Bethune, George Washington

BETHUNE, be-thūn´, GEORGE WASHINGTON: Reformed (Dutch) clergyman; b. in Greenwich, now a part of New York City, Mar. 18, 1805; d. at Florence, Italy, Apr. 27, 1862. He was graduated at Dickinson College, Carlisle, Pa., 1823; studied at Princeton Seminary 1823–25; served for a year as missionary among the negroes and sailors at Savannah, Ga.; was ordained Nov., 1827, and was pastor of Reformed (Dutch) churches at Rhinebeck (1827–30) and Utica (1830–34), N. Y., Philadelphia (First Church, 1834–37; Third Church, 1837–49), and Brooklyn (1851–59); was associate minister at the Twenty-first Street Church, New York, 1859–61. He was famed as a preacher and orator, as a poet, and as a wit. Of his numerous publications, perhaps that of most permanent value was his edition of Walton's Complete Angler (New York, 1847; new ed., 2 vols., 1880).

Bibliography: A. R. Van Nest, Memoirs of Rev. George W. Bethune, 2 vols.; New York, 1880.