George Washington Bethune

George Washington Bethune (March 18, 1805 – April 28, 1862) was a preacher-pastor in the Dutch Reformed Church.

Of Huguenot descent, his father was Divie Bethune, a highly successful merchant in New York.

In 1830, he moved to Utica, New York; in 1834 to Philadelphia; and in 1850 to Brooklyn Heights, NY.

Due to his Calvinist ideas about the unsuitability of such a hobby for a clergyman, Bethune, an avid fisherman, worked anonymously on five of the US editions of Izaak Walton's The Compleat Angler under the pseudonym The American Editor.

While visiting Florence, Italy for his health, he fell ill after preaching and died of a stroke on April 27, 1862.