Ezra Stiles Ely (1786–1861), Presbyterian clergyman and author, was born in Lebanon, Connecticut, and graduated in 1804 from Yale College (later Yale University). In 1806 he was ordained as the pastor of a small church in Colchester, Connecticut. Ely moved to New York City in 1810 to serve as chaplain to a hospital and almshouse (later known as Bellevue Hospital). Four years later he was installed as pastor of the Pine Street (or Third) Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, serving until 1835. Ely was the stated clerk of the Presbyterian General Assembly, 1825–36, its moderator in 1828, and author or editor of over a dozen religious works. Named a trustee of Jefferson Medical College in 1826, the following year he was instrumental in securing land and erecting a new building crucial to the Philadelphia school’s survival. Ely had become friendly with Andrew Jackson but earned his displeasure in 1829 when he wrote to the president criticizing the recent marriage of Secretary of War John H. Eaton and Margaret O’Neale Timberlake. Ely relayed injurious allegations regarding the young woman that were central to what became known as the Peggy Eaton Affair. In 1835 he moved to Marion County, Missouri, where he invested most of his wealth in a failed missionary attempt to found a Presbyterian city, college, and theological seminary. Ely eventually returned permanently to Philadelphia, where he served as pastor of First Presbyterian Church in the Northern Liberties, 1844–52 (Dexter, Yale Biographies description begins Franklin Bowditch Dexter, Biographical Sketches of the Graduates of Yale College, 1885–1912, 6 vols. description ends , 5:647–51; A Sermon, delivered by Ezra Stiles Ely, on the First Sabbath after his Ordination [Hartford, 1806]; Hughes Oliphant Gibbons, A History of Old Pine Street [1905], 175–97; Alfred Nevin, History of the Presbytery of Philadelphia, and of the Philadelphia Central [1888], 188–90, 304–5; James F. Gayley, A History of the Jefferson Medical College of Philadelphia [1858], 16–8; Jackson, Papers description begins Sam B. Smith, Harold D. Moser, Daniel Feller, and others, eds., The Papers of Andrew Jackson, 1980– , 10 vols. description ends , esp. 7:101–4, 113–8; Curtis Dahl, “The Clergyman, the Hussy, and Old Hickory: Ezra Stiles Ely and the Peggy Eaton Affair,” Journal of Presbyterian History 52 [1974]: 137–55; Jim Boulden, “Betting on Land in Missouri: A Family Story,” New England Ancestors 10 [summer 2009]: 34–7; Philadelphia Inquirer, 18 June 1861).