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[[File:Frederick Bohn Fisher circa 1920.jpg|thumb|Frederick Bohn Fisher circa 1920]]
'''Frederick Bohn Fisher''' (14 February 1882 – 15 April 1938) was a [[bishop]] of the [[Methodist Episcopal Church]], elected in 1920. He also gained notability as a pastor, missionary, author, and official in the Methodist missionary and men's{{clarify|date=February 2016}} movements. He is also one of the founders of the prestigious Mount Hermon School, Darjeeling. The yellow house in Mount Hermon School is named after him as Fisher House.
==Birth and family==
Fisher was born in [[Greencastle, Pennsylvania]]. He was of [[English people|English]] [[ancestry]], the son of James Edward and Josephine ([[née]] Shirey) Fisher. He married Edith Jackson 4 February 1903. In 1924 he married [[Welthy Honsinger Fisher|Welthy Honsinger]].<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://digilib.bu.edu/mission/home/16-d2f/21-fisher-welthy-honsinger-1879-1980.html |title=Archived copy |access-date=2009-06-17 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090523022241/http://digilib.bu.edu/mission/home/16-d2f/21-fisher-welthy-honsinger-1879-1980.html |archive-date=2009-05-23 |url-status=dead }}</ref>

==Education==
He graduated from [[Muncie, Indiana|Muncie]], [[Indiana]] [[High school (North America)|High School]]. He earned both [[Bachelor of Science|B.S.]] and [[Bachelor of Arts|A.B.]] degrees from [[Asbury University]] in 1902. He studied at both [[Boston University]] and [[Harvard Divinity School]], 1907-08.

==Ordained ministry and missionary service==
Rev. Fisher entered the North Indiana [[Annual Conference]] of the [[Methodist Episcopal Church|M.E. Church]], serving as [[Pastor]] in [[Kokomo, Indiana]] (1903). He then went as a [[Missionary]] to [[Agra, India]] (the North West [[India]] Conference), serving 1904-05. He transferred his conference membership to the [[New England Annual Conference]], serving the First [[Methodist Episcopal|M.E.]] Church in [[Boston]] (1907).

Rev. Fisher then became the Eastern Field [[Secretary]] for the Board of Foreign [[Mission (Christian)|Missions]] of the M.E. Church (1911–12). He was then appointed the [[General Secretary]] of the [[Laymen]]'s Missionary Movement of his denomination (1913–15), then the Associate General Secretary of the Laymen's Missionary Movement in the U.S. and Canada (beginning in 1916), transferring his conference membership back to the North Indiana Conference in 1913. His office was located at 1 [[Madison Avenue]], [[New York City]]. He resided in [[Edgewater, New Jersey]].

Rev. Fisher was a delegate to the World's Missionary Conference in [[Edinburgh]], 1910. He was a Trustee of Asbury College, as well. In his official capacities, he organized conventions of Methodist Men in [[Indianapolis]] (1913), Boston (1914), and [[Columbus, Ohio]] (1915). The volumes ''Militant Methodism,'' ''New England Methodism,'' and ''The Challenge of Today'' were produced as a result.

==Episcopal ministry==
Rev. Fisher was elected to the [[Episcopacy]] in 1920 and assigned as [[Resident Bishop]] of the [[Calcutta]] [[Episcopal area (United Methodist Church)|episcopal area]]. He [[resigned]] the Episcopacy in 1930 and returned to the U.S. to become pastor of First United Methodist Church, [[Ann Arbor, Michigan]].<ref>Fisher, Welthy Honsinger. 1979. To Light A Candle. New Delhi: Tata McGraw-Hill. p. 210-211.</ref><ref>Swenson. Sally. 1988. Signals of a Century. Ottawa: Love Printing. p. 215-228.</ref><ref>Fisher, Welthy Honsinger. 1944. Frederick Bohn Fisher: World Citizen. New York: MacMillan.</ref> This is the only time on record that a Methodist bishop has resigned for other than health reasons, and he was the only bishop ever to return to the local pastoral work.<ref>Fisher, Welthy Honsinger. 1979. To Light a Candle. New Dehli: Tata McGraw-Hill. p. 210-211.</ref><ref>Hughes, D. Dale. 1967. Conscience of A City. Detroit: Official Board of Central United Methodist Church. p. 52</ref><ref>Fisher, Welthy Honsinger. 1944. Frederick Bohn Fisher: World Citizen. New York: MacMillan.</ref> In 1934 he accepted appointment as senior pastor of [[Central United Methodist Church (Detroit, Michigan)|Central Methodist Church, Detroit]]. While there, Woodward Avenue, the main street in the city, was widened. In order not to lose the steeple and west wall, a thirty-foot section was removed and the steeple and wall moved back to meet the rest of the church thus shortening the knave. Dr. Fisher designed a new recessed chancel including the new pulpit, reredos, mural of the apostles and had the ceiling painted with religious symbols from all over the world.<ref>Fisher, Welthy Honsinger. 1979. To Light a Candle. New Dehli: Tata McGraw-Hill. p. 219-225</ref><ref>Swenson, Sally. 1988. Signals of A Century. Ottawa: Love Printing. p. 230</ref><ref>Fisher, Welthy Honsinger. 1944. Frederick Bohn Fisher: World Citizen. New York: MacMillan.</ref> He died 15 April 1938, Good Friday, in Detroit. His funeral was held on Easter Sunday in Central United Methodist Church, the only Easter funeral Detroit had ever known.<ref>Fisher, Welthy Honsinger. 1977. To Light a Candle. New Dehli: Tata McGraw-Hill. p. 224-225.</ref><ref>Hughes, D. Dale. 1967. Conscience of A City. Detroit: Official Board of Central United Methodist Church. p. 60</ref><ref>Swenson, Sally. 1988. Signals of a Century. Ottawa: Love Printing. p. 242-244.</ref><ref>Fisher, Welthy Honsinger. 1944. Frederick Bohn Fisher: World Citizen. New York: MacMillan.</ref>

==Selected writings==
* Editor, ''Militant Methodism,'' New York: Methodist Book Concern, 1913.
* Editor, ''New England Methodism,'' New York: Methodist Book Concern, 1914.
* Editor, ''The Challenge of Today,'' New York: Methodist Book Concern, 1915.
* ''The Way to Win,'' New York: Methodist Book Concern, 1915.
* ''The Man That Changed the World.'' Nashville, TN: Cokesbury Press. 1917.
* ''That Strange Little Brown Man Gandhi''. New York: Ray Long and Richard R. Smith Inc. 1932.

==See also==
*[[List of Bishops of the United Methodist Church]]

==References==
{{reflist}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fisher, Frederick Bohn}}
[[Category:American Methodist bishops]]
[[Category:Asbury University alumni]]
[[Category:Methodist missionaries in India]]
[[Category:Bishops of the Methodist Episcopal Church]]
[[Category:1882 births]]
[[Category:1938 deaths]]
[[Category:American religious writers]]
[[Category:American Methodist missionaries]]
[[Category:American expatriates in India]]
[[Category:Harvard Divinity School alumni]]
[[Category:Boston University alumni]]
[[Category:Methodist writers]]
[[Category:American book editors]]
[[Category:People from Kokomo, Indiana]]
[[Category:20th-century Methodist bishops]]

Frederick Bohn Fisher - Revision history

203.212.212.45 at 13:01, 4 October 2020