CHASE, Irah, clergyman, born in Stratton, Vermont, 5 October, 1793; died in Newton, Massachusetts, 1 November, 1864. He was graduated at Middlebury in 1814, and at Andover theological seminary in 1817. He was ordained as a Baptist minister at Danvers, Massachusetts, 17 September, 1817, and spent a year in missionary labor in western Virginia. While at Andover, he had become impressed with the need of a special theological school for his denomination, and in 1818 was associated with Dr. William Staughton in the establishment at Philadelphia of the first Baptist theological school in the country. This was removed in 1822 to Washington, District of Columbia, and made a part of the newly chartered Columbian College, in which Dr. Chase held the chair of biblical literature till 1825, when he resigned. He then removed to Massachusetts and took a prominent part, in the establishment of Newton theological institution, where he was the first professor, holding the chair of biblical theology till 1836, when he was transferred to that of ecclesiastical history. He resigned in 1845, to devote himself to theological and literary investigations. He had spent a year in Europe while holding his Washington professorship, and in 1830 made a second visit, and was instrumental in founding the Baptist mission in France. He published "Remarks on the Book of Daniel" (Boston, 1844); "Life of John Bunyan" ; " The Design of Baptism, viewed in its Relation to the Christian Life" (1851); "The Work claiming to be the Constitution of the Holy Apostles, including the Canons, revised from the Greek"; and" Infant Baptism an Invention of Man" (Philadelphia, 1863); together with a large number of sermons, essays, and contributions to reviews.