George Hepworth was born on February 4, 1833, in Boston, Massachusetts, United States, the son of George Hepworth, machinist, a native of Dewsbury, England, by his second wife, Mrs. Charlotte (Salter) Smith. The latter, a sister of William Salter, the English painter, was born in London but was of French and Spanish descent on her mother’s side. When George Hughes was six years old, the family moved to a farm in Newton where he acquired a love of outdoor life which he never lost.
In 1846 George enrolled in the Latin School. His gift for writing early manifested itself in stories and verses contributed to the South Boston Gazette. His parents were Unitarians, and from boyhood he had anticipated becoming a minister. Accordingly, in 1852 he entered the Harvard Divinity School, from which he graduated in 1855. In two years he returned to Cambridge for graduate work at the Divinity School.
George Hepworth’s first parish was on the island of Nantucket, where, September 12, 1855, at the Second Congregational Church, Unitarian, he was ordained. On October 6, 1858, he was installed pastor of the recently organized Church of the Unity, Boston, which he served until October 6, 1869.
Granted nine months’ leave of absence in 1862, Hepworth accompanied the 47th Regiment to Louisiana as chaplain. General Banks secured him a commission as first lieutenant of the 4th Louisiana Native Guards, a negro regiment; detailed him as aide-de-camp; and made him supervisor of the negro labor system. After his return he published The Whip, Hoe, and Sword (1864), a highly partisan account of Southern life. The following year one of his sermons, The Criminal; the Crime; the Penalty, an intemperate arraignment of Jefferson Davis concluding with a demand for his execution, was issued. Two Sermons (1865) inspired by Lincoln’s death, and a Fourth of July oration, 1867, voice the implacable post-war spirit of the North.
Hepworth’s preaching - practical, fervid, colorful - attracted many. He was especially interested in bringing religion to the masses and in 1867 instituted theatre preaching in Boston. He also established the short-lived Boston School for Ministers, designed to train earnest young men for mission work. In 1869 he became pastor of the Church of the Messiah, New York, and the following year published Rocks and Shoals: Lectures to Young Men.
Evangelical in temperament, and having attempted without success to persuade the Unitarians to issue a positive statement of their beliefs, in 1872 Hepworth affiliated with the Congregationalists. The Church of the Disciples, institutional in its design, was organized, and he was its pastor until the spring of 1879. During this period he revealed his nautical knowledge and love for the sea in Starboard and Port (1876). At the time of the Irish famine in 1880 he was abroad, and James Gordon Bennett made him the American representative on the committee for the distribution of the New York Herald’s relief fund. After his return he was pastor of the Belleville Avenue Congregational Church, Newark, until 1885, but became increasingly occupied with writing and editorial work.
Besides contributing essays and stories to periodicals, Hepworth had for some time written “Chat by the Way” for the Herald, and in 1882 Bennett made him one of its editorial writers, appointing him superintending editor in 1885, and in 1893 putting the Telegram in his charge. In 1897 Bennett sent Hepworth to Anatolia to make a survey of the Armenian situation. His observations were published in Through Armenia on Horseback (1898), highly commended for its sound judgment and impartial spirit.
George Hepworth is best remembered as editor of the New York Herald, which position he held from 1885 to 1897. He published weekly sermons in the Herald, which attracted wide attention. Four volumes of these were printed, Herald Sermons (1894); Herald Sermons (1897); We Shall Live Again (1903); Making the Most of Life (1904). Among his other well-known publications are Hiram Golfs Religion (1893); Brown Studies, or Camp-Fires and Morals (1895); The Farmer and the Lord (1896); The Queerest Man Alive and Other Stories (1897).
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In 1872 Hepworth left the Unitarian Church and affiliated with the Congregationalists.
On April 25, 1860, George Hepworth married Adaline A. Drury, daughter of Gardner P. Drury of Boston.
