On this day in 1772, Stephen Smith Nelson was born in Middleboro, Massachusetts.  At the age of fourteen he was converted to Christ – after which he became a member of the Baptist church in that city.  At the time, the Middleboro Baptist Church was pastored by Isaac Backus, one of the men of Massachusetts who fought long and hard for religious freedom in this country.  After Brother Nelson graduated from Brown University, he continued his studies under Samuel Stillman, pastor of the First Baptist Church of Boston, for whom he served as his assistant.

In this twenty-fourth year, Stephen Nelson was ordained by the Baptist church in Hartford, Connecticut. The Lord so blessed that little church that more than one hundred were baptized and joined.  After several years, Pastor Nelson resigned his pastoral responsibilities there to take charge of a Baptist academy and to minister in several struggling congregations in the areas of Attleborough and then Amherst, Massachusetts.  Everywhere he went, the Lord blessed.  In the Attleborough church, more than 150 professed faith in Christ Jesus.
In the midst of his care of the churches, Nelson didn’t forsake the needs of his large family.  He witnessed the salvation of his children and then his many grandchildren.  In semi-retirement, beginning on his seventy-eighth birthday he began the policy of writing a scripture with a word of practical application to each of his grandchildren and great-grandchildren.  He continued to do this until his death on December 8, 1853 at the age of eighty-two.
– Source: “This Day in Baptist History II” by Cummins and Thompson