Mitchell, Charles Bayard

Charles Bayard Mitchell (1857-1942) was a Methodist Episcopal Church bishop. He graduated from Mt. Union College (1877) and received a B. A. (1879), a M.A. (1882), a Ph.D. (1892), and a D.D. (1893) from Allegheny College. In July 1882 he married Anna Aull.

Mitchell entered the South Kansas Conference in 1880 and was a charter member of the 1881 Southwest Kansas Conference. He transferred to the Kansas Conference in 1884 and served as its financial secretary for two years. Mitchell served in the following locations: Smithfield Street, Pittsburgh (1886); Plainfield, New Jersey (1888); Grand Avenue, Kansas City (1892); Hennepin Avenue, Minneapolis (1897); Cleveland (1901); and St. James, Chicago (1908)

Mitchell was a delegate to the General Conferences of 1904, 1908, and 1916, and was an alternate for the 1912 General Conference. He also attended the Ecumenical Conferences of 1901 and 1911. In 1916 the General Conference elected him to the episcopacy and assigned to the St. Paul, Minnesota area, where he served for eight years. While he was in Minnesota he was instrumental in raising substantial monies for several Methodist educational institutions in the region including Lawrence College, Hamline University, Parker College, Dakota Wesleyan, and the Wesley Foundation at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. Mitchell was appointed to the Philippine Islands in 1924. He remained there until 1928 when he retired.

Mitchell was a thirty-second degree Mason and a member of several professional honor societies. He wrote three books: A Little Bundle of Letters from Three Continents (1895), The Nobelest Quest: and Other Sermons Preached in the First Methodist Episcopal Church, Cleveland, Ohio (1905), and The Way of a Man (1912). Mitchell died on February 23, 1942 and is buried Forest Lawn, Glendale, California.