PUFFER, Rev. Reuben D. D.^{[1, 2]}

1756 - 1829  (73 years)

• Name	PUFFER, Reuben
  Prefix	Rev.
  Suffix	D. D.
  Birth	5 Jan 1756	Sudbury, MA   [3, 4]
  Gender	Male
  FindaGrave	FindAGrave Memorial 75461258
  Ref#	36  [5]
  Ordained	26 Sep 1781	Berlin, MA   [6]
  _COLOR	11
  Death	9 Apr 1829	Berlin, MA   [7]
  Burial	Berlin, MA
  	Address: Old Burying Ground
  Person ID	I22069	Puffers
  Last Modified	20 Nov 2022

  
  

  Father	PUFFER, Capt. Jabez,   b. Abt 1704, Braintree, MA d. 21 Jun 1789, Sudbury, MA (Age 85 years)
  Mother	TREADWAY, Hannah,   b. 19 Mar 1714   d. 28 Jul 1777, Sudbury, MA (Age 63 years)
  Marriage	18 Oct 1738	Framingham, MA   [8, 9]
  Family ID	F8551	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  
  

  Family 1	PERRY, Hannah,   b. 21 Sep 1760, Berlin, MA d. 5 Jan 1812, Berlin, MA (Age 51 years)
  Marriage	9 Feb 1779	Stow, MA   [10, 11]
  Children	1. PUFFER, Sophia,   b. 1 Jul 1780, Berlin, MA d. 5 Aug 1878, MA (Age 98 years)   2. PUFFER, Lucy,   b. 7 May 1782, Berliny, MA d. 15 Dec 1849 (Age 67 years)   3. PUFFER, Stephen Perry Sr.,   b. 17 Feb 1784, Berlin, MA d. 4 Feb 1859, North Amherst, MA (Age 74 years)   4. PUFFER, Hannah,   b. 31 Oct 1785, Berlin, MA d. 20 Sep 1870, Berlin, MA (Age 84 years)   5. PUFFER, Charlotte,   b. 16 Sep 1787, Berlin, MA d. 10 Dec 1869, Southborough, MA (Age 82 years)   6. PUFFER, Deacon Henry,   b. 15 Feb 1790, Berlin, MA d. 12 Mar 1851, Downers Grove, IL (Age 61 years)   7. PUFFER, Reuben,   b. 3 Aug 1792, Berlin, MA d. 7 Sep 1792, Berlin, MA (Age 0 years)   8. PUFFER, Almira Palmyra,   b. 21 Sep 1793, Berlin, MA d. 10 Jul 1879, Berlin, MA (Age 85 years)   9. PUFFER, Charles,   b. 25 Dec 1795, Berlin, MA d. 5 Sep 1875, MA (Age 79 years)   10. PUFFER, Oliver,   b. 8 Sep 1797, Berlin, MA d. 20 Jan 1799, Berlin, MA (Age 1 year)   11. PUFFER, Oliver,   b. 5 Jun 1799, Berlin, MA d. 2 May 1880, Amherst, MA (Age 80 years)   12. PUFFER, Sarah,   b. 27 May 1801, Berlin, MA d. 7 Jan 1882 (Age 80 years)   13. PUFFER, Mary,   b. 18 May 1803, Berlin, MA d. 1893, Putnam, MA (Age 89 years)
  Family ID	F9225	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
  Last Modified	14 Apr 2024

  
  

  Family 2	MORSE, Phebe,   b. 5 Dec 1771, MA d. 12 Jan 1856, Berlin, MA (Age 84 years)
  Marriage	1814  [12]
  Children	1. PUFFER, Phebe Morse,   b. 14 Jan 1815, Berlin, MA d. 8 Oct 1833, Berlin, MA (Age 18 years)
  Family ID	F9224	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
  Last Modified	14 Apr 2024

  
  

• Photos » Slide Show	2 Photos
  	reuben puffer 1756 gs.jpg
  	reuben puffer election sermon.jpg

  
  

