Dorchester Illustration no. 2485 Rev. Nathaniel Hall
Today’s illustration shows Rev. Nathaniel Hall and his house at the corner of Columbia Road and Sayward Street, approximately 468 Columbia Road.
Nathaniel Hall was the minister of the First Parish Church in Dorchester from 1835 until his death in 1875. He was born in Medford, Massachusetts, on August 13, 1805, and died in Dorchester on October 21, 1875. He became a clerk in a store in Boston, and subsequently was secretary in an insurance office. He graduated from the Harvard divinity school in 1834, and in the following year became colleague pastor with Dr. Thaddeus Mason Harris of the 1st Unitarian parish. Dorchester, Massachusetts. He became sole pastor in 1836, and held this post until his death. He was an earnest philanthropist and abolitionist. About forty of his sermons were published, including several on slavery printed between 1850 and 1860.
The following statement comes from Gordon College’s essays online
“No other pulpit in America,” the Christian Register would one day declare about Hall’s ministry, “was more earnestly or powerfully outspoken in behalf of human freedom in the most critical day of the anti-slavery struggle.”
https://www.gordon.edu/page.cfm?iPageID=3181&iCategoryID=33&Academics&Lincoln_._._._And_Liberty_Too