Samuel Peters

Samuel Peters 1735-1826, American clergyman and historian, b. Hebron, Conn. Because of his Loyalist sympathies, he fled to England in 1774. There he wrote for English periodicals and published A General History of Connecticut by a Gentleman of the Province (1781). An unflattering and inaccurate description of the colony, it is particularly noted for its misrepresentation of the Connecticut blue laws.

Peters, Samuel Andrew (1735–1826), Connecticut Loyalist and Anglican clergyman, in 1781 published his derogatory General History of Connecticut, by a Gentleman of the Province, famous for its account of colonial blue laws. His strong hatred for the republicanism and nonconformity of his native land, whence he fled to England just before the Revolution, led him to make misrepresentations about the stringency of blue laws that have been innocently copied by later historians. In 1805 he returned to the U.S. and purchased land claims of Jonathan Carver, which Congress in 1826 disallowed. He also wrote A History of the Reverend Hugh Peters (1807), falsely claiming that Hugh Peters was his great‐grand‐uncle.