Frank Samuel Child

Born in New York in 1854, Frank Samuel Child was an American author and Congregational clergyman. Records from Yale’s archives identify him as both a writer and a minister, and library listings show a long, varied bibliography published from the late nineteenth into the early twentieth century.

Child studied at Hamilton College and Union Theological Seminary and was ordained in 1879. He served Connecticut churches and became pastor of the First Church of Christ in Fairfield, where his interest in local history clearly shaped much of his writing.

His books include novels such as A Puritan Wooing and An Unknown Patriot, along with historical works like Fairfield, Ancient and Modern, A Country Parish, and An Old New England Church. Taken together, they suggest a writer deeply interested in American history, New England communities, and the moral texture of everyday life.