Blood, Charles E.

Born: 1810-03-01 Hillsborough County, New Hampshire

Died: 1866-03-25 Knox County, Illinois

Charles E. Blood was a Presbyterian and Congregational minister. Blood spent his early years as an apprentice in his hometown of Mason, New Hampshire. In October 1828, he joined the Congregational Church in Rindge, New Hampshire. His apprenticeship ending at age eighteen, Blood entered New Ipswich Academy for preparatory studies. He later matriculated to Illinois College, graduating in 1837. He enrolled in Lane Theological Seminary in Cincinnati, Ohio, completing his ministerial training in 1840. In September 1840, he married Mary B. Coffin, daughter of Nathaniel Coffin. In November, the Presbytery of Alton, Illinois ordained Blood as pastor of the Presbyterian Church of Collinsville, Illinois. He remained pastor until April 1847, when the Presbytery of Alton dismissed him. Blood remained in Collinsville, teaching school until 1852. In 1852, he became pastor of the Congregational Church in Farmington, Illinois. In 1854, Blood moved to the Kansas Territory as a home missionary under the auspices of the American Home Missionary Society. He began his missionary work in November 1854 on the Blue River, near the settlement of Manhattan, and in April 1855, Blood preached the first sermon in Manhattan. He was the first pastor of the Congregational Church of Manhattan and one of the founders of the town. He remained in Manhattan until 1861, when he returned to Illinois, settling in Knox County, where he served as pastor of Congregational churches in Wataga and Ontario until his death in Wataga from typhoid pneumonia.

The Nationalist (Manhattan, KS), 14 January 1876, 2:2; A. T. Norton, History of the Presbyterian Church, in the State of Illinois (St. Louis: W. S. Bryan, 1879), 1:295; John B. Hill, History of the Town of Mason, N.H. From the First Grant in 1749, to the Year 1858 (Boston: Lucius A. Elliot, 1858), 267; Joseph W. Porter, A Genealogy of the Descendants of Richard Porter, Who Settled at Weymouth, Mass., 1635 (Bangor, ME: Burr & Robinson, 1878), 286; Illinois Statewide Marriage Index, Morgan County, 1 September 1840, Illinois State Archives, Springfield, IL.