Biography

Thoreau, Henry David

Henry David Thoreau (July 12, 1817-May 6, 1862) was a person of many talents and interests: surveyor, pencil-maker, naturalist, lecturer, schoolteacher, poet, anti-slavery activist, and spiritual seeker, to name but a few. He is best known as a member of the Transcendentalist circle of writers and religious radicals, and author of numerous books and essays, especially Walden and “Resistance to Civil Government,” better known as “Civil Disobedience.”…

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Crook, Margaret Brackenbury

Margaret Brackenbury Crook (May 5, 1886–May 24, 1972) was a British Unitarian minister, women’s suffragist, peace activist, and religious studies professor. She was the first English woman to be fully trained for the Unitarian ministry at Manchester College in Oxford, as well as one of the first English women to be granted sole authority over a large church.

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Burton, Harold Hitz

Harold Hitz Burton
Harold Hitz Burton

Harold Hitz Burton (June 22, 1888-October 28, 1964) was a Unitarian layman, lawyer, and politician who served as Moderator of the American Unitarian Association (AUA). After three terms as mayor of Cleveland, Ohio, he was elected to the United States Senate and in 1945 appointed to the United States Supreme Court by President Truman.

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Spear, John Murray

High Rock in Lynn, Massachusetts, where John Murray Spear received spirit messages
High Rock in Lynn, Massachusetts, where John Murray Spear received spirit messages

John Murray Spear (September 16, 1804-October 5, 1887), made his career as a Universalist minister, abolitionist, activist against the death penalty, and advocate for women’s rights, temperance, and many other nineteenth century reforms.

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Spear, Charles

Charles Spear Prisoner's Friend
Charles Spear Prisoner’s Friend

Charles Spear (May 1, 1803-April 13, 1863) took up the idea of abolishing the death penalty at a time when the idea was widely regarded as a hopelessly impractical, even utopian notion. For years Spear campaigned without stint to change public opinion and the laws, especially in Massachusetts and other New England states, but also throughout the country by means of his newspaper, The Prisoner’s Friend.

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Hoar Family

Samuel Hoar
Samuel Hoar

Samuel Hoar (1778-November 2, 1856), a native of Lincoln, Massachusetts, and Sarah Sherman (1785-1862) of New Haven, Connecticut married in the fall of 1813 and made their home in Concord, Massachusetts. Both Samuel and Sarah were from distinguished families.

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Workman, Joseph

Dr. Joseph Workman
Dr. Joseph Workman

Dr. Joseph Workman (May 26, 1805-April 15, 1894), known as the “Father of Canadian Psychiatry,” was in 1845 the principal founder of the First Unitarian Congregation of Toronto. He largely wrote the church’s constitution which affirms “the free exercise of private judgment in all matters of belief” and provides that “females” were to “exercise the same privileges as.

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Haydon, Eustace A

A. Eustace Haydon

A. Eustace Haydon

A. Eustace Haydon (1880-1975), a pioneer in the study of world religions, was a leader of the Humanist movement. Born in Canada, he was ordained to the Baptist ministry and served a Baptist church in Dresden, Ontario 1903-04.

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Severance, Caroline

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.

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Kirkpatrick, James

James Kirkpatrick
James Kirkpatrick

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.

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Frieze, Jacob

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.

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Forbes, John Murray

John Murray Forbes
John Murray Forbes

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.

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