Colton, Walter (09 May 1797–22 January 1851), clergyman, journalist, and author, was born in Rutland County, Vermont, the son of Walter Colton, a weaver, and Thankful Cobb. The family soon moved to Georgia, Vermont. Colton was apprenticed to a cabinetmaking uncle in Hartford, Connecticut, where in 1816 he joined the Congregational church. He attended classes at the Hartford Grammar School until 1818, entered Yale College, won a prize for excellence in Latin, and graduated as valedictorian poet in 1822. He studied at the Andover Theological Seminary, graduating in 1825. Later that year he became a Congregationalist evangelist and joined the faculty of the Scientific and Military Academy in Middletown, Connecticut, where he taught moral philosophy and belles-lettres and was chaplain. Publishing essays and poems signed “Bertram” in the Middletown ...
Article
Colton, Walter (1797-1851), clergyman, journalist, and author
Robert L. Gale
Article
Duffy, Francis Patrick (1871-1932), Catholic military chaplain, editor, and teacher
Scott Appleby
Duffy, Francis Patrick (02 May 1871–26 June 1932), Catholic military chaplain, editor, and teacher, was born in Cobourg, Ontario, Canada, the son of Irish immigrants Patrick Duffy and Mary Ready. The third of six children who lived to maturity, Duffy received his early Catholic education from the Sisters of St. Joseph but had to leave school at the age of thirteen to work in a mill. At fourteen, however, he was thought to be too frail to work, so he returned to school. Duffy earned a teacher’s certificate from the Cobourg Collegiate Institute in 1888. Feeling a call to the priesthood, he attended St. Michael’s College in Toronto, studying with the Basilian Fathers and graduating with a baccalaureate degree in 1893. In 1894 he accepted a position at St. Francis Xavier College in New York City, where he earned a master’s degree and applied for formal entry into the seminary. Archbishop ...
Article
Eastman, William Reed (1835-1925), engineer, clergyman, and librarian
Kathleen Molz
Eastman, William Reed (19 October 1835–25 March 1925), engineer, clergyman, and librarian, was born in New York City, the son of the Reverend Ornan Eastman, an ordained evangelist, and Mary Reed. Eastman descended from an old New England family. Like his father, Eastman attended Yale University, where he achieved election to Phi Beta Kappa and graduated in 1854 with honors. During the first of his three distinctive professional endeavors, he worked as a civil engineer, initially on the enlargement of the Erie Canal, subsequently on the construction of the Michigan Southern and Northern Indiana Railroad, and finally on the survey of the first railroad from Vera Cruz to Mexico City....
Article
Fithian, Philip Vickers (1747-1776), tutor and chaplain
Robert M. Calhoon
Fithian, Philip Vickers (29 December 1747–08 October 1776), tutor and chaplain, was born in Greenwich, New Jersey, the son of Joseph Fithian and Hannah Vickers, farmers. He was educated at Enoch Green’s school in Deerfield, New Jersey, and received an A.B. in 1772 and an A.M. in 1775 from the College of New Jersey (Princeton), where he studied theology and Greek with the Reverend Andrew Hunter....
Article
McCabe, Charles Cardwell (1836-1906), Civil War chaplain and Methodist Episcopal bishop
Duane W. Priset
McCabe, Charles Cardwell (11 October 1836–19 December 1906), Civil War chaplain and Methodist Episcopal bishop, was born in Athens, Ohio, the son of Robert McCabe, a tailor, and Sarah Robinson. At age fifteen, McCabe worked on a small farm in Mt. Pleasant, Iowa, and, by age sixteen, clerked in a store in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. In 1854 he enrolled at Ohio Wesleyan University, Delaware, Ohio, where his uncle, Lorenzo Dow McCabe, was a distinguished professor; he withdrew from school in 1858 but graduated with a B.A. in 1860 and was accorded on honorary M.A. in 1864....
Article
Plummer, Henry Vinton (1844-1906), Baptist clergyman and U.S. Army chaplain
Geoffrey Gneuhs
Plummer, Henry Vinton (31 July 1844–08 February 1906), Baptist clergyman and U.S. Army chaplain, was born in Prince George’s County, Maryland, the son of Adam Francis Plummer and Emily Saunders. His parents were slaves on “Goodwood,” the plantation of George H. Calvert, a direct descendant of Lord Baltimore. When he was still young, he was sold to people living in Washington, D.C., and then to Colonel Thompson in Howard County, Maryland....
Article
Trumbull, Henry Clay (1830-1903), army chaplain, editor, and author
Dewey D. Wallace Jr.
Trumbull, Henry Clay (08 June 1830–08 December 1903), army chaplain, editor, and author, was born in Stonington, Connecticut, the son of Gurdon Trumbull, a businessman and Whig state senator descended from an early New England family, and Sarah Ann Swan. Educated at Stonington Academy and Williston Seminary, Trumbull did not go to college because of poor health. In 1851 he moved to Hartford, Connecticut, where he was engaged successively in a railroad office, as a druggist, and in a wool and cotton brokerage. Shortly after arriving in Hartford he heard the evangelist ...
