Samuel L. Gracey

NOTE: In 2011 Laura M. DiPaolo wrote an exhaustive history of the Methodist Ministers’ burial ground, Section 131 at Mount Moriah. “God’s Forgotten Acre” was published in the Journal of the Historical Society of the EPA Conference (Eastern Pennsylvania Conference of the United Methodist Church). As part of that document, this is the life story she wrote of one of the church’s notable ministers in Philadelphia.

 

A native of Philadelphia, Samuel L. Gracey studied at Boston University and joined the Philadelphia Conference in 1858, receiving his first appointment that year to Port Carbon and Silver Creek. Ordained a deacon in 1860 by Bishop Osmon C. Baker, he served one year at Chestnut Hill, and in March 1861 was appointed to Media in Delaware County. 

He was only there a few weeks when Fort Sumter was fired upon, inaugurating the Civil War. It was later recalled that “as nearly all the male members of his church enlisted in the army, he was constrained to follow them.” In the summer of 1861, Gracey enlisted as the chaplain of the Sixth Pennsylvania Cavalry, also known as Rush’s Lancers for its commander, Colonel Richard H. Rush, a West Point graduate and Philadelphia native.

The Sixth was involved in many major battles of the war, including McClellan’s 1862 Peninsula campaign, Antietam, and Gettysburg. Gracey, who returned briefly to Philadelphia in March 1862 to be ordained an elder, ministered with the Sixth until 1864, after which he served as post chaplain at the Prisoner of War camp at Rock Island, Illinois.

In the spring of 1865 he rejoined his regiment briefly, just before it was mustered out of service. In 1868 Gracey published a well regarded history of the regiment, entitled, Annals of the Sixth Pennsylvania Cavalry; it has been republished periodically, most recently in a 1996 edition that included a new introduction.

After the war, Gracey returned to ministry, serving several years locally in Smyrna, Delaware and publishing Anniversary Gems: Consisting of Addresses, Conversations and Scripture Illustrations for the Sunday School, Concert or Anniversary (Philadelphia: Perkinpine and Higgins, 1870).

In 1870 he transferred to the New England Conference, serving pastorates there until 1890. He also became involved in local politics, winning a seat in the state legislature for two terms from Salem, Massachusetts.

In 1890 he was appointed by President William Henry Harrison to serve as U.S. Consul to Foochow, China, serving there three years until he was recalled briefly during the administration of President Grover Cleveland. In 1897 Rev. Gracey was reappointed by President McKinley, and served in China until 1907.

During his tenure, China was torn by the Boxer Rebellion, a massive uprising of nationalist Chinese which sought to throw out foreign influences, specifically targeting missionaries and Chinese Christian converts. Gracey later received from the Chinese government an award, the Decoration of the Double Dragon, for his participation in helping to suppress the rebellion.

Gracey was married twice, first in 1860 to Lenora Thompson of Philadelphia, by whom he had four children [all of whom were buried with him]. She died in 1897 and he remarried in 1900 to Corda Pratt of North Middleton, Massachusetts. By 1911 his health was failing and, according to newspaper accounts, in August of that year Samuel Gracey committed suicide with a razor while a patient at a Boston hospital.

His body was transported to Philadelphia to be buried in the Ministers’ Lot of Mount Moriah Cemetery. His stone reads, “Soldier – Clergyman – Diplomat.”