Christopher H. Yearwood

Christopher H. Yearwood was born February 28, 1878 in Georgetown, British Guiana (capital of present-day Guyana), to Methodist preacher and cabinet maker Thomas Richard Yearwood and Louisa Prescod Yearwood. Christopher Yearwood followed in his father’s footsteps from early in his life, training as Methodist minister and attending Queens College in Georgetown before moving to the United States. Even during his brief two-year period studying medicine, first at Boston College of Physicians and Surgeons and later at Harvard Medical School, Yearwood continued to preach. He turned towards religious pursuits full-time when he enrolled in the Yale Divinity School, and he preached in New Haven at the Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church from 1908 to 1911. While at Yale he was also a member of Zeta Chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha. He continued to pastor for Bethel AME churches in New Bedford, Massachusetts and in Providence, Rhode Island in subsequent years, and was also a member of the General Conference of the African Methodist Episcopal Church and general secretary of the New England Conference of Bethel AME. Yearwood died on October 29, 1913 at the age of 35, following a prolonged illness.