William Bentley (1759–1819), Congregational clergyman, was born in Boston, graduated from Harvard College in 1777, served briefly as a schoolmaster, and returned to his alma mater as a tutor in Latin and Greek in 1780. Ordained in 1783, he remained in the same Salem parish for the rest of his life. Bentley was highly skilled in languages, contributed many news digests and commentaries to the Salem Gazette beginning in 1794, and kept a voluminous personal diary from 1784 until his death. A Jeffersonian Republican and a liberal Unitarian, Bentley was also an active Freemason and a member of the American Philosophical Society. He bequeathed his library, one of the largest private American collections of his day, to Allegheny College in Meadville, Pennsylvania (ANB description begins John A. Garraty and Mark C. Carnes, eds., American National Biography, 1999, 24 vols. description ends ; DAB description begins Allen Johnson and Dumas Malone, eds., Dictionary of American Biography, 1928–36, 20 vols. description ends ; The Diary of William Bentley, D.D. Pastor of the East Church Salem, Massachusetts, 4 vols. [1905–14]; Bentley to TJ, 17 June 1802 [DLC]; APS description begins American Philosophical Society description ends , Minutes, 8 Jan. 1811 [MS in PPAmP]; Salem Gazette, 4 Jan. 1820).