Fisher was born at Wrentham, Massachusetts, on the 10th of August 1827. He graduated at Brown University in 1847, and at the Andover Theological Seminary in 1851, spent three years in study in Germany, was college preacher and professor of divinity at Yale College in 1854-1861, and was Titus Street professor of ecclesiastical history in the Yale Divinity School in 1861-1901, when he was made professor emeritus. He was president of the American Historical Association in 1897-1898.
His writings have given him high rank as an authority on ecclesiastical history. They include Essays on the Supernatural Origin of Christianity (1865); History of the Reformation (1873), republished in several revisions; The Beginnings of Christianity (1877); Discussions in History and Theology (1880); Outlines of Universal History (1886); History of the Christian Church (1887); The Nature and Method of Revelation (1890); Manual of Natural Theology (1893); A History of Christian Doctrine, in the "International Theological Library" ' (1896); and A Brief History of Nations (1896). He died on the 20th of December 1909.