Christianity • Protestantism Elisha Williams (August 26, 1694 – July 24, 1755[1]) was a Congregational minister, legislator, militia soldier, jurist, and rector of Yale College from 1726 to 1739.

[2] After Yale college was reunited in New Haven, he remained in Weathersfield, studied divinity with his father, and was ordained a clergyman in 1722.

[4] His mission for the 13 years he was Rector was to restore the previous Puritan curriculum, much of which went back to the early sixteenth century.

According to colonial college scholar J. David Hoeveler, “Yale set its sights on an orthodox recovery,” and Rector Williams became “a polemicist for orthodoxy.”[5] After his resignation as Yale's Rector in 1739, he claimed for reasons of health, though more likely in order to run for governor,[6] Williams immediately resumed his career in politics.

[9] Abandoning entirely his clerical orders, he took military command of a regiment of one thousand men raised for the reduction of Canada; when they were not paid, he was sent to go to England to entreat for their pay.