Title: Reverend Leonard Woods Letter

Date/Date Range :   1806 December 15

Extent: 0.1 linear feet

Abstract:

The Reverend Leonard Woods is writing to his spiritual brother apologizing for assuming that he was not concerned enough about him to write him over a two year period. He also discusses the controversies then current in the Congregational Church and comments on the Unitarians within the Church.

Call number: MS-1949

Repository: University of Tennessee Special Collections Library, Knoxville, TN

Aquisition Information:

The University of Tennessee Special Collections Library purchased this collection.

Access Restrictions:

Collection is open for research.

Copyright:

The copyright interests in this collection remain with the creator. For more information, contact the Special Collections Library.

Preferred Citation:

[Identification of Item], Reverend Leonard Woods Letter, MS-1949. University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Special Collections Library.

Collection consists of a single folder.

Leonard Woods was born to Samuel Underwood and Abigail Whitney Woods in Princeton, Massachusetts, on June 19, 1774. He graduated from Harvard College in 1796 and was ordained a pastor in Newbury, Massachusetts, in 1798. During his career, he served as a mediator between the Hopkinsians (who were extreme Calvinists) and the Old Calvinists, taught at the Andover Theological Seminary, and helped to found the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions and the American Tract Society. Woods married twice: once to Abigail Wheeler (October 8, 1799) and once to the widow of Dr. Ansel Ives. He died in Andover, Massachusetts, on August 24, 1854.

Charles Coffin was born on August 15, 1775 in Newburyport, Massachusetts, to Charles Coffin and Hepzibah Carnes. He graduated from Harvard College in July of 1793 and later received an honorary Doctorate of Divinity from Williams College. He was licensed to preach the Gospel on May 14, 1799 and ordained an Evangelist on September 11, 1804. Coffin moved to the southeast in 1799 and became Vice-President of Greeneville College in 1801. He married Susan Woodbridge Ayer of Maine on October 9, 1802 and moved his family to Tennessee in 1805. He became President of Greeneville College in 1810, where he remained until he became President of East Tennessee College (now the University of Tennessee) in 1826. He resigned this post in 1832 and returned to Greeneville, where he died on June 3, 1853.

The Reverend Leonard Woods is writing to his spiritual brother apologizing for assuming that he was not concerned enough about him to write him over a two year period. He also discusses the controversies then current in the Congregational Church and comments on the Unitarians within the Church.

The full text of this letter can be viewed through the Tennessee Documentary History Project.

• Coffin, Charles, 1775-1853.
• Woods, Leonard, 1774-1854.
• Unitarian controversy.
• Unitarian churches -- Massachusetts -- History.