Charles Gordon Ames

Charles Gordon Ames (October 3, 1828 – April 15, 1912) was an American Unitarian clergyman, editor and lecturer.

Early life and education Charles Gordon Ames was born on October 3, 1828, in Dorchester, Boston. He was a foundling, adopted by the Lucy (née Foster) and Thomas Ames of Canterbury, New Hampshire, when he was three years old. Ames spent his early years on a farm and at the age of 14, he entered the printing office of the Morning Star, a religious paper of the Free Will Baptists in Dover, New Hampshire. At the age of 18, he became a boy preacher, became licensed, and peached in northern Ohio. He graduated from the Geauga Seminary of Ohio, and was ordained in November 1849 as a Free Will Baptist. On January 1, 1889, Ames succeeded reverend James Freeman Clarke as pastor of the Church of the Disciples in Boston.

Personal life Ames married Sarah Jane Daniels, daughter of John Daniels, on March 28, 1850. His wife died in 1861. He later married activist Fanny Baker Ames, daughter of Increase Baker, of Cincinnati on June 25, 1863. He had one son and two daughters, Charles Wilberforce, Alice Vivian and Edith Theodora.

Ames died on April 15, 1912, at his home on Chestnut Street in Boston.

Publications (with J. Peter Lesley) George Eliot's Two Marriages (1886) As Natural as Life (1894) Hidden Life, a collection of poems Poems (1898) Sermons of Sunrise (1901) Five Points of Faith (1903) Living Largely (1904) Peter and Susan Lesley A Book of Prayers

Awards In 1896, he received the degree of D.D. from Bates College.