[Bio written by John Locke Doggett, a (3x) great-grandson of Rev. Simeon Doggett]
Reverend Simeon Doggett, Jr., one of six children and the youngest son of Simeon and Abigail (Pratt) Doggett, was born in Middleborough, Massachusetts. His father, who had relocated to the fledgling town from Marshfield as a child, was a farmer and a joiner (carpenter) who built houses and crafted furniture. During the Revolutionary War, he was called the "Tory farmer" because of his unwavering commitment to the British Crown; a position for which he suffered ridicule and confinement. Simeon's mother, the daughter of a blacksmith and a native of North Carolina, was deeply devoted to the beliefs and traditions of the Anglican Church. With such devout and virtuous parents, who traveled twenty miles every Sunday to attend their church, it is no surprise that Simeon Doggett, Jr. was dutiful and righteous; both as a student and in his subsequent endeavors. Upon graduating from Brown University he immediately began to study theology. He was for five years a tutor at Brown, licensed to preach in the Congregational Church and was the first preceptor (principal) of Bristol Academy in Taunton, Massachusetts. In 1797, Simeon Doggett, Jr. married Nancy Fobes, a daughter of Reverend Perez and Prudence (Wales) Fobes. After he left Bristol Academy, Simeon and Nancy moved to Mendon, where Simeon became minister of the Unitarian parish. They finally relocated to Raynham where he also served as minister. Reverend Simeon Doggett died in Raynham at age eighty-seven. His wife, with whom he had eight children, and whose maternal grandfather, Reverend John Wales, was the first minister in Raynham, lived another two years. Simeon and Nancy Fobes Doggett are interred in Raynham's Pleasant Street Cemetery.

Young Simeon's childhood was spent on his father's Middleborough farm. As did children of the other families living on neighboring farms, Simeon and his siblings engaged in the hard labor of planting and harvesting crops and other chores required to sustain a farm. Boys serving as carpenter apprentices under his father's tutelage often lived with the family. The apprenticeships were lengthy and some of the boys were orphans and the community would compensate Simeon's father for his efforts. In April of 1775, when Simeon was ten years old, British troops exchanged gunfire with the militias at Lexington and Concord. As the conflict intensified and Simeon's father refused to take up arms against the King, there were severe consequences for the family. Initially confined to his farm, the "Tory Farmer" was put on trial, banished and imprisoned on a ship in Boston Harbor. After eight weeks there, he returned home only to be set upon by an angry mob and had to leave for a year until the fury of the community subsided. All of this undoubtedly impacted young Simeon in ways that would be reflected throughout his adult life. While sons of many New England families eagerly engaged in the war, Simeon Doggett, Jr. adapted a quieter life. Early on in his college days, young Simeon decided to commit himself to a lifelong profession in the ministry and the pursuit of theology.

Simeon's father regained his position of respect in the Middleborough community. His business endeavors allowed him to acquire sufficient capital to sustain a comfortable lifestyle and to afford, for his son, the opportunity to attend Brown University where he graduated in 1788 at age twenty-three. By all accounts, young Simeon was studious, well-behaved and liked by his teachers and fellow pupils. At the same time, his unwavering stance on religion was sufficiently outside the orthodox view to be rejected by the conventional Calvinist fraternity. He found in the Unitarian viewpoint – which allowed for reason in interpreting Holy Scripture, and thus a freedom of conscience – sufficient compatible to his own way of thinking that he committed himself to their community for the remainder of his life.
Massachusetts, the first state to pass comprehensive education legislation, required its teachers to "provide satisfactory evidence" they had a formal education in a college or university and were of "good moral character." In towns of fifty or more families, a schoolmaster was required and, in towns with 100 or more families, the schoolmaster had to be able to teach Latin. When Bristol Academy opened in 1796, Reverend Simeon Doggett, with five years of experience tutoring at Brown, accepted the job of preceptor; a position he held for seventeen years. During the Academy's opening ceremony, he delivered a resounding speech in which he conveyed his vision that the entire country should be educated and that females should enjoy the same educational benefits as males. Impressed, the school's trustees subsequently committed the speech to print. Also, during the ceremony, "Ode on Science", a piece written by the Deacon Jeremiah Sumner and dedicated to the school's new preceptor, was sung for the first time. (It is still a popular patriotic song.) While Reverend Simeon Doggett was preceptor, he engaged a number of students destined to achieve positions of leadership in the country. In his memoir, General Joseph Gardner Swift, first to graduate from the West Point Military Academy and a Chief of Engineers of the United States Army, credited Reverend Doggett for preparing him to enter Harvard College. Other former students offered testimony of a similar nature.

