Browse the Samuel Wales sermons

Rev. Dr. Samuel Wales (1748-1794) was born in Raynham, Massachusetts. His father, Rev. John Wales, was the minister at the First Congregational Church in Raynham. Wales graduated from Yale in 1767, and later received honorary Doctor of Divinity degrees from Princeton and Yale. He was ordained as the minister at the First Church of Christ in Milford, Connecticut in 1770.

During the Revolutionary War, Wales served as a chaplain. He was appointed to a professorship at Yale in 1782 and was dismissed from his congregation in Milford. He published only one sermon in his lifetime–an election sermon in 1785. Wales married Catherine Miles and one of their sons, John Wales, became a U.S. Senator. Wales died in 1794 at the age of 46.

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