Charles Bunstein Stover (1861-1929)

Charles Bunstein Stover (July 14, 1861 - April 25, 1929) was the Parks Commissioner for New York City.

Biography
He was born in Riegelsville, Pennsylvania, on July 14, 1861. He attended Lafayette College and graduated in 1881. He was trained as a Presbyterian minister at the Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York and graduated in 1884. He also studied briefly abroad at the University of Berlin, before moving to Manhattan’s Lower East Side.

In 1913 he told his staff and coworkers that he was going out for lunch then he disappeared for 39 days. He was erroneously thought to be dead in Delaware when a body resembling him was found. After a nationwide search he was found in the Midwest. New York City Mayor Ardolph L. Kline had Stover suspended, and he mailed in a letter of resignation from Cincinnati. On January 28, 1914, he returned to the University Settlement House. Stover spent the rest of his days developing a summer camp at Beacon, New York, operated by the University Settlement House. He died at the University Settlement House on April 25, 1929, at the age of 68.