• Notes

  Graduated from Harvard College in 1778. In 1810 he received from Harvard the honorary degree of D.D. He was ordained in Berlin, November 26, 1781, the first minister, and continued pastor of the Congregational church there to the end of this life. He was a very useful and able minister. He delivered the Dudleian lecture at Harvard College, May 11, 1808, and preached a sermon at the annual convention of Congregational ministers at Boston May 30, 1811. Both of these sermons were published in pamphlets. Rev. Dr. Puffer spoke at the inauguration of John Adams  to Massachusetts State Senate. The late Rev. Dr. Allen of Northboro in an article in the Boston Advertiser gives the following incident among his Cambridge reminiscences of 1810. "Quite a sensation was occasioned in June of this year by the delivery of the Dudleian lecture by a country minister, with whom many years afterwards I had pleasant intercourse as a neighbor and friend, Rev. Reuben Puffer, afterwards D.D., of Berlin. He had previously delivered the election sermon in Boston which first introduced him to notice, and probably led to his appointment as lecturer. We were given to understand that he was a poor country minister, with small salary and a large family, and our expectations on entering the Chapel and seeing an ordinary-looking man in the pulpit were not raised to a high pitch. But we were disappointed and we listened to the discourse with intense interest from first to last. His text was "Can any good thing come out of Nazareth? Philip saith to him, come and see." And so we found that a very sensible, rational, eloquent discourse could come from the minister of the obscure little town of Berlin. The result was that a meeting of the Students was called, a Committee chosen to request a copy for the press, and the profits of the pamphlet, amounting to about one hundred dollars, was given to the poor country minister." Rev. Dr. Puffer left a large estate for his day. He made special bequests of Scott's Family Bible, Brown's Dictionary of the Bible, Burder's Village Sermons; Cowper's Poems; Newton's Letters; Memoirs of Mrs. Ramsay and some of his manuscripts. He had a large library. He gave his watch to his son Oliver and his clock to his son Henry; a gold necklace of his deceased daughter Sarah to his granddaughter Sarah Puffer Fay. Edward Baker was executor. His will was dated Sept. 3, 1828. The widow Phebe Puffer remembered each of her husband's children in her will, which was dated March, 1851, and allowed February 5, 1856. She gave to Phebe Goodnow, granddaughter of her husband, her gold necklace. She gave Scott's Family Bible to Oliver Puffer; Barley's English Dictionary to Thomas Stone's wife; $30 each to her own sons, Truman, Freeman and William Stowe. Among other legacies to her granddaughters, Eugenia Stowe Gilbert and Phebe Morse Stowe, daughter of Truman Stowe, was "a large chest with one drawer" that "came from her ancestors," also wearing apparel, household goods, desk, papers, etc. He married, first, Feb 9, 1779 or 1780 at Stow, Hannah Perry, who was born Sept 21, 1760, died Jan. 5, 1812. He married, second, in 1814, Phebe (Morse) Stowe of Marlborough, daughter of William and Phebe Morse. By her first husband Truman Stowe, she had children William, Truman, Freeman and Eugenia Stowe. Eugenia Stowe married September 28, 1828, Rev. Lyman Gilbert of West Newton. Phebe died Jan. 12, 156, aged 84 y. 28 d.

  
  

• Sources

  [S2] Descendants of George Puffer of Braintree, Massachusetts 1639-2020, Red Letter Edition, 36, 52-54. [S2] Descendants of George Puffer of Braintree, Massachusetts 1639-2020, Red Letter Edition, 36, 52. [S2] Descendants of George Puffer of Braintree, Massachusetts 1639-2020, Red Letter Edition, 36. [S740] _Newspaper Announcement, Boston Evening Transcript, Boston, Massachusetts · Monday, September 23, 1901, page 8. [S2] Descendants of George Puffer of Braintree, Massachusetts 1639-2020, Red Letter Edition, 36, 53. [S2] Descendants of George Puffer of Braintree, Massachusetts 1639-2020, Red Letter Edition, 52. [S545] Hale Cemetery Inscriptions, 1675-1934. [S436] Vital Records of Stow Massachusetts To the Year 1850, page 253. [S2] Descendants of George Puffer of Braintree, Massachusetts 1639-2020, Red Letter Edition, 33. [S436] Vital Records of Stow Massachusetts To the Year 1850, page186. [S2] Descendants of George Puffer of Braintree, Massachusetts 1639-2020, Red Letter Edition, 53. [S2] Descendants of George Puffer of Braintree, Massachusetts 1639-2020, Red Letter Edition, 54.