Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Farnsworth, Joseph Downing

FARNSWORTH, Joseph Downing, physician, b. in Middletown, Conn., about 1780; d. in Fairfax, Vt., 9 Sept., 1857. For more than fifty years he was one of the most eminent physicians in Vermont. He was for fifteen years chief judge in Franklin county, and for twenty-seven years a member of the legislature. He was especially active in promoting the interests of the Baptist denomination, to which he belonged, and vigorously opposed an act passed by the Vermont legislature in 1787 requiring the inhabitants of each town to support “the standing order,” unless they could show that they were connected with some other religious organization. This act was repealed in 1807.