Nehemiah Strong

Who was Nehemiah Strong?

Rev. Nehemiah Strong was an American astronomer and meteorologist who was the first Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy at Yale College from 1770 and produced a series of annual ephemerides, the astronomical element in almanacs, which were printed in Hartford, Connecticut, and in New Haven.

Strong was born in Northampton, Massachusetts, eldest of three children of Nehemiah and Hannah Strong and the grandson of Samuel and Esther Strong, of Northampton, Massachusetts.

Nehemiah Strong graduated from Yale College in 1755. He entered on a tutorship at Yale in November 1757 and was soon licensed to preach and was settled Congregationalist minister at Turkey Hill, now part of East Granby, Connecticut, 1761-67.

His marriage to Lydia Smith proved to be an embarrassment, when after she had been granted a divorce in February 1759 on grounds of abandonment, her husband, Andrew Burr Jr of New Haven, having gone to the West Indies in January 1755, Burr reappeared and her marriage to Nehemiah Strong was necessarily annulled, and as a result of entanglements he was dismissed from his pastorate at Turkey Hill, 23 June 1767.