Introduction

Biography

Jefferson was the son of Da­vid Has­cal and Mar­tha Ni­chols, and hus­band of Ju­lia Ca­tha­rine Gris­wold.

It was dur­ing build­ing of the Me­tho­dist Church (1847–48) or im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter­wards that…Jef­fer­son Has­call, pre­sid­ing el­der ov­er the Wor­ces­ter Con­fer­ence, whose dis­cern­ing eye saw a field here white for the har­vest, moved in­to town and thrust in his sick­le.

Under his la­bors there was a great re­vi­val of re­li­gion, and ov­er one hun­dred per­sons pro­fessed con­ver­sion…

He gra­du­at­ed at Wil­bra­ham Aca­de­my about 1829 and im­me­di­ate­ly en­tered up­on the min­is­try.

He lived in Shrews­bu­ry about twen­ty years in all, and most of the time was in the pre­sid­ing el­der­ship. He was a man of great abi­li­ty, en­er­gy and in­flu­ence, a pow­er­ful preach­er of his faith and a pub­lic-spi­rit­ed ci­ti­zen of the town.

Interested in and fa­vor­ing edu­ca­tion and all pub­lic im­prove­ments, and an ear­nest ad­vo­cate of a vi­go­rous pro­se­cu­tion of the war to sup­press the slave hold­ers’ re­bel­lion, he was un­i­ver­sal­ly re­spect­ed and be­loved by the peo­ple of the town.

History of Wor­ces­ter Coun­ty Mas­sa­chu­setts with His­to­ri­cal Sketch­es of Ma­ny of Its Pio­neers and Pro­mi­nent Men, ed­it­ed by D. Ham­il­ton Hurd (Phi­la­del­phia, Penn­syl­van­ia: J. W. Lew­is, 1889), Vol­ume 1, pp. 780–810.