The Biographical Dictionary of America/Ames, Charles Gordon

AMES, Charles Gordon, clergyman, was born in Dorchester, Mass., Oct. 3, 1828. He spent his early years on a farm and in a printing-office in New Hampshire; was for a time connected with Geauga seminary, Ohio, as student and teacher; was ordained as a Free Baptist minister in 1849, and went to the frontier as a missionary. From 1854-'57 he edited the Minnesota Republican at Minneapolis. In 1856 he withdrew from his church, and in 1859 became connected with the Unitarians. He gathered new congregations in Illinois, California, and Pennsylvania, and held pastorates at Albany, N. Y., Germantown, Pa., and Philadelphia. From 1877-80 he was in Boston as editor of the Christian Register, the leading Unitarian journal. In 1889 he succeeded the Rev. James Freeman Clarke, as pastor of the Church of the Disciples, Boston. Two hundred of his sermons were published, and he contributed many articles, including several poems, to current literature. A little volume of religious studies, entitled, "As Natural as Life," was well received; and an essay on "George Eliot's Two Marriages" passed through five editions. During the war period Mr. Ames delivered many patriotic addresses. He was always actively interested in education, philanthropy and social reform. In 1896 he received from Bates college the degree of D.D.