CROSBY, HOWARD (1826–1891), American preacher and teacher, great-grandson of Judge Joseph Crosby of Massachusetts and of Gen. William Floyd of New York, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, was born in New York City on the 27th of February 1826. He graduated in 1844 from the University of the City of New York (now New York University); became professor of Greek there in 1851, and in 1859 became professor of Greek in Rutgers College, New Brunswick, New Jersey, where two years later he was ordained pastor of the first Presbyterian church. From 1870 to 1881 he was chancellor of the University of the City of New York; from 1872 to 1881 was one of the American revisers of the English version of the New Testament; and in 1873 was moderator of the general assembly of the Presbyterian Church. He took a prominent part in politics, urged excise reform, opposed “total abstinence,” was one of the founders and was the first president of the New York Society for the Prevention of Crime, and pleaded for better management of Indian affairs and for international copyright. Among his publications are The Lands of the Moslem (1851), Bible Companion (1870), Jesus: His Life and Works (1871), True Temperance Reform (1879), True Humanity of Christ (1880), and commentaries on the book of Joshua (1875), Nehemiah (1877) and the New Testament (1885).
His son, Ernest Howard Crosby (1856–1907), was a social reformer, and was born in New York City on the 4th of November 1856. He graduated at the University of the City of New York in 1876 and at Columbia Law School in 1878; served in the New York Assembly in 1887–1889, securing the passage of a high-licence bill; in 1889–1894 was a judge of the Mixed Tribunal at Alexandria, Egypt, resigning upon coming under the influence of Tolstoy; and died in New York City on the 3rd of January 1907. He was the first president (1894) of the Social Reform Club of New York City, and was president in 1900–1905 of the New York Anti-Imperialist League; was a leader in settlement work and in opposition to child labour, and was a disciple of Tolstoy as to universal peace and non-resistance, and of Henry George in his belief in the “single tax” principle. His writings, many of which are in the manner of Walt Whitman, comprise Plain Talk in Psalm and Parable (1899), Swords and Ploughshares (1902), and Broadcast (1905), all in verse; an anti-military novel, Captain Jinks, Hero (1902); and essays on Tolstoy (1904 and 1905) and on Garrison (1905).