Tyler, John, 1742-1823

John Tyler was born in Wallingford, Connecticut, on August 15, 1742, the son of John Tyler and Mary Doolittle. After graduating from Yale College in 1765, he received an ad eundem bachelor's degree (1767) and master's degree (1769) from King's College (now Columbia University). Tyler traveled to England in 1768, where he was ordained as a deacon and priest of the Church of England. He moved to Norwich, Connecticut, that November, and served as the pastor of a church in the city's Chelsea neighborhood for the rest of his life, with a hiatus from April-November 1778. He and his wife, Hannah Tracy (d. 1826), were married on May 6, 1770, and had one surviving son. John Tyler died on January 20, 1823.

When the original text was written in 1770, John Tyler was the rector of Christ's Church, in Norwich, Connecticut, and the sermon was read at the funeral of the widow of Jeremiah Bushnell. It was later delivered many times, the last entry mentioned (in the volume) being in San Francisco at the funeral of Capt. William Bushnell, formerly of Norwich, on April 6, 1896, and read at that time by the grandson of John Tyler.