From March, 1845, to August, 1847, he was the principal assistant of Professor Goodrich in the revision of Webster's Dictionary.
In 1851-2 he preached for fourteen months at Feeding Hills, then a parish of West Springfield, now of Agawam, Massachusetts.
He was ordained pastor of the Congregational Church in Chesterfield, Mass., on January 25, 1853, and remained there for two years.
In May, 1865, he removed to New Haven, and during his residence here, besides preaching as health and opportunity permitted, he prepared for the press a Comprehensive Dictionary of the Bible (1868), mainly abridged from Dr. William Smith; Romanism as it is (1871); and a Vocabulary of English Rhymes (1876).
His health, never robust, was after this date more precarious; but he was able to take charge, in part, of the department of pronunciation in the new Webster's International Dictionary (1890), and was preparing an elaborate Fifty-years' Record of his Yale class, when his death occurred, very suddenly, from heart-disease, in New Haven, on November 18, 1891, in his 72nd year.