Bacon, Leonard (1802–1881)

US Protestant clergyman. Bacon was a Congregational minister, scholar, and writer. An opponent of slavery, he helped to found the abolitionist journal, The Independent in 1848. He was editor of the Christian Spectator, 1826–38, and Professor of Didactic Theology at Yale University 1866–71.

Bacon was born in Detroit, Michigan. He graduated from Yale University in 1820 and Andover Theological Seminary in 1823. In 1825, he became pastor of the First Church, New Haven, with which he was connected till his death.