Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Adams, William (educator)

ADAMS, William, educator, b. in Monaghan, Ireland, 3 July, 1813; d. in Nashotah, Wis., 2 Jan., 1897. He entered Trinity, and became a scholar of the house in 1833. He read law and medicine each for a year, and was for a time with his uncle at Ballyhaise as an accountant. In 1888 he entered the General theological seminary in New York, graduating in 1841. He was one of the founders of Nashotah mission, afterward Nashotah theological seminary, in Wisconsin, where he went in September, 1841. During the following winter he contributed to an English publication an article on the church's duties to her emigrants, which attracted much attention. From the foundation of the seminary he was the professor of systematic divinity. Dr. Adams published "Mercy to Babes" (New York, 1847); "Christian Science" (Philadelphia, 1850); and "A New Treatise on Baptismal Regeneration" (New York, 1871), and contributed largely to periodical literature, writing principally on theological topics.