William Farwell (January 6, 1749-December 11, 1823), one of the founding generation of American Universalist evangelists, organized societies in the neighborhood of Charlestown, New Hampshire and was the first Universalist preacher in Vermont. A “chimney-corner preacher,” he traveled on horseback throughout northern New England and also visited New York State and Canada East (Quebec).…
Albert Charles Dieffenbach (July 4, 1876-October 6, 1963), a Unitarian minister and religious journalist, was the editor of The Christian Register, religion editor of The Boston Evening Transcript, and the first minister of the Church of the Larger Fellowship.
Edwin Hubbell Chapin (December 29, 1814-December 26, 1880), Universalist minister, author, lecturer, and social reformer, was one of the most popular speakers in America from the 1840s until his death. He was revered for his eloquent tongue and passionate pleas for tolerance and justice.
Sir (Joseph) Austen Chamberlain (October 16, 1863-March 16, 1937), British politician and statesman, was the son of Joseph Chamberlain and the older brother of Neville Chamberlain. As architect of the Locarno Treaties, meant to preserve peace in post-World War I Western Europe, he was awarded the 1925 Nobel Peace Prize.
Jerzy (George) Niemirycz (1612-1659) was an ambitious Arian nobleman and statesman in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. During his later life the Commonwealth, which included the Ukraine, was nearly destroyed by Cossack revolt and Russian and Swedish invasion (a disastrous period in Polish history known as “The Deluge”).…
Paul Nathaniel Carnes (February 1, 1921-March 17, 1979), a longtime minister at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Buffalo, New York and a proponent of desegregation and civil liberties, was the third president of the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA), 1977-79.
Paul was born in Jeffersonville, Indiana to Charles O.…
Horace Greeley (February 3, 1811-November 29, 1872), Universalist journalist, reformer, and politician, is best known as the longtime, innovative publisher and editor of the New York Tribune. In 1872 he campaigned unsuccessfully for the United States presidency as the candidate of the Liberal Republicans and Democrats, running against incumbent Republican Ulysses S.
Vilhjalmur Stefansson (November 3, 1879-August 26, 1962), an anthropologist, explorer, book collector, and writer, was an authority on polar regions. At one time a student for the Unitarian ministry, he spent his life as an evangelist for the North. His message was that the Arctic was not a peripheral frozen wasteland populated by savages, but the center of the earth—the “Polar Mediterranean,” he called it—where America, Europe, and Asia come together.…
Quillen Hamilton Shinn (January 1, 1845-September 6, 1907), Universalist minister and well-traveled missionary, is known as the “St. Paul of the Universalist Church.” He has been credited with starting at least 40 churches and inspiring nearly 30 persons to enter the ministry.…
Henry Nelson Wieman (August 19, 1884-June 19, 1975) was a leading American religious philosopher. In early life Wieman was a Presbyterian. In his middle years, as a professor, he shared his naturalistic approach to Christianity with people of many denominations.
Albert Rhys Williams (Sept 28, 1883-Feb 27, 1962), a labor organizer and journalist, was a witness to and a participant in the Russian Revolution of October 1917. He was a friend of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin and American Communist writer John Reed.
Peter Humphries Clark (March 29, 1829-June 21, 1925), an associate of Frederick Douglass, was one of Ohio’s most effective black abolitionist writers and speakers. The first teacher engaged by the Cincinnati black public schools and founder and principal of Ohio’s first public high school for black students, he was recognized as the nation’s foremost black public school educator.…