P. H. (Peter Henry) Steenstra (1833-1911) was born in Franeker, Friesland, Netherlands, and died in Robbinston, Maine. He immigrated to the United States in 1844 and attended Shurtleff College in Alton, Illinois, graduating in 1858. He married Susan B. Steenstra (b. Learned) in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1858. He was initially a Baptist minister then became an Episcopalian and was appointed rector of Grace Church in Newton, Massachusetts, in 1864. In 1868 he became a professor in the Episcopal Theological School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, a position he held for 40 years. Shurtleff College conferred him a Doctor of Divinity degree in 1882. Steenstra was instrumental in building Grace Chapel in Robbinston in 1882. He was a summer resident of Robbinston and moved there permanently upon retirement in about 1908. He was the author of The Being of God as Unity and Trinity, published in 1891. Steenstra was an acquaintance of John H. Veazey, a student of Mary Baker Eddy's, whom Veazey listed as a reference in support of his application to one of Eddy's classes.

See more letters.