Morgan Edwards
Morgan Edwards (May 9, 1722 – January 25, 1792) was a Welsh-born Baptist pastor and historian who helped start Brown University. He studied at Bristol College in Wales, began preaching in 1738, and led Baptist churches in England and Ireland before moving to America in 1761. He became pastor of the First Baptist Church in Philadelphia and was among the few Baptist ministers to support the Loyalists in the American Revolution.
Edwards was friendly with the Academy of Philadelphia (the University of Pennsylvania), which awarded him an honorary Master of Arts in 1769. In 1764 he became an original trustee to charter the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations (the institution that would become Brown University). In 1766 he traveled to Europe to raise funds, securing gifts from leaders like Benjamin Franklin.
He wrote important Baptist histories, including Customs of Primitive Churches (the first Baptist church manual in the United States) and Materials Toward a History of the Baptists (1770). He later published Materials Toward a History of the Baptists in New Jersey (1792) and contributed to Rhode Island Baptist history. He noted that many Baptists doubted the idea of founding a college.
Edwards held a premillennial, literal view of the end times; his 1788 Millennium, Last Days Novelties argued that the first resurrection would occur with Christ in the air.
His wife, Mary Nunn of Cork, Ireland, died in 1769. He resigned from his Philadelphia church in 1771 and retired to Delaware, where he died on January 25, 1792. He is buried at Mount Moriah Cemetery in Philadelphia.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 09:59 (CET).