REV. JOHN JAMES
Began to preach in Derby in the latter part of 1693, and in the beginning of 1694 the town gave him a call to settle, which he seems to have accepted soon after, and continued to labor with much devotedness both in teaching and preaching until 1706, when his health had so failed that he was unable to supply the pulpit all the time, and was dismissed at his own request.  Of his labors some account is given in the early part of chapter four.  Mr. James is said to have graduated at Harvard.  He preached at Haddam as early as 1683.  President Stiles says: "He came from England; was devoted to books, and died at Wethersfield, Aug. 10, 1729, having there lived in private some years."  It is supposed that this is the man Rev. Mr. Mix minister at Wethersfield called "a very good man with a very ungraceful delivery." (Savage II. 536.)
Source:   History of the Old Town of Derby, Connecticut, 1642 - 1880 with Biographies and Genealogies by Samuel Orcutt & Ambrose Beardsley, M. D. - Publ. Press of Springfield Printing Company, Springfield, Mass.  1880 - Page 601

ISAAC JENNINGS, M. D.
Was born in Fairfield, Conn., Nov. 7, 1788, and died of pneumonia Mar. 13, 1874, at his residence in Oberlin, Ohio, at the advanced age of eighty-five years.  He was favorably known in Derby more than a quarter of a century.
     He entered the office of Eli Ives, M. D., of New Haven in 1809, and pursued his studies with him until he fitted himself to sustain the examination then required before the state committee of examination there being then o medical college.  The exhibition of his medical knowledge was such as to entirely satisfy the committee, and he was licensed to practice medicine, and in 1828 Yale College conferred on him the degree of M. D.  Soon after beginning his professional studies he gave attention to Latin and Greek, and exhibited an extraordinary aptitude for these studies, and a remarkable memory for text books.  At one interview he recited to his instructor (Rev. Mr. Humphrey, afterwards president of Amherst College) large portions of the Latin grammar, showing that he had in the like manner mastered the whole of it; and in the same way his memory retained much that he read.  He used to quote at times the whole of the Westminster Catechism, question and answer.
     After receiving his license he procured him a horse and equipments, including the saddle-bags well filled, and located in Trumbull, Conn., and commenced the practice of his profession.  After a year or more Dr. Pearl Crafts of derby, being in a lingering consumption, invited him to locate here to take his practice, which he did in 1820.  He soon secured an extensive although not a very lucrative practice, and for a series of yeas enjoyed the confidence of such distinguished physicians as Doct. Ives, Doct. Hubbard and the learned Doct. Knight.
     Being a strong temperance man he regarded alcohol, in all its forms, an enemy to the living principle in the human system, and with alcohol he classed drugs and medicines.  This fact, with other considerations, led him after a time to adopt the theory of the remedial powers of nature as more curative in diseased action than pills or powders.
     Discarding medicine, he continued to practice disguisedly, giving his patients nothing but bread pills and colored water, as he and his friends claimed, with more success than on the old plan.  Too honest to humbug the people, and not wishing to keep his light under a bushel, he after a little time gave bold publicity to his views and tried to enforce the doctrine of no medicine, or the let alone principle of curing curable disease in all his phases.  This narrowed down his practice to about four hundred dollars a year, a sum inadequate to the support of his family, and in 1837 he sold his office fixtures and library to the then young Doctor Beardsley, and bade adieu to a profession which he always honored and respected until the day of his death.  Many worthy and influential people in Derby endeavored to prevail on him, by liberal subscriptions of money, to remain in town, as he had made great sacrifices in his pecuniary interests for the good of his fellow men, but the effort failed, and in 1839 he left for Oberlin, Ohio, where he married his second wife and lived until the time of his death, highly esteemed and beloved as a citizen and Christian.
     The last twenty-five years of his life he devoted principally to writing, some of the time to lecturing; and in furthering and maintaining his views he has published three books, entitled respectively "Medical Reform," "Philosophy of Human Life," "The Tree of Life;" and a fourth work was ready for the press at his decease, "Orthopathy," - right action, disease simply a negation of health, - which fully embodied and illustrated his theory and system.
     He had nine children by his first marriage, three of whom are still living: the eldest, a graduate of Yale College, is a Congregational minister in Bennington, Vt.; another was a business man in Cleveland, at the head of the Ohio agency of the Mutual Life Insurance Company of New York; besides a daughter, who is now a most worthy and self sacrificing missionary in Asiatic Turkey.  Two of his deceased children, a son and a daughter, were graduates of Oberlin College, Ohio.
     Dr. Jennings was a thinker and, in more senses than one, a genuine reformer, but perhaps he attempted too much.  When he dropped the use of medicine fifty years ago, he at the same time gave up unreservedly the use of alcoholic stimulants, also tobacco, tea, coffee, spices of every variety, and meats, also tobacco, tea, coffee, spices of every variety, and meats of all kinds, living on the plainest vegetable diet up to the hour of his last sickness.  His longevity, considering that he belonged to a consumptive family, must be taken as evidence that there is some truth in his position on diet.
     Dr. Jennings had noble traits of character.  His uprightness and integrity commanded universal respect.
     In his religion he was a Congregationalist, being a deacon in derby and in Oberlin, unflinching and unyielding in his Christian principles; and from early life was an ornament and example of the faith he professed.
     This sketch cannot more appropriately be concluded than by quoting the closing stanza of the most beautiful elegy in our language:

"No farther seek his merits to disclose,
  Or draw his frailties from their dread abode;
(There they alike in trembling hope repose)
  The bosom of his father and his God."

Source:   History of the Old Town of Derby, Connecticut, 1642 - 1880 with Biographies and Genealogies by Samuel Orcutt & Ambrose Beardsley, M. D. - Publ. Press of Springfield Printing Company, Springfield, Mass.  1880 - Page 601

REV. ISAAC JENNINGS,
Son of Isaac Jennings, M. D., was born in Trumbull, Conn., July 24, 1816, and attended the common schools and academy of Derby.  He graduated at Yale College in 1837, and at Andover Theological Seminary in 1842; was ordained pastor of the Congregational church in Akron, Ohio, in 1843; became pastor of the First Church in Stamford, Conn., in 1847, and the pastor of the First Church of Christ in Bennington, Vt., in 1853, where he still remains, having nearly completed the twenty-seventh year of his pastorate in that place.  While in Akron he secured the passage in the Ohio Legislature of the "Akron School Law" and the founding of the Akron graded schools.¹⁷  In 1859 he visited Europe.  In 1869 he published "Memorials of a Century."¹⁸  He is secretary of the board of directors of the Bennington Battle Monument Association, and president of the Bennington County Society School Union.
     His son, Isaac Jennings, jun., A. M., is the successful principal and teacher of the Classical High School of Waterbury, Conn.
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     ¹⁷ See 28th Annual School Report, Akron, Ohio
     ¹⁸. Bennington History, 408
Source:  History of Town of Derby, New Haven County, Connecticut - 1642 - 1880 - Page 604