Charles Robert Hager

Rev. Dr. Charles Robert Hager (October 27, 1951 - July 13, 1917) was a Swiss-born American missionary sent to Hong Kong and China by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) to start the Hong Kong Mission (later renamed as South China Mission) in 1883. He was best known as the baptizer of Dr. Sun Yat-sen, the first president and founding father of the Republic of China. Rev. Hager was the founder, and was regarded as the first Minister-in-charge, of the China Congregational Church in Hong Kong.

Charles Robert Hager was born in Nänikon, Switzerland, October 27, 1851, to a farmer Rudolf Hager and his wife Elizabeth. The Hagers moved to America in 1858 and made Honey Creek, Sauk County, Wisconsin their new home. Charles R. Hager was enrolled in the preparatory department of the Oberlin College from 1867-1870, 1872-1874 and in college from 1874-1878. In 1882, he graduated from the Pacific Theological Seminary, Berkeley, California and was ordained to the Congregational ministry at San Francisco, California, February 15, 1883.

Before there were the strict Immigration Laws, thousands of Chinese from the Kwong Tung province found their way, as laborers and as merchants into the United States. Many of these were converted in the Missions opened for the Chinese in the larger cities. An appeal, by these converts, was made to the American Missionary Association, for a minister to their province, Kwong Tung, but in vain. They then turned to the American Board, and finally secured a single man, the Rev. C.R. Hager, in 1883.