Herman Bisbee (October 29, 1833-July 6, 1879) is best known as the only American Universalist minister to have been found guilty of heresy. After losing his Universalist fellowship, he became a Unitarian.
Herman was one of eight children of a Universalist farming family in West Derby (now Newport), Vermont.
Frances Dana Barker Gage (October 12, 1808-November 10, 1884), a lecturer, political activist, journalist, and novelist, was an outspoken advocate of women’s rights, temperance, and abolition before and immediately after the Civil War.
Frances was born near Marietta, Ohio to frontier farmers Elizabeth Dana and Col.
Orello Cone (November 16, 1835-June 23, 1905), a Universalist minister and scholar, was a professor at the Theological School of St. Lawrence University and president of the Universalist Buchtel College. According to historian Russell Miller, “the greatest denominational contributions to religious scholarship in the late nineteenth century were made by Orello Cone in the field of Biblical criticism.”…
Lee Sullivan McCollester (June 5, 1859-December 26, 1943) was a Universalist minister, Professor of Religious Literature and Chaplain at Tufts College (now University), and the third Dean of its Crane Theological School. During his tenure he revitalized the school, reformed its curriculum to emphasize the practical side of ministry, and increased the size of the student body.
John Murray Atwood (September 25, 1869-November 4, 1951), a Universalist minister, educator, and denominational leader, served, for 37 years, as dean of the Canton Theological School of St. Lawrence University.
John (called Murray by his family) was born in a part of Brockton that is now in Bridgewater, Massachusetts.
Isaac Morgan Atwood (March 24, 1838-October 26, 1917) was a Universalist minister, journalist, educator, and denominational leader. During the four decades spanning the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth he served successively as president of the Canton Theological School, the first General Superintendent of the Universalist General Convention, the Convention’s secretary, and professor of theology and philosophy at St.
The Ballou family of New England produced some of the most well-known and distinguished American Universalists, including Hosea Ballou, the leading theologian and evangelist of early 19th-century Universalism; Hosea Ballou 2d, Universalist historian and first president of Tufts University; and Adin Ballou, a significant theorist of pacifism and the founder of the Hopedale utopian community.
Ebenezer Fisher (February 6, 1815-February 21, 1879), Universalist minister and educator, was the first president of the Theological School at St. Lawrence University in Canton, New York. He led the school through its difficult formative years.
The second of eight children of Ebenezer and Sally Johnson Fisher, Ebenezer was born in Plantation Number Three (later known as Charlotte, Washington County, Maine), 14 miles from the coastal town of Eastport.
Victor Alonzo Friend (July 21, 1870-January 2, 1952), a well-known Boston-area businessman whose company produced Friend’s Brick Oven Baked Beans, was a prominent Universalist lay leader. He was a trustee of the Massachusetts Universalist Convention and the Universalist Publishing House, and president of the Universalist General Convention.…
William Arthur Peacock (August 23, 1905-September 15, 1968) was a British Universalist and Unitarian minister, Labour Party politician, and a journalist in religion and politics. He was minister of the South London Universalist Church and the Wandsworth Unitarian Church, and the first Press Relations officer of the General Assembly of Unitarian and Free Christian Churches.
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).…
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.