Florence Buck (July 19, 1860-October 12, 1925) was a Unitarian minister at a time when women ministers were uncommon and a leader in the development of Unitarian religious education. She served as Associate Secretary of the Department of Religious Education of the American Unitarian Association and was editor and author of significant religious study materials.
Caleb Rich (August 12, 1750-October 18, 1821), one of the earliest New England Universalist preachers, was the first to proclaim that there would be no punishment in the afterlife. His preaching led to the conversion of Thomas Barns, later a pioneer preacher to Universalists in Maine, and also Hosea Ballou whose advocacy of Rich’s eschatology brought on the Restorationist controversy.
Edmund Hamilton Sears (April 6, 1810-January 16, 1876), a Unitarian parish minister and author, was understood in his day to be conservative and not in sympathy with either “broad church” or “radical” Unitarians. He wrote a number of theological works influential among liberal Protestants, inside and outside the Unitarian fold.
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Josiah Quincy (February 4, 1772-July 1, 1864) was a Congressman, judge of the Massachusetts municipal court, state representative, mayor of Boston and president of Harvard College. As Mayor he played a central role in making Boston a modern city.
Lucius Robinson Paige (March 8, 1802-1896) was a Universalist minister, biblical scholar, historian, and public official. Lucius was the youngest of nine children born to Timothy and Mary (Robinson) Paige of Hardwick, Massachusetts. His parents were Calvinists, but as Paige later wrote, “their hearts were so much better than their doctrine.”…
Benjamin Rush (December 24, 1745-April 19, 1813), a signer of the Declaration of Independence, was the most celebrated American physician and the leading social reformer of his time. He was a close friend of both John Adams and Thomas Jefferson and corresponded with many of the prominent figures of the revolutionary generation.
José María Blanco y Crespo (July 11, 1775-May 20, 1841), also known as Joseph Blanco White, was a poet who composed in both in Spanish and English and also a literary critic, novelist, essayist, journalist and religious controversialist. In his political writing he was an early advocate of Spanish American independence.…
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Linus Carl Pauling (February 28, 1901-August 19, 1994), a distinguished American chemist, helped to integrate chemistry with quantum theory and founded the discipline now called molecular biology. From 1945 on much of his time was devoted to antiwar activities and stopping the atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons.…
Caroline Howard Gilman (October 1, 1794-September 15, 1888), one of the most popular women writers of the first half of the nineteenth century, was born in Boston on October 1, 1794. Her parents, Samuel Howard and Anna Lillie, were prosperous and well-connected.
Samuel Gilman (February 16, 1791-February 9, 1858) was arguably the most important and dedicated leader of the ultimately unsuccessful effort to establish Unitarianism in the antebellum South. He served the Archdale Street Church, the only Unitarian congregation in South Carolina, for almost 40 years and became a central figure in Charleston’s social and intellectual life.…
Maria Cook (1779-December 21, 1835) was the first Universalist woman preacher in America. A traveling evangelist during the early 1810s, she preached before many audiences in New York State and Pennsylvania and was well received for a few years.
Little is known of her early life.…
John Relly Beard (August 4, 1800-November 22, 1876), British educational reformer and minister, was a militant exponent and populariser of mid-Victorian Unitarianism. His most enduring achievement is the Unitarian Home Missionary Board.
John was born at Portsmouth, Hampshire, the first of John and Ann Beard’s nine children.