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nominally Presbyterian government. He ■was one of the 

 notabilities of the town, eminent by his talents and ability, 

 influential through his zeal and activity, troublesome as a 

 disputant and controversialist. He preached here fifteen years, 

 during which time he was almost constantly engaged in some 

 war of words upon the topics then occupying the public mind. 

 He lived in the storm rather than in tlie sunshine, and was 

 apparently well satisfied with his lot in this respect. 



He engaged in all the current disputes of the day, and was 

 by turns the foremost champion of a scheme of theology, a 

 party in politics, and a sect in medicine. He was a pillar of 

 Presbyterianism, and a standard-bearer of colonial rebellion. — 

 He sustained a protracted and violent controversy with mem- 

 bers of his society throughout his ministry, upon the merits of 

 Presbyterian church polity, a controversy ending finally in his 

 expulsion from the pulpit. His chief opponent in the society 

 during this struggle, was the afterwards eminent statesman, 

 Timothy Pickering. He also entered warmly into the contro- 

 versy, in 1774, concerning the comparative merits of the 

 American and English systems of innoculation for the Small 

 Pox, a controversy which raged here in print and speech almost 

 as injuriously as the disease itself. (It w^as at the time when 

 the Hospital was erected in the Great Pasture, and also that on 

 Lowell Island, and hundreds of our citizens entered those 

 establishments as patients ; when Timothy Pickering, jr. rode 

 horseback to Albany to obtain the services of Dr. Latham, a 

 famous practitioner of the English method of innoculation. — 

 Dr. Whittaker then officiated in Salem and the neighboring 

 towns as an innoculator by the American system.) Dr. Whit- 

 taker was an ardent and efficient advocate of the Revolution 

 and both gave and took many of the hard blows which were 

 then exchanged. 



He was described by the late Dea. John Punchard, who 

 knew him well, as " a man of uncommon intellectual powers — 

 of extensive erudition — orthodox in sentiment — a distinguished 

 preacher — of dignified, commanding personal appearance ; and 

 especially of constimmate skill and tact in accomplishing his 

 own purposes. 



Dr. Whittaker was a native of Long Island, a graduate of 

 Princeton College in 1752, and before his advent in Salem had 

 preached in Norwich, Conn. He had also been abroad, and 

 while in England attracted some attention, especially among 

 the friends of Whitefield, the revivalist, including the countess 

 of Huntington. In London, he preached and published two 

 able sermons on the Doctrine of Reconciliation, which were 

 subsequently reprinted in this countiy. 