Upon leaving Bristol Academy, Reverend Doggett settled into the ministry of the First Congregational Church in Mendon. He remained there until 1831. He then relocated to Raynham, where some friends and former students had established a Unitarian society. He served as pastor of the Second Congregational Church there until concluding that advancing age was preventing him from properly fulfilling his duties. During the winter of 1834-35, while living in Raynham and serving as pastor, Reverend Doggett took leave and traveled to the South to visit sons living in Charleston, South Carolina and in Jacksonville, Florida. Otherwise, this man of simple habits, who relished the role of teacher and friend to his community, was content to stay at home. A biography written soon after his death described Reverend Simeon Doggett as a man of remarkable modesty, five feet eight inches tall and of dark complexion, a bit careless in everyday dress and accustom to wearing "small clothes as long as he could find some body to make them to suit him, and then finally yielding to the tide of custom and went into long pants." He was loved by his community and much admired for his passionate speeches.
The following is a listing of his some of his more prominently known sermons:
• "Oration on the Death of Rev. President Manning," delivered at Brown University 1791.
• A discourse on "The Way of Eternal Life," preached at Norton and Providence, 1796.
• A Discourse on Education, at the Opening of Bristol Academy, 1796.
• An Oration at Taunton, on the Fourth of July, 1799.
• A Discourse in Mendon, at the Funeral of Richard George, 1827.
• A Sermon in Mendon, on the Death of Capt. Joseph Prince, 1828.
• A Sermon in Bridgewater, at the Ordination of his Son, T. P. Doggett, 1833.
• Two Discourses on Slavery, 1835.
• National Union: 'The Day of Annual Fast" a Fast Day Sermon in Raynham, 1839.
• A Sermon on "Transcendentalism," preached on Fast Day, 1843.

Rev. Simeon Doggett, Jr. was a descendant of Thomas Doggett, who sailed to Massachusetts from England on the ship Marey Anne in 1637. Thomas was married three times and died in Marshfield. John Doggett, the son of Thomas and his first wife, whose name is not known, married Persis Sprague. They lived in Marshfield. Their son, Thomas Doggett, married Experience Ford. They too lived in Marshfield. Their son, also Thomas Doggett, married Joanna Fuller(*). They moved from Marshfield to Middleborough. Their son, Simeon Doggett, married Abigail Pratt.

(*) Joanna was a granddaughter of Samuel Fuller, a passenger on the Mayflower and the first doctor of Plymouth Colony.

Reverend Simeon and Nancy (Fobes) Doggett had eight children:
1. John Locke Doggett (1798 – 1844): a founder of the City of Jacksonville, Florida who became a lawyer there and a Territorial Judge. He married Maria Fairbanks of Mendon, Massachusetts.
2. Samuel Wales Doggett (1800 – 1872): the principal of a flourishing Seminary in Charleston, South Caroline. He married Harriet Wotten of Charleston, South Carolina.
3. Simeon Doggett (1802– 1826): moved to Georgia where he was involved in a business venture when he died.
4. Prudence Wales Doggett (1804 – 1854)
5. Perez Fobes Doggett (1806 – 1875): a physician and surgeon in Warham, Massachusetts. He married Lucy Maria Fearing of Warham.
6. Theophilus Pipon Doggett (1810 – 1875): a minister in Bridgewater Massachusetts. He married Elizabeth Bates of Bridgewater.
7. Abigail "Abby" Doggett (1812 – 1861): married William Reed Deane of Mansfield, Massachusetts. They lived in Raynham, Massachusetts.
8. William Paley Doggett (1814 – 1836): studied the law and died at the age of twenty-two years in Raynham.
References:
• A History of the Doggett-Daggett family, Samuel Bradlee Doggett, Publication date: 1894.
• Biographical sketch of Rev. Simeon Doggett: pastor of the Second Congregational Church in Raynham, Charles H. Brigham, Publication date: 1852.
• Biographical Profile: Joseph Gardner Swift – Wikipedia.
• The History of Raynham, M. Patrick While, Publication date: 1988.
• History of Raynham, Massachusetts, Rev. Enoch Stanford, Publication date 1870.
• The Tory Joiner of Middleborough, Massachusetts: Simeon Doggett and his community 1762 – 1792, Master's Thesis by Margaret K. Hofer, Submitted June, 1991 at University of Delaware.
• Annals of the American Pulpit: Unitarian Congregational, William Buell Sprague, Publication date: 1865.
• Science in the American Style, 1700 – 1800, Dissertation Robyn Davis McMillin, Submitted 2009 at University of Oklahoma.