Benaiah Longley Whitman

• General Notes
  • Benaiah was a descendant of John Whitman of Weymouth, Massachusetts. He removed with his parents to Marlboro, Massachusetts in 1879. He attended the Worcester Academy from 1880 to 1883 and was graduated from Brown University with a bachelor's degree in 1887 and his master's in 1890. He graduated from the Newton Theological Institution in 1890, as well. He was ordained to the Baptist ministry on September 13, 1887 at Newton Upper Falls, Massachusetts, where he remained as Pastor from 1887 to 1888. He was married to Mary Scott on December 6, 1888. He was Pastor at North Grafton, Massachusetts from 1888 to 1889, and of the Free Street Church in Portland, Maine from 1890 to 1892. He was president of Colby University and Columbian University, both of Washington, D.C.. and in 1900, he accepted a call to the fifth Baptist Church in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The honorary degree of D. D. was conferred on him by Bowdoin College in 1894 and that of LL. D. by Harvard University in 1899. In 1903 he was president of the American Baptist Historical Society, a trustee of Newton Theological Institution and of Crozer Theological Seminary, and a lecturer at Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania and Temple College in Philadelphia.