Recollections of the sermons of Phillips Brooks, 1872-1876.

Annie Chandler Shapleigh was the daughter of Samuel C. Shapleigh, Esq., of Boston. She was married to Decatur M. Sawyer of New York in 1879 by the Rev. Phillips Brooks. Decatur Sawyer was involved for many years in prison reform. The Sawyers had three children: Otis, Amy, and Elinor. Annie Shapleigh Sawyer was involved in Episcopal church mission work for many years. She was the vice president of the Woman's Auxiliary to the Board of Missions in the Newark, New Jersey, diocese from 1895 to 1896. She died ca. 1918.

Phillips Brooks (1835-1893) was baptized in the First (Congregational) Church in Boston, but was raised as an Episcopalian. He graduated from Harvard College in 1855, and Virginia Theological Seminary in 1859. He was assigned to Holy Trinity Church in Philadelphia in 1862, and in 1869 he became pastor of the Trinity Church in Boston. In 1891, he was elected the Episcopal bishop of Boston, a post he held for the rest of his life. Staunchly loyal to the Union during the Civil War, Brooks was called upon to preach a sermon while President Lincoln's body lay in state inside Philadelphia's Independence Hall in B1865. Brooks is also well known for writing the Christmas carol O Little Town of Bethlehem, which he introduced in 1868. In 1900 Harvard University commemorated Rev. Brooks by establishing Phillips Brooks House, a college dormitory. Phillips Brooks House is now a public service association.