| Notes |
- "He assisted Dr. Eleazer Wheelock in founding Dartmouth College, and taught there 1769-1772; he was ordained a missionary to the Delaware Indians in Ohio, 1772; pastor of the Congregational Church at East Windsor, Conn., 1786-1809; trustee of Phillips Academy, Exeter, N. H., and trustee of Dartmouth College, from which institution he received the degree of D.D., in 1800." [History and Genealogy of the Pomeroy Family, citation details below.]
From John P. Peters's "Preface" to Diary of David McClure, citation details below:
Dr. McClure's grandfather, Samuel, and his brother David, with others, came from the neighborhood of Londonderry to Boston about 1728, and established a Presbyterian church in that city, later known as the Federal Street Church. Samuel McClure was the first Deacon of this church, and was succeeded in that office by his son John and his grandson Thomas. The latter resigned his office and left the church when it turned Unitarian under Dr. Channing.
David, the writer of this diary, was the son of John, the son of Samuel McClure, and of Rachel, daughter of William McClintock, one of the original immigrants. He was born in Newport, R. I., Nov. 18, 1748, but most of his early life was spent in Boston, where his father kept a retail grocery. His early training was obtained in Lovell's Latin School. At the age of fifteen, after a brief experience in a shop, he was sent to Dr. Wheelock's school at Lebanon, Conn., to prepare to become a missionary to the Indians. In 1765 he entered Yale College, and graduated in 1769, in the same class with the elder President Dwight. The late Rev. E. H. Gillett, D.D., in an article in Hours at Home, Feb., 1870, entitled "Yale College One Hundred Years Ago," gives a few extracts from letters of McClure and his schoolmate, David Avery. The former, under date of Oct. 30, 1765, writes to Dr. Wheelock of the dreadful way in which Freshmen are handled by the upper-class men. "Freshmen," says he, "have attained almost the happiness of slaves." Oct. 30, 1767, he writes "Jonne [John Wheelock, later President of Dartmouth College, then a Freshman at Yale] has been ordered up once or twice into the long garret with the rest of his class, and I think twice alone. It gives me great grief to see such practices held up in this seat of learning, and so little religious manners prevalent." In another letter, written after his experience among the Oneida Indians, he says "Mr. Johnson and I rarely converse in any other language [than Indian]. I hope not to lose what little I have already attained." As his diary also shows, his intention to be a missionary to the Indians was always before his mind. Later in his college course he writes about Dr. Daggett as follows "The Rev. President and tutors are universally loved in College, and have a tender concern for our future as well as present welfare and happiness."
After graduation, McClure took charge of Moor's Charity School at Lebanon, Conn. In 1770 he moved with the school to Hanover, N. H., where he was head of the school and tutor in Dartmouth College. In May, 1772, he and Frisbie were ordained to go as missionaries to the Delaware Indians on the Muskingum River, in Ohio, the expenses of the mission being supplied by asociety in Scotland. Owing to the unsettled conditions in that region preceding the outbreak of the Revolution, the mission proved a failure, and in 1773 McClure returned to New Hampshire, where he was installed pastor of the church at North Hampton in 1776. Dec. 10, 1780, he married Hannah Pomeroy, daughter of Rev. Dr. Benjamin Pomeroy, of Hebron, Conn., and niece of President Wheelock. She died in 1814, and in 1816 he married Mrs. Betsy Martin, of Providence, R. I., who survived him. In 1786 he was installed as pastor at East Windsor, Conn., where he also established a school. In 1798 his voice failed. After this he preached only occasionally, and finally, in 1807, resigned his salary, and in 1809 his pastorate, but continued to teach school almost if not quite to the time of his death. He was always deeply interested in Dartmouth College, and personally in its first President, his old teacher, Rev. Eleazer Wheelock, D. D. In 1777 he became a trustee of the college, and in 1800 it conferred upon him the honorary degree of Doctor of Divinity. In 1795 he published a volume of Sermons on the Decalogue (Beach & Jones, Hartford). In 1811, in conjunction with Dr. Parish, he wrote Memoirs of Rev. Eleazer Wheelock. In 1818 appeared a second volume of his sermons, entitled Sermons on the Moral Law (printed and published by Wm. S. Marsh, Hartford). He also wrote a History of East Windsor.
In Sprague's Annals of the American Pulpit, Dr. McClure is described as a small man, well formed, and with very attractive manners, a man of culture and scholarship. He was a good preacher, and his sermons, contrary to the tendencies of his day, were moral and practical, not theological.
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Nielsen Hayden genealogy
1748 - 1820 (71 years)
[2, 3]