Stiles, Joseph C. (Joseph Clay), 1795-1875

Joseph Clay Stiles (1795-1875) was born in Savannah, Georgia, the son of Joseph Stiles and his first wife, Catherine Clay Stiles. He was a graduate of Yale College and became a Presbyterian minister.

Joseph Clay Stiles (1795-1875), Presbyterian clergyman. Son of a Georgia rice planter, he graduated from Yale (class of 1814). After graduation, he briefly served in the Chatham Artillery in Savannah, Ga., for the last year of war. After the death of his young wife a year in 1821, he experienced a religious conversion and abandoned the legal profession to preach to his father's slaves. In 1822, he entered Andover Theological Seminary but after a year had to abandon the studies to an illness. He was licensed to preach by the Hopewell (now Augusta) Presbytery in 1825 and a year later was ordained. In 1826, he married Caroline Clifford, of McIntosh County. In in the early 1830s, he preached in the low country of Georgia and in Florida. In 1830, he also acted as pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Savannah. In 1835, he moved to central Kentucky and prieached to the slaves. From 1844 to 1848, he was pastor of the Shockhoe (later Grace Street) Presbyterian Church of Richmond, Va. In 1848 accepted a call to the Mercer Street Presbyterian Church in New York. In 1850, Stiles was appointed Special Agent for the South of the American Bible Society. In 1852, he took charge of the South Congregational Church in New Haven, Conn., which had been established especially for him by Gerard Hallock (1800-1866). In October 1853, he was appointed General Agent of the Southern Aid Society. He continued to work for the society after the American Home Missionary Society withdrew aid from those southern churches that had slaveholders among their members. An "Old Light" Presbyterian, Stiles was known for his debates with Alexander Campbell (1788-1866). Stiles held pro-slavery views; he credited the Southern whites with bringing the Gospel to Negro slaves and derided the abolitionists who, he felt, cared little about the spiritual welfare of the blacks. At the outbreak of the Civil War, he left his family in New Haven and returned to the South. Under an appointment from the Synod of Virginia, he preached to the Confederate troops under the command of Stonewall Jackson. After the war he preached in Virginia, Alabama, Florida, Missouri and Maryland. He died in Savannah in 1875.