After spending his childhood in Shoreham, he attended Middlebury College a few miles away and graduated from there in 1838, later receiving a D.D.

In 1857, he began to preach in favor of the abolition of slavery, a courageous act in a city that was essentially a conservative Southern town.

He served in that position from September 1864 until October 1865, when he returned to Washington to resume his duties as Pastor of the First Presbyterian Church.

[1] He served as the president of Howard University from 1867 to 1869, and on the first board of directors of Gallaudet College in Washington.

He left his estate to the only one of his three children to survive him, Rosalie Day, with instructions to "transmit some suitable token to all relatives and friends."