Alijah Hoadley

One of New Jerusalem’s earliest settlers, Reverend Alijah (sometimes listed as Elijah) Hoadley, is mentioned in the standard reference works with other figures of New Jerusalem’s foundation. He moved to the area that would become New Jerusalem around 1655 from Salem and before that Dorchester, where he was born in 1639.
When Hoadley was a young man he frequently ministered to the more remote corners of what was then called Salem’s Missituk Plantation. After New Jerusalem was established he served at the Congregational Church in New Jerusalem until 1690. Hoadley was a god-fearing man who firmly believed in the reality of witches and witchcraft and was deeply distrustful of Papists, Indians, and foreigners. A vocal supporter of Mather and critic of Calef, even after many others dismissed the Witch Trials of 1692 as a mistake, he continued to warn against those he referred to as “agents of the Great Deceiver abroad in New England”.
He died in 1701 and is buried in New Jerusalem’s Old Wooded Graveyard.
The Reverend’s grandson, Abijah Hoadley, a Congregational minister, is the man who is known (at least to a few students of history) for his curious disappearance from the ill-rumored village of Pequoiag (later Athol) in north-central Massachusetts.

Life

1639 CE 1701 CE 62 years old

Birthplace

Dorchester, England

Place of Death

New Jerusalem, Massachusett

Sex

Male

Gender

Man