Rev. Dr. Samuel Robert Calthrop (1868-1911)
Rev. Calthrop, our third minister, was born in Swineshead Abbey, Lincolnshire, England, in 1829. He was educated at St. Paul’s School in London and at Trinity College in Cambridge. He moved to the U.S. in 1853. He became minister of the Universalist Church in Southold (Long Island), New York, for three months. He next ran a school for boys in Bridgeport, Connecticut, for six years. He was ordained as a Unitarian minister in 1860.
First he was a minister at Unitarian churches in Marblehead and Newburyport, Massachusetts. He moved to Syracuse and became minister of the Church of the Messiah in 1868 and then May Memorial after its construction in 1885. He became Pastor Emeritus in 1911. He received the L.H.D. from Syracuse University in June, 1900.
He was an individual with many interests who contributed much to May Memorial and the Syracuse community. Click here to learn more about this renaissance man and here to see one of his earliest photos when he was the 1880 New York State chess champion. He died in Syracuse in 1917. Read some very interesting material about Sam’s boyhood years written by his daughter, Edith Calthrop Bump, in 1939. Finally, read this very delightful article written by a man who remembers Rev. Calthrop as a very important mentor, person, and colleague: Recollections of the Old Master: Rev. Samuel Robert Calthrop.
Developed by Rog Hiemstra, Chair, History Committee
May Memorial Unitarian Universalist Society
