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ALLAGHER, CHARLES WESLEY, pastor, preacher, educator, author, college president, presiding elder and president of the Lucy Webb Hayes National Training School for Missionaries and Deaconesses of the Methodist Episcopal church since 1901, was born in Boston, February 3, 1846. His father, Samuel Chartres Gallagher, was a sailor and captain in early life, later a merchant. He was prominent in work of the Methodist church and was a Sunday-school superintendent for many years; in his son's words "a man of strong moral conviction, great kindliness, and unusual intellectual and physical activity." His mother, Rooxby Moody Foster Gallagher, was a woman whose moral and spiritual life strongly affected her son for good. Hugh Gallagher, who came to Sackville, New Brunswick, about 1775 was his father's earliest known ancestor in America. His mother's ancestors settled at Andover, Massachusetts, in 1640.

The parents of young Gallagher lived at Salem, New Hampshire, until he was fourteen years old. Removing to Chelsea, Massachusetts, with them, as a boy he had regular tasks, farm work and work in the store. "This gave me," he says, "habits of industry, practical ideas, and a sense of duty." He was strong and vigorous, fond of study and of music. The money which supported him while in college he himself earned by teaching singing schools and day schools, and conducting church choirs. He prepared for college at Chelsea, and was graduated from Wesleyan university, Middletown, Connecticut, in 1870. He has received the honorary degree of D.D. Entering the ministry of the Methodist Episcopal church, he took his first pastorate at Guilford, Connecticut; being a member of the New York East Conference of the Methodist Episcopal church. He was the pastor of several churches in Connecticut and in New York until 1879, and in Massachusetts until 1887. For two years he officiated as presiding elder. He then accepted the presidency of Lawrence university, Appleton, Wisconsin, holding the position from 1889-93, and resigning it to become president of the Maine Wesleyan seminary