The New Divinity and Williams College, 1793-1836

Abstract

The story is a familiar one, found in nearly every narrative text of American religious history In the summer of 1806, five Williams College students met in a grove of trees to pray for divine guidance and to discuss their religious faith and calling. While seeking refuge from a summer rainstorm under a haystack, Samuel J. Mills, Jr., and the other four students consecrated their lives to overseas missions. This incident, later publicized as the Haystack Prayer Meeting, became the pivotal event in the launching of American Protestantism's foreign missionary movement. Mills and several comrades carried their vision from Williams to Andover Theological Seminary, where they created a more formal organization that eventually led to the establishment of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) in 1810. In the hagiography of missions, Mills is revered as the “father” of American foreign missions and Williams as the birthplace. Subsequently, Mills's “sons”—the alumni of Williams—followed precedent: from 1810 to 1840, Williams provided more missionaries to the ABCFM than any other American College.