author
Hiram Chase
1801–1877
A 19th-century Methodist minister and religious writer, he left behind books that blend spiritual conviction with intensely personal experience. His work ranges from biblical geology to a firsthand account of life inside a lunatic asylum.
1 Audiobook
About the author
Born in Charleston, Montgomery County, New York, on February 1, 1801, he was raised in a religious home and entered Methodist ministry after his conversion in early adulthood. He was licensed to exhort in 1823, licensed to preach in 1827, and became part of the Troy Conference when it was organized in 1832.
He served for decades in the Methodist Episcopal Church before retiring from regular conference service in 1864 and later living in Sandy Hill, New York. Even after retirement, he continued to work as his health allowed, and he died in Los Angeles, California, on January 9, 1877.
He is also remembered as an author. His books include A Treatise on Cosmogony and Geology (1849), which argues for a reading of earth history in line with divine revelation, and Two Years and Four Months in a Lunatic Asylum (1868), a vivid personal narrative drawn from his confinement between 1863 and 1865.