Beecher died suddenly in 1887. He was succeeded by Lyman Abbott (1887-1899), a lawyer turned minister and religious journalist, Newell Dwight Hillis (1899-1924), who oversaw the completion of the Plymouth campus as it exists today, J. Stanley Durkee (1926-1940), a former President of Howard University, L. Wendell Fifield (1941-1955), a pastor of Seattle's Plymouth Congregational Church widely known for his active role in civic affairs throughout the Pacific Northwest, and Rev. Harry H. Kruener (1960-1984), Dean of the chapel at Denison University. In 1991, Rev. Sharon Blackburn, who had served as associate pastor of the First Presbyterian Church, located a few blocks from Plymouth Church, became the first female minister in the church's history, following the short tenures of Rev. Frank Goodwin (1985–88) and Rev. Richard Stanger (1988-1991).