PETERS, Absalom, clergyman, born in Wentworth, New Hampshire, 19 September, 1793; died in New York city, 18 May. 1869. On his mother's side he was a lineal descendant of John Rogers, the Smithfield martyr. He was graduated at Dartmouth in 1816, studied in Princeton theological seminary, and then served as a missionary in northern New York. From 1820 till 1826 he was pastor of the first church in Bennington, Vermont, and he then became secretary of the United domestic missionary society, and aided in forming the American home missionary society, of which he was the first secretary until 1837. He was professor of pastoral theology and homiletics in Union theological seminary, New York city, in 1842-'4, and then pastor of the first church in Williamstown, Massachusetts, where he remained until 1857. Here he originated and edited the " American Eclectic," and also projected the "American Journal of Education," which was soon merged into Dr. Henry Barnard's journal of the same title. Middlebury gave him the degree of D. D. in 1833. Dr. Peters also edited the "Home Missionary and American Pastor's Journal" in 1829-'37, and the "American Biblical Repository" in 1828-'42. He published sermons and polemical treatises, and wrote a volume of poems entitled "Life and Time--A Birthday Memorial of Seventy Years" (New York, 1865).