Edmund F. (Edmund Farwell) Slafter

Born in Vermont in 1816, he graduated from Dartmouth College and went on to study at Andover Theological Seminary before being ordained in the Protestant Episcopal Church in 1844. Alongside his ministry, he built a reputation as a diligent researcher with a strong interest in family history, colonial New England, and early American documents.

Much of his writing grew out of that historical curiosity. He published genealogical work on the Slafter family and wrote a number of papers for the Massachusetts Historical Society, including studies of royal emblems in the colonies and the 1776 landing of Hessian troops. His books and papers are still listed in major library and archive catalogs, which reflects the steady scholarly value of his work.

He died in 1906. Today he is remembered less as a public literary figure than as a thoughtful cleric-scholar whose writing helped preserve pieces of New England’s historical record.