In 1833 he entered the Yale Divinity School, and after two years there and two in the Andover Theological Seminary, he was licensed to preach in 1837.

Then, on the partial failure of his health, he took up the study of medicine, and received a diploma from the Baltimore Medical College in 1846.

In June 1848, he was resettled over his former charge in Charlemont, which he finally left in May 1852, though for some time longer residing in the town, which he represented in the State Legislature in 1854.

After the close of the American Civil War, he was for a short time a clerk in the Treasury Department at Washington, and in July 1867, received the appointment of acting assistant surgeon in the U.S, Navy.

At the close of four years' charge of the Naval Hospital in Pensacola, Florida, his health was so far broken by attacks of fever that he was ordered home on sick leave.