Background
Howard Crosby, the son of William Bedlow and Harriet (Ashton) Crosby, was born in New York City on Feburary 27, 1826.
Howard Crosby, the son of William Bedlow and Harriet (Ashton) Crosby, was born in New York City on Feburary 27, 1826.
Howard Crosby graduated in 1844 from New York University where he was one of the founding fathers of the Gamma Chapter of the Delta Phi Fraternity, and became professor of Greek at NYU in 1851.
Upon his return in 1851 Howard Crosby published his first book, Lands of the Moslem, and in the same year he became professor of Greek at his alma mater, where he remained until 1859. During this period he taught a Bible class of boys, and helped to organize the New York Young Men’s Christian Association, of which he was the second president.
In 1859 Howard Crosby went to Rutgers as professor of Greek. Two years later he published Scholia on the New Testament (1861), and was ordained to the Presbyterian ministry, adding to his academic work the pastorate of the First Presbyterian Church of New Brunswick. In the same year President Lincoln offered him the post of minister to Greece, but he declined it.
In 1863 he accepted a call to the pulpit of the Fourth Avenue Presbyterian Church in New York City, where he spent the rest of his life.
Howard Crosby was moderator of the Presbyterian General Assembly in 1873 and in 1877 a delegate to the first Presbyterian General Council at Edinburgh. Inheriting traditions both of scholarship and of public service, he united in a rare degree scholarly tastes with zest for public affairs.
In 1879-80 he delivered the Yale Lectures on Preaching, which were published in 1880 as The Christian Preacher.
Howard Crosby's keen sense of civic responsibility, however, prompted him to a much wider sphere of activity than study and pulpit afford, while his ardor for righteousness and human well-being made him a champion of numerous reforms. He founded the Society for the Prevention of Crime and served as its president.
Howard Crosby was active in the cause of temperance, though opposed to prohibition, and, aided by his son, Ernest Howard Crosby, was prominent in the attempt to secure high-license laws for New York State.
He was also much interested in the effort to secure an international copyright law.
Howard Crosby was a member of the Council of the University of the City of New York; a member of the New Testament Company of the American Revision Committee.
Though a man of bold courage, and a born fighter, he was always a courteous gentleman, kind even to his foes, so that among all classes he was held in high esteem.
After a period of ill health during which he helped to run a farm owned by his father, Howard Crosby married to Margaret E. Givan and traveled abroad.