Francis Pharcellus Church
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Francis Pharcellus Church (February 22, 1839 – April 11, 1906) was an American publisher and editor.
He was born in Rochester, New York and graduated from Columbia College in New York City in 1859.
With his brother William Conant Church he established the Army and Navy Journal in 1863, and Galaxy magazine in 1866. He was a lead editorial writer on his brother's newspaper, the New York Sun, and it was in that capacity that in 1897 he wrote his most famous editorial, Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. His brother William Conant Church also wrote biographies of Ulysses S. Grant in 1899 and John Ericsson in 1891.
A third brother John Adams Church was famous as a mining engineer, and was present in Tombstone, Arizona, at the time of the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral.
Church died in New York City, aged 67, and is buried in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Sleepy Hollow, New York. He was a member of the Century Association. He had no children.
