Benjamin Woodbridge
Benjamin Woodbridge (1622-1684) was a notable poet and theological writer whose contributions are often associated with early American literature and history. Born in Stanton, Wiltshire, England, he moved to Massachusetts in 1640, where he became the first valedictorian of Harvard College after matriculating in 1642. Woodbridge is best known for his elegy for John Cotton, which showcases his close friendship with the influential theologian and is included in Cotton Mather’s *Magnalia Christi Americana*. After returning to England in 1647, he continued his education at Magdalen College and worked as a Presbyterian minister in Newbury, Berkshire. His poetry notably includes a preface to Anne Bradstreet's *The Tenth Muse Lately Spring Up in America*, where he expressed progressive views on gender for his time. Throughout his life, Woodbridge navigated various theological positions, eventually becoming an Anglican priest. He remained active in private preaching until his retirement in 1683, passing away in Berkshire in late 1684. His legacy reflects the interplay between literary creativity and theological discourse in the colonial period.
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Benjamin Woodbridge
Writer
- Born: 1622
- Birthplace: Stanton, Wiltshire, England
- Died: November 1, 1684
- Place of death: Englefield, Berkshire, England
Biography
Poet and theological writer Benjamin Woodbridge is often considered a colonial American writer because he was the first valedictorian of Harvard College and because his two extant poems have as their subjects two major New England historical figures: poet Anne Bradstreet and theologian John Cotton. However, Woodbridge only lived in New England for seven of his sixty-two years.
Woodbridge was born in 1622 in Wiltshire, England, in a town called Stanton. He attended Oxford, but left for Massachusetts in 1640. Woodbridge’s uncle, Thomas Parker, and his brother John were already in the colonies, and John had the year before married Mercy Dudley, Anne Bradstreet’s sister and the daughter of Massachusetts governor Thomas Dudley.
Benjamin Woodbridge matriculated at Harvard College in 1642 and graduated with its first class. Beyond this, very little is known about his life during the time he was in New England. His close friendship with John Cotton—another Englishman who had traveled to Salem along with Anne Bradstreet and her family on the Puritan ship Arbella in 1630—is established by the funeral elegy Woodbridge wrote for him after Cotton’s death in 1652. This poetic work is Woodbridge’s best-known writing due to its inclusion in Cotton Mather’s 1702 Magnalia Christi Americana, which contains a biography of John Cotton that ends with Woodbridge’s elegy.
Woodbridge returned to England in 1647, traveling with his brother John. John carried a number of Anne Bradstreet’s poems with him on the voyage, and without her knowledge, presented the poems to publisher Stephen Bowtell. In 1650, Bowtell printed them in a volume called The Tenth Muse Lately Spring Up in America, with a poem by Benjamin Woodbridge serving as the preface to the volume. The poem is strikingly modern in its treatment of gender and praise of this female poet in an era when many were strongly suspicious of literary women.
After returning to England, Woodbridge re-entered Magdalen College at Oxford, taking an M.A. in 1648 and accepting an appointment at the Presbyterian church at Newbury, in Berkshire. Another New England friend, the Reverend Samuel Sewall, who coincidentally lived and ministered in a Massachusetts town of the same name, wrote in 1697’s Phaenomena Quaedam Apocalyptica praising Woodbridge and congratulating him on his calling.
Woodbridge served at Newbury until the Restoration, when the 1662 Act of Uniformity deprived him of his pulpit. His theology was not of the strictest Puritan variety, and in 1665 he became an ordained Anglican priest—albeit under duress. He briefly served as a chaplain to Charles II, but at some point found himself at sufficient theological odds with the established faith to resign his appointments and enter private preaching. In 1672, Charles granted his former chaplain an indulgence to preach in spite of his nonconformity, and Woodbridge gave public sermons until his retirement in 1683. He died at his home in Berkshire in late 1684.