Quinby, Hosea, D.D.

a Free-will Baptist minister, was born at Sandwich, N.H., August 25, 1804. He was converted in 1824, and graduated from Waterville College, now Colby University, in 1832. He became principal of the Parsonsfield Seminary, Maine, and having been ordained June 2, 1833, preached habitually during his nearly seven years' connection with the institution. He was one of the editors of the Morning Star, and began to write a history of the Free Baptist denomination, which was published in part in the Quarterly Magazine. For a few years he was pastor and teacher at Meredith village, N.H. Upon the establishment of the Smithville Seminary, afterwards Lapham Institute, in North Scituate, R.I., in 1846, he was appointed its principal, and was very successful in the management ofits affairs. Subsequently, as the seminary was greatly embarrassed financially, it was sold to Mr. Quinby, and carried on by him as a private enterprise for several years. For thirty years he did double work as preacher and teacher, and may be said to have been the father of the educational interests of his denomination. In January 1855, he became, a second time, pastor of the church in Meredith, and resumed his work as a teacher. On February 28, 1857, he entered upon his duties as pastor of the church in Pittsfield, N.H. at the same time having charge of a high-school in the village. His next settlements were at Lebanon, Maine, in 1861, and Lake Village, N.H., in 1864. In 1868 he removed to Concord, and devoted himself to literary work, an to his duties as chaplain of the New Hampshire state prison, for several years. His last pastorates were at Nottingham, October, 1872; Pittsfield, January 1875, and Mellon Mills, in May 1876, where he died, October 11, 1878. (J.C.S.)