Slicer, Henry

Born: 1801-03-27 Annapolis, Maryland

Died: 1874-04-23 Baltimore, Maryland

Slicer was a Methodist Episcopal minister and chaplain of the U.S. Senate on three occasions. Receiving his early education in his hometown of Annapolis, Maryland, Slicer moved to Baltimore in 1816 to take up an apprenticeship as a furniture painter and gilder. In 1817, he became a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church and commenced theological study. He received his license to preach in December 1821. In April 1822, the Baltimore Methodist Episcopal Conference appointed him to itinerant duties on the Hartford Circuit. A year later, he received appointment to the Redstone Circuit, which was west of the Allegheny Mountains. In 1824, the conference assigned him to the Ebenezer Station, near the Navy Yard, in Washington, DC. He subsequently served successively at Fredericksburg, Virginia, and Baltimore, where in 1827, he married Elizabeth Roberts. From 1828 to 1831, he traveled the Great Falls and Baltimore circuits, and in 1832, he became presiding elder of the Potomac District. After two years at the Georgetown station, Slicer received appointment as chaplain of the U.S. Senate, the first of three terms. During his first term, a duel occurred in September 1838 between Jonathan Cilley and William J. Graves, both members of the U.S. House of Representatives, which resulted in Cilley's death. Slicer denounced dueling in his prayer at Cilley's funeral, and he later delivered a sermon that helped convince Congress to pass legislation banning duelling in the District of Columbia. In December 1846, the Senate again appointed him chaplain, a position he held until 1849. He served his third term from 1853 to 1855. Between his stints as chaplain, he held appointments in Frederick, Maryland, Baltimore, and was presiding elder of two Baltimore districts. In 1862, the Methodist Episcopal Conference named him chaplain of the Seaman's Union Chapel, Baltimore, where he served until 1870.

Baltimore: Past and Present. With Biographical Sketches of its Representative Men (Baltimore: Richardson & Bennett, 1871), 457-62; "Henry Slicer," The Ladies' Repository 35, 3rd Series (October 1875), 2:380; Lorenzo D. Johnson, Chaplains of the General Government, with Objections to their Employment Considered (New York: Sheldon, Blakeman, 1856), 61.