D.D. and the second President of Harvard College (Browning, Chales. Americans of royal descent, 7th ed. Baltimore : Genealogical Pub. Co., 1969, pg. 68).
Non-conformist clergyman, second President of Harvard, was a son of George Chauncy and his wife Agnes Welch, widow of Edward Humbertson. Notwithstanding the statement in Mather's "Magnalia" that the date of Chauncy's birth was 1589, it is probable that he was born shortly before Nov. 5, 1592, when his baptism was registered in Yardley-bury, Herts, England. A pupil in Westminster School at the time of the Gumpowder Plot, he matriculated at Trinity College, Cambridge, at Easter, 1610, received the B.A. degree in 1613-14, the M.A. in 1617, and B.D. in 1624. He became a fellow of Trinity in 1614 and was Greek lecturer in the same college in 1624 and 1626 (Zachary Grey, "An impartial examination of Mr. Daniel Neal's History of the Puritans, II, 183). On March 17, 1630, he was married to Catharine, daughter of Robert Eyre. He was vicar of St. Michael's in Cambridge in 1626; of Ware, Herts, in 1627-33; of Marston St. Lawrence in 1633-37. Because of his opposition to some of Archbishop Laud's regulations, he was twice summoned before the high commission court - in 1630, while he was in Ware ("Proceedings of Massachusetts Historical Society", XIII, 337-40; "Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, 1635-36"). On the second occassion he was imprisoned for some months. In each case he submitted only to regret his submission later. On June 12, 1637, Dr. S. Clerke wrote to Sir John Lambe: "Mr. Chauncy . . . mends like sour ale in summer. He held a fast on Wednesday last, and . . . he with another preached some six or eight hours. The whole tribe of Gad flocked thither, some three-score from Northampton; the Lord Say, with his lady, honoured them with their presence" ("Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, 1637"). Evidently a new storm was brewing and Chauncy fled before it, reaching New England a few days before the great earthquake, which occured on June 1, 1638. Before leaving England he wrote a "Retraction" of his submission which was published in London in 1641. In New England he went first to Plymouth as a helper to Mr. Reyner, the pastor. Trouble soon arose on account of his theory concerning baptism which he seems to have believed should be by immersion even in case of infants. On Nov. 2, 1640, Hooker of Hartford wrote to Shepard of Cambridge: "Mr. Chauncy and the church (at Plymouth) are to part . . . At a day of fast . . . he openly professed he did as verily believe the truth of his opinions as that there was a God in heaven, and that he was settled in it as the earth was upon the center . . . I profess how it is possible to keep peace with a man so adventurous and pertinaceous, who will vent what he list and maintain what he vents, it's beyond all the skill I have to conceive" (Lucius R. Paige, "History of Cambridge", 1877, pp. 49-50), In 1641, he removed to Scituate where he found some remnants of Mr. Lothrop's party who sympathized with him but also others who were inclined to the Church of England. the result was a schism and the two churches wrangled until conditions became unbearable (Samuel Deane, "History of Scituate", 1831). In 1654, Chauncy left for Boston, intending to return to his former parish in Ware, which had invited him back. At the moment, however, Harvard College was without a President owing to the enfored withdrawl of Henry Dunster because of his Baptist convictions, and the Overseers appointed Mather and Norton a committee to invite Chauncy to the vacant office. Since his views had become well known, the Committee instructed to signify to him that the Overseers "expected and desired that he forbear to disseminate or publish any tenets concerning the necessity of immersion in baptism and celebration of the Lord's Supper at evening or to expose the received doctrine therein" ("Publications of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts:, vol. XV, p. 206). Accepting these humiliating conditions, and the meager stipend of 100 pounds, Chauncy became, on Nov. 29, 1654, the second President of Harvard College and continued in that office until his death on Feb. 19, 1671/72. As President, he seems to have been eminently successful. His naturally impulsive temper was curbed by the responsibilities of his position, and, although he disagreed with Jonathan Mitchell, pastor of the Cambridge church, upon the Half-way Covenant (see Chauncy's "Anti-Synodalia Americana", Cambridge, 1664), their personal relations seem to have continued friendly. His faults of temper were more than offset by his acknowledged erudition, to which Ezra Stiles of Yale bore glowing testimony ("The Literary Diary" 1901, I, 133). In addition to works already mentioned, Chauncy published: "The Doctrine of the Sacrament" (1642); "God's mercy shewed to His People" (1655); "Sermon on Amos" (1665); "The Plain Doctrine of the Justification of a Sinner in the Sight of God" (1659). He also wrote, in Latin prose and verse, various productions for state occassions at Cambridge, England, most of which are in William Chauncy Fowler, "Memorials of the Chauncys, Including President Chauncy, His Ancestors and Descendants" (1858). (Dictionary of American biography).