Pastor of the Central Baptist Church at Providence, Rhode Island, from 1911 to 1931. Dr. Clarence Mason Gallup has been an important figure in the city’s life for many years, and one of the leaders in the work of his denomination in the North. He was born at Norwich, Connecticut, on October 2, 1874, a son of Loren Aborn and Elizabeth Hooker (Kinney) Gallup. This family is a very old one in New England, being descended from John Gallup, who came from County Dorset, England, to Boston in 1630, with the party of Governor Winthrop, and who served as captain in the Colonial forces, and assisted in founding Norwich, Connecticut, with other Connecticut enterprises. Members of his family in later generations continued the traditions of usefulness and prominence which Captain John Gallup established.
Loren Abom Gallup, father of Dr. Clarence Mason Gallup of this record, was a wholesale merchant by occupation, and a leader in the civic life at Norwich, Connecticut, where he had resided from his youth. During the period of the Civil War he enlisted for service in the Union cause, and became captain of Company F, 26th Regiment, Connecticut Volunteers, leading his company in its campaigns and engagements as a part of the Army of the Mississippi. Later he became a member of the staff of the Commander-in-Chief of the Grand Army of the Republic.
Clarence Mason Gallup received his preliminary education at Norwich Free Academy, from which he was graduated in 1891. Later he entered Brown University, taking the Bachelor of Arts degree in 1896, and continuing his preparations for the ministry at the Divinity School of the University of Chicago, from which he was graduated in 1900 with the Bachelor of Divinity degree. In 1915 Brown University conferred upon him the further degree of Doctor of Divinity.
Meanwhile, Dr. Gallup had come to Providence in his pastoral work. He was ordained to the Baptist ministry in 1900, and for the year following was pastor of the Second Baptist Church at Southington, Connecticut. From 1901 to 1903 he was junior pastor at Emmanuel Baptist Church, Albany, New York, and, in 1903-04, assistant to the secretary of the General Education Board in New York City. From 1904 to 1911 Dr. Gallup was pastor of the First Baptist Church at New Bedford, Massachusetts, and in the latter year was called to the Central Baptist Church in Providence, whose pulpit he has since filled until February, 1931. In addition he has been recording secretary of the Northern Baptist Convention since 1928, a member of the Ministers and Missionaries Benefit Board since 1911, and a director of the Rhode Island Baptist State Convention since 1912. He is also recording secretary of the Executive Committee of the Northern Baptist Convention, and a member of the Board of Missionary Cooperation of the Convention.
Dr. Gallup is a member of the Rhode Island Society of the Sons of the American Revolution. He is affiliated with the Brown Chapter of Phi Delta Theta; with the honorary scholastic fraternity, Phi Beta Kappa; with the Brown Cammarian Club; and is a member of several other clubs, including the Providence Civitan Club. He is a member of the Providence Theological Circle, the Boston Theological Circle, and the Providence Ministers Conference.
On June 28, 1899, at Norwich, Connecticut, Clarence Mason Gallup married Mary Alice Hovey, daughter of William Henry and Eleanor Prosser (Cranston) Hovey. They are the parents of one son, Frederick Sherer, born on August 15, 1900, who also is a clergyman in the active ministry. Dr. and Mrs. Gallup continue to reside in Providence, at No. 96 Lorraine Avenue, although Dr. Gallup, after a ministry of thirty-one years, has retired from the active pastorate and is extensively engaged in the executive work of the Northern Baptist Convention.
Source: Carroll, Charles. Rhode Island: Three Centuries of Democracy, vol 3 of 4. New York: Lewis historical Pub. Co., 1932.