Washington Gladden
Born: February 11, 1836, Pottsgrove, Pennsylvania.
Died: July 2, 1918, Columbus, Ohio.
Buried: Green Lawn Cemetery, Columbus, Ohio.
Gladden’s birth name is variously reported as Solomon Washington Gladden or
George Washington Gladden, but he later dropped the first name.
His father, a school teacher, died when Washington was a
young boy, and the family moved to New York.
Washington married Elizabeth Shores in 1852, and entered the
Owego Academy, Tioga County, New York, in 1855, then Williams College in 1859.
After working as a newspaper reporter, he became an ordained
minister in 1860, and pastored in Brooklyn, New York (1860); Morrisania, New
York (1861-66); North Adams, Massachusetts (1866-71); Springfield, Massachusetts
(1875-82); and Columbus, Ohio.
In Columbus, he was pastor of the First Congregational Church
for 32 years. From 1871 to 1875, he was on the editorial staff of the New York Independent,
and later, while pastor at Sprintfield, he edited the weekly periodical Sunday
Afternoon.
In 1891, he was a delegate to the international congress of
Congregationalists in London. He was also moderator of the Congregational Church
in America, helped settle an anthracite coal strike in 1902, and was known as a
social reformer.
His works include:
Hymns