Born: Near Shelbyville, Bedford County, Tennessee, May 6, 1856.
Died: Indianapolis, Indiana, April 19, 1925.

Allan B. Philputt was born near Shelbyville, Tennessee, May 6, 1856. After the Civil War his father moved to southern Indiana. Allan was the oldest of five children, three of whom are still living, the next younger of whom is J. M. Philputt, a well-known preacher among the Disciples and the surviving sister is the wife of Peter C. Cauble, also a preacher.

The subject of this sketch attended the schools of Washington County, Indiana, and became for a short time a country school teacher. In 1876 he entered Indiana University where he was graduated in 1880 and from the same institution he took his A.M. degree in 1886.

In September, 1880, he married Miss Anna Maxwell, of Bloomington, Indiana, whose father, Dr. Darwin Maxwell, had for many years been a trustee of the University, as had his father, Dr. David H. Maxwell, before him.

In 1879 he was called to the pastorate of the Christian church in Bloomington, which he held for about seven years, during which time a new church edifice was erected. In 1886 he was called to a position as assistant instructor in Latin and Greek in Indiana University and after teaching two years he went to Harvard University for a year's graduate study.

In 1889 he accepted a call to the First church, of Philadelphia, where he remained nearly ten years. During this pastorate the congregation removed to a much better location and finer building. Here the church prospered and greatly increased its influence. Dr. Philputt was well known and prominent in Christian work in the city of Philadelphia and was twice elected president of the Pennsylvania Christian Endeavor Union. While living in that city he took two years of work as a special student in Greek and Hebrew at the Episcopal Divinity School. In 1898 he accepted a call to the Central Christian church, of Indianapolis, and is still its pastor. His work in Indianapolis has grown greatly. The membership of the church is about seventeen hundred and the Sunday school is at present the largest in the city, having an average attendance of more than seven hundred.

Dr. Philputt is one of the Board of Directors of Butler College, also a director of the Christian Board of Publication, of St. Louis, Missouri. In 1900 he was granted the honorary degree of LL.D. by Drake University.

The foregoing facts clearly indicate the grounds of Dr. Philputt's successful career. First of all he has been a student, using every opportunity to increase his store of useful knowledge. He has always kept his mind and heart open to every source of information which offered helpfulness in his life work. Along with this he has been careful to concentrate make permanent his influence. He has not been a "rolling stone that gathers no moss." He has held comparatively only a few pastorates, and his last is the most successful of all. The Central church in Indianapolis should not be measured by its present membership, or present local influence. While these are considerable, the church has been and is still a seed church, furnishing the initial membership of many other churches, both in and out of Indianapolis; and yet it has always maintained a strong membership at home, and is today one of the most useful and influential churches in the capitol city.

It is a significant fact and it ought to be emphasized, that all the great churches of the Disciples, have been built up by long pastorates. If there is a single exception to this rule, it is not known to me. Dr. Philputt's mental characteristics all tend to thoroughness in what he aims to do. His sermons are forceful, exhaustive, useful, rather than brilliant, or even popular in the modern understanding of that term. His preaching, though liberal, is true to the gospel message.