Henry Richard Hoisington

When Henry was 12 years old, his father Job, a militia officer, was killed during a British attack on Black Rock in the War of 1812.

Helped by his mother's influence, Henry experienced religion and joined the Presbyterian Church.

From 1831 to 1833, Henry Richard Hoisington served as minister of the First Presbyterian Church of Scipio, (Aurora), Cayuga County, N.Y. On July 1, 1833, Henry and Nancy Hoisington took ship on the vessel "Israel" for India and Ceylon, serving as missionary and printer for the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) mission in Jaffna, Ceylon (Sri Lanka).

Biographical editing is from A Hoisington Album, MS by Maida Barton Follini, great-great-great-granddaughter of H.R.Hoisington 1st.

He resumed his principalship till 1849, when due to ill health, he returned to the United States for good.

[6] After having served as ABCFM agent for twenty-years until 1854, he held pastorates in Williamstown, Massachusetts, and Centerbrook, Connecticut.

[1][8][9][10][2][4][5][7][11][12] The first missionaries [workers] to arrive on payroll of ABCFM were Henry Richards Hoisington and William Todd, including three native youths from the Ceylon Boarding School in July 1834; hence, Spaulding, Hoisington, and Todd were credited as first three missionaries to American Madura Mission.

[1][2][4][7][9][10][11] Hoisington learned the Tamil language and became a scholar of Hindu philosophical and scientific knowledge.

Though reading, writing, and Arithmetic were imparted through schools, constant attention was paid to Christian catechisms and the scriptures with no place to heathen books.