Kirkland, Samuel, 1741-1808

Biography

Samuel Kirkland was born in Norwich, Connecticut in 1741. After preparation at Eleazar Wheelock's school in Lebanon, Connecticut, he entered the College of New Jersey in 1762. He received his degree in 1765 in absentia, having left to serve as a missionary to the native peoples of New York. Kirkland was ordained in 1766 in Connecticut and returned to the Oneida peoples that year to serve for the next four decades as a missionary. In 1769, he married Jerusha Bingham, and niece of Eleazar Wheelock. The following year, after a disagreement with Wheelock, Kirkland placed himself under the auspices of the Society in Scotland for Propagating Christian Knowledge, receiving his salary from that organization and from Harvard College. Kirkland is credited with preventing several conflicts between the native peoples and British and American colonists. He also founded Hamilton Oneida Academy, later Hamilton College, in 1793. Kirland died in 1808.