James Davenport (1716–1757) was an American Congregational clergyman and itinerant preacher noted for his often controversial actions during the First Great Awakening. Background and early life Davenport was born in Stamford, Connecticut, to an old Puritan family. Davenport’s great-grandfather, Reverend John Davenport, was a founder and first minister of New Haven. He attended Yale College where he was ranked at the top of the class in 1732. Davenport and his friends were determined to become preachers even though most Yale graduates were pursuing law, politics, or business. They started clubs that would attest the changing character of the Yale student body, and frequently found themselves in adversary positions with the university. This is the beginning of Davenport's mistrust with established institutions. He was ordained as a minister by the Congregational Council of Southold, Long Island in October 1738. Preaching career and controversies It was around this time that he met Presbyterian revivalist Gilbert Tennent and English evangelical George Whitefield. The success of Whitefield's style of revival preaching convinced Davenport that God was calling him, and in 1741 - having by chance opened his Bible to 1 Samuel 14, where Jonathan and his armor-bearer attack the Philistine camp, and taken this as a sign - he left his congregation to become an itinerant. His actions during this time often caused him to run afoul of both ecclesiastical and civil authorities. Davenport often denounced fellow clergymen for their conduct, such as when he labeled Joseph Noyes, the pastor of New Haven, a "wolf in sheep's clothing." Throughout New England he used this strategy, of condemning his fellow clergymen, to gain popularity. Davenport is also noted for his "Bonfires of the Vanities", the public burnings he organized in New London. As with those of Girolamo Savonarola, Davenport urged his followers to destroy immoral books and luxury items with fire. He often said that he could distinguish people who were saved versus people who were damned just by looking at them. In June 1742, Davenport and fellow preacher Benjamin Pomeroy were arraigned before the Colonial Assembly at Hartford, Connecticut, charged with disorderly conduct. Pomeroy's case was dismissed, but Davenport was declared to be under "enthusiastical impressions and impulses, and thereby disturbed in the rational faculties of his mind." No punishment was meted out, but Davenport was sent back to his former parish of Southold. On March 7, 1743, Davenport exhibited perhaps his most bizarre