Augustus Hopkins Strong

Augustus Hopkins Strong (3 August 1836 – 29 November 1921) was a Baptist minister and theologian who lived in the United States during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. His most influential book, Systematic Theology, proved to be a mainstay of Baptist theological education.

Early life and education

Augustus Hopkins Strong was born on August 3, 1836, in Rochester, New York. He was a descendant of "Elder John Strong, of Northampton, Massachusetts." His grandfather was a "physician of considerable eminence", who moved from Warren, Connecticut, to Scipio, New York, in 1799, then to Rochester in 1821. His father, Alvah Strong, was the printer of such early Rochester newspapers as the Anti-Masonic Enquirer, the Morning Advertiser, and the Weekly Republican, before becoming the longtime proprietor of The Daily Democrat. Both his father and eldest uncle were deacons of the First Baptist Church of Rochester, and helped found the Rochester Theological Seminary (RTS), in 1850, the institution over which he would later preside. RTS would later become Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School.

Strong's younger brother, Henry A. Strong, was a successful businessman and philanthropist who served as Eastman Kodak's first president. His youngest uncle became a Forty-niner in the California Gold Rush, after losing both his wife and infant son. A first cousin twice removed, Theodore C. Achilles would later become a diplomat, another such cousin would marry Margaret Woodbury Strong, and a niece would marry George R. Carter.