Horace Winslow was born on May 18, 1814, in Enfield, Massachusetts, to John H. Winslow and Elizabeth Mills. His father was a veteran of the War of 1812. The family moved to Pittsford, New York, when Winslow was two years old, and he received his early education there. Then, when he was twelve years old, he began working as a clerk in a bookstore in Rochester, New York, receiving $2 per month plus room and board. According to an early biographer, in “his youth he possessed a strong desire to consecrate his life to the service of God, and he planned to secure the necessary preparation.” He attended school in Rochester before enrolling at Hamilton College and then Auburn Theological Seminary.

 

He was ordained in early 1842 and became the pastor of the Presbyterian Church in New Windsor, New York. He moved to Lansingburg, New York, a year later, and then to Rockville, Connecticut, in 1845. Winslow married Charlotte Pettibone on May 8, 1850, in New York City, and they had at least three children: Fanny, born around 1852; Lillian, born around 1856; and Daisy, born around 1861. The family moved to New Britain, Connecticut, in 1852, and then to Great Barrington, Massachusetts, in January 1858. By 1860, they owned $5,000 of personal property.

 

“From early manhood,” one writer later recalled, “he was opposed to slavery,” and by the late 1850s, he supported the Republican Party. When the Civil War erupted, he was an “an ardent defender of the Union.” He enlisted in the Union army on February 6, 1862, and he mustered in as a chaplain in the 5^th Connecticut Infantry six days later.

 

Writing from Front Royal, Virginia, in June 1862, he reported that there was “very little Unionism at all at the south.” The northern papers, he observed, were “filled with talk of Unionism at the south,” but Winslow believed this was a “delusion or a deception.” The “great mass of the southern people are with the rebellion…They mean to fight and fight to the last, and if need be, to the sacrifice of all things. I have never known a more intense and bitter feeling than is manifested in this class…against the government and the north.” In response, he insisted, “the south must be subdued…This is the only alternative, and the sooner it is accepted and the work vigorously begun, the better.”

 

Winslow’s health, however, soon deteriorated, and he was eventually “unable to follow his regiment.” He resigned from the army on August 3, 1862. The following year, he became pastor of the Congregational Church in Binghamton, New York. He remained in poor health for the next few years, and he returned to Connecticut in 1866 in search of a healthier climate. By 1870, he was living in Windham, Connecticut, and he owned $5,500 of real estate and $1,000 of personal property.

 

He remained in Windham until around 1881, and he spent the next few decades moving throughout Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island. He belonged to the American Tract Society, the American Bible Society, and the American Missionary Association. He was also an “active worker in the cause of temperance.” As one writer observed, he was “well known throughout the Eastern States, and is honored for his telling and indefatigable labor in all good causes.” He continued preaching until the final years of his life, and he died in Simsbury, Connecticut, on March 6, 1905.

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