Harry Emerson Fosdick (1878-1969) was born in Buffalo, New York, graduating from Colgate University in 1900 and Union Theological Seminary in 1904. He had already been ordained a Baptist minister a year prior at Manhattan’s Madison Avenue Baptist Church.
The year he graduated, he was called to the First Baptist Church in Montclair, New Jersey (now called Christ Church), and served there until 1915. During World War I, Fosdick became an army chaplain and went to France – years later repenting of his support for the war. He returned to the US in 1918 and accepted a call to New York’s First Presbyterian Church.
