Nineteenth Century

1861

Reverend Lyman Whiting Speaks at Commencement

The Reverend Lyman Whiting, pastor of the High Street Congregational Church in Providence, RI, speaks at commencement.

Born in North Brookfield, MA, on 28 April 1817, Whiting attended common schools and worked on his father’s farm until he was fifteen. He studied one year at Amherst Academy and entered Amherst College in 1835, but he returned home midway through his second year due to ill health. Whiting graduated from Andover Theological Seminary in 1842, married in 1843, and became an assistant pastor in Brookfield, then pastor of the First Congregational Church in Lawrence, MA, in 1847.

Whiting moved to Reading, MA, in 1851, but within a few months his health failed, and his congregation sent him to Europe to recover. He wrote a popular lecture on the Great Exposition of London, and its residuals funded the expenses of the European tour. Upon returning, he took a position in Portsmouth, NH, remaining three years before accepting a call to Brooklyn, NY. After only a few months, he was called to the High Street Congregational Church in Providence in December of 1859.

Whiting published a number of articles and was editor of several journals, including the Congregational Review and the Presbyterian Review. He published “The Old Testament in the New” in the American Presbyterian Review in 1861.

Whiting died in 1906.