Richard Denton

Richard Denton (born 1603, according to other sources presumably in Warley , Yorkshire , England in 1586 ; died presumably in Essex , England in 1663 ) was an English clergyman who was one of the first English settlers on Long Island and one of them with Hempstead on Long Island in 1644 first Presbyterian churches in America.

Life

Few uncertain details are known about Denton's life. According to the register of Cambridge University , he received his BA from St. Catharine's College in 1623 , was ordained a pastor on June 8 of that year, and in the following years served as a pastor in northern England, first in South Turton near Bolton , then in Coley near Halifax . However, it appears that Denton turned to Presbyterianism , the moderate stream of Puritanism . The increasing persecution of the Puritans in England after 1629, but probably also his very modest salary, may have contributed to Denton's decision to emigrate to New England.

Presumably it reached the New World in the late 1630s. Denton was possibly already widowed at this time, because the name of his wife does not appear from the New England church and civil registers of that time; but he probably took all of his five or more children with him to America. Denton settled first in Watertown , Massachusetts , then in Wethersfield , Connecticut . After tension in the local parish, he left this place with some of his supporters and founded the settlement of Stamford , Connecticut in 1641 . After negotiators had concluded a purchase agreement with the Matinecock Indians resident there in October 1643 for high-quality pastureland (later known as Salisbury Plains ) on Long Island, Denton sold his property in Stamford, moved there with his community and founded the in 1644 Hempstead Settlement.

However, the settlement was not on English territory, but on that of the Dutch colony Nieuw Nederland , and so Denton, as pastor and member of the municipality of the settlement, had to take the interests of the Dutch into consideration. Hempstead behaved neutrally under Denton's leadership in the first Anglo-Dutch War (1652-1654). Denton was also a pleasant neighbor to the Dutch because his moderate Presbyterianism was very close to the teachings of the Dutch Reformed Church . Samuel Drisius, the pastor of Nieuw Amsterdam , wrote in 1657 in a letter to the church leadership in Amsterdam that Denton was an "honest, pious and learned man", and Pieter Stuyvesant also wrote a letter to the magistrate dated July 29, 1657 from Hempstead expressed his appreciation for Denton. Cotton Mather , to whom Denton devoted a separate chapter in his Magnalia Christi Americana , published in 1702, underlined Denton's importance for New England church history . Denton, according to Mather, “was a short man, but with a big soul. I think he was blind in one eye, but he was not the least of the seers of Israel; he saw much of what the eye cannot see. ”According to Cotton, Denton also wrote a system , that is, a theological treatise, entitled Soliloquia Sacra on the innocence, fall and redemption of man.

For reasons unknown, Denton returned to England in 1659, possibly to take up an inheritance, and died around 1662/63, presumably in Essex . His sons Nathaniel, Richard, Samuel and Daniel Denton stayed in America; In the centuries that followed, Denton's descendants repeatedly played an important role in Long Island's history.

literature

FM Kerr: The Reverend Richard Denton and the Coming of the Presbyterians . In: New York History 21, 1940. pp. 180-186.

Individual evidence

^ Denton, Richard . Entry in: John Archibald Venn: Alumni Cantabrigienses , Volume II, Cambridge University Press 1923, p. 34, col. 2.
^ Francis J. Bremer: Denton, Richard (1586–1662) , Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 oxforddnb.com/view/article/7518
↑ our pious and learned Mr. Richard Denton of Yorkshire, who, having watered Halifax in England with his fruitful ministry, was then by a tempest tossed into New England, where first at Weathersfield and then at Stamford, his doctrine dropped as the rain, his speech distilled as the dew, as the small rain upon the tender herb, and as the showers upon the grass. Though he were a little man, yet he had a great soul; his well-accomplished mind, in his lesser body, was as an Iliad in a nutshell. I think he was blind of an eye, yet he was not the least among the seers of Israel; he saw a very considerable portion or those things which eye hath not seen. He was far from cloudy in his conceptions and principles of divinity. He wrote a system, entitled 'Soliloquia Sacra,' so accurately describing the fourfold state of man in his −I. Created Purity; II. Contracted Deformity; III. Restored Beauty; IV Cœlestial Beauty; −that judicious persons who have seen it very much lament the Church's being deprived of it.

personal data
SURNAME	Denton, Richard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	English Presbyterian and settler pioneer on Long Island
DATE OF BIRTH	1586 or 1603
PLACE OF BIRTH	uncertain: Warley , Yorkshire , England
DATE OF DEATH	around 1663
Place of death	unsure: Essex , England

[1] Denton, Richard . Entry in: John Archibald Venn: Alumni Cantabrigienses , Volume II, Cambridge University Press 1923, p. 34, col. 2.

[2] Francis J. Bremer: Denton, Richard (1586–1662) , Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 oxforddnb.com/view/article/7518

[3] ur pious and learned Mr. Richard Denton of Yorkshire, who, having watered Halifax in England with his fruitful ministry, was then by a tempest tossed into New England, where first at Weathersfield and then at Stamford, his doctrine dropped as the rain, his speech distilled as the dew, as the small rain upon the tender herb, and as the showers upon the grass. Though he were a little man, yet he had a great soul; his well-accomplished mind, in his lesser body, was as an Iliad in a nutshell. I think he was blind of an eye, yet he was not the least among the seers of Israel; he saw a very considerable portion or those things which eye hath not seen. He was far from cloudy in his conceptions and principles of divinity. He wrote a system, entitled 'Soliloquia Sacra,' so accurately describing the fourfold state of man in his −I. Created Purity; II. Contracted Deformity; III. Restored Beauty; IV Cœlestial Beauty; −that judicious persons who have seen it very much lament the Church's being deprived of it.