Outagamie-Grant County WI Archives Biographies.....Monroe, Charles W. 1821 - 
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Joy Fisher http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00001.html#0000031 August 9, 2008, 2:43 pm

Author: J. F. Fuller

Charles W. Monroe.

THE first man to serve this church was Mr. Charles W. Munroe, still living in
quiet retirement in Cambridge, Mass., happy in the retrospect of his early work.
He was born in Boston, Mass., Oct. 27th, 1821; prepared for college in the
Boston Latin school and Leicester academy, and entered Yale college in 1837,
when but sixteen years old, remaining two years. In 1845 he entered the junior
year at Harvard college and graduated in 1847. His theological course was taken
at the seminary at Andover, Mass., where he graduated in 1849. October 3d, 1849,
he married Miss Susan M. Hall, at Geneva, N. Y., and immediately came west to
enter service under the auspices of the American Home Missionary Society. He
reported for duty at Galena, Ill., and was appointed missionary at Patch Grove,
Grant county, Wis., and began his work there in December, 1849.

     In response to a request from Frederick Packard, Esq., to recommend some
one to come to Appleton to engage in church work, his home pastor, Rev. Dr.
Kirk, of Boston, wrote Mr. Monroe, advising him to change his location to this
place. In November, 1850, after eleven months' work at Patch Grove, Mr. Monroe,
with his wife and six weeks old babe, started on their trip of two hundred miles
across a new country, with almost no facilities for travel, reaching here in
December, 1850.

     Incidentally, it may not be improper to state here that this six weeks old
babe is now known by well read boys as Kirk Monroe, the popular writer of
entertaining story books.

     Mr. Monroe remained here until the last of September, 1854. During these
four years sixty-nine members were admitted to the church, which for the first
three years had no home, the little flock worshiping in three or four different
places, long since obliterated save from the memories of a very few of the early
worshipers.

     Of these four years' service in an almost unbroken wilderness, with only
the most primitive appliances in all lines of comfort, we are left to imagine
the privations these pioneers so heroically endured. During Mr. Monroe's time
many of the existing Christian activities of the church had their inception; the
Sunday school, however, had been opened the year before the organization of the
church. After leaving the field Mr. Monroe went to Fort Howard, where he
preached but a short time. It is probable that the continued ill health of Mrs.
Monroe, incapacitating her for active participation in the work, coupled with
the pressing necessity of his attention to his aged father's business affairs,
led him to give up his chosen life work.

     Mrs. Monroe passed to her reward Oct. 5th, 1896. A deserved tribute to her
memory was given in the Annual Report for 1897, of the Ladies' Home Missionary
and Church Aid Society connected with the Shepard Memorial church of Cambridge,
Mass., of which she had long been an esteemed and efficient member.


Additional Comments:

Extracted from:

THE FIRST CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH.
APPLET0N, WIS.

PREPARED FOR THE
SEMI-CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY, DEC. 18, 1900.
BY
J. F. FULLER, A. M., Compiler of the "Fuller" Genealogy.

1850—1900.
APPLETON PRINTING CO.,
APPLETON, WIS.


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