The Rev. Nathaniel Colver's first church assignment was at the Baptist church in Chippenhook in 1819. He was 25 years old and had only been baptized 2 years prior. Colver had little in the way of formal education and had been taught to read at home by his mother. Despite his humble beginnings, his personality and intelligence was readily apparent and from Clarendon he went on to have a storied career from Boston to Chicago to Richmond, VA and various places in-between.
The first Baptist Church in Chippenhook was organized in 1785 but
went defunct in 1802 following the loss of Rev. Isaac Beall who left the
congregation for a church in West Pawlet. In 1812 a new Baptist
congregation was organized which continued until 1845 when it too went
defunct. Colver led the church for several years per the book History of Baptists in Vermont by Rev. Henry Crocker published in 1913. Per the book Memoir of Rev. Nathaniel Colver, D.D. by Rev. J.A. Smith, D.D. published in 1873, his pastorate in Chippenhook was 2 years. From Chippenhook he went to a new Baptist church in Fort Covington, NY. His ordination as a baptist minister had been in conjunction with his assignment in Chippenhook.
Interestingly, the man who baptized Colver June 9, 1817 in West Stockbridge, MA was the Rev. John. M. Peck who subsequently served as pastor of the Baptist church in Chippenhook sometime after Colver.
Nathaniel Colver (1794 - 1870) was born in Orwell, VT, one of 11 children born to Rev. Nathaniel Colver Sr (1755 - 1831) and Esther (Dean) Colver (1757 - 1810). The family moved to Champlain, NY in 1795 where Colver lived until age 15. The family then moved to West Stockbridge, MA. In 1815 he married his 1st wife Sallie Clark (1794 - 1824) with whom he had 3 children. In 1825 he married his 2nd wife Sarah T. Carter (1792 - 1868) with whom he had another 3 children. Colver is buried in Oak Woods Cemetery, Chicago, IL with his 2nd wife.
Prior to beginning his career in the ministry, Colver served during the War of 1812 for which
he received a pension in 1858. Though living in West Stockbridge, MA at the time, he enlisted for 3 months
Sept. 5, 1814 in NYC.
Colver had become a Mason, presumably while serving in Clarendon, because he thought it would make him more useful as a minister. In 1829 he came to the conclusion that Free Masonry hindered rather than helped him, and he very publicly renounced Masonry in a lengthy letter written March 30, 1829. The letter is shown below from the May 27, 1829 Vermont Statesmen (Castleton, VT). His stance was not well received by the Free Masons community and in the Aug. 4, 1829 Rutland County Herald we have the following excerpt which speaks to just how poorly Colver's renunciation was received:
Rev. Nathaniel Colver, Sir - I have this instant been informed that you are hunted like a panther - that a man in high style, by the name of Pratt has been lurking about West Clarendon for a time, among the Masons and the vulgar, after affidavits to destroy you. I only add, be on your guard. This from your friend, &c.- July 10, 1829.
Colver went from Fort Covington to larger churches in larger places as his reputation and following increased, and he continued to speak his mind., In the early 1840's he spoke out against the Odd Fellows in a way that again caused him to be personally threatened. His most important advocacy however was that of anti-slavery which began in 1838 when he was serving in Boston. An excerpt from a speech he gave in Boston in 1841 to the American Baptist Antislavery Society is shown below. Shown here is a response Colver wrote to someone that was still trying to justify slavery as allowed by the Bible:
First, that law made no distinction of color. The slave law is predicated upon color. Now, if that law ordained slavery, and the brother will have it for his warrant, let him take it as it is. Let the whites, as well as the blacks, come in for a share of its kind provisions. If you are warranted by that law to buy, hold, and sell black slaves, you have it in an equal warrant to treat whites in the same manner. I put it to the brother if, according to his interpretation of that law, he would not be warranted to buy and hold as slaves any foreign white persons who might be brought to the shores of Georgia by a pirate vessel which had captured them? By what jesuitism is that law by Southern application restricted to colored men? Will the brother answer this?
His anti-slavery advocacy continued and after the Civil War he gave the final years of his career over to preparing former slaves to serve as ministers. He headed the Colver Institute in Richmond, VA, a school for newly
freed African Americans. In 1886 the school was
renamed the Richmond Theological Institute, and in 1899 it became
Virginia Union University. That university is still in operation.
Colver's successful career as a pastor and as an
anti-slavery, anti-masonic, and temperance advocate earned him a spot in Appleton's Cyclopedia of American Biography published in 1889 (below).
The cover photo is from the 1873 publication Memoir of Rev. Nathaniel Colver, D.D. by Rev. J.A. Smith, D.D. The historic society has acquired an original copy of the book.
See the West Clarendon Baptist Church entry in this collection for more history of Baptists in Chippenhook.