DAVENPORT, James [1716-1757] -- American clergyman

He was born in Stamford, Conn., in 1716; son of the Rev. John and Martha (Gould) Selleck Davenport; grandson of Judge John and Abigail (Pierson) Davenport, and great-grandson of the Rev. John Davenport, the Puritan. He was graduated at Yale in 1732, studied theology in New Haven, and was ordained to the ministry at Southold, N.Y., Oct. 26, 1738. He took an active part in the religious revival of that period, preaching with great effect on Long Island, and in New Jersey, Connecticut and Rhode Island. The assembly of Connecticut disapproved of his methods and expelled him from the colony. He then went to Boston where he was arrested, imprisoned, tried and declared "non compos mentis and therefore not guilty." A council of ministers dissolved his relations with the Southold congregation in 1742 and in 1743 his partisans induced him to organize a church at New London, Conn., and he continued his erratic actions against the use of jewelry, wigs, fine clothes, and certain books which he gathered together and burned. In July, 1744, after his recovery from a severe illness, he published in the Boston Gazette a retraction of his errors. The College of New Jersey made him an honorary A.M. in 1749. In September, 1746, he became a member of the New Brunswick (N.J.) presbytery and was transferred to the New York presbytery in 1748. In 1754 he was moderator of the New York synod. He subsequently became pastor at Hopewell, N.J., where he died Nov. 10, 1757.