Adams, William, 1807-1880

Rev. William Adams was born on January 25, 1807, in Colchester, Connecticut.

He was a Presbyterian minister and pastoral theologian. He attended Phillips Academy (where his father, John Adams (1772-1863), was the principal), followed by Yale College (1823-1827) and Andover Theological Seminary (1827-1830). He served as the pastor of the Congregational Church in Brighton, Massachusetts (1831-1834), the Central Presbyterian Church (1834-1853), which moved into a new building and became the Madison Square Presbyterian Church (1853-1874) in New York City. He was a founder as well as the first president of the Union Theological Seminary (1874) in New York City. He was also its professor of Sacred Rhetoric until his death in 1880.

In 1831, he married Susan Patton Magoun (d. 1834). In 1836, he remarried her sister Martha Bradshaw Magoun. He died on August 31, 1880, in Orange Mountain, New Jersey.