JH bio on file @Princeton

Jesse Halsey
Father: Charles Henry Halsey
Mother: Melvina D. Terry Halsey
Date of Birth: May 3, 1882, at Southampton, Long Island, NY.

He studied at Southampton High School and joined the First Presbyterian Church there at age 12. He lived on and worked on his father’s farm from 1902 to 1906, covering his college subjects at home due to illness in the family. He came to Princeton, entering the seminary in September 1906 and also taking courses at Princeton University. After studying at Princeton from 1906-1908 he went on to complete his seminary education at Union Theological Seminary in New York City, from which he received his BDiv degree. He was ordained by the Nassau Presbytery on June 6, 1910.

Jesse Halsey served in the Spanish-American War; he worked as a missionary with the Grenfell Labrador Mission in the summer of 1909 and again after his graduation from Union from the summer of 1910 until the winter of 1912; he lectured in the U.S. on behalf of the Grenfell Labrador Mission from the winter of 1912 until June of 1913, and then was called to became pastor of the Seventh Presbyterian Church in Cincinnati, Ohio. He served at the Seventh Presbyterian Church in Cincinnati from September 1913 until December 1941, with the exception of a small break around the time of World War I when he served as a Chaplain at a British naval station and worked with the American Red Cross, and then spent some time working in Russia, with the YMCA in Moscow and with the American Consulate in Murmansk (1917-1918). In 1941 he received a call to be Professor of Pastoral Theology and Liturgics at McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago, where he taught until his retirement in May, 1952. He published articles in theological magazines, newspapers, and the McCormick Seminary official publications, and published two books, “The Living Hope” in 1938 and “Open Prayer” in 1951.

He received an honorary Doctor of Divinity degree from Wooster College in Ohio in 1927, and at various times served as a member of the Pension Board of the Presbyterian Church, USA; as Moderator of the Synod of Ohio; as Moderator of the Cincinnati Presbytery; as Vice-Moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church; as President of the Cincinnati Council of Churches; as a member of the Board of Lane Seminary; as a member of the Board of Western College; and as a member of the Chaplain’s Board in Washington, DC. After his retirement he returned to Southampton, NY, where he lived until his death in 1954.

He married Helen Caroline Isham on March 28, 1910, at Lake Placid, NY. Children were Charles Henry Halsey, born April 6, 1911, and Frederick Isham Halsey, born August 21, 1912, both at St. Anthony in Newfoundland, Canada; Helen Augusta Halsey, born February 8, 1914, and Wilmun Haynes Halsey, born September 30, 1920, both born in Cincinnati; and Abigail Fithian Halsey, born August 9, 1942, at Southampton, Long Island, NY.