Jonathan Fisher

Parson Jonathan Fisher (1768–1847) was the first Congregational minister from 1794 to 1837 in the small village of Blue Hill, Maine in the United States. Although his primary duties as a country parson engaged much of his time, Fisher was also a farmer, scientist, mathematician, surveyor, and writer of prose and poetry. He bound his own books, made buttons and hats, designed and built furniture, painted sleighs, was a reporter for the local newspaper, helped found Bangor Theological Seminary, dug wells, built his own home and raised a large family.

Truly a renaissance man in the breadth of his accomplishments Fisher invites comparison with a Franklin or Jefferson. In his manners, morals and writings Fisher represents the best of the vigorous New England churchmen who shaped the standards of their congregations during America's formative years.

Jonathan Fisher was born in New Braintree, Massachusetts in 1768 and reared in the home of his uncle a minister, because his father, a Revolutionary War soldier had died. As a young man he considered becoming a blacksmith, cabinet maker or clockmaker, but his intellectual gifts were evident and his family was able to send him to Harvard in 1788. He studied liberal arts and divinity, supporting himself by waiting on other students in the dining hall. During this time he developed a curious shorthand or code in which his notes were kept.

He came to Blue Hill Maine in 1796 as the first settled pastor of the Congregational Church. By November 2, 1797, his original house was completed by the work of his own hands, aided by those of his parishioners. The first house, which was in use for 100 years, was unfortunately torn down by a Fisher descendant in 1896. It formed the shell of the present house which was begun in 1814, again largely by the parson himself. His skill and taste as a builder and designer are evident in its rooms.

The Reverend Jonathan Fisher, Master of Arts, a degree and title in which he took much pride, was a most unusual and remarkably gifted man. When at the close of the 18th century he came to Blue Hill, then a frontier village "in a wilderness", he was seemingly leaving behind him all those intellectual and artistic pursuits and resources in which he delighted. Yet, instead of leaving these in the "Seat of the Muses", which was his name for Harvard College and Cambridge, he transported them to his lonely, far-flung parish, and with no little success, grafted many of them upon the people, and upon the pioneer institutions of his new charge.

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