Samuel Phillips, Jr.

Infobox_Lt_Governor
name= Samuel Phillips, Jr.


caption=
order= 5th
office= Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts
term_start= 1801
term_end= 1802
governor= Caleb Strong
predecessor= Moses Gill (1799)
successor= Edward Robbins
birth_date= February 5, 1752
birth_place= North Andover, Massachusetts
death_date= 1802
death_place=
party= Federalist
profession=
spouse=
footnotes=

Samuel Phillips, Jr. (February 5, 1752 – 1802) was very briefly Lieutenant governor of Massachusetts from 1801. His abbreviated term was due to his death in Essex County, Massachusetts in 1802. He served in several governmental positions and is considered a pioneer in American education.

Phillips was born in North Andover, Massachusetts and is alumnus of Governor Dummer Academy, class of 1767 [Allis, page 21.] , and Harvard University class of 1771. He served as a member of the Massachusetts provincial Congress from 1775 to 1780 and as a delegate to the state constitutional convention from 1779 to 1780. Phillips aided the revolutionary cause by producing gunpowder at a mill on the Shawsheen River in Andover from 1775, although in 1778 an explosion killed three men and wrecked a good part of the mill. [Allis, pages 33-34.] During and after the Revolution, he served as a state Senator from 1780 to 1801.

He founded Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, on April 21, 1778. A strict Calvinist like many of his fellow New Englanders at the time, Phillips intended to stamp a "Puritan" doctrine on the students. He thus instructed the first headmaster to inclucate in the boys "the important scripture doctrines...of the fall of man, the depravity of human nature; the necessity of atonement...together with the other important doctrines and duties of the Holy Christian Religion." However, any soul was open to be taught. "This Seminary shall be ever equally open to Youth, of requisite qualification, from every quarter", the only qualification being that they be able to read English well. [Allis, pages 56-57]

His uncle, Dr. John Phillips, founded Phillips Exeter Academy in nearby Exeter, New Hampshire, in 1781.

Phillips died of unknown causes shortly after his 1801 inauguration as Lieutenant governor of Massachusetts.

References

Allis, Frederick S. Jr., "Youth from Every Quarter: A Bicentennial History of Phillips Academy, Andover" (University Press of New England, 1978).

External links

* [http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/people/A0838799.html Samuel Phillips at infoplease]
*worldcat id|id=lccn-n85-221132