Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Salter, Richard

SALTER, Richard, clergyman, b. in Boston, Mass., in 1723; d. in Mansfield, Conn., 14 April, 1789. He was graduated at Harvard in 1739, studied medicine, and then theology, supplied a pulpit in Boston for some time, and on 27 June, 1744, was ordained pastor of the Congregational church at Mansfield, where he remained till his death. He gave to Yale college in 1781 a farm, which was sold for $2,000, for the purpose of promoting the study of Hebrew and other oriental languages. He was proficient in Greek, Hebrew, and other branches of scholarship. The degree of D. D. was conferred on him by Yale in 1782. He published an “Election Sermon” (1768), and began a “Commentary on the New Testament,” but abandoned his design, when the work was in great part written.