Samuel McChord Crothers

Born in Oswego, Illinois, on June 7, 1857, he was an American Unitarian minister and essayist. He studied at Wittenberg College and the College of New Jersey, later Princeton, then attended Union Theological Seminary and Harvard Divinity School.

After beginning in the Presbyterian ministry, he moved toward Unitarianism and in 1894 became minister of First Parish in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Alongside his church work, he built a wide readership through essays published in magazines including The Atlantic Monthly.

His best-known writing is remembered for its conversational ease, humor, and moral clarity. Rather than sounding severe or abstract, he wrote about character, belief, books, and daily life in a way that felt generous, intelligent, and close to experience; he died in Cambridge on November 9, 1927.