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.
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 E. Wood (July 30, 1910-June 15, 1980), Universalist and Unitarian Universalist minister and denominational official, played a significant part, first in preparing the way for the Unitarian-Universalist consolidation, and then in raising environmental consciousness within the Unitarian Universalist denomination.
Carl Gerrard Seaburg (October 21, 1922-December 16, 1998) was a minister, scholar, writer, editor and long-time member of the staff of the Unitarian Universalist Association. He is best known in church circles as a hymn writer and as an editor and anthologist of liturgical materials.
Jesse Babcock Ferguson (January 19, 1819-September 3, 1870), a renowned orator and minister in the Antebellum South, converted to universalist and unitarian beliefs. His conversion created turmoil in his own large Nashville church and throughout the region.
The Universalist society in Oxford, Massachusetts, one of the earliest Universalist churches in America, hosted the conventions which led to the creation of the Universalist denomination. The church was founded and largely led by members of the extended Davis family, some two dozen siblings and first cousins, all grandchildren of Samuel Davis of Roxbury, Massachusetts (1681-1760) who settled in Oxford in 1729.
Albert Frederick Ziegler (March 29 1911-May 21, 1991), Universalist minister, theologian, and denominational official, played a significant part in redefining Universalism during the two decades leading to the merger of the Universalist Church of America and the American Unitarian Association in 1961.
Olympia Brown (January 5, 1835-October 23, 1926) dedicated her life to opening doors for women. Among only a handful of women to graduate from college, she received her Bachelor of Arts degree from Antioch in 1860 and three years later became the first woman graduate of a regularly established theological school: St.…
Kenneth Leo Patton (August 25, 1911-December 25, 1994), identifed as one of the major poets and a prophet of contemporary liberal religion, was a voice for a poetic, naturalistic humanism at a time when most humanists were defining a religion of reason.
Thomas Whittemore (January 1, 1800-March 21, 1861) was the most influential Universalist editor of the nineteenth century. The Trumpet and Universalist Magazine, which he established in 1828 as a successor to Hosea Ballou’s Universalist Magazine, was the leading newspaper of the movement for more than thirty years.…
Max Adolph Kapp (February 1, 1904-January 1979), was a minister, theological school professor and dean, and a denominational official. He played a significant role in the education of seminarians and the revitalization of the Universalist Church of America during the period leading up to its consolidation with the American Unitarian Association.…
Edward Turner (July 28, 1776-January 24, 1853) ranked second only to Hosea Ballou among Universalist ministers of his generation. He was a denominational organizer, a celebrated preacher, and the first historian of Universalism. Close friends for over two decades, Turner and Ballou were alienated after 1815 and were opponents in the Restorationist controversy.