Samuel Danforth

Samuel Danforth (1626–1674) was a Puritan minister, preacher, poet, and astronomer. He was the second pastor of The First Church in Roxbury, Massachusetts. Danforth's studies included astronomy, and during this time he published three almanacs (for 1647, 1648, and 1649) They are among the earliest examples of secular verse published in New England. In April 1674, he delivered what is regarded as the first published “execution sermon”: The Cry of Sodom Enquired Into, on the occasion of the sentencing to death by hanging of Benjamin Goad, a young man from his congregation convicted of bestiality. He died November 19, 1674. No copies of his "Catechism" are known to have survived (see Roden, The Cambridge Press 1638-1692). He published An Astronomical Description of the Late Comet in 1665 (reprinted in London the following year) In 1670, he was invited to give the annual election sermon to the General Assembly, which was afterwards printed as A Brief Recognition Recognition of New-Englands Errand into the Wilderness.