John T. Hammond
Attended Yale Divinity School 1890-1891
Biography
John T. Hammond was born enslaved on April 26, 1853, in Frederick County, Maryland. He would go on to serve across the country as a pastor. He was assigned his first pastorate in Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, before moving to Ohio in 1875 and enrolling at Wilberforce University. According to a biographical account published by the A. M. E. Church Conference, he studied at Wilberforce from 1875 to 1881 while also serving as a pastor in Ohio for Selma, South Charleston, Harveysburg, and Columbus. And after leaving Wilberforce, he continued pastoring within Ohio, serving Lancaster, Rennville, and Circleville. Between 1886 and 1890, he served the A. M. E. churches in Seaford, Delaware, and Carlisle, Pennsylvania.1
In 1890, Hammond moved to New Haven to serve as pastor at Bethel A. M. E. Church. While there, he enrolled at the Yale Divinity School as a resident licentiate where he attended lectures. He left New Haven after a year of study at the Yale Divinity School, being reassigned to pastor for Bethel A.M.E. Church in Smyrna, Delaware. He left Delaware in 1893 to serve as a pastor for Tacoma, Washington, and as a board member for the Northwest Conference. After spending two years in Tacoma, he briefly preached in Springfield, Massachusetts, before returning to Pennsylvania and preaching in the towns of Carlisle and Mercersburg. He later moved to preach at Salem, New Jersey, where, in 1905, he was made the presiding elder of the Camden District within the A. M. E. Church.2
After attending the A. M. E. General Conference in Kansas City, Hammond died of heart failure on the way to New Jersey in Philadelphia. He was survived by his wife and daughter.3
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R. R. Wright, Jr., ed., Who's Who in the General Conference of 1912: Portraits and Sketches (Philadelphia: AME Book Concern, 1912), 72; “Town and Country,” Harrisburg Telegraph, May 17, 1874, 3; “The African Methodists,” The Philadelphia Times, May 20, 1886, 2; “Columbia News,” Lancaster New Era, May 17, 1887, 1. ↩
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Catalogue of Yale University, CXCI Year, 1890-1891 (New Haven, CT: Tuttle, Morehouse & Taylor, Printers, 1891), 228; “Local News,” The Morning Journal-Courier, June 22, 1891, 2; “Smyrna,” Delaware Gazette and State Journal, May 28, 1891, 4; “Methodist Conference Appointments,” Vancouver Daily Columbian, September 14, 1894, 1; “Religions,” Carlisle Evening Herald, February 16, 1895; “Personal Mention,” Carlisle Evening Herald, September 26, 1899; “Local Briefs.” Gloucester County Democrat, April 20, 1905, 5. ↩
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“Rev. J. T. Hammond Dead,” The Sentinel, May 24, 1912, 8. ↩
