Theophilus was born 1 February 1802 in Shelburne, Franklin County, Massachusetts, United States to Theophilus D Packard (1769-1855) and Mary Tirrell (1775-1865) and died 8 December 1885 Manteno, Kankakee County, Illinois, United States of unspecified causes. He married Elizabeth Parsons Ware (1816-1897) 21 May 1839 in Deerfield, Franklin County, Massachusetts, United States.
Most of the following biography was written on Find A Grave and is reprinted here:
By 1826 Theophilus was living in Amherst and was preparing to be a minister with his father first and then Rev Moses Hallock in Plainfield. Later he would go to Sanderson Academy in Ashfield and to Amherst Academy (later college) from 1821 to 1823, getting a Masters of Arts. He would later study theology with his father at Princeton Theological School from 1823 to 1825.
He would be ordained as a minister in Shelburne on March 12, 1828. He would stay there with his father until 1853. In 1849, his father, in a sermon, he said he originally came to Shelburne as a "stranger" and without a family, adding that he allowed his son, Theophilus, at age 21, to be an associate pastor.
Theophilus would later be a minister in Mt. Pleasant Iowa from 1855 to 1857 and in Manteno Illinois from 1857 to 1862. Later he would be a minister in Sunderland from 1864 to 1865 and supply many churches from 1865 to 1878. He would also be the author of "A history of the churches and ministers, and of Franklin Association in Franklin County, Mass., and an appendix respecting the county" in 1854 and "The Genealogies of Samuel Packard of Bridgewater, Massachusetts and Abel Packard of Cummington, Mass." in 1871.
In terms of personal life, he married well-educated woman named Elizabeth Parsons Ware, daughter of Reverend Samuel Ware, on May 21, 1839 in Shelburne, MA or what some records say was Deerfield, MA. Elizabeth, born on December 28, 1816, in Ware, Massachusetts, married Theophilus at the insistence of her parents.
They would have six children: Theophilus, Isaac W, Samuel W, Elizabeth W, George H., and Arthur D. By the mid-1850s, as both Elizabeth and Theophilus, husband and wife, seemed to live in perfect harmony in Western Massachusetts, the family moved to Ohio. Then, by 1856 Theophilus would be living in Center, Henry, Iowa with Elizabeth, his wife, a son named Theophilus (age 14), a son named Isaac W (age 12), a son named Samuel (age 10), a daughter named Elizabeth (age 6), and a son named George H (age 2). Four years later, he would be living in Manteno, Kankakee, Illinois with his wife Elizabeth P along with children Isaac W(age 16), Samuel (age 12), Elizabeth (age 10), George H (age 7), and Arthur D (age 1). By 1870, he was living in Manteno, Kankakee, Illinois, and was called a "Presbetarian Minister." Ten years later, he would still be in Manteno, Kankakee, Illinois, but would be the uncle of the head of household.
There is one aspect of his personal life which made him, in a sense, famous. His wife, Elizabeth, differed with his Calvinist beliefs as established in church doctrine. Because she refused to recant her beliefs, Theophilus committed, as allowed under laws at the time, his wife to an asylum on "grounds of insanity" by arguing that she was mentally impaired and unable to care for their children. Elizabeth's questioning of his "conservative" religious beliefs, which included standing up in the "middle of a service" and announcing she would worship with the Methodists instead, was not stopped by her time in an asylum, specifically Illinois State Hospital. From the time of June 18, 1860 when the county sheriff "physically removed her from her house and put her on the train to the asylum," first to the hospital, then to the "8th Ward for the violent and hopelessly insane," she began to chart her way forward of her own independence.
After she was let out of the asylum, Theophilus boarded her up in a room of their house. Despite this, she was able to, as the story goes, drop a letter of complaint out her window to her friend, Sarah Haslett, whom appealed to Judge Charles Starr. As a result, Theophilus's action was annulled by the courts in a trial of Packard vs. Packard. As a result of her time in the asylum, she continued to work for "the rights of the mentally ill" and worked to emancipate married women until her death, with the former resulting in "34 bills were passed in various state legislatures," which some called the "Packard Laws," to protect those deemed "insane" and being one of the founders of the National Society for the Protection of the Insane and the Prevention of Insanity. She would by living in Chicago Ward 5, Cook, Illinois by 1870 and her probate was in Cook County, Illinois.
This would later become the subject of a play directed by Emily Mann in 2007, titled "Mrs. Packard," which was be reviewed widely. Books were written about this topic titled "The Private War of Mrs. Packard" and "Elizabeth Packard: A Noble Fight."
He would die in Manteno, Illinois on December 8, 1885. His since wife, from whom he was not surprisingly estranged, Elizabeth, would outlive him, dying on July 25, 1897 in Chicago, Illinois.
Children
| Name | Birth | Death | Joined with |
| Theophilus Packard (1842-1902) | |||
| Isaac Ware Packard (1844-1927) | |||
| Samuel Ware Packard (1847-aft1930) | |||
| Elizabeth Ware Packard (1850-) | |||
| George Hastings Packard (1853-) | |||
| Arthur Dwight Packard (1858-) | |||
Siblings
| Name | Birth | Death | Joined with |
| Theophilus Packard (1802-1885) | 1 February 1802 Shelburne, Franklin County, Massachusetts, United States | 8 December 1885 Manteno, Kankakee County, Illinois, United States | Elizabeth Parsons Ware (1816-1897) |
| Isaac Tirrell Packard (1804-1820) | |||
| Louisa Packard (1806-1841) | |||
| Laura Emily Packard (1815-1838) | |||
| Jane Lucy Packard (1817-1856) | |||
Residences
Footnotes (including sources)
| ‡ General |
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