George Duffield
Born: September 12, 1818, Carlisle, Pennsylvania.
Died: July 6, 1888, Bloomfield, New Jersey.
Buried: Detroit, Michigan.
Duffield’s father and grandfather were Presbyterian ministers. He graduated from Yale University in 1837, and from the Union Theological Seminary in 1840. Ordained a Presbyterian minister like his father and grandfather, he first pastored at the Fifth Presbyterian Church in Brooklyn, New York, for seven years. He then served at the First Church of Bloomfield, New Jersey (1847-1852), the Central Presbyterian Church of the Northern Liberties in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (1852-1861). There he found a mortgaged church building in a neighborhood from which the population was moving westward, a congregation reduced in numbers, disheartened, and unable to meet its financial obligations. Duffield held on until 1861, when he resigned his pastorate. He later served at Adrian, Michigan (1861-1865); Galesburg, Illinois (1865-1869); then Saginaw City, Michigan, 1869; and Ann Arbor and Lansing, Michigan (from 1869). Hymnologist Samuel Duffield was his son. George’s works include:
Hymns