Introduction

Biography

Samuel was the son of Fred­er­ick Gil­man and Abi­gail H. Somes, and hus­band of Car­ol­ine Howard (mar­ried 1819).

In his ear­ly years, he at­tend­ed the Aca­de­my in At­kin­son, New Hamp­shire, and was sub­se­quent­ly a clerk at the Es­sex Bank in Sa­lem, Mas­sa­chu­setts.

He gra­du­at­ed from Har­vard Col­lege with hono­rs in 1811, and was a ma­the­ma­tics tu­tor there, 1817–19 (and lat­er wrote the school’s al­ma ma­ter, Fair Har­vard).

He studied theo­lo­gy un­der Drs. Ware and Kirk­land, and on De­cem­ber 1, 1819, was or­dained pas­tor of a Uni­ta­ri­an con­gre­ga­tion in Charles­town, South Ca­ro­li­na, where he stayed un­til his death.

Works

He made con­tri­bu­tions to the Chris­tian Ex­am­in­er, the North Am­eri­can Re­view, and the South­ern Quar­te­rly. The longe­st of his po­ems was one on Hu­man Life, which he read be­fore the Phi Be­ta Ka­ppa So­ci­ety at Cam­bridge in 1815.

His oth­er works in­clude:

• Memoirs of a New Eng­land Choir, 1829
• Contributions to Li­te­ra­ture, De­scrip­tive, Cri­tical, Hu­mor­ous, Bio­gra­phi­cal, Phi­lo­so­phi­cal and Po­et­ic­al, 1856
• Sermons Prac­ti­cal and Doc­trin­al, com­piled post­hu­mous­ly by Charles J. Bow­en (Charles­ton, South Ca­ro­li­na: Ev­ans & Cog­swell, 1860)