Reverend Asa Seaverence Fiske b. Mar. 2, 1833, in Strongsville, Ohio; m. at Madison, Conn, Sept. 6, 1859, Elizabeth, Worthington Hand. He was born at Strongsville, Ohio, in a big storm of snow and wind, in a pioneer log house; was brought back to Massachusetts when about six years old; went to common schools; worked on the farm; taught school in New Jersey a year when he was 15 and when 17 got into college at Amherst in 1851. He taught school winters, got through with a house appointment at graduation; taught afterward at Canandaigua boys' boarding and day schools. Went to Andover Theological Seminary; was called back to Amherst as tutor; was licensed to preach by the Franklin County Congregational Association in 1857; was tutor at Amherst and preached all through western Massachusetts for two years; leaving there went to St. Paul, Minn, for rest; preached there for a new First Congregational Church—the Plymouth; was ordained and installed first pastor in 1859; married in 1859; enlisted in the army in 1861; was elected chaplain of the Fourth Minnesota Volunteer Infantry same year; went into the field first after the battle of Shiloh; served through' the war with his regiment or on detailed service, by special order of Gen. Grant. He returned to civil life in the summer of 1865; entered at once on the pastorate of the Second Congregational Church of Rockville, Conn, which was nearly doubled in strength in the course of a five years' ministry there; was called thence to St. Peters Presbyterian Church of Rochester, N.Y in 1870; the church grew and he paid off an old debt of $30,000. Then he was unexpectedly called to the Flarvard Church, San Francisco, Cal. In that city he remained in the pastorate of the Harvard Street Church for nine years. Thence he was called to the pastorate of the First Church, Ithaca, N. Y , where he still is. In the war times with Gen. John Eaton, J r , he had a large hand in organizing freedmens affairs on the Mississippi River; armed and equipped the first colored company of soldiers: built two log house towns of more than 1,000 houses each, and married 119 couples in half an hour. He was sent by Gen. Grant to Washington to endeavor to prevent the transfer of freedmen's affairs to a civil department, and to keep it in the department of war. Sumner's bill for such transfer was defeated and the Freedmen's Bureau was organized in the war office as was desired. He was employed afterward by the Bureau of Education to visit and report on the various penal and reformatory institutions of New England and the Middle States. Papers published in Reports of Bureau of Education, Washington, D. C. He was afterward invited to go as Government Commissioner to an International Conference in London, of the departments of education of the various governments of europe and the United States, and to examine and report on the European National Educational systems, and their working. But, as he had only lately accepted (?) to the church at Rochester and as it was anxious for his immediate service, he was constrained to decline so inviting an appointment. He has been too busy to write any books. A good many sermons and addresses on various occasions have been published and he has tried to do his duty by the newspapers religious and others as well as he could, and in all the reforms, temperance, civil service and civic federation lines as well as he has been able.

(FISKE AND FISK FAMILY BEING THE RECORD OF THE Descendants of Symond Fiske, Lord of the Manor of Stadhaugh, Suffolk County, England... by FREDERICK CLIFTON PIERCE.)