Edward B. Coe

Among the pastors of our New York churches, none was more loved than Edward Benton Coe. He was graduated from Yale in the Class of ’62, and, showing rare linguistic gifts, was soon made Professor there of Modern Languages. He held that position until, feeling peremptorily drawn to the Ministry, he was licensed to preach, and in 1879 accepted a call to ordination from the Collegiate Church. He was given the pastoral charge of the Church at Fifth Avenue and Forty-Eighth Street, which became widely influential under his devoted pastorate and admirable preaching. Dr. Coe was a Manager of the Presbyterian Hospital, a Trustee of Rutgers College and of Robert College, Constantinople, and for nearly twenty years a Trustee of Columbia University, and chairman of one of its important committees. In 1874, he married Mary Jenks Storrs, a daughter of Dr. Storrs of Brooklyn.

Dr. Coe had close friends in The Century, where he had served on the Board of Management. His was a scholar’s nature and equipment; his also was purity, devotion, gentleness, and the blessed gift of turning men toward good.

Henry Osborn Taylor
1915 Century Association Yearbook