Williams, Ebenezer, 1690-1753

Ebenezer Williams (1690-1753), a minister in Pomfret, Conn., was born in Roxbury, Mass. on August 12, 1690. He received an AB from Harvard in 1709 and an AM in 1712. Williams was ordained in October 1715 as the minister of Pomfret. He was elected as a trustee of Yale College in 1731. Williams died on March 28, 1753.

The undergraduate students of Harvard College followed a structured program of study in the early 1700s. Certain key texts were adopted as textbooks at Harvard, and students often copied them into personal notebooks or paid professional copyists to copy them, in place of purchased books. Textbooks created by Harvard Tutors Henry Flynt and William Brattle, Instructor Judah Monis, and Fellow Charles Morton were among the earliest used in the colonies.