William James Bliss Batt

The following image is a portrait of William James Bliss Batt (1834-1930), a Congregational minister born in Fall River, Mass.

Batt was ordained in 1859 after graduating from Andover Theological Seminary the previous year. He also earned a B.A. at Brown University in 1855, the organization that would later award him an honorary Doctor of Divinity in 1930. Batt was pastor in Stoneham, Mass., 1859-1861 Bedford, Mass., 1861-1865, Leominster, Mass., 1865-1874, Eureka, Calif., 1874-1875, and Stoneham, Mass., 1875-1885. He was a Chaplain at the Massachusetts Reformatory in Concord, Mass., and was an advocate for prison reform.

--Abraham