A baby boy was born to a humble farmer and his young wife on November 3, 1723. The parents were David and Martha Davies. Their family roots were in Wales, and they lived on a small farm in the colony of Delaware. Neither David nor Martha had much education, and they still spoke the language of their native land.

On the confession of faith of their Welsh Baptist Church, the couple had signed their names with an “X.” But they made up for their lack of formal education by a firm faith in God and a commitment to hard work by the sweat of the brow. In fact, the substantial two-story brick home built by David Davies still stands today after three centuries!

However, David and Martha would give to the world a more enduring legacy than a colonial farm and a sturdy brick house. Inspired by the Biblical account of Hannah, Martha named her newborn son Samuel, which means “asked of God.” Although the Davies’s education was very limited, their son would one day be the president of Princeton University, a scholar admired on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean, and one of the most faithful pastors and eloquent preachers to grace an American pulpit.

Samuel Davies lived the life of a typical farm boy. He helped his father in the fields. He learned to hunt deer and squirrels in the woods. Samuel also enjoyed crabbing and fishing in the nearby Atlantic Ocean. His mother ensured that her son learned to read in his youth; she accomplished her goal as young Samuel sometimes was found reading his books or teaching other boys how to read!

When Samuel was eight years old, his parents left the Welsh Baptist church and started attending a local Presbyterian church. With no worthy English schools in the area, the Davies sent their young son to be educated at a boarding school in New Jersey. Their sacrifice seemed very similar to that of Hannah who sent her son Samuel to live and serve with Eli the priest. Also, similar to the Biblical Samuel under the care of Eli, Samuel Davies did not have positive influences while living and studying at his grammar school. Sadly, the pastor of the church that Samuel attended was charged with immorality and drunkenness. But young Samuel was sustained by the faithful prayers of his loving, pious parents.

Around the time that Samuel Davies turned ten years old, the winds of revival were beginning to sweep over colonial America. In 1734, the revivalist preacher Jonathan Edwards had seen the Holy Spirit of God moving in a mighty way among his congregation in Northampton, Massachusetts. Two years later, young Davies began to seek the way of salvation. He feared dying and began seeking forgiveness. It is thought that Samuel was converted at the age of twelve, under the preaching of revivalist Gilbert Tennant. Like Samuel of the Bible, God had called his name. Davies left the grammar school in New Jersey and returned to his parents’ farm. He went through a trying period of soul-troubling doubts and fears. But when he was fifteen, he finally made a public profession of his faith in Jesus Christ and united with his parents’ Welsh Tract Presbyterian Church.

The Great Awakening was now in full bloom in 1740. Young Samuel Davies had been dedicated to the Lord by his parents, and he was destined in God’s providence to serve as a minister of the Gospel to bring the Great Awakening from New England into Virginia. A great revival had broken out in the home of a Virginia bricklayer who, for want of an ordained minister, began reading books and sermons to his neighbors in Hanover County, Virginia. These families began sending letters to New England, asking for qualified men of God to come to Virginia and preach the Word of God to them.

Samuel Davies studied for the ministry at Blair’s Academy and began filling vacant pulpits in Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Delaware. He married Sarah Kirkpatrick in October 1746.

Upon his ordination to the Gospel ministry, the young husband was sent to Williamsburg, Virginia, with a petition to preach the Gospel to Dissenters in Hanover County. This was at a time when Dissenting ministers were not welcomed in Virginia. But the young preacher so impressed the Colonial Governor of Virginia that he was granted permission to preach to Dissenting congregations.

The joy of a blossoming ministry was cut short by a grievous affliction for Davies. His wife Sarah died while giving birth to their stillborn son. The loss of his wife and baby at the same time was a terrible blow to the young minister, but Davies bore the affliction and grief with the Christian’s grace.

In 1748, leaving his parents and the grave of his wife and baby, Davies boldly set his face toward Virginia. There his labors would have a sweet reward. His preaching was mightily blessed by God. At Polegreen Church in Hanover County, he would preach to a young Patrick Henry, who later would trace his oratorical skills to the eloquent preaching of Samuel Davies.

The ministry of Davies was effective, not merely because of his eloquence, but because of the divine grace of God poured upon a willing servant. As a true shepherd of souls, Samuel Davies visited the sick, prayed with the dying, warned the sinners, and encouraged the saints. Early in his ministry in Hanover County, he remarried. His new bride was Miss Jane Holt, who proved to be a faithful wife and devoted mother to the five children God would give them.

In 1753, Samuel Davies made a trip to England and Scotland to raise funds for the College of New Jersey, in hopes of seeing more and more young men raised up as American ministers of the Gospel. This effort to raise funding for the college was largely successful.

Davies returned to Virginia to shepherd his flock through the difficulties of the French and Indian War. His eloquent preaching encouraged men to defend their families against the attacks of the French and their Indian allies in the frontier settlements. Davies’s ministry in Virginia included his evangelical works among the Overhill Cherokees. He also faithfully preached to the many African slaves and saw many of these precious souls united to his church.

In 1759, after a fruitful ministry that spanned eleven years, Samuel Davies left Virginia. He moved to Princeton where he accepted an appointment to serve as president of the College of New Jersey. Along with having his wife and children with him, his Godly parents, David and Martha, were able to move to Princeton to live near him in the sunset of their days. Samuel Davies was overjoyed and blessed to be surrounded with his precious family.

Davies served faithfully as president of the college, preaching to the students, expanding the library, and encouraging young men of a new generation to live for Christ. Many of his students were important men who rose to prominence and leadership in early America. Benjamin Rush would become a medical doctor and signer of the Declaration of Independence. David Rice would be a faithful minister of the Gospel who received a call to pastor at Samuel Davies’s former Polegreen Church in Hanover for a time; Rice later moved on to preach the Gospel in the frontier settlements of early Kentucky.

In his 1761 New Year’s Day sermon, thirty-eight-year-old Samuel Davies preached from a prescient text, Jeremiah 28:16: “Thus saith the Lord, This year thou shalt die.” In spite of the fact that the context of this verse was judgment, Davies recognized it as a reminder of how short life is for all of us. Only a month later, on February 4, Samuel Davies died in the prime of life, leaving behind his widow and young children. When his aged mother joined his family at his grave, she said, “There is the son of my prayers and my hopes . . . but there is the will of God and I am satisfied.” Davies’s short life had been well-lived for the simple, unified purpose of honoring his Master, and he left a legacy of faithfulness that continues to this day.

Sources and Further Reference:

Roberts, Dewey. Samuel Davies: Apostle to Virginia. Destin, FL: Sola Fide Publications, 2017.