John White Chadwick
John White Chadwick | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | John White Chadwick October 19, 1840 Marblehead, Mass., U.S. |
| Died | December 11, 1904 (aged 64) Brooklyn, New York, U.S. |
| Alma mater | Harvard Divinity School |
| Occupations | Clergyman, author, poet |
| Spouse |
Annie Horton Hathaway
(m. 1865) |
| Children | 1; John White Chadwick Jr. |
John White Chadwick (October 19, 1840 – December 11, 1904) was an American writer and clergyman of the Unitarian Church.
Early life and education
[edit]Chadwick was born in Marblehead, Massachusetts in 1840. He left school at age 13 and was apprenticed to a shoemaker for several years.[1] In 1857 he opted to further his academic learning, and entered the State Normal School in Bridgewater, Massachusetts.[2] After graduating in 1859, he attended Phillips Academy in Exeter, New Hampshire. By then he had chosen to become a minister, and enrolled in Harvard Divinity School.[3] He graduated in July 1864. In December of that year, he was ordained and installed as minister of the Second Unitarian Church in Brooklyn, New York.[1]
Career
[edit]Chadwick's sermons attracted attention, and he developed a reputation as a radical preacher of Unitarian doctrines.[4] His beliefs were in part shaped by his long friendship and correspondence with the radical Unitarian minister William Channing Gannett.[5]
In 1876, Chadwick published his first book of poems and would continue to write poetry over subsequent decades. In 1885 he was elected Phi Beta Kappa poet at Harvard.[4] For the occasion, he read his poem "A Legend of Good Poets".[6] The following year he preached the alumni sermon at Harvard Divinity School.[4] In 1888 he was awarded an honorary A.M. degree from Harvard.[1]
He remained at the Second Unitarian Church until his death in Brooklyn on December 11, 1904.[7]
Works
[edit]In addition to contributing articles to Unitarian journals,[4] Chadwick was a prolific author of books, producing over 30 in his lifetime.[8] They consisted of his sermons and other theological writings (which were published in a series), historical and biographical monographs, and volumes of poetry. His best-known collection was titled A Book of Poems. First published in 1876, its tenth edition was released posthumously in 1905 by Little, Brown and Company.[9]
His list of books include:
- Way, Truth, and Life: Sermons by N. A. Staples (Boston, 1870)
- The Great Salvation: A Sermon (New York, 1876)
- A Book of Poems (Boston, 1876)
- Thomas Paine: The Method and Value of His Religious Teachings (New York, 1877)
- The Bible of To-day (New York, 1878)
- The Faith of Reason: A Series of Discourses on Leading Topics of Religion (Boston, 1879)
- The State of the Nation: A Sermon (New York, 1879)
- Some Aspects of Religion (New York, 1879)
- An Educated Will (New York, 1881)
- The Man Jesus: A Course of Lectures (Boston, 1881)
- Belief and Life (New York, 1881)
- Origin and Destiny (Boston, 1883)
- In Nazareth Town, a Christmas Fantasy, and Other Poems (Boston, 1883)
- A Daring Faith (Boston, 1885)
- The Good Voices: Poems (New York, 1885)
- Birth and Triumph of Cupid, with verses by J.W.C. (New York, 1885)
- Gnostics and Agnostics: A Sermon (Boston, 1886)
- The Two Voices: Poems of the Mountains and the Sea (New York, 1886)
- The Revelation of God and Other Sermons (Boston, 1889)
- Charles Robert Darwin (Boston, 1889)
- Evolution and Social Reform (New York, 1890)
- The Power of an Endless Life and Other Sermons (Boston, 1891)
- Evolution as Related to Citizenship (New York, 1892)
- Seeing and Being and Other Sermons (Boston, 1893)
- George William Curtis: An Address by John White Chadwick (New York, 1893)
- Old and New Unitarian Belief (Boston, 1894)
- Power and Use (Boston, 1896)
- A Life For Liberty: Anti-Slavery and Other Letters of Sallie Holley (New York, 1899)
- Theodore Parker, Preacher and Reformer (Boston, 1900)
- Women of the Bible (New York, 1900)
- William Ellery Channing: Minister of Religion (New York, 1903)
- Later Poems, by John White Chadwick (Boston, 1905)
References
[edit]- ^ a b c Murdock, Charles A., ed. (January 1905). "John White Chadwick". The Pacific Unitarian. Vol. XIII, no. 3. San Francisco. p. 66.
- ^ Theodore D. Bacon (1929). "Chadwick, John White". Dictionary of American Biography. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.
- ^ "Chadwick, John White: American Unitarian". New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge. Christian Classics Ethereal Library. Vol. II. Retrieved January 2, 2026.
- ^ a b c d Wilson, James Grant; Fiske, John, eds. (1900). "Chadwick, John White". Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography. New York: D. Appleton. p. 563. OCLC 24509677.
- ^ Pease, William H. (Spring 1954). "William Channing Gannett: Two Episodes". University of Rochester Library Bulletin. Vol. IX, no. 3. Archived from the original on March 3, 2015.
- ^ Chadwick, John White (1885). A Legend of Good Poets: A Poem by John White Chadwick. Boston: George H. Ellis. Delivered June 25, 1885, to the Phi Beta Kappa Fraternity of Harvard University.
- ^ "Death Balks Church Sermon". The Evening World. December 12, 1904. p. 6. Retrieved February 7, 2021 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ "John White Chadwick – Search Results". HathiTrust. Retrieved January 2, 2026.
- ^ Chadwick, John White. A Book of Poems (10th ed.). Boston: Little, Brown and Company. OCLC 9285664.
Further reading
[edit]- Chadwick Jr., John White (1896). John White Chadwick: A Sketch of His Life by His Son. Boston: G. H. Ellis.
External links
[edit]
- 1840 births
- 1904 deaths
- 19th-century American Christian clergy
- 19th-century American male writers
- 19th-century American poets
- American Unitarians
- American male non-fiction writers
- American male poets
- American religious writers
- American theologians
- Harvard Divinity School alumni
- People from Marblehead, Massachusetts