his graduation that we are forced to believe that his
theological course must have been brief. The parish in Coventry had
been greatly reduced in numbers. The meeting-house had been allowed to
go to decay, and the religious life of the parish was in a corresponding
state of depression. His ordination services were held out of
doors,--whether because the assemblage was too large for the church, or
because the building was too dilapidated, does not appear. The first
thing Mr. Huntington did after his settlement was to urge upon his
people the project of building a new meeting-house. They responded so
heartily that in a short time they had built the best church in the
whole region, having expended for it about five thousand dollars--a
large sum in those days.

Dr. Huntington does not appear to have been a laborious student. He had
few books of his own, largely depending upon borrowing. But he had a
remarkable memory and the power of so making his own whatever he read
that his scholarship and his originality appear never to have been
questioned. The Rev. Daniel Waldo says of him that he was rather above
the middle height, slender and graceful in form, and that he seemed to
have had an instinctive desire to make everybody around him happy. This,
added to his uniform politeness, caused him to be very popular in
general society.

The Rev. Mr. Waldo adds that Dr. Huntington was fond of pleasantry and
gives this instance:

A very dull preacher who had studied theology with him was invited by
his people to resign, and they paid him for his services chiefly in
copper coin. On telling Dr. Huntington how he had been paid, he was
advised to go back and preach a farewell sermon from the text,
"Alexander the coppersmith did me much evil." Many such anecdotes and
repartees of Dr. Huntington were current in Coventry for years after his
death.

This brief summary of Dr. Joseph Huntington's life shows that the men to
whom Richard Hale intrusted the preparation of his three sons for
entering Yale was not only a Christian, but a gentleman of the finest
culture. He was able not only to impart to Enoch, Nathan and David Hale
the rudiments of scholarship requisite for entering Yale, but to inspire
such boys with the keenest appreciation of courtesy, broad mental
endowments, and a wholesome zeal for high public service.

The correspondence concerning the Union School in New London shows that
Dr. Huntington gave Nathan Hale the necessary re