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The Rev. Abraham Pierson was born in Yorkshire, England and graduated from Trinity College, Cambridge in 1632. He was ordained in the Church of England at Newark, South Britain and became profoundly Puritan. In 1640 he led a company of devoted followers to New England who settled first at Lynn, MA, then Southampton, Long Island and, in 1647, at Branford, CT.

While at Branford he studied the Indian language and a catechism and other books in that language and was an apostle to them with spirit and power. He joined the Newark settlement in 1666 and was their first minister and continued as their pastor and counselor until his death in 1678.

His eldest son, Abraham Pierson, was born in Lynn, MA in 1641 and succeeded him as minister of the Newark Colony. He was a 1668 Harvard graduate and, at the close of his ministry in Newark, became the first president of Yale college, serving in that capacity until his death in 1701.

Samuel H. Conger says Abraham has been called the father of Newark. He made his will in sickness, ".......being firmly persuaded of ye Everlasting Welfare of My Soul's Estate: and my bodye's resurrection in Eternal Life by Jesus Christ my dear and Precious redeemer..."

Abraham Pierson's children were Abraham (1641), Thomas, John, Abigail, Grace (1650), Susanna (1652) and Rebecca (1654).