Timothy Dwight (1752 to 1817)
Congregational Church
Leader of Revival at Yale.
Timothy Dwight, Congregational clergyman, was born in Northampton, Mass. From his grandfather, Jonathan Edwards, Dwight received a godly heritage, and in addition to being a minister of the Gospel, he was a state legislator, a chaplain in the Continental Army, and when his father died in 1777, he returned to the farm to help his widowed mother and her 13 children. In 1795, at age 43, he became the eighth president of Yale University, which he served until his death at age 64. In 1800 he wrote the hymn "I Love Thy Kingdom, Lord." The next year he published a revision of Watts Psalms, and added 33 of his own hymns. The following year he led the revival at Yale, in which 75 of the 230 students were converted. A year after his death several volumes of his works were published.