Charles Francis Rice

Charles Francis Rice (April 4, 1851 – October 2, 1927)[1] was a prominent minister and author. He was a member of the New England Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church for 50 years, serving as a District Superintendent and as President of the Massachusetts Federation of Churches.[2]

Charles Francis Rice
Born(1851-04-14)April 14, 1851
Chelsea, Massachusetts, U.S.
DiedOctober 2, 1927(1927-10-02) (aged 76)
Medford, Massachusetts, U.S.
Alma materWesleyan University
OccupationMinister
OrganizationMethodist Episcopal Church
Spouse(s)
Miriam Owen Jacobs
​
(m. 1875)​
Children
Parent(s)

Early life and education

He was born April 14, 1851 in the parsonage of the Walnut Street Church in Chelsea, Massachusetts, the son of the Rev. William Rice and Catherine Laura North. He attended Springfield High School in Springfield, Massachusetts and Wesleyan University, graduating as salutatorian in 1872. He was a member of the Eclectic Society, and Phi Beta Kappa. He received an A.M. in 1875 and a D.D. degree from Wesleyan in 1893. The Wesleyan archives have his journals in which he describes his college experiences during the early 1870s.[3]

Career

He taught classics at both Springfield High School (1872–73) and Wesleyan University (1874–77).[4] In 1874, he worked in the Springfield City Library. While a faculty member at Wesleyan, he served on the committee on the Annual Examination and the committee on the Olin Prize. He also served as President of the General Alumni Association. His father William Rice was a trustee, and his brother William North Rice was a professor and an acting president of Wesleyan.[5][6]

Rev. C. F. Rice was licensed as a member of the New England Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1873. He served as pastor at Appleton church, Neponset, Boston (1877–80); Wesley chapel, Salem, MA (1880–83; Webster, MA (1883–85), St. Paul's, Lowell, MA (1885–88), Leominster, MA (1888-93), Epworth Methodist Episcopal Church, now Harvard-Epworth United Methodist Church in Cambridge, MA (1893–98).[4] [7] He served at St. Lukes Church in Springfield (1898-1900), which became Wesley Church, Springfield (1900–05). He was then a presiding elder, Superintendent of the Cambridge District (1905-1910), and pastor at Winthrop Street Church in Boston from 1911-1915. He was pastor at South St. Church in Lynn, Massachusetts (1916-1920), then at Wellington Church in Medford, Massachusetts (1921-1925).

He was an incoming trustee of the New England Methodist Conference in 1902, and dealt with the results of unwise investments, which had cost the church thousands of dollars.[8] He was a delegate to the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1904 and 1908, the Inter-church Conference on Federation in 1905, the Federal Council of Churches of Christ in America, 1912, 1916 and 1920. He was President of the Massachusetts Federation of Churches from 1911-1921 and of the Lynn Inter-church Union from 1918-1919. He was also director of the Federation of Churches and Religious Organizations of Greater Boston.[9] He was also chairman of the Conference Board Exam from 1897-1905, president of the New England Educational Society and a member of the Board of Education of the M.E. Church from 1908-12. He was also chairman of the board of managers of the New England Deaconess Association.

He wrote History of Methodism in Webster, Mass., printed in the Webster Times in 1884. He hosted Methodist students of Harvard University in the 'Oxford Club' and presented a paper entitled Life in the Epworth Rectory in 1894.[10] He also served on the visiting committee of the Boston University School of Theology, delivering communion at its Matriculation in 1905. Some of his sermons from Boston University chapel services are included in Noontime Messages in a College Chapel: Sixty-nine short addresses to Young People by Twenty-five Well-known Preachers, printed 1917.

He was a trustee at Wilbraham Wesleyan Academy and president of its board, succeeding his father from 1898-1912. He was a Republican, and a member of the Twentieth Century Club. In 1916, he was listed as a donor to the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children.

Family life

He married Miriam Owen Jacobs (1863-1901) on August 25, 1875. She was the daughter of Dr. Horace Jacobs and Emily Owen Jacobs. She was educated in the Springfield public schools, and graduated with honors from Vassar College in 1874.

Together, they had five children; Laura Owen Rice, William Chauncey Rice, Horace Jacobs Rice, Paul North Rice, and Rachel Caroline Rice.[11] All three sons attended Wesleyan University. Laura Owen Rice attended Vassar College, and Rachel Caroline Rice attended Boston University. After graduating from Wesleyan in 1901, William Chauncey Rice received an A.M in Government from Yale in 1902. He then studied at Harvard, where he earned a law degree in 1908, and later wrote a dissertation on the decline of the Federalist Party in New England in 1912. Horace Jacobs Rice also graduated from Harvard Law School in 1908. Both were admitted to the bar and practiced law in Boston and Springfield respectively. Paul North Rice graduated from the New York Library School and became a notable librarian at the New York Public Library. Laura Owen Rice married The Rev. Dr. William Grant Seaman, who served as minister of the City Methodist Church in Gary, Indiana and as the president of Dakota Wesleyan University. Rachel Caroline Rice married Burton Howard Camp, who was a longtime mathematics professor at Wesleyan University.

The New York Times lists Rev. C. F. Rice and his brother Professor William North Rice as having sailed to Liverpool on the Cunard Line ship, SS Bothnia, and returned on the SS Catalonia in 1881.[12][13] C. F. Rice presented a sketch of his European trip at a meeting of the Essex Institute, in 1882.

In 1898 with William North Rice, he co-authored and published William Rice: A Memorial, a book about their father the Rev. William Rice.

He died in 1927 at his home in Medford, MA. His funeral was held at the Copley Methodist Church in Boston, and he was buried in the Springfield Cemetery.

Genealogy

Charles Francis Rice was a direct descendant of Edmund Rice, an English immigrant to Massachusetts Bay Colony, as follows:[14][15]

  • Charles Francis Rice, son of
  • William Rice (1788–1863), son of
  • Nathan Rice (1760–1838), son of
  • John Rice (1704–1771), son of
  • Ephraim Rice (1665–1732), son of
  • Thomas Rice (1625–1681), son of

References
  1. "Collection of Autograph Letters by Author (P-Z)". BU School of Theology Library.
  2. "REV DR RICE PASSES AWAY AT MEDFORD". Boston Daily Globe. October 3, 1927.
  3. "Popcorn and Walnut Burn". Wesleyan University.
  4. "EPWORTH'S NEW PASTOR. Rev. Charles F. Rice Enters on his New Work—Sketch of His Life". Cambridge Tribune. April 22, 1893.
  5. Wesleyan University Publications ... 1869.
  6. Catalogue. Wesleyan University. 1869.
  7. Rice, William North (1898). William Rice, A Memorial – via babel.hathitrust.org.
  8. "CHURCH LOST BY SPECULATION; New England Methodist Conference Trustees Dropped $20,000 In Unwise Investments". The New York Times. 1902.
  9. Marquis, Albert Nelson (1915). Who's who in New England: A Biographical Dictionary of Leading Living Men ...
  10. "University Calendar". The Harvard Crimson.
  11. Alumni Record. By Wesleyan University (Middletown, Conn.). 1911.
  12. "DEPARTURES FOR EUROPE". The New York Times.
  13. "Passengers Arrived". The New York Times. 1881.
  14. Edmund Rice (1638) Association, 2007. Descendants of Edmund Rice: The First Nine Generations.
  15. "Edmund Rice descendants: First six generations". Edmund Rice (1638) Association, Inc. Retrieved September 27, 2009.
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