the neatest I have ever seen.” Gay published two ordination sermons and one funeral sermon during his lifetime.

Materials in this collection have been digitized and made available through our New England's Hidden Histories project.