FIRST - First American Board Missionary to India - Tolland, MA
Posted by: 
neoc1
N 42° 04.894 W 073° 00.747
18T E 664397 N 4660743
A monument to Gordon Hall, the first American Board Missionary to India, is located at the Route 57 and Clubhouse Road on a lawn south of the Tolland Public Library in Tolland, Hampden County, MA.
Waymark Code: WM10XKN
Location: Massachusetts, United States
Date Posted: 07/07/2019
Views: 3
A 5' high granite boulder has a carved rectangular dado with the inscription:
In Memory of
GORDON HALL
First American Board
Missionary to
INDIA, 1812 - 1826
Born in
Tolland, April 8, 1784
Died in
Doorlee D’hapoora
March 20, 1826
While attending Williams College Gordon Hall was influenced by the "Haystack Five". This group began in 1806 when a group of students gathered for a regularly scheduled prayer meetings. A severe thunderstorm forced the group to seek the shelter of a large haystack. While gathered there, the students founded what was to become American Missionary Movement which is focused on spreading Christianity throughout the world and in Asia in particularly. Today a monument is erected on the campus of Williams College to commemorate this event.
After graduating Williams College with highest honors in 1808, he entering Andover Theological Seminary where he helped form the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. He was appointed as a missionary in September 1811 and ordained in 1812. He carried on with missionary work in Bombay, India from 1812 until his untimely death from cholera at Doorlee Dhapur. He is buried in Bombay.
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