Carolina Seymour Severance (January 12, 1820-November 10, 1914), called Caroline, was for nearly seventy years an active social reformer, organizer, church woman and club woman whose varied work changed the lives of countless of people. The eldest of five children born to Orson and Caroline Maria Clarke Seymour in Canandaigua, New York, Caroline and her family moved to nearby Auburn, New York after her father died an early death in 1824.
James Kirkpatrick (c.1676-1743), an Irish Presbyterian minister, played a leading role in the development of non-subscription and the creation of the Presbytery of Antrim as a liberal body separate from the Synod of Ulster. He was the first minister in Belfast to argue for the principles of non-subscription.
Jacob Frieze (1789-1880), a Universalist minister from New England, was an early missionary to North Carolina. After retiring from the ministry he became a Rhode Island political journalist, reporting on, and participating in, the events culminating in the Dorr War, 1842.
John Murray Forbes (February 23, 1813-October 12, 1898), a leading Boston businessman and philanthropist, financed and operated a great nineteenth century industrial empire. He and his investment group built a transcontinental railroad system, controlled the output of mines and forests, and sped the flow of people and goods throughout America.
Cyprus Richard Mitchell (April 5, 1881-January 27, 1955) was a liberal Australian minister who lived, worked, and studied in America. During the First World War, he worked in Russia for the YMCA. After starting his career with the Disciples of Christ he soon moved on more liberal congregations.
Samuel Gridley Howe (November 10, 1801-January 9, 1876), founding director of the Perkins School for the Blind, was a leading figure in the early history of special education in the United States. He was also a military hero in the Greek War of Independence, a campaigner for the abolition of slavery, and an advocate for prison reform.…
William Bentley (June 22, 1759 -December 29, 1819), the minister of the East Church in Salem, Massachusetts, was one of the first New England ministers to openly profess Unitarian beliefs. Never married, he devoted his life to his congregation and to his work as a scholar, book collector, linguist, newspaper journalist, and author.…
Arthur W. Foote II (January 18, 1911-December 9, 1999) was a Unitarian minister who chaired the commission that prepared the first hymnal after the Universalist and Unitarian consolidation. A humanist, he emphasized self-reflection and spirituality through the use of art, music, and poetry.
Brooke Herford (February 21, 1830-December 21, 1903) was a Unitarian minister, noted preacher, and author, who served several important churches in Great Britain and America. In addition, he was a religious enthusiast who travelled tirelessly throughout Britain spreading with great success the Bible-based message of Unitarian Christianity.
Clemens Taeslar (June 25, 1887 – February 23, 1969), a German, was a poet, Goethe scholar, popular lecturer, and minister who embraced a liberal theology. Influenced by British and America Unitarians, he adopted the term ‘unitarian’ in the 1920s to describe his unique conception of the relationship between God and the world.
Charles Edwards Park (March 14, 1873-September 20, 1962) was a Unitarian minister who served First Church in Boston, Massachusetts for forty years. One of the leading exponents of Unitarian Christianity during the first half of the twentieth century, he authored books and articles on religion, prayer, local history, and the graphic artist, Frederic Goudy.
Michael Servetus (c.1506-October 27, 1553), a Spaniard martyred in the Reformation for his criticism of the doctrine of the trinity and his opposition to infant baptism, has often been considered an early unitarian. Sharply critical though he was of the orthodox formulation of the trinity, Servetus is better described as a highly unorthodox trinitarian.…