Jonathan Fisher (1768-1847) was born in New Braintree, Massachusetts in 1768. After the death of his father, a Revolutionary War soldier, he was reared in the Dedham home of his uncle, a minister. As a young man he considered becoming a blacksmith, cabinet maker or clockmaker, but his intellectual gifts were evident and his family was able to send him to Harvard in 1788.

In 1796 he became the first settled Congregational minister of the small village of Blue Hill, Maine. Although his primary duties as a country parson engaged much of his time, Fisher was also an artist, farmer, scientist, mathematician, surveyor, and writer of prose and poetry. He bound his own books, made buttons and hats, designed and built furniture, painted sleighs, was a reporter for the local newspaper, helped found Bangor Theological Seminary, dug wells, built his own home and raised a large family.