Oratio Funebris in Obitum Reverendi Domini Benjaminis Wadworth, Iamdudum Collegii Harvardini. . .
Bostoni, in Nov-Anglia, Excusum: 1737. Item #1079 8vo. 190 x 120 mm., [7 ½ x 4 ¾ inches]. [2], 9 pp. Pictorial title page, with woodcut skull and cross bones at top of black funeral border. Text in Latin. Modern card stock wrappers. First and only edition. When he wrote this eulogy, Henry Flynt was the Acting President of Harvard College, filling in for Benjamin Wadsworth, the ailing President who died on the 16th of March 1737. Wadsworth was a student at Harvard who became a Congregational Minister and leader of the First Church of Boston. Written in Latin, Flynt’s sermon provides biographical information on Wadsworth’s family and education and highlight his work at the First Boston and as President of Harvard College. According to his biography that appears in Appleton’s Cyclopaedia, his peers considered him a good theologian and church leader but he was not suited for the position of president of Harvard because of his narrow education. “Henry Flynt was born to Josiah and Esther (Willet) Flynt in Dorchester, Massachusetts on May 5, 1675. His father, who was minister of Dorchester, died when Henry was five years old. Henry earned his A.B. from Harvard College in 1693 and his A.M. in 1696. He then preached in Connecticut for several years before returning to Harvard, where he had been offered a position as Tutor. Flynt stayed at Harvard for the rest of his life, serving as Tutor from 1699 to 1754, as a Fellow of the Harvard Corporation from 1700 to 1760, as Secretary to the Board of Overseers from 1712 to 1758, and as acting President from 1736-1737. He was a fixture of 18th-century life at the College, and was referred to as 'Father Flynt' in his later years. Henry Flynt died in Cambridge on February 13, 1760.” His diary is in the collections at Harvard College and a source of much information on his life and works. Sabin, Joseph, Dictionary of Books Relating to America, 24929. Evan, Charles, American Bibliography, 4139. For biographical information on Flynt see Colonial North America at Harvard Library and Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, VI, p. 312. JT/DSC* (1079)
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