A Brief Biography of Henry Randall Waite, 19th Century Clergyman in Pelham

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Henry Randall Waite served as one of the first ministers of the Huguenot Memorial Church founded in Pelham Manor in 1876. In addition, he founded the tiny little Church of the Covenant at Pelhamville, and was its minister without salary from 1887 to 1889.

Reverend Waite was a fascinating man. While serving as minister of the Church of the Covenant at Pelhamville, he also served as Secretary and Treasurer of the Julien Electric Company, which operated the first street cars propelled by storage battery in the United States. He was a man of letters. He edited a host of important publications of his day. Today's Blog posting transcribes a brief biography of Henry Randall Waite published in 1898.

"WAITE, HENRY RANDALL, organized the American Institute of Civics, and has been its President since 1885. He also founded the Patria Club of New York, and has been an officer of the Quill Club of Manhattan Borough, and of the Union League Club of Brooklyn. From 1877 to 1880 he was President of the Political Science Association, and from 1885 to 1887 was Secretary of the Interstate Commission on Federal Aid to Education. He was born in Copenhagen, N. Y., December 16, 1846, the son of Rev. Hiram H. Waite and S. Maria, daughter of Benajah Randall, a volunteer in the War of 1812, and lineally descends from Richard Wayte, who was Marshal of the Colony of Massachusetts under Governor Winthrop, and commander of troops in King Philip's War. Mr. Waite was graduated from Hamilton College in 1868, studied at the Union Theological Seminary, and subsequently studied economics in Europe. He was Literary Editor of the Utica Morning Herald from 1868 to 1870, and from 1869 to 1871 was Editor of the University Quarterly Review. He was Pastor of the American Union Church, at Rome, Italy, from 1872 to 1875, and during this period established the Italian Sunday-school Union, founded an undenominational school for the instruction of Christian workers at Rome, established the 'Scuola Evangelica Militare" among the soldiers of the Italian Army, founded the Italian Young Men's Christian Association in Rome, the first of the kind in Italy, and established American chapels in Lucerne, Interlaken, and Geneva, Switzerland. Returning to America, he was Editor of the New Haven Evening Journal in 1876 and 1877, and, in the latter year, was Editor of the International Review at New York. From 1877 to 1881 he was minister of the Huguenot Memorial Church as Pelham-on-Sound [Editor's Note: Apparently a confused reference mixing Pelham with nearby Pelham hamlet, Bartow-on-Sound]. He was Statistician of the Tenth United States Census, in charge of the collection of social statistics, from 1880 to 1884. From 1884 to 1887 he was book editor of D. Lathrop & Company, of Boston, while he was also Editor of the New England Magazine in 1886, and of the Citizen of Boston in 1887. He was Editor of Civics, at New York, from 1887 to 1895. From 1887 to 1890 he was Secretary and Treasurer of the Julien Electric Company, which operated the first street cars propelled by storage battery in the United States. He organized the Church of the Covenant at Pelhamville, and was its minister without salary from 1887 to 1889. He organized Trinity Congregational Church (in 1893 changed to Bedford Presbyterian Church), and was its minister from 1890 to 1893. In 1894 he traveled abroad. He married, in 1876, Cara A. Huntoon, of Boston, and has a son, Winthrop, and a daughter."

Source: Van Pelt, Daniel, Leslie's History of the Greater New York, Vol. I, pp. 629-30 (NY, NY: Arkell Publishing Co. 1898).

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