Ezekiel Cheever

Ezekiel Cheever (born Jan. 25, 1615, London, Eng.—died Aug. 21, 1708, Boston, Mass. [U.S.]) was a leading schoolmaster in colonial British America.

Cheever was the son of a weaver and was educated at Christ’s Hospital in London and in the classics at the University of Cambridge. Cheever came to America in 1637 as a Puritan in search of religious freedom. In 1638 he settled in New Haven, Conn., as master of the public school. Active in both civil and ecclesiastical life, he remained in New Haven until 1650, then taught at Ipswich (1650–61) and Charlestown (1661–69), in Massachusetts.

Cheever’s name is most closely associated with the Boston Latin School, of which he took charge in 1670 and at which he remained for the rest of his life. He was a strict disciplinarian but was loved by the several generations of young men whom he taught, and he made the Boston Latin School into a highly regarded classical academy. The governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony—along with many other dignitaries—attended his funeral, at which Cotton Mather delivered the sermon.

Cheever wrote a volume of religious essays entitled Scripture Prophecies Explained. But his most influential publication by far was his Accidence, a Short Introduction to the Latin Tongue, written at New Haven. Cheever’s Accidence appeared in twenty editions by 1785 and was again republished in 1838. It was regarded as the standard Latin textbook throughout colonial New England.