<P> Samuel Danforth (1626--1674) was a Puritan minister, preacher, poet, and astronomer, the second pastor of The First Church in Roxbury and an associate of the Rev. John Eliot of Roxbury, Massachusetts, known as the "Apostle to the Indians ." </P> <P> He was born October 17, 1626, in Framlingham, Suffolk, England, the sixth of seven children of Nicholas Danforth (1589--1639) and Elizabeth Symmes Danforth (c. 1596--1629). Six surviving children--Elizabeth (1619--1673), Anna (1622--1704), Thomas (1623--1699), Lydia (1625--1686), Samuel, and Jonathan (1628--1712)--emigrated with their father to Massachusetts in 1634 . After their father died in 1639, Samuel lived with Thomas Shepard, pastor of the church in Cambridge, and later attended Harvard College, where he graduated in 1643 and remained as a tutor until 1650, whereupon he became one of the five founding Fellows of Harvard . </P>

A brief recognition of new england's errand into the wilderness summary