Cornelius Thaddeus Shaffer

Cornelius Thaddeus Shaffer the twenty-ninth bishop of the A. M. E. Church, the third son of John and Margaret Shaffer, was born in Troy, Ohio, January 3, 1847. He attended the public schools of his native state and of Indiana. When he was but little past seventeen years of age he enlisted as a soldier in the Civil War. On returning from the war, feeling the need of further preparation for his life work, he soon after, being in Kentucky, entered Berea College, pursuing his studies for more than two years. Later, after his entrance into the ministry, he took up special courses in Cadiz, Ohio, under the superintendent of the public schools; in Brooklyn, N. Y., with a Jewish Rabbi, and in Philadelphia, with Dr. W. R. Harper, the late president of the University of Chicago, and finally he entered Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia, graduating with the degree of M.D., in the Class of 1888. The degree of D.D. was first conferred upon him by Allen University, Columbia, S. C., 1888. Later Wilberforce University honored him with the same degree–D.D., and finally with the degree of LL.D., he having been most actively engaged in the work of development and maintenance of the said Wilberforce University throughout his entire public career. He was converted in the A. M. E. Church and united with the same in 1861; he held nearly every office in the Church, being licensed to preach in 1867, by his brother, Rev. G. H. Shaffer, D.D., at Frankfort, Ky., where he was at that time engaged in business. He was admitted into the conference and itinerancy by Bishop Payne, at Bowling Green, Ky., in 1870, and was immediately transferred to the Ohio Conference in his native state, and stationed at Newark, Ohio. He was ordained deacon by Bishop Payne, at Portsmouth, Ohio, 1872, and elder by the same bishop in 1874, at Zanesville, Ohio, from whose hand he received eleven consecutive annual appointments. He served the following charges as pastor: Newark, Ohio, one year; Delaware, two years; Cadiz, one year; Xenia, Ohio, three years, when he was transferred by Bishop Payne to the New York Conference, and stationed at Fleet Street Church, Brooklyn, N. Y., which church he served three years. He was again transferred by the same bishop and stationed at Allen Chapel, Philadelphia, which he served four years. He was then transferred by Bishop Payne to Baltimore Conference, and appointed to Mother Bethel, Baltimore, Md., serving said church two years, when he was returned to the Philadelphia Conference, and stationed at Union Church, Philadelphia, which he served for two years, when the late Bishop H. M. Turner, at the most earnest solicitation of the officiary of the Mother Church (Bethel), Philadelphia, assigned him to the said church, where during two years, which filled up the limit possible in any one city, he paid off a mortgage of $900 on the old church, purchased additional ground costing $6000, laid the plans, tore down the old church and erected the present and new Bethel, at a cost of $50,000, on which he paid more than $20,000. This was in 1889-91. As pastor he lifted mortgages and paid on principal debts as follows: Newark, Ohio, $300; Fleet Street, Brooklyn, N. Y., $1500; Allen Chapel, Philadelphia, $5000; Union Church, Philadelphia, $9000; Bethel, Philadelphia; old mortgage of $900 on new building, $20,000. During his pastorate he took into the Church about 1400 members, as presiding elder and bishop about 300 more, or about 1700 members; he baptized about 400, married 350 couples. He was the grand secretary of the Good Templars of the World for the State of New York, composed of both races, and was elected as delegate to the Good Templars Grand Lodge of the World, which met in Liverpool, England, 1879, whose head was the world famous Hon. William E. Gladstone. He was fraternal delegate from the A. M. E. to the M. E. General Conference which met in New York, 1888. A delegate to the World’s Congress of Religions in Chicago, 1893, and delegate to the Ecumenical Conference, which met in London in 1901, though he did not go as he had to make a trip to Africa early in 1902. He was also a member of the Ecumenical meeting in Toronto, in 1911. He was elected secretary-treasurer of the Church Extension Department, 1892, which he organized and developed from not a single penny to the sum of $104,875.30, leaving in the treasury when he turned it over to his successor, in 1900, $12,025.79, as a cash balance; though he had aided some 500 churches, schools and departments, of the connection, he served the department for the first year without salary, serving as presiding elder of the Philadelphia P. E. District, from which he received his support; and this though during the year he collected for the department $4,817.07, which was placed in savings banks at 3 per cent. interest for the department. He was elected bishop at Columbus, Ohio, in May, 1900, and assigned to preside over the fifth Episcopal district embracing more than one-quarter of the territory of the U. S. A., with a stretch from St. Louis to Seattle, Wash, of nearly 3000 miles. Yet on the death of Bishop M. M. Moore, D.D., his colleague and classmate, he accepted in addition to his own work, Bishop Moore’s work in Africa. He visited said field in 1902; held the Sierra Leone and the Liberia Conferences, delivered nine sermons and addresses in the country; arranged to secure 100 acres of land near Arthington, Liberia, as a school farm for a boys’ industrial school. On his way home, in the City of Liverpool, he purchased the iron for the building, paid for and shipped the same to the Rev. Curtis, acting superintendent for the erection of the first school building ever erected by the A. M. E. Church on the continent of Africa for the education of the native African youth on their native soil, which school was established, built and all the debts paid off under his administration of that work. The school was originally established and known as “The Industrial Institute for Boys,” the name being changed by the people there to the “Shaffer Boys’ High School,” as it is now called. A most interesting feature of this educational movement in Africa was that the National Legislature of Liberia passed a bill appropriating from the National Treasury $2500, to be paid in annual installments of $500 toward the maintenance of the school for five years. During his administration of the fifth Episcopal district the school work of the Western University, of Kansas City, Kans., was specially fostered and developed, and the most permanent building of the plant, “The Stanley Hall,” with a splendid assembly room or chapel being erected and duly dedicated. From 1904 to 1912, two quadrenniums, he presided over the fourth Episcopal district, embracing the Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Michigan, Ontario and the two Kentucky Conferences; 1912-1916 he presided over the third Episcopal district, embracing the Ohio, North Ohio, West Virginia and the Pittsburgh Conferences. In all of these fields he has always been very painstaking and successful in his work whatever the sphere. He was united in marriage to Miss Annie Marie Taylor, of Lexington, Ky., in 1870. To this union three children were born, two girls–Mary Naomi and Claria Belzoora, both of whom passed away in infancy, while their son, Carl Wilberforce survives. He was graduated from the Pharmaceutical College of Howard University, as doctor of pharmacy. The bishop has written a number of pamphlets, lectures, addresses, and is the author and publisher of several works to unify and facilitate the work of the pastor, presiding elder and the quarterly and annual conference work, such as “The Minister’s Companion,” “The Presiding Elder’s Quarterly Journal,” “The Quarterly Conference Journal,” “The Annual Conference Statistical Journal,” making a complete set of most practical, helpful and time-saving publications which fill a great need of the Church.