Joseph Bellamy
Joseph Bellamy (1719–1790) was an American Congregationalist pastor, preacher, writer, educator, and theologian who helped shape religious thought in New England during the later 18th century. He was a student and close associate of Jonathan Edwards and, with Edwards and others, helped form the New Divinity, a part of the Great Awakening. He strongly supported education for both clergy and laypeople, and from his Bethlehem, Connecticut church he trained about fifty ministers over fifty years and is believed to have started the first American Sabbath or Sunday school.
Bellamy was born in Cheshire, Connecticut, the son of Matthew Bellamy and Sarah Wood. He graduated from Yale in 1735 and studied theology with Edwards in Northampton. He was licensed to preach at about eighteen and served as pastor of the Bethlehem church from 1740 until his death.
Among his many writings, his best-known work was True Religion Delineated (1750), which earned him a high reputation as a theologian and was reprinted in both England and America. Although most of his work took place within his own parish, his influence on American religious thought was strong, probably second only to Edwards. He ran home-based schools to train clergy, sending many preachers to New England and the middle colonies.
In Western Connecticut, Old Light Congregationalism was more popular than Bellamy’s New Light views, and he faced opposition from some local ministers. In 1763, Gideon Hawley wrote to him that only a few clergymen seemed to like his principles. Bellamy’s theology was largely in line with Edwards’s. He supported the American cause during the Revolution and received an honorary Doctor of Divinity from the University of Aberdeen in 1768. He was known as a powerful and dramatic preacher.
Bellamy married Frances Sherman of New Haven and had eight children, including David Bellamy, a prominent merchant and legislator. Frances died in 1785, and in 1786 Bellamy married Abiah (Burbank) Leavitt Storrs, who had been married before. He suffered a stroke on November 19, 1786, which ended his active work, and died on March 6, 1790.
His son David married Silence Leavitt. Bellamy’s descendant Sibylla Bailey Crane (1851–1902) was an educator, composer, and author. On Bellamy’s death, the Old Light minister Ezra Stiles offered a negative assessment of him. Bellamy’s collected works appeared in three volumes (New York, 1811–1812) and were later republished with a memoir by Tryon Edwards (Boston, 1850).
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 14:06 (CET).