Note:  Submitted by Marti Martin, Woodford Co., KY Historical Society.

Photo submitted by Leonard W. Smith

“Charles Crossfield Ware became the most prominent of Henry and Julia’s children.  He received his higher academic training at Transylvania College and graduated from the College of the Bible at Lexington in 1907.  After serving pastorates in Mississippi, Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Kentucky, he became state secretary of the Christian Church of South Carolina and then missions secretary for the North Carolina Disciples of Christ at Winston Salem, N.C. for 37 years.  He authored 19 published books.  Of these books are ‘Life of Barton Warren Stone’, 1932 and ‘Kentucky’s Fox Creek’, 1957.”

Source:  History and Families of Anderson Co., KY, by Turner Publishing Co., Paducah, KY, 1991, page 162

Submitted by Leonard W. Smith

Photo and information submitted by Leonard W. Smith

Charles Crossfield Ware died in 1974 at a Christian Church retired ministers home in Jacksonville Florida.    He is buried in the Wilson, North Carolina city cemetery.

“Charles Crossfield Ware was born on January 1, 1886 at Rowland, Kentucky, a L&N Railroad hub east of Stanford, Kentucky in Lincoln County. The family home at that time was Kentucky limestone house located on a bluff overlooking the town of Rowland and the L&N railroad yards. His father’s occupation at that time was not known, but it must have been connected with the railroad or the railroad workers. During that time the family of Squire Lancaster Ware, C. C. Ware’s grandfather, was living in the valley below Hall’s Gap about five miles south of Stanford. Later, before the turn of the century, C. C. Ware’s father moved from Rowland to Lebanon, Kentucky in Marion County.

Henry Nathan Ware (1888)

Photo submitted by Leonard Smith Ware

C. C. Ware’s father was Henry Nathan Ware, the son of Squire Lancaster Ware. His mother was Julia Ann Crossfield of the Fox Creek area of Anderson County, Kentucky. She was the daughter of Richard H. Crossfield, Sr. and his first wife Martha Bell Grudgel. Her half brother was Richard H. Crossfield, Jr. who is discussed in a note accompanying his family record sheet. R. H. Crossfield Sr.’s second wife was Elizabeth Ann Jackson Golden, the daughter of Thurza Ware Jackson and Tinsley Jackson. Thurza Ware was the daughter of Henry Ware and Jane Newcomb Ware, the great grandparents of C. C. Ware. Henry Ware lived and died in Garrard County, but apparently owned land in Anderson County which he gave to two of his grandsons. The Ware-Anderson County connection may have brought Henry Nathan Ware and Julia Ann Crossfield together.

Charles Crossfield Ware had a distinguished career as a scholar, author, family historian, collector of archival material, and minister of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). He was educated at Kentucky University, now Transylvania University , in Lexington, Kentucky, from which he graduated in 1907. On January 1, 1908 he married Ida Lee Beale of Columbus, Mississippi where served as minister of the First Christian Church from 1907-08. He also served other Christian Churches; Sabinal, Texas, 1908-09; Lake Charles, Louisiana, 1909-10; Greenville, North Carolina, 1910-11; Greenwood, South Carolina, 1911-15. In 1915 he was appointed as the executive secretary of missions for the Christian Church in North Carolina; a position he held until 1953. From 1924 until his retirement in the late 1960’s he was curator of the Carolina Discipliana Library at Atlantic Christian College in Wilson, North Carolina. He also was a director of the Disciples of Christ Historical Society, headquartered in Nashville, Tennessee. He was the author of many books on the Christian Church including a history of the movement in North Carolina and a biography of Barton Warren Stone.

In politics he was an independent democrat.

In 1954 Atlantic Christian College awarded Rev. Ware the honorary degree of Doctor of Literature, a well earned and deserved honor for one who had contributed so much to the expansion of knowledge about the church he loved so well. The introductory paragraph to his citation summed up his lifelong passion:

The world has always given special honors to service described as “beyond the call of duty.” Atlantic Christian College, and, we believe, all North Carolina Disciples of Christ, honor today CHARLES CROSSFIELD WARE, who for four decades has been doing something no one told him to do, namely, collect a vast storehouse of literature concerning the Disciples of Christ and related subjects. But this not simply beyond the call of duty; it is not even with the line of duty. Hence the honor paid him today is not a recognition of his title and position over the last forty years as State Secretary of Carolina Disciples, a service which our brotherhood has already recognized deservedly. Rather, our purpose today is to recognize years of devotion to the quiet, unpopular, and often musky task of collecting historical materials.

The compiler of these notes visited Rev. and Mrs Ware in their home in Wilson, North Carolina in March of 1961 and spent several days there. Rev. Ware provided numerous papers, photographs and books of interest to the family genealogy. A later visit occurred in September, 1964. Extensive correspondence was carried on over a fifteen year period. Those letters are in the possession of the compiler of these notes.”

Biography by Leonard Ware Smith.