Benjamin Colman
Benjamin Colman was a significant figure in early American religious history, known for his influential role during the Great Awakening and his leadership in the Brattle Street Church in Boston. Born to Massachusetts colonists William and Elizabeth Colman, he earned his M.A. from Harvard College in 1692 and received a doctor of divinity degree three years later. After a brief imprisonment due to capture by a French privateer, Colman returned to the colonies in 1699 and implemented a vision for worship that emphasized scripture reading and the Lord's Prayer. He navigated complex societal issues, such as the smallpox epidemic of the 1720s, advocating for inoculation while balancing religious beliefs with public health needs. Involved with Harvard University throughout his life, he declined the presidency in 1724 but remained actively engaged as a fellow and overseer until his death. Colman was married three times and had three children, and he played a key role in inviting influential preachers like George Whitefield to his church. His contributions to theological discussions and public health continue to resonate in the context of early American religious thought.
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Subject Terms
Benjamin Colman
Clergyman
- Born: October 19, 1673
- Birthplace: Boston, Massachusetts
- Died: August 29, 1747
- Place of death: Boston, Massachusetts
Biography
Benjamin Colman was born the son of Massachusetts colonists William and Elizabeth Colman. He received his M.A. from Harvard College in 1692 and his doctor of divinity in 1695. When he departed for England in July, 1695, a French privateer captured him, and he was briefly imprisoned before arriving at his destination. In England he made the acquaintances that would shape his theological views and future and would later make him one of the early figures of the Great Awakening. After being ordained by the London Presbytery and preaching in Bath and elsewhere, Colman returned to the colonies in 1699 to lead Boston’s Brattle Street Church and to implement his vision for the church, which included the reading of scriptures and recital of the Lord’s Prayer rather than holding public confessions and hearing testimonials. He married Jane Clark in 1700, and the couple had one son and two daughters.
Colman was known for his levelheaded ability to compromise and balance his religious views with secular thought and society’s needs, and he used that talent during the 1720’s controversy over smallpox inoculation. Smallpox appeared in Boston in April, 1721, for the first time in nineteen years. It swept across the population, afflicting 5,980 people and killing 844 before it began to wane in 1722. Religious leaders battled over whether to introduce inoculation. Although communities of Asia and sub-Saharan Africa had been using inoculation for centuries as a means to control smallpox and give the patients a form of the disease milder and less dangerous than that with which they would otherwise be infected in a contagious epidemic, religious leaders in the colonies believed disease to be part of a divine plan and opposed human interference. Colman and some of his other colleagues, however, including Cotton Mather, advocated the use of inoculation; Colman’s Some Observations on the New Method of Receiving the Small-Pox contributed significantly to the heated debate that played out in newspapers and pamphlets.
In 1724, Benjamin Colman refused an offer of the presidency of Harvard, but he remained active in its community. He served as a fellow from 1717 to 1728 and then acted as an overseer until his death. In the early stages of the Great Awakening in 1740, he invited George Whitefield, a prominent figure in the movement, to speak both at Harvard and at Colman’s Brattle Street Church, where Colman also served until his death. Colman’s wife Jane died in 1731, and he remarried to Sarah (Crisp) Clark in 1732. She, too, preceded him in death twelve years later, and in 1745, Colman wed Mary Frost.