James Davenport

Who was James Davenport?

James Davenport was an American clergyman and itinerant preacher noted for his often controversial actions during the First Great Awakening.

Davenport was born in Stamford, Connecticut, to an old Puritan family. Graduating from Yale College, he was ordained as a minister by the Congregational Council of Southold, Long Island in October 1738.

It was around this time that he met Presbyterian revivalist Gilbert Tennent and English evangelical George Whitefield. The success of Whitefield's style of revival preaching convinced Davenport that God was calling him, and in 1741 - having by chance opened his Bible to 1 Samuel 14, where Jonathan and his armor-bearer attack the Philistine camp, and taken this as a sign - he left his congregation to become an itinerant. His actions during this time often caused him to run afoul of both ecclesiastical and civil authorities.

Davenport often denounced fellow clergymen for their conduct, such as when he labeled Joseph Noyes, the pastor of New Haven, a "wolf in sheep's clothing." Davenport is also noted for his "Bonfires of the Vanities", the public burnings he organized in New London.