Washburn, Edward Abiel

Edward Abiel Washburn was born on April 16, 1819, and graduated from Harvard in 1838 before studying theology at Andover and New Haven. After initially entering the Congregational ministry, he was ordained in the Protestant Episcopal Church in 1844 and became rector of St. Paul's in Newburyport, Massachusetts, where he served until 1851. Following a year spent traveling in Europe, he served as rector of St. John's in Hartford from 1853 to 1862 while also teaching as professor of Church Polity at Berkeley Divinity School in Middletown, Connecticut. He subsequently accepted calls to St. Mark's in Philadelphia, serving from 1862 to 1865, and Calvary Church in New York City, where he remained as rector from 1865 until his death on February 2, 1881. His published works include Social Law of God in 1874, along with a collection of his poems published posthumously in New York in 1881. Notable for his scholarly translations of Latin hymns, several of his metrical renderings were featured in Philip Schaff's 1869 compilation Christ in Song as well as other contemporary collections.