Evans, David, 1681-1751

Minister; b. 15 Mar. 1681, Nant y llech, Carmarthenshire, Wales; emigrated to Pennsylvania 1703; received MA from Yale 1713; ordained 1714; served churches in Pencader and Tredyffrin, Pa., and Pilesgrove, N.J.

From the description of Cân drwstan gwynfan [illegible] : AMs : Pilesgrove, N.J., [1747 or 8]. (Rosenbach Museum & Library). WorldCat record id: 122633517

The son of the Welsh emigrant of the same name, David Evans (1681-1751) settled with his family in 1701 in Pencader, Delaware, a small town in the Welsh Tract. By September 1710, young David had begun as a lay preacher among the Presbyterians in Tredyffrin Township (Great Valley), Chester County, Pennsylvania. His efforts, however, were not well received by the Presbytery in Philadelphia, which censured him for doing "very ill," and acting "irregularly in thus invading the work of the ministry." To advance Evans' education, the Presbytery placed him under the tutelage of a local graduate of Harvard, Jedediah Andrews of Philadelphia, and after a year of study, Evans was granted a one-year license to preach.

When Evans was called to the pulpit by congregations in both Tredyffrin and the Welsh Tract in September 1712, however, the Presbytery in Philadelphia once again balked, insisting that Evans first further his studies. As a result, he was sent to the Yale Collegiate School in Saybrook, Conn., receiving his masters degree in 1713, before returning to Pennsylvania. In September 1714, he finally accepted a call to a congregation in the Welsh Tract with the Presbytery's blessing, remaining there until a dispute with a parishioner in 1720 led him to accept a call from Great Valley. The pulpit at Great Valley had laid vacant for several years, and the congregation welcomed Evans with a salary of £25 per year and the construction of a new church.

Even this seemingly happy situation, however, did not work out for Evans. In 1740 he became embroiled in the schism between "New Side" (predominantly revivalistic) and "Old Side" (ultra-Calvinist) factions, with Evans siding with the "Old Side," earning both enmity and separation. As recorded by Franklin Dexter, the charges against him by his congregation included heterodoxy, not preaching enough in the Welsh vernacular, and church tyranny.

Thus bereft of a church, Evans settled in Pilesgrove, New Jersey, where he helped to organize a congregation and remained as pastor until his death early in 1751. He was survived by his wife, Ann, and two sons, graduates of Yale in 1739 and 1740.

From the guide to the Aliquot rudimenta philosophiae sive pauca introductoria compendia, technologiae, logicae, rhetoricae et physicae, 1747, (American Philosophical Society)