Thomas Laurie

Rv Thomas Laurie DD United Kingdom 1821-1897. Born at Edinburgh, Midlothian, Scotland, he was an author, composer, editor, and missionary who migrated to the U.S. and attended Illinois College in 1838 and Andover Seminary (MA) in 1841. He was ordained as a foreign missionary by the Presbytery of Illinois. He became a member of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM). In 1842 he married Martha Fletcher Osgood (12 years his senior), and they had two daughters: Martha and Annie. They went to Mosul, Iraq, to help the ABCFM in southeastern Turkey as missionaries to the Nestorians. Martha died in 1843. When that mission was discontinued, he was transferred to the Syrian mission in 1844. He returned to the U.S. in 1846 due to ill health. IN 1848 he married Ellen Amanda Ellis. He then pastored the Congregational church in West Roxbury, MA in 1851-67. In 1867-68 he pastored the High Street Congregational Church in Providence, RI, after which he became the first pastor of the Pilgrim Congregational Church of Providence 1869-85. He was made a corporate member of ABCFM in 1875. He wrote extensively on missions and published works on the following genres: bibliography, history, biography, church history, sermons, dictionaries, and devotional literature. He authored 10 books, largely about foreign mission efforts. His most prominent publication was “The Ely Volume”, (the contributions of our foreign missions to science and human well-being). This included many topics of cultural life found at foreign mission sites and how physical and cultural conditions there were changed and improved from missionary efforts. He died of cystitis at Providence, RI. 84 works.

John Perry