Timothy Dwight Biography

Timothy Dwight (May 14, 1752 – January 11, 1817) was an American academic and educator, a Congregationalist minister, theologian, poet and author. He was the eighth president of Yale College (1795-1817).

Long dismissed by historians as a reactionary who contributed little to American life (for example: "Timothy Dwight, a president of Yale University and to this day one of America's most respected "divines," was opposed to the smallpox vaccination because he regarded it as an interference with god's design"), recent scholarship, as it engages the central importance of religion in our culture, is coming to acknowledge his significance as a religious leader and educational innovator. His influence on the thousands of students who passed through Yale during his presidency was significant.

His 1785 poem The Conquest of Canaan is considered to be the first American epic poem.

In the twentieth century, Yale named Timothy Dwight College for him and his grandson.

In 2008, The Library of America selected Dwight's account of the murders of Connecticut shopkeeper William Beadle for inclusion in its two-century retrospective of American True Crime.